In classrooms filled with diverse learners, engagement doesn’t come from compliance—it comes from connection, curiosity, and relevance. Before we can expect students to meet us in rigorous academic work, we must first understand the often-hidden reasons behind their resistance. In my teaching practice and research, I’ve discovered that many seemingly disengaged behaviors are actually defense mechanisms, offering clues to what students truly need to thrive. The excerpt below from Inspiring Lifelong Readers illustrates this process. Following the excerpt, you’ll find five additional engagement principles—ranging from creating a warm, inviting literacy environment to providing TIME to read in school—that offer further strategies to enrich classroom practices.
Working with the ninth graders in the Academic Literacy program, I learned quickly that my type-A personality was going to have to flex. I couldn’t expect students to be compliant, follow instructions the first time I gave them, or provide me with respect from the get-go just because I was their teacher. I didn’t want to lower my expectations, but I needed to meet these students where they were. So, I started keeping an observation chart. What were the behaviors I was seeing that seemed to get in the way of the learning we were doing? One of my colleagues did the same in her class.
When we compared notes, we started to see some patterns. We decided that instead of focusing on the negative aspects of students’ behavior, we would study, compile, and characterize the behaviors to better understand them. In that meeting, we created our “cast of characters.” Meet them here. Have you met some of these students yourself?
Tardy Tracy—Isn’t there a clock on your cell phone?
Absent Ahmad—MIA . . . a lot.
Bobby Belligerent—The answer is always no!
Jack Jokester—Lots of jokes, often inappropriate
Sleepy, Dopey, Droopy . . . Wait, are those dwarves?
Sneezy Sofia—Frequent visits to Nurse Peggy
Charlie Charmer—Everybody’s buddy
Forgetful Fay—No pencil, no notebook, no problem
Billy Bladder—Suspiciously well-hydrated
Celine Cell—So many texts, so little time
Messy Malik—Something could be living in that backpack
I-Couldn’t-Care-Less Chris—Surprisingly indifferent about everything
This activity allowed us to have a little fun with the challenges we faced in class. We realized that students had savvy techniques for avoiding work, especially if the work was hard. Recognizing the why behind their behaviors helped us see past the action and coach them to do the work. It also helped us avoid falling into an unwinnable trap of reacting to the behavior. After doing this activity ourselves, we decided to share this cast of characters with students. We told them we had met these students over the years and wondered if they recognized any of them. It became a fun way for students to begin to recognize their avoidance behaviors in a nonjudgmental way. We shared our own “characteristics” with our classes too. When I have a difficult task in front of me, for example, I become:
Online Shopper Olivia—So many cute items to put in my cart
When students know that we, too, have defense mechanisms when work gets hard, students are much more open to reflecting and thinking about how to fix it. I also share strategies for refocusing when these characters start to take over. For example, when Online Shopper Olivia wants to tempt me from my work, I negotiate. “OK, Olivia, if I can efficiently focus on this task for the next forty-five minutes, I will take a short break to see what great outfit you want me to put in my cart.” (Side note: I rarely actually purchase what is in my cart!)
Casting characters does not mean we excuse or accept unacceptable behaviors in class. There are times when a behavior is disrespectful or harmful, and you need to act on it immediately. But in most cases, the behaviors are procrastination and avoidance techniques, and you can much more easily coach or redirect. You can use your professional judgment and understanding of the student to determine if this redirect needs to be one on one and private or used in the moment. Here is an example of how I might redirect a student.
Charlie Charmer: “Thanks, Charlie, for the compliment. I would love to hear more about what you think about my fashion choices after class. Now use that charm of yours to write what you are thinking about Jason Reynolds’s (2017) book, Long Way Down.”
Over time, I was able to simply notice the strategies my students were using and name how they were using them to refocus. It was affirming for students not only to independently apply these strategies but also for me to take notice. Sometimes classmates noticed as well (McCarty Plucker, 2023, pp. 18-20).
As I spent more years with more cohorts of young readers, I was able to see the benefits of putting into practice the proven engagement principles I had been learning about throughout my doctoral work. Here are a few of the principles that truly transformed the engagement and joy in the literacy environments I have taught or come alongside to coach teachers.
Engagement Principle 1: Create a Warm and Inviting Literacy Environment
To create a strong sense of community in a literacy classroom, we want to be intentional in creating a welcoming atmosphere for reading. We can do this by creating inviting reading spaces in the classroom with soft lighting, and nourishing decor like plants, bookshelves, and pillows or places for students to sit and read. Surrounding students with diverse texts with a carefully curated classroom library also invites our readers’ curiosity and encourages them to explore. Finally, showcasing student writing, artwork, and reading projects creates a sense of pride, ownership, and community.
Engagement Principle 2: Immerse Students in Rich, Diverse Text
Offering students choice in reading promotes engagement because it provides autonomy, a key principle for intrinsic motivation. When the choices of books also include a wide variety of cultures, perspectives, genres, forms, and more, we can be confident students will find something that grabs them. Additionally, we know that when students find opportunities to broaden their understanding of the world and make reading more relevant to their own lives, they are much more likely to keep reading. And we know that to get better at reading we need to read.
We need to remember that too many options can sometimes lead to choice overload which could decrease motivation and increase stress. We can mitigate this by providing browsing baskets, display areas, access to book trailers and recommendations, and promoting permission to abandon books if disliked.
Engagement Principle 3: Promote Inquiry and Bundle Learning Goals
When I was teaching sophomores, I often found myself wishing students were more curious about the novels we were reading. I found myself disappointed when students would take short cuts to get to the plot of the text but not actually engage in the reading. Why so many Sparks Notes? Fortunately, I stumbled upon inquiry as an approach to ELA and started making shifts in my instruction. The benefits were great. I saw students engaging in productive struggle. I heard more laughter and joy related to what we were working on. I heard deep academic debate and conversation. More than anything, I learned that I could bundle our learning goals and move away from a novel unit, followed by a writing unit, and then a speech unit, sprinkled with grammar and vocabulary instruction. Rinse and Repeat. Instead, we could bundle reading, writing, language, communication, and other learning goals into 6-week units of study. We could take a provocative question students care about such as “How can literature (or art for that matter) serve as a vehicle for social change?” and spend time reading, writing, thinking, and talking our way through the question. Students can engage in small group book clubs each with a perspective related to our overarching question. We can take a look at pieces of complex text or art together and interrogate the question. Through the process, students learn how to write for a specific task, audience, and purpose. Students hear from one another through their lens as they read and discuss their books. And so much more.
If you need a jumpstart on ideas for making inquiry work in your ELA classroom, I invite you to read Inquiry in ELA: 10 Ways to Make It Work.
Engagement Principle 4: Create Authentic Opportunities for Literacy Learning
One of the greatest shifts I made when I moved to an inquiry framework is in what I asked students to do to show their learning. And honestly, this shift brought me the greatest satisfaction and joy as a teacher. Instead of lugging home the bag of research papers all on different topics but basically written in the same format, I now enjoy authentic displays of learning. See examples:
| Before Inquiry Approach–Traditional Assessments | Inquiry Approach –Authentic Assessments |
|---|---|
| Literary Analysis Romeo and Juliet Essay Test Short Story Unit Test Vocabulary or Grammar Quizzes Informative Speech Personal Narrative Paper | Interactive Digital Timeline Readers Response Journal Writer’s Notebook Confessional Videos Scenes from Romeo and Juliet Acted Out in the School’s Performing Arts Center Reader’s Theater Performance for Area Elementary Students Museum Artifacts and Labels Original Memoir Chapter Original Poem or Song Book Sales Project (Choice of Media–Social Media Campaign, Book Trailer, Bookstore Display with Staff Reviews) |
Engagement Principle 5: Provide TIME to Read in School
“Promoting pleasure reading is a civil rights issue. Data from major longitudinal studies show that pleasure reading in youth is the most explanatory factor of both cognitive progress and social mobility over time (e.g., Sullivan & Brown, 2013; Guthrie, et al, 2001; and Kirsch, et al, 2002). Pleasure reading is a more powerful predictor than even parental socioeconomic status and educational attainment.” ~Dr. Jeffrey Wilhelm
When I read this from Wilhelm, It gave me all the confidence I needed to ensure that I made time for students to read, independently, for pleasure, during my class period. In my 9th grade reading intervention class, this meant holding sacred 20 minutes daily. In my 10th-grade on-level English class, this meant at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted time for pleasure reading per week. Committing to this, meant I also had to commit to an intentional framework for maximizing minutes in class. I found that Cris Tovani’s workshop framework, outlined in So What Do They Really Know (pp. 44-46), was transformative in ensuring students had ample time to read, write, and talk every day in class. It meant I needed to intentionally design the class period, talk less, facilitate and coach more, and let go of the controls for literacy learning to my students.
Hey reader, I would imagine you have a plethora of ideas to add to this list for engaging our readers. Thank you for the commitment you make to improving your practice and never giving up on developing lifelong readers. We need you. Our young people need you!
Works Cited
Plucker, Jennifer McCarty. Inspiring Lifelong Readers. Solution Tree, 2023.
Plucker, Jennifer McCarty. “Engaging Minds, Inspiring Readers.” MCTE Spring Conference, 3 May 2024, Duluth, MN. Session Presentation.
Plucker, Jen McCarty. “Inquiry in ELA: 10 Ways to Make It Work.” Mackin Learning, 10 June 2022, mackinlearning.com/inquiry-in-ela-10-ways-to-make-it-work/.
Plucker, Jen McCarty. “Reimagining Assessment for Inquiry in Ela.” Mackin Learning, 22 Nov. 2022, mackinlearning.com/reimagining-assessment-for-inquiry-in-ela/.
Tovani, Cris. “Using 6ts and Some CYA to Deepen Learning.” MiddleWeb, 11 June 2024, www.middleweb.com/44611/cris-tovani-use-these-6ts-to-deepen-learning/.
Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. “The Benefits of Reading for Pleasure.” Edutopia. 30 October 2017, www.edutopia.org/article/benefits-reading-pleasure/.
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MEJ 