Reading Circles, Novels and Adult Reading Development

by Sam Duncan

Overview

Adult literacy teachers are constantly searching for effective, engaging and distinctly 'adult' ways to develop adult emergent reading and, for at least the past two hundred years, adults have formed themselves into reading circles to read and discuss novels on a weekly or monthly basis. Why then are reading circles rarely used, or studied, in formal adult literacy provision? This book explores adult reading development, novel reading and reading circles in the context of a wider examination of reading pedagogies and practices in the English-speaking world. It discusses reading as both an individual and a communal act and investigates the relationship between literature and literacy development, practice and pedagogy (including a reassessment of the controversial approaches of reading aloud and phonics for adults). Sam Duncan reviews a case study of an adult reading circle in a large London further education college and identifies the wider implications for the teaching and learning of adult emergent reading, for the use and understanding of reading circles and for how we understand the novel reading experience more broadly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472530141
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/02/2014
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Sam Duncan is Lecturer in Education in the Department ofLifelong and Comparative Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. She has previously taught adult literacy, English as a foreign language and poetry, film and drama on adult returban to study programmes.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Charted Waters of Reading: How Reading is Claimed, Researched and Defined by Different Fields
2. Reading and Adult Life
3. How We Learnt to Read
4. Literature and Literacy Development
5. Reading Circles
6. Researching a Reading Circle: What We Did
7. Researching a Reading Circle: What We Found
8. Reading as Experience
9. Reading Circles as 'Ideal Pedagogy'
10. The Individual and the Communal
11. The Pleasures and Politics of Novel Reading and Reading Circles
Conclusion \

Editorial Reviews

Given the detail and depth of the text, the target audience of this book is college students, particularly upper level and graduate students, faculty and researchers. The first five chapters will also appeal to anyone interested in the history of reading and literacy. Duncan's book accomplishes its objectives well. Her bibliographic section is very detailed. Her research is thorough, referencing the most significant authors in the field […] As such, Duncan's text represents a good resource for anyone exploring alternative and sound pedagogical approaches.

Andres Muro

Adults juststarting on their reading journey have so much to tell researchers and tutors.This thoughtful book captures their insights and puts the vital link betweenadult literacy learning and reading group activity in a rich historicalcontext.

Genevieve Clarke

An original, wide ranging and thoughtful account of a phenomenonthat is rarely researched. Sam Duncan provides a clear account of her researchembedded within a scholarly account of the social history of reading that willbe of interest to teachers of adult literacy, students of reading, researchers,teachers and those with a general interest in the culture of reading in the 21stCentury. The strength of this book is the clarity of its writing and theaccessibility of the discussion, as well as its scholarly reach. Theimaginative space of the reader is evoked through original research into adultliteracy students who love to read. Duncan's argument that an historicalunderstanding of adult literacy and of reading can broaden what it is to readand to write is vital in broadening our understanding of contemporary readinghabits... The book also argues for the importance of reading for pleasure for alladults. As Duncan argues, 'literacy is at once functional and metaphysical, individual andcommunal, transformative andtransfiguring'. This vision for the potential of literacy can help usre-consider the sometimes utilitarian accounts of literacy presented in schoolsand college settings and instead offer a vision for literacy that is concernedwith transformation and social empowerment.

Kate Pahl

This bookis well-written and engaging. Most importantly, it addresses reading circles,an area of adult literacy about which we know little. Hopefully it willstimulate additional interest in the area.

Hal Beder

This lively and engaged bookinvites us to look at reading in a different way, moving us beyond the tiredold divisions between literacy and literature that have sobedevilled adult education. In doing so, it offers a new take on the idea ofreading for pleasure, gathering up the dimensions of reading that are anindispensable part of all acts of reading: cognitive, imaginative, affective,educational and communicative. It includes a useful overview of the wide rangeof theoretical approaches to reading and challenges the idea that some kinds ofreading are "functional" whereas others are "frivolous and non-essential". Writtenby an adult literacy expert, it suggests that reading researchers need to talkto readers themselves about their experiences and ideas about reading. It goeson to present the many insights that resulted from asking emerging adultreaders the question "What does reading mean to you?" It also details the longand fascinating history of reading circles and advocates them as a potentialpedagogy for adult literacy - a pedagogy that builds on a common readingpractice, and which combines the pleasures and politics of novel reading withthe sensibilities of adult literacy teaching.

Mary Hamilton

Given the detail and depth of the text, the target audience of this book is college students, particularly upper level and graduate students, faculty and researchers. The first five chapters will also appeal to anyone interested in the history of reading and literacy. Duncan's book accomplishes its objectives well. Her bibliographic section is very detailed. Her research is thorough, referencing the most significant authors in the field […] As such, Duncan's text represents a good resource for anyone exploring alternative and sound pedagogical approaches.” —Andres Muro, El Paso Community College, Jourbanal of Research and Practice for Adult Literacy, Secondary, and Basic Education

From the Publisher