BEYOND THE LAST PAGE: UNDERSTANDINGS OF TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES IN BOOK CLUBS AND PEDAGOGICAL LINKS Jennifer Rottmann Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree in Doctorate of Philosophy in Education Faculty of Education University of Ottawa © Jennifer Rottmann, Ottawa, Canada, 2014 i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi INTRODUCTION 1 LITERATURE REVIEW: PATHS PREVIOUSLY TAKEN 6 Book Clubs and Teacher Education 9 Book Clubs and Teachers 11 Book Clubs as Professional Development 12 Teachers and Reading 14 Students and Reading 19 Book Clubs and Literature Circles 20 The Culprit: Tensions Between In-School and Out-of-School Literacies 23 Chapter Summary 26 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 27 Social Constructivism 28 Narrative Inquiry 31 Narrative Inquiry as a Pedagogical Tool 34 Reader-Response Theory 35 A Brief History of Reader-Response Theory 36 METHODOLOGY 48 Research Design 48 Research Participants 50 Unpacking Data Collection Methods 52 Questionnaires 52 In-depth Open Ended Interviews 53 Reading Interest Profile 54 Contextual Experience of Book Club Meetings 55 Intertextual and Narrative Analysis of Texts 57 Researcher’s Journal 58 Analysis and Re/presenting the Data 59 Chapter Summary 63 PARTICIPANTS’ PROFILES: THE READING TEACHERS 64 Anne 66 Charlotte 69 Diana 71 Emma 74 Grace 76 Helen 79 ii Isabella 81 James 83 Lydia 85 Maria 87 Rose 89 Sophia 91 Kathleen 93 INTERLUDE: READING THIS THESIS 95 BOOK CLUB MEETINGS 96 Patrick McGrath’s (1996) Asylum 97 Rebecca Skloot’s (2010) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 102 Marina Nemat’s (2007) Prisoner of Tehran 106 Chapter Summary 111 READERS READING PRACTICES: THE BEGINNING 112 Early recollections of reading 113 Fond memories of reading 115 Not-so-fond memories 120 Memorable Literacy Teachers 124 Unpacking Early Recollections of Reading 127 Chapter Summary 130 BOOK CLUB MEMBERSHIP: “IT’S THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY MONTH” 132 The Main Appeal: Aim and Goals of Joining and Remaining in a Book Club 132 Social Challenges to Book Club Membership 138 Intellectual Stimulation 141 Reading a Book for the Club 145 Motivation to Read 147 Book Selection Processes 153 Chapter Summary 159 READING OUTSIDE OF THE COMFORT ZONE: PEDAGOGICAL LINKS 161 Classroom Implications 162 Chapter Summary 177 TEACHING IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES: WEARING DIFFERENT 179 HATS Chapter Summary 184 CONCLUSION 185 Social Connections, Intellectual Stimulation and Reading Motivation 186 Meaning Making: Knowledge Creation and Validation 188 Pedagogical Implications 192 Negotiations of Identity and Subjectivities 195 iii Further Implications 195 Contributions of the Study 198 Final Thoughts 199 WORKS CITED BY PARTICIPANTS 202 REFERENCES 204 APPENDIX A: Letter of Information 226 APPENDIX B: Participant Consent Form 228 APPENDIX C: Advertisement Script 230 APPENDIX D: Recruitment Email 231 APPENDIX E: Photograph Release Form 232 APPENDIX F: Book Club Members Information Email and Consent Form 233 APPENDIX G : Demographic Questionnaire 234 APPENDIX H : Interview Protocol 235 APPENDIX I: Reading Interest Profile 237 APPENDIX J: Nvivo Nodes 238 APPENDIX K: Visual Diagram of Research Questions 239 APPENDIX L: Grace’s Grade 10 Book Club Unit 240 iv ABSTRACT The study explores teachers’ experiences in book clubs and how these experiences inform their pedagogical practices. Framed by a social constructivist epistemological stance, grounded in the work of narrative inquiry, and conceptualized by transactional reader-response theory, this study explores why teachers join and sustain book club membership, the ways books clubs are used to create meaning, how participating in a book club influences pedagogical practices, and ways in which clubs are used to negotiate aspects of their teaching identities and subjectivities. Through a multifaceted qualitative research design, I worked with thirteen teachers who belong to (or have recently belonged to) a book club as a separate entity from their teaching lives. I conducted interviews with thirteen teachers; attended three meetings of three separate book clubs to contextualize the study; and administered written reading profiles to explore participants’ reading practices. This research argues that teachers join and remain in book clubs for social interaction, intellectual stimulation and motivation to read ‘quality’ literature. Knowledges are created and validated by a community of readers capable of such recognition in a forum that does not otherwise exist. Club meetings are used in different and complex ways to negotiate teaching subjectivities and push back against fixed notions of the teacher identity. Further, this study showcases a myriad of ways that teachers’ experiences in book clubs enter the classroom both explicitly and implicitly. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To those who have offered words of wisdom and support, and took the time to listen, encourage, and calm my bouts of uncertainty, I owe the greatest appreciation as this thesis would not have been produced with you. The Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa for such funding opportunities as the Admission Scholarship and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and for the opportunity to learn in an encouraging thought provoking atmosphere where I met the people who changed my life forever. My thesis committee members, Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, Dr. Raymond Leblanc and Dr. Patricia Palulis, whose helpful perspectives and provocative questioning pushed me to think beyond the last page, adding to the depth and breadth of my research. Dr. Carl Leggo, for agreeing to act as my external examiner. Your insightful and enriching input were invaluable. It was truly an honour to work with you. Andrew, my love, my best friend and closet confident, thank you for all the awesomeness you have brought into my life. My friends and colleagues, who never doubted my ability even when I insisted I did not possess any. I am truly blessed with the gift of your friendships, which I will always cherish. Dr. Ruth Kane, I appreciate the many research assistant opportunities that you have provided for me along with your continued mentorship and friendship. Jane, my mother, my mentor, my best friend, for supporting every life decision I make, for believing in me, and for being the strong, amazing woman that I aspire to be. My master’s thesis supervisor, Dr. Judith Robertson, whose welcoming invite into an innovative project on regional uses of reading unearthed a passion for research that I did not know I possessed. Your inspiring love for words and language is contagious. vi My doctoral supervisor, Dr. Cynthia Morawski, who continually supported me throughout this process. Your confidence, guidance and constant encouragement was constantly offered and I always left our meetings feeling inspired and motivated. I am forever grateful for your dedication as a supervisor, mentor and friend. Finally, the thirteen teachers in this study, who welcomed me into the intimacies of their lives, their book club spaces and shared their intricate reading experiences. Your words make this work possible. vii INTRODUCTION: SETTING THE STAGE “I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.” (Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet) “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.” (Joyce Carol Oates, Antaeus) I am currently a member of a book club comprised of six women and we have been together for about 18 months. We meet every four to six weeks, either at each other’s houses or restaurants and cafés around the city. I have previously attempted book club membership, once in 2006 and again in 2011, but both attempts fizzled within three months. The first attempt began with an invitation to join the first meeting of a new club entitled the Feminist Women of Ottawa Reading Diverse Subjects (F-WORDS) associated with one of my favourite local, independent book stores. After three months of attending meetings with 20 or more members, I felt that the size and agenda was more akin to a university seminar than the close, intimate space that I was craving. The second attempt was my own creation of a club with a group of five friends whom I had informally engaged in book talk over the years. By our third month’s book pick, things took a turn for the worse. We chose a newly released book which was more inaccessible through libraries than we thought. Momentum was lost, tensions arose, and we just decided to disband the club partly in fear of hurting our friendships. My somewhat tumultuous history with book club membership has added insight to ways in which clubs monitor their practice and protocols essential to maintaining their vitality. Although the terminology attributed to a group of people coming together to read has taken many forms—book clubs, reading groups, literacy societies, literature circles—and has a genealogy that stretches back centuries, the study of book clubs has historically been largely 1 ignored and under-researched. However, research conducted on reading groups in the past three decades has brought to light the enormous complexity of meaning making processes that occur within this provocative social and cultural phenomenon (Flint, 2006; Hall, 2003; Long, 2003; Nafisi, 2003; Radway, 1983, 1988; Robertson, 2007; Robertson, Lewkowich & Rottmann, 2010; Sedo, 2004, 2011). The scope of these studies ranges from the experience of a book club formed under the precarious1 gaze of the Iranian Republic