“They Hate Reading…” An Interview Study on Literary Course Design for Promoting Student Motivation.

Abstract

An interview study was conducted with 5 Swedish upper-secondary teachers of English with the purpose of outlining their process of designing literary courses in English. Their views on the importance of fiction and reading overall were of interest, as well as their personal motives and ambition when teaching literature. The interview aimed to get an understanding of how course design, choice of material and the teachers themselves, could all work towards encouraging an interest in reading among students. The pedagogical methods concerning the promotion of reading motivation became of primary focus for the discussion and conclusions drawn from the study. During the interviews, the lack of reading motivation in students proved to be a concern for the participants and an underlying point of focus when constructing their courses. The findings suggest that a balance in freedom for the students and assistance when they lack understanding of the material is key for nurturing an interest in the material in addition to a variety in methods of approaching the material. Transdisciplinary and multimodal approaches are methods that can help students see both value in the material they are studying, as well as in reading itself. Allowing students to choose reading material for themselves was concidered to be a good motivator but a difficult method to apply in education as their own choice may not be suitable in working towards the curricular goals regarding literature (Skolverket, 2022). Yet, supporting students in reading books of their own choosing parallell to set literary courses with the purpouse of familiarizing them with fiction can benefit students in the long run.