This week's article summary is What Happens When Young People Actually Read 'Disturbing' Books.
The content of books and their availability to kids have always been hot topics, yet with today’s political polarization this ‘culture war’ topic is hotter than ever.
The research study below focuses not on the politics of book banning/censorship, but on how reading these books actually impacts kids. The research study invited eighth graders to choose books from a vast array covering many topics and themes, some of which had adult content.
The research results were striking and probably surprising to many.
Because students had choices, they selected books that were of interest to them. (I still remember in eighth grade being assigned the book Death Be Not Proud, which was so boring to me that it literally stymied my interest in reading for years. It wasn’t until The Exorcist was published that I rekindled my interest in reading.) Students eagerly choose and consumed books that were meaningful and intriguing to them, not because they offered titillating, alluring plots and scenes. As they were engaged – even engrossed – in these books, their amount of reading rose and their comprehension soared.
As we’ve discussed before, reading is a great way to increase kids’ empathy. As these students read about characters and situations different from them and their lives, they not only learned about difference, they also became less judgmental as they grappled with the complexities of why characters made the decisions (some good, some bad) they did.
Rather than being corrupted by adult themes of the books they read, eighth graders more often brought their questions about controversial subjects to others (peers, teachers, even their parents), seeking understanding for how and why the book characters acted the way they did. Researchers found that students were in fact quite mature and balanced in reading controversial books. Students often contrasted what happened in books with their own family values. For most, controversial topics and situations and questionable decisions by book characters acted more as cautionary tales about poor choices.
So, like a lot of topics, we adults can often get hung up on things that don’t really matter to kids. We need to give them more credit for their intelligence and reason. Reading has countless benefits and, to me, any strategies to get kids reading more is a boon ‘in my book!’
Joe
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Lost in the political battles over “educationally suitable” books is what actually happens when young people read.
One side assumes students reading certain books will become traumatized, radicalized, or morally perverted, while the other argues for free speech and democracy.
But neither side offers evidence of what actually happens when students do read “disturbing” books.
In a recent study, eighth-grade English language arts teachers stopped assigning a particular book and instead gave students wide access to books written for young adults, let them choose what to read (or not), and gave them time to read and openly discuss the books.
The books students found most engaging were those that didn’t shy away from the complexities of being human or the different ways of being human in a diverse society.
Here’s what we learned. The students, most of whom reported previously reading little or nothing, started reading like crazy—in and out of school—and their reading achievement improved. Students reported becoming better people, a change also noticed by their parents and peers. Reading engaging narratives about characters with complicated lives helped them become more empathetic, less judgmental, more likely to seek multiple viewpoints, morally stronger, and happier. They reported improved self-control, and building more and stronger friendships and family relationships.
Central to these changes were conversations about the books with peers, teachers, and family members--whoever they could recruit for different perspectives on provocative or confusing parts.
Parents reported welcoming opportunities for conversations, conveniently through book characters, about drugs, sex, relationships, and depression. The image of young people reading “dangerous” books alone, in secret, and in distress, was not what the research showed.
Students described characters’ questionable decisions as cautionary tales, not narratives to live into. The books helped them to see the consequences of problematic decisions and language. Because they all brought different experiences and purposes to their reading, the conversations were constantly lively, meaningful, even philosophical, and relationship-building. The complexities of characters’ lives and the consequences of their decisions deepened students’ moral thinking while making them grateful for their lives and families. Bad words and disturbing scenes simply fed bigger conversations about life and relationships.
Given the opportunity to read books they find meaningful, students (and their teachers and parents) can be disarmingly articulate about the nature and significance of their reading not just for their academic lives, but also for their social, emotional, and moral development, their wellbeing, and their family lives.
In a polarized society, these teens’ embrace of different perspectives surely seems like a plus. But there are bigger, more immediate issues facing US teens, among whom anxiety disorders are prevalent. Teens are lonelier than any other age group. In 2019, over a third reported persistent hopelessness or sadness. These problems are astronomically higher for gay, lesbian, or bisexual students. Asked how they feel while in school, three quarters of the words teens choose are negative, the top being “tired,” “bored,” and “stressed.”
Reading and talking about personally meaningful books can provide a literal lifeline for teens. Somewhere in the arguments about whether books are “educationally suitable” we’ve lost the thread of why we want students to read in the first place, what they, and we, stand to gain in the process, and what’s at stake.
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