Bibliotherapy Q and A: Senior High School Students, Reading and Technology

To continue with the Bibliotherapy Q and A, here are two more questions from the webinar. Here are links to the previous blog posts: set 1 which is about retellings of classic tales and set 2 which is about access to books and library services. 

What techniques can we do to create bibliotherapy for senior high school students? How we can convince them to read.

First, we have to know what reading is. Research in literacy teaching and learning informs us that reading can be defined and understood from many lenses or disciplines. In education, reading is seen as a series of developmental stages (Chall, 1983). Reading is also a process. Rosenblat (1990) theorised that reading is an interactive process where in the reader and the text engage and connect efferently and asethetically. The reader plays an active role in the construction of meaning and in comprehension the message of the text.

Senior High School students fall under the stage where they are capable of understanding multiple viewpoints. They can respond to the text in varied ways. They learn in this process of understanding and clarifying their responses to text or literature they encounter either in formal schooling or in every day. Here are my top three activities you can do with your junior high school and high school students.

1. Reading Challenges like the one Gene Luen Yang advocates. The Reading Without Walls reading challenge by Yang, a well loved comic book creator, can be fully accessed in the link provided for. Offer your high school students an array of different books and materials to read. Expose them to as many forms of literature as possible.

2. Book Vlogs and Book Trailers. Have them respond to books and stories they have read through blogging, vlogging and book trailers.

3. Create an online reading room or virtual reading where students can access digital libraries for free.

How do you encourage (reading to) children of today (who are) engrossed to technology and social media gaming etc.?

We need to take the printed book as it is and the same can be said about media and technology. We need to see how different these technologies are from each other and also understand what makes them similar to each other. We do not have to pit books against online resources. We often speak of balance in tech use, but, we also need to acknowledge that different kinds of technologies, or a mix of them, can address many modalities of learning.

So, for this question, my answer is very similar to the one above. As librarians we need to create and design learning spaces and environments where readers can choose reading materials, set their own goals or criteria for reading and using tech as we provide a safe space for them to be and get involved in their process of creating and communicating their responses.

This means, we have to learn with our readers. We are learners ourselves.