An Analysis of the Conceptual Coherence and Opportunities for Interpretation in Tenth Grade Literature Textbooks

This dissertation reports on a study of the four most widely-used10th grade literature textbooks in terms of the opportunities they provide for students to engage in coherent English language arts curricular units in which the texts, questions, and tasks provide opportunities for students to develop their own text-based interpretations and arguments, engage in focused inquiry about individual texts, and build conceptual understanding of overarching unit or text-specific concepts/questions. Data included the texts, questions, and tasks in two units per textbook, a short story unit and persuasion unit. Data analysis focused on (a) how the texts, questions, and tasks in each unit were structured to provide coherent learning opportunities that allow for students to build conceptual understanding of unit and text-specific concepts/questions, and (b) the extent to which texts and post-reading questions and tasks provide opportunities for students to develop their own text-based interpretations and arguments. The findings from this study show that despite all units including texts, questions, and tasks that cohere around overarching unit or text-specific concepts/questions, units are not structured to provide students with coherent learning opportunities that will allow them to build their conceptual understanding of unit or text-specific concepts/questions. This is due to the plethora of questions and tasks that are unrelated to the unit or text-specific concept/question or to each other. Additionally, findings show that many of the texts, especially in the persuasion units, do not provide opportunities for readers to develop multiple text-based interpretations and arguments about the ideas, arguments, characters, and events. Finally, findings show that the majority of post-reading questions in all four textbooks are recitation questions that have or assume one correct response. The findings from this study suggest that preservice and inservice educators must prepare teachers to use and modify literature textbooks in ways that are shown to improve student learning. Moreover, time must be provided in schools for teachers to work with colleagues to design instructional units that modify rather than rely on textbook units. Finally, findings from this study suggest that research is needed on how teachers use and what teachers learn from textbooks