The Methodology of Reading : An analysis of current literary classroom material

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to conduct an analysis of four different classroom materials for the English 6 course in order to see the extent to which the textbooks follow accepted teaching methodology for reading, and whether or not their methodology changed after the curriculum switch in 2011. The books being analysed are Progress Gold C, Streams in Literature, Blueprint C Version 2.0, and Viewpoints 2. The analysis has been done by first looking at the teaching methodology literature in order to create a framework of questions to follow when analysing the classroom material, and from that framework looking at what reading activities are available and which model they follow, whether the texts activate different areas of knowledge for the students, and the variety of reading purposes that are available in each book. The answers have then been summarised individually for each point that has been picked out in the framework, and I have then briefly discussed whether or not there is a difference between the textbooks published prior to the curriculum change contra those published afterwards.   The conclusion of my analysis is that each of the books is strong in its own way, but that they do not all adhere to the chosen teaching methodology models – with Viewpoints 2 being the strongest in relation to the chosen framework, and Streams in Literature being the weakest. The books are all very similar at first glance, but it is clear to see that each of the authors has chosen their own way of handling the subject of reading literature in the classroom, with Streams in Literature choosing to focus almost entirely on the texts, while Progress Gold C and Blueprint C Version 2.0 have a much heavier focus on linguistics, and Viewpoints 2 strikes a balance between the two. My conclusion is that while all four of the books seem to follow the teaching methods analysed in this essay to some degree, all of them would require a good amount of revision in order to be more optimally developed towards the teaching theories presented here.