The Use of Independent Reading in the Middle School Classroom

Currently, I am observing in an 8th grade language arts class, where the students I work with like to do the bare minimum to get by in school. The teacher has concerns that the students' reading is not self-motivated. To address this problem, the teacher and I would like to see an independent reading plan be required for the students. The surveys I have developed will ask students, before and after they are reading independently, how prepared they feel for class each day. Also, I will be interviewing the teacher to hear her opinions about the positive and negative aspects of "making" students read independently.