Recommended Reading
So how do we hook recalcitrant boys on reading? Ask them about their hobbies and go from there... Football seems to come up a lot, and if they want to read their favourite player's autobiography - let them. I had a pupil who loved Fiennes Race to the Pole. Another good idea is sometimes they've been on holiday somewhere exotic, and can be enticed to read a fairly factual chapter about say the Acropolis, or an adventure set in India. Even James Bond books are an idea. Let them read magazines on skating if they wish. I even had one very bright and logically-minded boy who hated English with a passion, but loved Science. He had a subscription to New Scientist.
Mix this up with real Literature. Anything by Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck is a good idea - as the language is simple and strong whilst obviously still being great literature. Steinbeck's powers of description and evocation are superb. And it's great to be transported to 1920s' California - at least it's hot. Hermann Hesse is a thought. And then there's Science Fiction: Day of the Triffids, On the Beach, Alas Babylon. The thing is if it's not a set text, but background reading - to avoid dense or clotted or complicated prose styles (Hardy). Or even poetry, which is full of ambiguity. Reading materials for the recalcitrant should engage them, and slowly coax them in, so they can cope eventually with the challenges of writing for the GCSE questions which they will find harder: the ambiguity of poetry and the quaintness and density of Shakespeare.
