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Chapter 9. Taking the reluctance out of reluctant reading

Frustration, shame, and curiosity in literacy narratives

Abstract

This chapter examines literacy narratives that feature reluctant readers. These narratives focus less on literacy development and more on the development of the affective skills that will help the protagonists to work through their reluctance to read. The novels thus treat affects as skills that can be learned, rather than as spontaneous or passive experiences. The phenomenon of the reluctant reader novel speaks to adult anxieties over the citizenship behaviors thought to be connected to literacy. In emphasizing affective skills, these novels also offer reassurance and new ways to think about literacy and citizenship.

Abstract

This chapter examines literacy narratives that feature reluctant readers. These narratives focus less on literacy development and more on the development of the affective skills that will help the protagonists to work through their reluctance to read. The novels thus treat affects as skills that can be learned, rather than as spontaneous or passive experiences. The phenomenon of the reluctant reader novel speaks to adult anxieties over the citizenship behaviors thought to be connected to literacy. In emphasizing affective skills, these novels also offer reassurance and new ways to think about literacy and citizenship.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of figures vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 1. Shades of feeling 18
  6. Chapter 2. The sublimity of darkness and its affective transmission and subduing in picturebooks 42
  7. Chapter 3. Tengo Miedo 62
  8. Chapter 4. Literalizing emotions in Disney and Pixar 83
  9. Chapter 5. The angry caregiver 104
  10. Chapter 6. Sad girls 130
  11. Chapter 7. The cultural politics of confidence in Chetan Bhagat’s select fiction 152
  12. Chapter 8. The affective construction of Chinese child citizenship in Little Friend , 1945–1949 170
  13. Chapter 9. Taking the reluctance out of reluctant reading 193
  14. Chapter 10. Emotion and the work of decolonization 217
  15. Contributors 235
  16. Index 239
Emotion in Texts for Children and Young Adults
This chapter is in the book Emotion in Texts for Children and Young Adults
https://doi.org/10.1075/clcc.13.09les

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of figures vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 1. Shades of feeling 18
  6. Chapter 2. The sublimity of darkness and its affective transmission and subduing in picturebooks 42
  7. Chapter 3. Tengo Miedo 62
  8. Chapter 4. Literalizing emotions in Disney and Pixar 83
  9. Chapter 5. The angry caregiver 104
  10. Chapter 6. Sad girls 130
  11. Chapter 7. The cultural politics of confidence in Chetan Bhagat’s select fiction 152
  12. Chapter 8. The affective construction of Chinese child citizenship in Little Friend , 1945–1949 170
  13. Chapter 9. Taking the reluctance out of reluctant reading 193
  14. Chapter 10. Emotion and the work of decolonization 217
  15. Contributors 235
  16. Index 239
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