Sheltered popular literature

Sheltered popular literature exists only in my imagination. It is a suggestion for combining the advantages of literature teaching with the advantages of free voluntary reading and attempts to solve a problem many second language readers have: A lack of familiarity with what is available. Sheltered popular literature is, first of all, a literature class with the same goals as any other literature class: The use of literature as a means of understanding the human condition, gaining insight into ethics, metaphysics, and culture. In sheltered popular literature, however, the focus is not on the "classics." Rather, the focus is on literature that second language students will find interesting and comprehensible. Depending on the age and background of the students, this could mean comic books, magazines, romance novels, mysteries, and newspapers. This "literature" would be discussed in class with the same seriousness we devote to the classics.

Our hope is that such a class will provide the same kind of cognitive development and reflective attitude that the study of classical literature provides. At the same time, it will inform the intermediate second language acquirer what reading material is available, and will, we hope, lead to a reading habit in the second language.

Narrow reading

An interesting hypothesis is that narrow, rather than broad or wide reading, is more efficient for second language acquisition. This means the work of one author, one genre or topic (e.g. only detective novels). (I focus here on reading, but the idea of narrow input has been applied to listening as well; see e.g. Krashen, 1996; Rodrigo and Krashen, 1996; Dupuy, 1999). Narrow reading will be more interesting, by definition, because it is restricted to what the reader really wants to read. It will be more comprehensible, because the reader will already have a great deal of background knowledge, and will gain more background knowledge by reading.

Deep reading in any topic, it is hypothesized, will provide exposure to a tremendous amount of syntax and vocabulary that is used in other topics. Any technical field, for example, will use "subtechnical" vocabulary, words such as "function," "inference," "isolate," "relation," etc. (Cowan, 1974).

There is some evidence supporting the narrow reading idea. Lamme (1976) found that good readers in English as a first language tended to read more books by a single author and books from a series, a result that many readers of this paper can identify with, former devotees of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and Bobsey Twins. In addition, the Sweet Valley studies mentioned above are also an example of the efficacy of narrow reading. Of great interest is the fact that Sweet Valley readers eventually went on to read other authors.

Sheltered popular literature introduces the second language reader to a range of interesting reading, in the hope that the reader will settle on one or two areas for narrow reading.

Some Controversies

Is light reading enough?

It can be argued that light reading is not enough, that in order to master the academic language one needs to read truly challenging texts. This is, of course, true. My claim is that light reading is a bridge to heavier reading, that it supplies the competence necessary to understand challenging texts. Our usual practice in foreign language education is to force students to jump from elementary level courses where they read only simplified texts to very demanding texts. Light reading is the missing link, a conduit to heavier reading.

There has been no research in this area in second language acquisition, but it has been shown that developing (high school) readers in English as a first language typically do not read only one author or in one area for the rest of their lives and do not stick with only light reading; they gradually expand their reading interests as they read more (LaBrant, 1958).

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