“It Depends Where I Am in My Life, Whether I Love Reading or Not”: Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters

Language Arts Journal of Michigan Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Volume 37 Issue 1 Article 8

2021

“It Depends Where I Am in My Life, Whether I Love Reading or “It Depends Where I Am in My Life, Whether I Love Reading or

Not”: Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Not”: Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and

Why it Matters Why it Matters

Matthew Sroka

Salisbury University

, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/lajm

Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, and the Secondary Education Commons

Recommended Citation Recommended Citation

Sroka, Matthew (2021) "“It Depends Where I Am in My Life, Whether I Love Reading or Not”: Challenges to

Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters,"

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

: Vol. 37:

Iss. 1, Article 8.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.9707/2168-149X.2304

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion

in Language Arts Journal of Michigan by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information,

please contact [email protected].

LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021 63

book in the past year and only 39% of respondents

had read six or more professional books that year.

These results reveal that though the reading habits

of literacy professionals are stronger than the overall

reading habits of all teachers, they still might not be

as strong as one might expect. Despite this lack of

reading, Donaldson’s (2014) quantitative dissertation,

focusing exclusively on the reading habits of

secondary English teachers in Texas, demonstrated

that the majority of English teachers enjoy reading

and discussing what they are reading.

This idea that English teachers enjoy and value

personal reading is also supported by the work

of Gomez (2009) who concludes, “teachers value

literacy, recognize the importance of literacy in their

personal and professional lives, and believe that their

personal literate selves connect to their professional

literate lives” (p. 39). A strong personal reading life

can allow English teachers to live out the reading

lives that they often desire their students to have, a

strong, lifelong love of reading (Jago, 2019; Kittle

2013). In fact, many English teachers’ thoughts may

echo Donalyn Miller’s (2009) when she wrote, “My

identity as a person is so entwined with my love of

reading and books that I cannot separate the two” (p.

10). Yet, research around teachers’ personal reading

lives remains nebulous, nor do we have a clear idea

about the relationship between reading lives and

teaching practices. My study aims to provide more

clarity to these aspects of being an English teacher.

his article stems from a larger

participatory action research study

involving a 4-month investigation

into the reading lives of myself and

four other secondary English teachers.

This study illustrates that even for teachers who value

reading, there exists a recurring struggle to maintain

strong personal reading lives; however, this study

also provides examples of transformational teachers

and texts that assisted teachers in overcoming these

challenges. These transformational experiences led to

teachers reading more, which led to changes in their

views of reading and their pedagogical decision-

making around reading. Specifically, having positive

experiences with books inside and outside the

classroom opened up opportunities for students to

have more positive experiences with books. For this

reason, this study calls upon teachers to resituate how

they position the role of personal reading in their

lives.

Brief Review of the Literature

Though, in general, research reports that

many teachers are not avid readers (Pillai, 2015;

Rimensberger, 2014; Vansteelandt et al., 2017), we

understand less about the specific reading habits of

English teachers. Yet, the limited studies focused on

English teachers’ reading lives hint at discouraging

conclusions. For instance, a robust survey conducted

by Commeyras and DeGroff (1998) explored the

professional reading habits of 1,482 in-service literacy

professionals. According to the study, nearly 12% of

respondents claimed to have not read a professional

MATTHEW SROKA

“It Depends Where I Am in My Life, Whether I Love

Reading or Not”: Challenges to Fostering Strong

Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters

RESEARCH

64 LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021

Theoretical Framework

Drawing on the work of Street (2003), I situate

this research within a sociocultural perspective of

literacy as it is “always embedded in social practices”

(p. 78). Reading texts is one specific type of social

practice and therefore ways of reading and thinking

about reading occur in larger cultural contexts that

impact how we read and come to our understanding

of texts.

This study also assumes that identities are socially

situated and enacted in “particular time, spaces,

and relationships” (Moje & Luke, 2009, p. 432). A

teacher’s reading life occurs in both their school and

home settings. Family dynamics, for instance, play

a significant role in the home setting of teachers.

Numerous studies examine the home setting for

students and its impact on their reading lives and

literary practices, but few studies focus on this same

dynamic for teachers (Moll et al., 1992; Gomez, 2009).

Reading often, by its very nature, becomes a solitary

act that is often perceived to be time-consuming and,

potentially, a distraction from the work they must

do as teachers as well as the attention they must offer

to their families. This time-consuming, independent

act often forces readers to make tough decisions

about when and how to read, especially teachers who

continue to report high levels of stress in their work

lives.

Methods and Analysis

For this study, I employed a participatory action

research (PAR) design that involved my role in the

study as an English teacher and a researcher (Herr

& Anderson, 2015). As an English teacher, and as

someone interested in my own reading life and

teaching practice, it would have been impossible to

turn off my identity as an English teacher and reader

while I conducted this research. Therefore, I embraced

my multiple identities through a PAR design. The

action research allowed the participants to act as co-

researchers as together we explored our teaching and

reading lives while continually revisiting how these

discoveries impacted our teaching. We were guided by

the following three research questions:

• What are the reading histories and identities

of in-service secondary English teachers?

• How do secondary in-service English

teachers participating in a virtual learning

community express, discuss, and enact their

reading histories and reading identities?

• How does a teacher’s awareness of these

reading histories and identities influence

their teaching practices?

Participants

All participants participated in a prior pilot

project I conducted that explored their reading

histories through a series of three interviews.

Therefore, prior to this project I knew each of the

four other participants, yet, they had never met each

other. There were five participants in this study all of

whom taught at different schools: Robert (all names

are pseudonyms), a male high school English teacher;

George, a male high school English teacher; Cheryl,

a female teacher, who at the time of this study, after

being a high school English teacher for over 20 years,

transitioned to a literacy coach position; James,

a male middle school Language Arts teacher; and

myself, a male English teacher.

Data Collection and Analysis

Using Zoom, I conducted seven 90-minute

bi-weekly group meetings over the course of 4

months focusing on different aspects of our reading

and teaching lives. Participants also kept reading

journals and submitted a variety of teaching artifacts

(course syllabi, lesson plans, worksheets) in order

to determine how their personal reading lives may

impact their pedagogical choices. Finally, I conducted

two semi-structured individual interviews with each

participant to ask follow-up questions based on the

group interviews and the other artifacts that were

submitted.

For coding, I drew upon the work of Saldaña

(2016) and his first and second cycle coding. For

first cycle coding, I utilized in vivo coding, which

attempts to capture the precise language used and

“honor the participant’s voice” (Saldaña, p. 106). As

Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters

LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021 65

I explored the reading identities of English teachers,

it became important to capture their voices and

the specific terms they use to talk about their own

reading beliefs and experiences. The initial coding

of meetings and interviews yielded 267 unique codes.

I then coded teacher artifacts, the discussion board,

reading journals, and individual interviews using

the 267 codes. After, I used pattern coding as my

second cycle coding to identifying emergent themes

or explanations. Results of this second cycle coding

provided me with 26 thematic codes:

• Assumptions about reading

• Culture

• Defining literature

• Distance teaching experiences

• Evolving as a reader

• Family

• Individual act of reading

• Job of an English teacher

• Learning community

• Libraries

• Metaphor

• Non-readers (teachers)

• Pedagogy

• Personal information

• Personal reading

• Reading purposes

• Self-reflection

• Social act of reading

• Students

• Study design

• Teaching context

• Testing and reading

• Text selection

• Text types

• Valuing reading

• Working with colleagues

Several of the thematic codes shed light on the

conflicting nature of personal reading lives between

stated beliefs and reading habits. These codes led to

findings related to how English teachers struggle to

prioritize reading and how these English teachers

also have moments when their reading lives become

re-ignited. Data analysis also occurred throughout

the writing process as I began to draw and make

connections to how my research fit in with existing

scholarly research. I then sent first drafts of my

writings to my advisor, Dr. Judith Franzak, who

provided me with feedback on my data analysis, often

suggesting further scholarly reading on a given topic.

Finally, I went back into my own findings and the

scholarly literature to refine my data analysis and re-

work my findings. In this article, I will discuss two

of these findings.

English Teachers as Readers:

The Challenges in Fostering Active Personal Reading Lives

The teaching of English often centers upon the

teaching of books, and relatedly, there is an implied

expectation that teachers engage in the activity of

reading both inside and outside of the classroom.

However, despite society’s expectations for the

reading habits of English teachers, the teachers in

this study often faced challenges in how to prioritize

reading amidst their other personal and professional

responsibilities. This led to the participants having

moments in their lives when they were not avidly

reading. Below I explore personal and professional

challenges that interrupt one’s personal reading life.

Of the five participants, three—George, James,

and I—had younger children at home. Cheryl has

one child who is grown and out of the house, and, at

the time of this study, Robert was expecting his first

child. Given this context, perhaps it should not come

as a surprise that, according to their reading journals,

the participants who read the most and wrote the

most about their reading were Cheryl and Robert.

This suggests that having young children at home

leaves less time for personal reading and journaling.

On multiple occasions, our group discussed

balancing personal reading and child-rearing.

George shared, “I’ve got a young son, he’s three and

I want him to see me reading, but then at the same

time, I’m not interacting with him while I’m reading

unless I’m reading to him.” In a later meeting, James

echoed this potential negative side of reading saying,

“I think also an obstacle to reading on your own is

that sense that I’m being selfish and not doing things

for kids.” As George and James point out, our own

children force us to make decisions about our reading

lives. How do we balance independent reading with

Matthew Sroka

66 LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021

spending time with our children? How do we want

our children to view us as readers? How do we show

our children that we value reading? How do we instill

in our children a love of reading?

Of course, these struggles to balance our lives and

find time for reading are not limited to challenges in

child-rearing. A variety of factors interfere with our

reading lives, as James summarized:

I was like, “Oh man, I am neglecting my

schoolwork.” But it’s for my family. And then

if I’m doing the schoolwork, I’m like, “I’m

neglecting my family.” I couldn’t find a really

good balance. And so, I think it’s kind of like

that with reading, reading for pleasure as an

English teacher. I’ve got so much other school

stuff to do that if I’m busy reading, is that fair to

my students?

Many English teachers understand James’ struggle

that an active reading life is important but that the

act of reading can be isolating and take time away

from immediate relationships and responsibilities.

I expressed sympathy for James and explained

how I defended my own effort at maintaining an

avid reading life by saying, “I justify to myself that

I’m reading this because it might come up as a

recommendation for students in the future. Or I’m

reading this, trying to figure out where to tie it into

my professional life.” Like all of us, English teachers

must constantly wrestle with how best to use our

time. We often feel like if we are not spending time

preparing for class, we should be spending time with

our family. Reading often feels like we are neglecting

both our personal and professional responsibilities

to the point that, here, I find myself needing to

defend how my personal reading directly benefits my

teaching life or my family.

At our first one-on-one meeting, George

described his struggle to foster a strong personal

reading life, admitting:

I didn’t tell Cheryl this cause I don’t want her

to be all upset. I didn’t start reading as an adult

again until I got appendicitis… So, if we had had

this conversation a year ago I’d be one of those

teachers who teaches English and doesn’t really

read, it’d be maybe one book a year, maybe over

the summer, and not anything special either.

George believed that English teachers should

be those who read and was hesitant to share these

feelings with our group for fear that Cheryl, and

perhaps others as well, would view him as a non-

reader. He understood that, especially in this learning

community of English teachers who care about

their reading lives, to admit to not reading would

potentially bring judgment from the group.

In a later meeting, George must have taken solace

in hearing Cheryl reveal that she too did not always

prioritize or love reading. As an English teacher,

Cheryl described teaching “four or five different

class periods” and not having time to read because of

her professional responsibilities. Cheryl concluded,

“It depends where I am in my life, whether I love

reading or not. I mean, I’ve gone up and down with

that.” Other participants expressed similar stories of

moments when personal reading was not prioritized.

James discussed times when “you’re just trying to get

by.” George said, “there’s just not time (for reading),

you’re up all night, you’re grading papers and it’s just

insane.” I agreed, “There’s always something to do...

there’s never a day after work where you’re like, ‘ah,

I’m good. I’m good.’ There’s always stuff to do. And

so sometimes reading things can seem less important

than all those other things.” Robert, emphasizing

the struggle for new teachers, added, “My first couple

years of teaching, I didn’t read anything that was not

directly related to my classroom. I mean, there was no

way I had time.” Paradoxically, as English teachers

asked their students to become active readers, the

responsibilities of teaching English led participants

to stop taking their own advice as their reading lives

floundered under professional responsibilities. These

moments of struggling to find time to read occurred

for different lengths of time and different reasons,

but all participants understood this feeling of having

variability and inconsistencies in their reading lives

in both feeling (“whether I love reading or not”) and

habits (“it’d be maybe one book a year”).

Reasons teachers struggle to maintain active

personal reading lives include the following:

• Lack of time

• Younger children at home

• Reading is often an isolated activity

• Grading papers

Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters

LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021 67

• Lesson planning

• Other professional responsibilities

However, based on the experiences of the participants,

I argue that the lack of reading does not point towards

a lack of valuing the importance of reading in their

lives, but instead teachers just get distracted by the

multitude of professional and personal responsibilities

that take priority over their reading lives. As teachers,

understandably, often prioritize their more tangible

and immediate professional responsibilities, personal

reading can appear much less urgent. Notably, students

encounter many similar obstacles related to a perceived

lack of time to read. Teachers ask students to engage

in the act of reading both inside and outside of the

classroom, yet often teacher themselves struggle to do

what they ask of their students. However, the English

teachers in this study also provided examples of having

a shift in mindset that led to the re-prioritization of

reading in their personal lives.

English Teachers as Readers: Transformational Teachers and

Texts that Re-igniting Reading Lives

Just as one’s reading life includes moments when

they are not actively reading, one can also experience

moments when one feels good about their reading life.

The following examples describe occurrences when

participants encountered a transformational teacher

or text that reignited their passion for reading amid a

time when they were struggling to prioritize reading.

A Transformational Teacher. Having a teacher

who values and demonstrates a passion for reading

can potentially influence one’s reading life. Teachers

who identify as avid and enthusiastic readers

often use best practices for literary instruction

and promote a love of reading with their students

(Applegate & Applegate, 2004; McKool & Gespass,

2009). Positive experiences that promote the desire

to read are often associated with “choice, relevancy,

and encouragement in reading” (Daisey, 2009, p.

173). Robert and I, for instance, recalled graduate

school experiences that profoundly impacted our

reading lives and teaching lives. Our stories show the

importance of having a teacher who values reading

and creates an environment that encourages and

cultivates personal reading.

For Robert, it was a children’s and adolescent

literature course where he recalled his professor

stressing the point that “If you are going to be

teaching English, at whatever level you are, you

have to be reading.” This statement emphasizes

the importance of English teachers having strong

personal reading lives amidst their other often more

pressing responsibilities. During this graduate course,

Robert had a profound reading experience and shared

with me the following story:

One week we had to read Charlotte’s Web and I

could not find a copy of it anywhere. Bookstores

were sold out…I finally found it at one library

branch, like halfway across the city, picked it up

that night. Read the whole thing that night, not

that challenging or deep, right. But looking back

now, especially, man, I spent hours trying to find

this one children’s book that I had read 20 years

ago. And so, it really ignited a passion in me...I

was like, you know, I do enjoy doing this. This is

something that I love doing.

Robert walked away from the class so enthused

about reading that he brought it back into his

classroom and started a book club with his students.

Robert recalled, “We started this lunchtime thing.

It was just a really special experience. And I think

from there...now almost 10 years I’ve been reading

constantly.” Robert began reading again not just

in the classroom, but also outside of his classroom.

Likewise, his students began engaging with texts not

just in English but also in other less structured, non-

mandatory settings as students joined him during

lunch to informally discuss books and what they were

reading.

I shared a similar experience with the group

about a graduate course I took where the professor

emphasized the importance of choice and independent

reading, even providing class time to read and journal.

I shared with the group:

I read Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor and

journaling about [the book] was such a good

experience. And then I took that immediately

back to the classroom. I’m like, “I know it’s not

in the curriculum guys . . . but we’re dedicating 15

minutes to just read and then journal. I saw how

my professor valued reading enough to bring it

Matthew Sroka

68 LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021

into a graduate-level course and set aside class

time to emphasize its importance. In my own

teaching life, I knew I valued students reading

on their own, but did I prioritize it with my class

time? I had not been doing this, but after taking

this course, I started to institute daily reading

time which led to many of my students—and

myself, for I read during this time as well—

having positive experiences with texts. Many of

these positive experiences involved mirroring

what I saw my professor doing, allowing students

to choose texts to read and having them write

low-stake personal reflections on what they were

reading.

In these two examples, it took the urging of

passionate professors and the right environment to

reignite a passion for reading and cause us to resituate

the role of reading in our personal lives. Robert and

I both took these positive experiences that we had as

students into our classrooms leading to our students

having more opportunities for positive experiences

with texts.

A Transformational Text. To influence

our reading priorities, sometimes it takes a

transformational educator and other times, it takes

a transformational text. I did not identify as a reader

in high school or college until my college roommate

introduced me to an epic fantasy series, Sword o

Truth by Terry Goodkind. I read the first book in

the series, which led me to keep reading until I had

finished the series. I then went on to read other

works in this same fantasy genre, including some

classic works like J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord o the Rings.

Sword o Truth reignited a passion in me for reading,

and yet this is the kind of text I would have never

been exposed to in the classroom. Often students’

engagement with reading outside of traditional

classroom spaces occurs with “marginalized genres”

such as magazines and comic books, or as in my case,

epic fantasy series (Hughes-Hassell & Rodge, 2007;

Wilhelm & Smith, 2016). However, for a variety of

reasons many English teachers have been reluctant to

bring these marginalized genres into the classroom,

(Boyd & Darragh, 2019; Darragh & Boyd, 2019;

Watkins & Ostenson, 2015).

George had a similar experience with the text The

Shadow o the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. George

explained how he randomly selected the book from

his shelf and started to read it and “it had everything

you could possibly want in a book.” Just as Sword

o Truth acted as a gateway for me to more positive

experiences with reading, The Shadow o the Wind

served a similar role for George. He said:

I started exploring other things and there’s a lot

of cool stuff out there...It’s fun. You know, it’s no

longer something I feel like I’m doing to enrich

myself intentionally...And that perspective has

made it a bit more like I’m free to read things

that I wouldn’t have. I would’ve thought were

beneath me earlier. So that’s been fun.

George felt that his identity as an English teacher

limited his reading life, as he felt as if he was supposed

to read certain texts and not read other types of texts.

However, George’s experience with Shadow o the

Wind reminded him that there were other stories

out there, and exploring those stories is part of what

makes reading fun.

This idea of how reading non-traditional or

marginalized texts can lead to more reading came up

several times in our meetings. For example, Cheryl

shared about a student who “just hated to read” until

Cheryl introduced her to Slam Poetry. This caused the

student to read not just Slam Poetry but other poets

as well. Cheryl excitedly told us how this student

recently graduated and texted her, “I’m bored. I need

more to read. What other poets do you have for me?”

Cheryl challenged the notion of what real poetry was,

and utilizing non-traditional texts in her classroom

opened up the opportunity for her student to have a

positive reading experience.

Similarly, George’s exploration of different texts

impacted how he started to view teaching texts in

his classroom. He mused, “I’m reading all kinds of

different genres right now and I don’t know how I

want to approach it going forward, but I do think I

definitely want some more choice in my curriculum.”

George’s reading caused him to reevaluate his

responsibilities as an English teacher as he sought to

bring more choice into this classroom, which in turn

will potentially lead to more reading for students

inside and outside the classroom.

These data demonstrate English teachers

Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters

LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021 69

thinking about the priority that reading should have

in their own lives in relation to their responsibilities

as English teachers. They also highlight how positive

reading experiences can lead to more positive reading

experiences, both in their lives and in the lives of

their colleagues and students.

The ways that teachers' personal reading impacted

them include the following:

• More willing to teach marginalized texts

• Better able to recommend a larger range of

texts to students

• Exposure to more diverse selection of texts

that may not be traditionally taught in

school

• More likely to use reading best practices such

as providing time to read and choice

• Demonstrates for students that there are

different purposes for reading

Implications and Discussion

Research demonstrates the importance of English

teachers being avid readers, yet English teachers

oftentimes struggle to prioritize reading in their

own lives (Commeyras & DeGroff, 1998; McKool &

Gespass, 2009; Merga, 2016). The English teachers

in this study all valued the role and importance of

reading, and data revealed that when they regularly

participated in the act of personal reading it provided

tangible benefits for students in the classroom.

However, participants could also point to times in

their lives when they did not read, and they often

cited that their professional responsibilities related

to being English teachers caused them to have less

time for personal reading.

This study confirms that English teachers’

professional responsibilities often impede their

personal reading lives due to lack of time (Carroll &

Simmons, 2009). Therefore, it becomes necessary for

English teachers to resituate and prioritize the role

of personal reading in their personal and professional

lives. The findings in this study corroborates with

other research that suggests teachers who are avid

readers are more likely to utilize best practices in

their literacy instruction and more likely to engage

their students with reading (Applegate et al., 2014;

McKool & Gespass, 2009; Merga, 2016). These best

practices include: time given for independent reading,

read alouds, choice in text selection, dialogue about

reading, and reading goals (Beach et al., 2016; Jago,

2019; Kittle, 2013; Styslinger, 2017). An avid personal

reading life will allow teachers to more effectively

engage in these best practices. For instance, they

will be better equipped to offer recommendations

for independent reading, and to conduct read alouds

with a wider range of texts, and to demonstrate how

to go about making and achieving personal reading

goals, and to build time in the schedule for in-class

reading for both students and teachers (Fisher, 2004).

More generally, the fostering and encouragement

of strong personal reading lives can lead teachers

and students to a more diverse view of reading that

involves more acceptance of a wider range of authors

and characters as well as working towards de-

stigmatizing non-traditional texts. Text selection

provides a potential opportunity for teacher agency,

as teachers have control of what their students are

reading (Friese et al., 2008). Traditionally, the texts

teachers choose to teach in schools tend to privilege

Whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, and physical

and mental ability; even as the selection of texts

have expanded in recent years, they still privilege

White authors and White characters (Borsheim-

Black, Macaluso, Petrone, 2014; Borsheim-Black,

2015). Comfort and familiarity hold significant

influence over text selection and canonicity (Brauer

& Clark, 2008; Stallworth et al., 2006), as research

demonstrates that English teachers tend to teach

what they are familiar with (Rush et al., 2013; Watkins

& Ostenson, 2015). That is to say, text selection tends

to be self-perpetuating, as students are taught that

these traditional texts are culturally important and

of high literary value, when these students become

teachers they in turn place importance on these same

texts (Eaglestone & Field, 2016). Organizations

such as #DisruptTexts have been formed in order to

“challenge the traditional canon in order to create

a more inclusive, representative, and equitable

language arts curriculum that our students deserve”

(Ebarvia, 2021). Newvine and Fleming (2021) suggest

teachers begin or continue to read more texts by

Black and Indigenous People of Color. My study

Matthew Sroka

70 LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021

supports this suggestion as I argue that to begin to

challenge these text selection norms, teachers need

to foster active personal reading lives that allow

them to continuously explore new and diverse texts.

As teachers become more familiar with a variety

of texts, they can both bring these texts in the

classroom directly through instruction or indirectly

through book talks or recommendations to students.

This can lead English teachers to make pedagogical

and curriculum decisions that allow students to be

exposed to a wide range of texts from a multitude a

viewpoints (Styslinger, 2017).

Conclusion

This study provides a window into the reading

lives of five thoughtful in-service English teachers

who value reading in their lives and the lives of their

students. Understanding the reading lives, identities,

and histories of in-service English teachers provides

insight into the alignment and tensions that occur

among reading habits, reading beliefs, and teaching

practices. Though all participants valued the role of

personal reading in their lives and recognized its

importance personally and professionally, they still

struggled at times to read in their personal lives.

These struggles often were the results of personal and

professional pressures that felt more immediate than

their desire to read. Yet, this study also demonstrates

that there are methods to improve reading habits

and behaviors through encouraging positive reading

experiences. Importantly, this study emphasizes the

importance of English teachers having strong personal

reading lives and calls teachers to resituate how they

position personal reading in their professional and

personal life. A strong personal reading life can

potentially lead to changes in the classroom from

best practices to text selection to the role of reading

in our students’ lives.

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Matthew Sroka

72 LAJM, Fall/Winter 2021

Matthew Sroka is a high school

English teacher on the Eastern Shore

of Maryland at Queen Anne’s County

High School. A recent graduate from

Salisbury University’s Ed.D. program in

Contemporary Curriculum Theory and

Instruction: Literacy, his research interests include the

reading habits and identities of English teachers.

Challenges to Fostering Strong Personal Reading Lives and Why it Matters