Planet Isis: the Gender Specific Reception of a Youth Book

Abstract

In this article, I report on an action research project aimed at facilitating competent readings for pupils (11)(12)(13). I anticipated that these pupils would be able to compare the reality of a literary work with their own construction of reality, ascertain how they construct their own reality, and determine what the literary work contributes to this construction of knowledge. The project is based upon the assumption that Ôliterature' is broad, and reaches beyond the traditional notions of canon. The teacher facilitates the reading/learning/construction processes through varied instructional methods that appear to be productive. The results suggest that in carrying out their tasks, the pupils often showed more interest in aspects of performing assignments than in dealing with content topics. Gender affects the ways pupils read: boys* appear to read and (re)construct differently from girls.