In this chapter we think about ways of encouraging our students to enjoy literature by themselves by making use of a self-access literature centre. Setting up a literature self-access centre requires planning and resources, the second of which may be in fairly short supply. But even with fairly limited resources it may be possible, with imagination and initiative, to establish a centre of some kind. We begin this chapter by describing a self-access centre and then listing some of the reasons for establishing one. In the rest of the chapter we consider ways in which a centre can be set up and how we can encourage our students to use it.

You will find that Sections 9.3 and 9.4 are best completed through role-playing with colleagues. However, if you are working through this book on your own, then reading these sections should still help you to think about some of the issues and problems involved in setting up a literature reading centre.

What is a literature self-access centre?

A literature self-access centre is a library or small collection of texts for students to read on their own with minimal supervision. The reading can be done either in class time or for homework. The self-access centre could consist of:

1. – literary texts such as novels, plays, short stories, anthologies of poetry and/or graded readers in a school library, from which students are encouraged to borrow on a regular basis

2. – a box or file of literary extracts, short stories and poems kept in the classroom and from which students select and borrow texts

3. […]