My name is Matthew Chinique and I'm an English Secondary Education major! I like dogs, running, and video games, but most importantly, I'm a lifelong lover of literature! My favorite thing about English education is that everyone has their own way of reading a text, and how interpretations of and approaches to literature vary from person to person.  For example, I'm the kind of person who prefers physical books, but never wants to spend the money on them, so I often end up downloading books to read online. I have friends who swear by the physical book and can not even fathom how I read novels on a screen, yet I have other friends who rely on ebooks much more than I do. Recently, I have become a lot more interested in how students and teachers handle the debate of physical books versus electronic books in the classroom, from elementary school all the way to higher education. The goal of this project is to outline the nuances of this issue and how to pedagogically approach it in a way that still prioritizes student needs and freedoms.

There is a general trend in many studies demonstrating that children who read on paper perform better on reading assessments. While this might lead to a rudimentary conclusion that physical books are always better, the issue is so much more dynamic than that. This particular article focuses on a study carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (or OECD), which clarified that "while disadvantaged students are catching up in terms of access to digital resources, their access to cultural capital like paper books at home has diminished". Not everyone has the same access to physical books, so if the advantage outlined by these studies holds true, a lack of access to paper books leads to a possible deficit in learning opportunities and educational capabilities. It is critical to understand this concept as one is teaching English literature, because not every student is going to have the same level of access or the same reading ability. Like everything in literature, it will vary. By keeping these concepts in mind, teachers can become more observant toward the reading needs and habits of their students, and create a learning environment that can cater to different reading abilities and strategies.

Sites that offer free downloads of various texts (like Library Genesis or Z-library) are incredibly popular, especially among university students. A 2013 article names "forced adoption" as one of the reasons students reach for an electronic text instead of a physical one. While students overall preferred having the physical book, but only have access to the ebook, they will gravitate to the ebook, even when they dislike certain features of the electronic format. This raises a question of necessity and access in the classroom. If a student needs a book and only one format is offered to them, that is an instant limit on how they want to process that text. Whether the student prefers the physical text or the ebook, once one option is gone, they are not given access to a specific learning style. Teachers and classrooms need to be shaped with these needs and limitations in mind, and have opportunities for students to read in a way that works for them, rather than forcing them to adapt to whatever is available.

It is incredibly important to give students a voice in the kind of instruction they receive, and this extends to the way that English literature is taught to students. A 2021 article examining students in Bangladesh looked at their learning preferences in a (somewhat) post-pandemic learning environment, and found that students still generally prefer physical texts and teaching practices. The findings suggest that when online instruction is necessary, it might be better saved for shorter narrative formats, like short stories of poetry. A third of the students found electronic educational practices effective for novels, with that percentage dropping for dramatic readings like plays. Looking at these reports makes it increasingly clear that educators need to have an awareness of what works for their students. They can find what readings might be better suited to an electronic format, and where students might need to be working with a physical text instead. Perhaps the small article can be posted online for students to read, but everyone should have a paperback copy of the novel. And when there are limitations on what is available to students, teachers have to be aware of these differences, and know how to pivot their learning styles to prevent pedagogical practices from stagnating.

Both ebooks and paper books can still work for students. A 2019 article exploring ebook usage in classrooms in which English is taught as a foreign language, argues that "The high- and medium-proficiency students were relatively unaffected by the use of different materials". For teaching reading and writing, ebooks might not make a difference for students who are proficient in English. That being said, these resources can be much more effective for multilingual learners. Ebooks might have built in tools like definitions, annotation tools, and searchability that make them more accessible for students that may be struggling or considered "low-profiency".  The research demonstrates a need for diverse teaching practices, because technology alone is not enough to compensate for different educational needs. In the classroom, teachers should know how to point students to these tools available, and generate a learning environment that includes, but does not solely lean on these extra technological abilities. 

A lot of this research has pointed to the advantage of using electronic texts and textual navigation tools in moderation. This article from 2017 advocates not for the replacement of physical books with ebooks, but rather, having the two work in concert with one another.  The study looked at engagement and interaction levels as students worked with each kind of text, and found that electronic texts have a lot of supplementary abilities in the classroom. As students read both at home and in school, they might become more acclimated to certain practices, like pointing to things in the book, or being able to zoom in on the text. The article points to a larger idea that these supplements should be used to enhance a child's learning and reading experience rather than limiting it. Children have many different ways of developing literacy skills, and to give their students the greatest opportunities, teachers should be able to expose their students to these different practices. When a teacher has a greater feel and understanding for the needs of their students, they have a greater ability to pick out which teaching strategies can best serve their students.