| This study explored the effects of scaffolding multicultural short stories on students' comprehension and attitudes. The study focused on the Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE), an instructional framework for creating before-, during-, and after-reading activities to help students comprehend, learn from, and appreciate individual reading selections.; The study was conducted with 121 seventh grade students and investigated whether SREs could improve (a) their basic understanding of multicultural stories, (b) the inferences they make, (c) their involvement in and enthusiasm toward the stories, (d) their willingness to read additional stories on the cultures depicted, and (e) their attitudes toward the cultures depicted. Students read four short stories from American Dragons, two with SREs and two without. Data were scores on multiple-choice and short-answer tests, responses to Likert-scale items, and answers to open-ended questions from questionnaires and interviews.; On total multiple-choice questions, students scored significantly higher with the SREs than without them. The treatment was effective for both stronger and weaker readers, for factual questions on three of the stories, and for inferential questions on all four stories. On short-answer questions, students scored higher with the SREs on all four stories. The differences between the two treatment groups were significant for three of the stories. Additionally, the treatment was effective for both stronger and weaker readers.; Results on the attitude measure provide support for the value of SREs in increasing students' involvement and enthusiasm toward reading multicultural short stories. With respect to willingness to read additional stories on the same culture, results on the Likert-scale items were mixed. Results on the open-ended interview question, however, were positive. When students were asked directly if the activities will encourage them to read other stories about people from a culture different from their own, one hundred percent of the students interviewed answered "Yes." With respect to students' attitudes toward an unfamiliar culture, results from both the Likert-scale items and the interview questions provide support for the value of SREs in helping students develop positive attitudes.; Based on the evidence, SREs can be an option for teachers as they incorporate multicultural literature in the curriculum. |
