Top Ten Texts: A Survey of Commonly-Taught KS3 Class Readers

Literature is a key element of the English curriculum. Exciting, enriching, enlightening and often challenging, literature can play a significant role in how learners engage with English and with the wider world. It follows that if we want to give them opportunities to engage in a diverse world – one that values and celebrates difference and equality in all their forms – we should provide literature that echoes and reflects those aspirations. However, a research project currently being undertaken by researchers from six universities in Wales and South West England, supported by a research grant from UKLA, indicates that the literature experienced at Key Stage 3 does anything but.