Teaching Literature to Adolescents
Designed to introduce prospective English teachers to current methods of teaching literature in middle and high school classrooms, this popular textbook explores a variety of innovative approaches that incorporate reading, writing, drama, talk, and media production. It promotes the teaching of literature through: • • • • • • • • •
organizing the literature curriculum around topics, themes, or issues integrating quality young adult literature into the curriculum focusing on students who have difficulty succeeding in literature classes infusing multicultural literature into the high school literature canon broadening critical perspectives employed in analyzing texts integrating digital literature and media texts using drama as a tool for enhancing understanding of texts employing discussion of and writing about literature evaluating students based on the depth and quality of their responses
Each chapter is organized around specific questions that English educators often hear in working with preservice teachers. The text engages readers in considering the authentic dilemmas and issues facing literature teachers through inquiry-based responses to authentic case narratives. A companion website, www.teachingliterature.pbworks.com, provides resources and enrichment activities, inviting teachers to consider important issues in the context of their own current or future classrooms.
NEW IN THE SECOND EDITION • • • •
More attention to the use of digital texts from use of online literature to digital storytelling to uses of online discussion and writing tools incorporated throughout New chapter on teaching young adult literature New chapter on teaching reading strategies that are essential to interpreting literature More references to examples of teaching multicultural literature
Richard Beach is Professor of English Education, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Deborah Appleman is the Hollis L. Caswell Professor and chair of educational studies and director of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College. Susan Hynds is Professor Emerita of English Education, Syracuse University. Jeffrey Wilhelm is Professor of English Education, Boise State University.
Teaching Literature to Adolescents SECOND EDITION
Richard Beach University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Deborah Appleman Carleton College
Susan Hynds Syracuse University
Jeffrey Wilhelm Boise State University
First published 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. This edition published 2011 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2006 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. © 2011 Taylor & Francis The right of Richard Beach, Deborah Appleman, Susan Hynds, and Jeffrey Wilhelm to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Holmes, Thom. Teaching literature to adolescents / Richard Beach . . . [et al.]. —2nd ed. p. cm. 1. Literature—Study and teaching (Secondary)—United States. I. Beach, Richard. PN70.T34 2010 807.1’273—dc22 2010018463 ISBN 0-203-84003-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 13: 978–0–415–87515–8 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–87516–5 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–84003–0 (ebk)
Brief Table of Contents
About the Authors Preface
Part I
Why Teach Literature?
1 What Does It Mean to Teach Literature to Adolescents? 2 Teaching Literature With Adolescents In Mind: Who Are My Students? Part II
What Literatures Are We Teaching?
xi xii
1 3 18 37
3 Planning and Organizing Literature Instruction: How Do I Decide What to Teach?
39
4 Teaching the Classics: Do I Have to Teach the Canon, and If So, How Do I Do It?
61
5 Teaching Contemporary Young Adult Literature: How Do I Teach What My Students Are Reading?
77
6 Media Makers and Media Readers: Teaching Analysis and Production of Media
96
Part III How Do We Engage Students With Literature?
115
7 How Do I Help Students Understand What They Are Reading?
117
8 Teaching Literary Genres: How Do I Engage Students in Reading Different Kinds of Literature?
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9 Multiple Perspectives to Engage Students in Literature: What Are Different Ways of Seeing?
151
10 Using Drama Strategies to Foster Interpretation: How Do I Get My Students to Participate in Textual Worlds
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11 Leading Discussions of Literature: How Do I Get Students to Talk About Literature?
184
12 Writing About Literature: How Do I Get Students to Write About Literature?
202
Part IV Where Do I Go From Here?
221
13 Evaluating and Assessing Students’ Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned?
223
14 Reflecting and Developing as a Literature Teacher: How Do I Grow as a Teacher?
242
References Index
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Detailed Table of Contents
About the Authors Preface
Part I
Why Teach Literature?
1 What Does it Mean to Teach Literature to Adolescents? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Molly’s Beliefs about Teaching Literature Different Theories of Teaching Literature The Why Teach Literature Shapes the What and the How Practices Constituting a Literature Curriculum Tools for Use in Literature Learning Molly’s Literature Instruction: Issues Related to Teaching Literature to Adolescents Portfolio Reflection 2 Teaching Literature With Adolescents In Mind: Who Are My Students? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Lily’s Identity as a Millennial Adolescent Meet the Millennials Getting Past the “Reading Sucks” Syndrome: Developing Motivation and Interest for Reading The Search for Self: Young Adult Literature and Identity Development Race, Identity, and Representation in the Literature Classroom The Multiple Identities of Adolescents/ce Exploding the Monocultural Mindset: Cultural Modeling in the Literature Classroom Taking Inventory: Funds of Knowledge in the Literature Classroom Creating a Classroom Environment: Making Room for Reading Multitextured Teaching: Organizing the Literature Curriculum in an Age of Multiliteracies Putting It All Together: Coming of Age in a New Age Portfolio Reflection
xi xii
1 3
18
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CONTENTS
Part II
What Literatures Are We Teaching?
3 Planning and Organizing Literature Instruction: How Do I Decide What to Teach? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Considering Different Factors in Planning Lessons Curriculum Goals for Teaching Literature The Planning Model (Questions for Planning Instruction) Designing Units Creating Units of Instruction: Melissa’s 9th Grade Unit on The House on Mango Street Portfolio Reflection 4 Teaching the Classics: Do I Have to Teach the Canon, and If So, How Do I Do It? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Teaching a Classic Novel: The Scarlet Letter The Enduring Nature of the Canon The Value of the Canon Approaches and Strategies to Teaching the Classics Lesson Planning Assessment Portfolio Reflection 5 Teaching Contemporary Young Adult Literature: How Do I Teach What My Students Are Reading? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Millennial Teens and Contemporary Young Adult Literature The Recent Rise of Young Adult Literature What Exactly is Young Adult Literature, and Why isn’t it in the Book Room? On Texts and Teaching: Young Adult Literature as Cultural Ideal or Cultural Access? Young Adult Literature in the Millennium: What Teens Read, What Teachers Teach If it’s Not in the Book Room, Where Can I find it? Locating Quality Young Adult Literature How do I Possibly Choose? Developing Selection Criteria What Can I Do (or Should I Avoid) with the Anthology? Using What’s in the Book Room What if I Get into Trouble? Censorship and the Complications of Choice Portfolio Reflection 6 Media Makers and Media Readers: Teaching Analysis and Production of Media Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Justifying Media/Digital Literacy Instruction in a Traditional English Curriculum Justifying a Media Literacy Curriculum Accessing and Responding to Online Literature
37 39
61
77
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CONTENTS
Responding to and Creating Digital Texts Studying and Creating Film Adaptations of Literature Critical Analysis of Media Representations Studying Film/Television Genres Studying Audiences’ Construction of Media Texts Portfolio Reflection
Part III How Do We Engage Students With Literature? 7 How Do I Help Students Understand What They Are Reading? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Getting Started: The Pre-Requisites to Helping Students Navigate Texts: The Case of 9th Grade Teacher Jamie Heans Helping Students Acquire General Reading and Literary Response Strategies Working with “Struggling” Readers Portfolio Reflection 8 Teaching Literary Genres: How Do I Engage Students in Reading Different Kinds of Literature? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Creating Facebook Profiles for Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird Helping Students Acquire Knowledge of Genre Conventions Responding to Poetry Responding to Narratives Responding to Fables/Myths Responding to Comics/Graphic Novels Portfolio Reflection 9 Multiple Perspectives to Engage Students in Literature: What Are Different Ways of Seeing? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Applying Different Critical Perspectives to To Kill a Mockingbird Reading Texts, Reading the World Preparing to Teach Multiple Perspectives A Brief Synopsis of Some Major Theories Getting Your Class Started Lesson Planning Portfolio Reflection 10 Using Drama Strategies to Foster Interpretation: How Do I Get My Students to Participate in Textual Worlds? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: How Enactment Teaches Reading Strategies Drama/Enactment Strategies and Transactional Reading The Power and Flexibility of Drama Drama, Values, Feelings, and Cultural Understanding Implementing Drama Activities Reflection on Participation in Drama Activities Portfolio Reflection
115 117
129
151
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11 Leading Discussions of Literature: How Do I Get Students to Talk About Literature? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Jessica’s Reflection on Her Students’ Discussion of “The Bear” Leading Large-Group Discussions Leading Small Group and Book Club Discussions Leading Online Discussions Portfolio Reflection 12 Writing About Literature: How Do I Get Students to Write About Literature? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Differences in Kinds of Writing about Literature Limitations of “List and Gist” Writing about Literature Informal Writing Tools Collaboratively Sharing Knowledge about Texts Formal Writing about Literature Understanding Texts through Writing Texts Portfolio Reflection
Part IV Where Do I Go From Here? 13 Evaluating and Assessing Students’ Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Coping with Issues of Assessment Defining What You Value in Literature Instruction Alternatives to “Correct Answer” Tests Using Feedback to Foster Students’ Revision and Perspective-taking Providing Students with Criteria in Writing Assignments Determining Student Learning in your Classroom Devising Literature Tests and Assessments Using Portfolios to Evaluate Growth and Reflection Portfolio Review 14 Reflecting and Developing as a Literature Teacher: How Do I Grow as a Teacher? Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Chris Johnson’s Reflections on Teaching Catcher in the Rye Teacher Reflection and Action Research Tools for Reflection Engaging in Professional Development Portfolio Reflection References Index
184
202
221 223
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About the Authors
Richard Beach is Professor of English Education, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is author of Teachingmedialiteracy.com: A Web-based Guide to Links and Activities (Teachers College Press, 2007) and co-author of High School Students’ Competing Social Worlds: Negotiating Identities And Allegiances Through Responding To Multicultural Literature (Routledge, 2008); Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and Other Digital Tools (Christopher-Gordon, 2009); and Literacy Tools in the Classroom: Teaching Through Critical Inquiry, Grades 5–12 (Teachers College Press, 2010). He assumes the presidency of the Literacy Research Association in 2012. Deborah Appleman is the Hollis L. Caswell Professor and chair of educational studies and director of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College. She is the author of Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents (Teachers College Press, 2009) and Reading for Themselves: How to Transform Adolescents into Lifelong Readers Through Out-of-Class Book Clubs (Heinemann, 2006), and the co-editor of Braided Lives: An Anthology of Multicultural American Writing (Minnesota Humanities Commission, 1991). She has also produced an anthology by incarcerated writers entitled From the Inside Out: Letters to Young Men and other Writings; Poetry and Prose from Prison (Student Press Initiative, 2009). Professor Appleman works frequently with high school teachers and students throughout the country. Susan Hynds is Professor Emerita of English Education at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. She is author of several books and other publications, including Making Connections: Language and Learning in the Classroom (Christopher Gordon, 1994), On the Brink: Negotiating Literature and Life with Adolescents (Teachers College Press, 1997) (winner of the 1998 Richard A. Meade award for outstanding research and scholarship in English education), and Language Arts and Literacy in the Middle Grades: Planning, Teaching and Assessing (Finders & Hynds, 2007, Pearson). Jeffrey Wilhelm is Professor of English Education, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho. He is the author of “You Gotta BE the Book”: Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading With Adolescents (Teachers College Press, 2008), winner of the NCTE Promising Research Award, co-author of “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys”: Literacy In The Lives Of Young Men (Heinemann, 2003), winner of the David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in English Education, as well as author or editor of 16 other books about literacy and literacy teaching.
Preface Welcome to the revised, 2nd edition of Teaching Literature to Adolescents, a book designed to provide preservice English teachers with current methods of teaching literature to middle and high school students. These methods are based on a social constructivist/sociocultural theory of learning that emphasizes the value of engaging students with alternative perspectives portrayed in literature, perspective-taking that is extended through writing, talk, and drama activities involved in responding to literature. This book promotes the teaching of literature through the following. •
• •
•
•
• • •
•
Organizing the literature curriculum around topics, themes, or issues, with a particular focus on inquiry instruction related to exploring students’ own questions, issues, or concerns, around, for example, the portrayal of power in literature. Integrating quality young adult literature into the curriculum, particularly at the middleschool level, to foster student engagement with reading. Focusing on students who have difficulty succeeding in literature classes due to reading difficulties, disparities between school and home cultures, attitudes towards school/English, or lack of engagement with assigned texts or response activities. Infusing multi-cultural literature into the largely white, male, Western high school literature canon and an increased focus on how writers portray race, class, and gender differences. Broadening critical perspectives employed in analyzing texts to include not only readerresponse approaches, but also critical analysis of race, class, and gender in literature and how students’ own stances shape their construction of text meaning. Integrating digital literature and media texts so that students are critically responding to and producing digital literature and media texts. Using drama as a tool for enhancing understanding of texts in which students interpret texts through assuming characters’ roles and perspectives. Employing discussion of and writing about literature through informal and formal writing tools, as well as writing stories, poems, and drama to help students understand literature through creating it. Evaluating students based on the depth and quality of their responses through analysis of their talk, writing, or e-portfolio materials.
Since the first edition was published in 2006, one of the major developments in teaching English has been the increased use of digital texts from use of online literature to digital storytelling to uses of online discussion and writing tools, developments that we have incorporated throughout this revised edition. This revised edition includes a totally new chapter on teaching young adult literature, essential background knowledge
PREFACE
for preservice teachers working with middle or junior high students. And, given the increased attention on students with difficulties in reading, we have added a new chapter that focuses on teaching reading strategies essential to interpreting literature. The revised edition adds more references to examples of teaching multicultural literature given the need to broaden the literature curriculum to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population.
ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK This book is organized around four basic parts. The first part, Why Teach Literature?, begins with a discussion of the larger purposes and goals for teaching literature (Chapter 1), followed by a discussion of the need to consider individual differences in working with adolescents (Chapter 2). The second part, What Literatures Are We Teaching?, begins with a chapter on strategies for planning literature instruction according to learning objectives related to acquiring interpretive strategies or critical approaches; selecting drama, talk, or writing tools; sequencing tasks; and evaluating learning (Chapter 3). The next chapter describes methods for teaching “classic” literary texts associated with the high school literature canon (Chapter 4), followed by a new additional chapter to this edition on teaching young adult literature as well as issues of censorship (Chapter 5). Given the increasing importance of digital forms of literature and media/video as “texts,” Chapter 6 focused on methods of teaching critical analysis of media as well as digital media production. The third part, How Do We Engage Students With Literature?, begins with Chapter 7 on teaching reading strategies, another new addition to the revised edition, that focuses on assisting students who may have difficulty with reading. Given the fact that readers’ strategies vary according to different genres, Chapter 8 describes ways of engaging students with poetry, narratives, fables/myths, and comics/graphic novels. Chapter 9 discusses ways to help students apply different critical approaches for analyzing texts. Subsequent chapters describe uses of various drama activities (Chapter 10), discussions (Chapter 11), and writing (Chapter 12) for engaging students with literature. The final, fourth part, Where Do I Go From Here?, describes ways of evaluating and assessing learning of literature (Chapter 13). The final Chapter 14 suggests ways of reflecting on teaching and engaging in professional development.
ORGANIZATION OF EACH CHAPTER In this book, we advocate an inquiry-based approach for teaching literature through organizing instruction around question-asking and challenging status quo practices. To practice what we preach, each of the book chapters is organized around a specific question, for example, How do I decide what to teach, How can I help students read better, or How do I get them to write about literature? Rather than simply provide a theoretical framework and a set of methods, we also want to engage preservice teachers with opportunities for collaborative, critical inquiry about teachers coping with issues associated with teaching literature. Each chapter therefore begins with a case narrative of a teacher coping with a particular issue related to teaching literature that can lead to discussions in methods classes about these narratives, as well as sharing of related experiences in preservice teachers’ own practicum teaching experience. Each chapter then ends with a “portfolio reflection” activity designed to encourage preservice teachers to contribute material to a teacher e-portfolio employed in a teacher education program for reflecting on what they are learning in a program.
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PREFACE
TEXTBOOK MATERIAL ON THE TEACHING LITERATURE WEBSITE This book also has an accompanying Teaching Literature website at http://teaching literature.pbworks.com. This website contains recommended readings, resources, and activities, as well as links to websites and PowerPoint presentations. One of the advantages of this site is that the information in it will be continually updated with new links, resources, and books. This site is organized according to two different categories—materials related to specific chapters and materials related to generic categories that cut across different chapters.
Chapter Links For each of the chapters listed on the right sidebar of the home page, there are: • • •
links to sites related to the topics identified within each of the chapters activities for use as assignments in your methods course or as teaching activities in your own teaching further readings that include relatively current books and articles on topics addressed in the chapter.
Generic Links For each of the generic topics also on the right sidebar, there are activities, further readings, web links, lists of literary texts, units, and PowerPoint presentations related to the following generic categories: 16th–19th Century Literature, 20th–21st Century Literature, Multicultural Literature, Types of Literature, Ways of Responding, Media and Technology, Curriculum and Assessment, Professional Development, Activities, and Further Reading. Some of the same material appears in both the chapters and the generic categories.
Contributing to the Site We also would like to invite instructors and students to contribute their own material to this site—units, lessons, links, etc., material that will need to be approved by Richard Beach for inclusion on the site. You can contribute material in two different ways. You can access the site, http://teachingliterature.pbworks.com, to add material to chapter/generic categories in the relevant category on this wiki. To add material to this wiki, you can request access to the wiki or you can contact Richard at
[email protected] and he will approve you as a contributor to the wiki. You can also send material directly to Richard at
[email protected] and he will add this material to the site. We wish to acknowledge the invaluable support and guidance of our editor, Naomi Silverman, our developmental editor, Adee Braun, and our production editor, Sarah Stone. We also wish to thank Rick Filipkowski for his work on the website, John Schmit for his assistance in revising chapters, and Emily Wright Scholl and Elizabeth Hynds Scharoun for their contributions to Chapter 2.
PART I
Why Teach Literature?
CHAPTER 1
What Does It Mean to Teach Literature to Adolescents? Case Narrative: Molly’s Beliefs about Teaching Literature Different Theories of Teaching Literature The Why Teach Literature Shapes the What and the How Practices Constituting a Literature Curriculum Tools for Use in Literature Learning Molly’s Literature Instruction: Issues Related to Teaching Literature to Adolescents
MOLLY’S BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING LITERATURE Molly’s been teaching a long time, over twenty years. She’s taught in both urban and suburban schools. She’s taught remedial reading and Advanced Placement American Literature, and everything in between. She is such an experienced teacher that you’d think by now she had her lesson plans in the bag—or at least safely ensconced in a file folder somewhere. Although we often want to believe that teaching becomes automatic over time, Molly knows that each year she must begin anew, considering the vast array of needs, experiences, and abilities in her classroom. She’s taught nearly every major novel one could think of and has an encyclopedic list of student-tested and approved short stories. Molly teaches a mix of both classic and contemporary texts. “I know that a lot of my curriculum time will be taken up with the classics, she says. The school district expects it, the parents expect it, even the kids expect it. And I like teaching the classics too. But not because of what they are, because of all the cool things kids and I can discover with them. I guess, in the end, the point for me isn’t what texts I teach; it’s what kids can learn from reading them, writing about them and discussing them. I love thinking about that more than about the books themselves.” Molly reads voraciously. Nothing is more fun for her than finding new books to teach. With the help of the school librarian, Molly conducts a before-school book club that has served as almost a pilot program for
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
4
WHY TEACH LITERATURE?
teaching contemporary novels (Appleman, 2006). From that book club, some of the following texts have made it into her classroom: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2007), The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2004), Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2004), Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2007), The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002), Peace Like A River by Leif Enger (2002), and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (2002). Yet when Molly asks herself “how do I decide what literature to teach?” her answer is always “it depends entirely on who my students are.” For example, Molly is currently preparing to teach a class called “Enriched American Literature.” One might think that certain aspects of planning what to teach are simply predetermined by the kind of class it is—Molly knows she’ll use American literature. She also is invited to assume something about the students’ ability levels since the class is labeled “enriched”. But let’s hear what Molly has to say as she begins to think through her planning: This Enriched American Literature class is composed of 22 students aged 16 and 17. In our high school, students enroll in “enriched” classes by student and parent selection. Approximately 25% of the junior class selects “enriched” English. In this particular class there are 18 girls and 4 boys, reflecting the common imbalance between males and females in high-level English classes in our school, and nationwide. I keep this in mind as I am selecting texts and activities and navigating class discussions, but it is an uphill battle. There are three students of color; English is not the first language of one student. All students expect to go on to college and see themselves as capable and committed students. They are not cynical or disenchanted or discouraged. One of the less typical students is an extremely intelligent boy who is disorganized, preoccupied with his computer interests, and has turned in little work assigned outside of class first quarter. He’s become interested in the books we’ve been reading, and actually began completing work. He was so surprised at his success it has expanded his involvement in class discussions. The more difficult and abstract the work becomes, the more engaged he is. Two students don’t participate in discussions unless invited. Even their parents agree they are capable introverts who contribute when asked; I make sure each of them says something every day of discussion. The class is beginning to jell after the usual mixing up of classes at semester time. They like each other and genuinely want to find out what their classmates think about the topic at hand. They have settled into the higher expectations of junior year and are motivated to do their best work, partially to satisfy colleges. Students expect interesting and challenging work in this class, and they can be witty and playful in their work.
As you can see, this is a nuanced and knowledgeable appraisal of students. Regardless of what your theoretical goals for the teaching of literature might be, those goals need to be shaped by your knowledge of the students: we encourage you to keep in mind, as well, the size and gender make-up of the class; the cultural, linguistic and ethnic background of students; the student ability level and motivation; and the previous coursework students bring to the class. There are several factors that Molly, and all teachers of literature must consider as they plan their course of study for their students. Some of the content and skills goals
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
for Molly’s course are determined by the school district and by state standards, which all high school courses must fulfill. In her words, Within those parameters I include literature from a wide range of time periods, races, classes, genres, perspectives, and themes. Writing, the writing process, and oral communication are integrated into all of the students’ work. In addition, my commitment to integrating higher order thinking skills into students’ learning is at the center of my planning and instruction. Striving to challenge my students and extend their reading and analytical skills, I include literary theory as one of the tools through which students can comprehend literature, understand their own thinking, and understand their world.
Here Molly acknowledges that teachers usually work within systems of goals and expectations larger than their own. Molly has to consider school and district curricula as well as mandated state standards. Molly also wants to choose literature that is varied and textured, representing a wide range of student experience. Therefore, even though the course is called American Literature, Molly resists relying solely on predictable canonical texts. In addition to thinking about texts and the context of the curriculum, Molly has another core concern as she asks herself what literature she should teach. Simply put, she considers what she wants students to learn. But for Molly the answer to that question is not necessarily about the content of the curriculum; rather, it’s the intellectual and interpretative practices she wants her students to be able to acquire through literature. Molly balances her knowledge of literature, knowledge of students, curricular goals, and political realities all into her well-developed theory of teaching literature. She comments: In the end, as much as I love literature, it’s a means to end, not an end in itself. My goals as a teacher of literature are to help kids become critical thinkers, good writers, and astute readers. And I know that with the right combination of texts, activities and assessments, I can do just that.
What does it mean to teach literature? You may have a good sense of what it means to be a student of literature, but now that you’re going to be on the other side of the desk, you are now having to think about how to teach literature—selecting texts, planning response activities and units, leading discussions, formulating writing assignments, evaluating students’ interpretations, etc. Underlying all of these choices are your beliefs and attitudes about the larger purpose and value for teaching literature—why you’re doing what you are doing. You will ultimately need to formulate your own sense of purpose and values as a means of making decisions about what kinds of texts you select, how you will foster student participation, the role you adopt in the classroom, what criteria you employ in evaluating students, and how you describe your textual choices and curricular approach to your students, the school, parents, and to yourself. Your beliefs about what kinds of literature to teach and why are the very first things we want you to think about as you begin this book as well as your journey to becoming a teacher of literature. What do you perceive as some of Molly’s decisions related to teaching literature? What might be some of Molly’s beliefs shaping those decisions? Are those beliefs consistent with or different from your own beliefs about teaching literature?
5
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WHY TEACH LITERATURE?
DIFFERENT THEORIES OF TEACHING LITERATURE As you can see, Molly has a clear sense of purpose and a finely honed philosophy when it comes to the teaching of literature. Yet, hers is just one literature teacher’s perspective. The field of education in general, and of literacy education in particular, is politically and theoretically charged. Debates rage about how to best teach, what to teach, how to prove students have learned. Legislation, such as the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and many more local or state-level laws, have implicitly endorsed and mandated some ideas and theories over others. Often, such mandates seem to assume that everyone would agree on definitions of learning, ideas of what content and processes should be learned, and the best ways to assess learning. But nothing could be further from the truth. And nowhere are such issues more contested than in the areas of teaching reading and literature. Teaching is a theoretical act, and theories—whether explicitly or implicitly held— have powerful effects on what we do, how we do it, and how we determine if we are successful. In this book, we are going to stake a very clear theoretical position about teaching and learning, and about what constitutes a text—or “literature.” We also believe that as teachers, you should be clear about the beliefs you hold about the teaching of literature and how those beliefs inform your teaching. We believe that the theoretical positions we use to inform the teaching we will describe and champion in this book are the most powerful and effective ones. Our belief is based on our experience as learners, teachers, and researchers, and on our careful reading of the data about learning to read and respond to literature available in the research base. But we want to be clear that there are other theories—and in fact, a different theory is currently winning in both the legislative and practical arena of classroom teaching, a theory that privileges certain kinds of assessment and instruction. We believe that this is to the detriment of both teachers and learners. At any rate, we want to begin by outlining the three major learning theories at play in American schools and in current debates. We will then show how theories of learning to read, and of reading literature, map on to these three theories. As we do so, we will argue our claim for one of these theories. This is the theory that underlies the instructional practices we suggest throughout this book. Indeed, it is the theory that the authors of this book have come to embrace and that has enlivened our teaching. In thinking about different theories of learning literature, it is useful to consider three larger notions of learning that have shaped instruction in all subject matter areas for the past fifty years: transmission theories, student-centered theories, and practiceoriented theories (Beach & Myers, 2001; Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001).
Transmission Theories Most of us share a mental image of how the traditional English classroom is organized. All students are reading the same text, usually a novel. They are seated in straight rows, and the teacher is either reading to them or questioning them about their reading. Everything that goes on in the classroom revolves around the teacher as the all-knowing expert who imparts knowledge to students. Transmission theories frame learning in terms of acquiring facts and knowledge about literature—the characteristics of the short story or Romantic poetry—or critical concepts used to analyze literary text—the difference between metaphor and simile. The primary focus in terms of teaching is how to best impart knowledge to students assumed to be
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
empty vessels dutifully waiting to be filled up with the knowledge you provide them through lectures or presentations, what Freire (1973) refers to as the “banking model of education.” You then give students tests to determine if they can replicate what you taught them. One problem with this transmission model is that it focuses simply on a “knowing that” aspect of learning literature—whether students know that there is a difference between a first person and a third person point of view. Simply having knowledge about literature, for example—knowing the difference between a metaphor and a simile— doesn’t necessarily mean that a student knows how to insightfully interpret literature. The transmission model is reflected in literature curriculums in which the primary focus is on coverage of different literary periods, historical backgrounds, biographical information about authors, literary concepts, or genre characteristics, as reflected in literature textbooks. In her book Teaching Literature, Elaine Showalter (2002) notes that given the easy availability of many texts, teachers experience the need to have to cover all of literature. She challenges that need by noting that “obsession with coverage and content is one of the main barriers to good teaching . . . instead of aiming for comprehensive coverage, we have to think about what students need to read in order to establish a basis for further learning” (p. 13). Another limitation of the transmission model is that instruction revolves primarily around the teacher as the center of instruction. The “Direct Instruction” approach in teaching reading—teaching specific comprehension skills or strategies—often results in the teacher modeling specific skills or strategies designed to foster desired “correct answers.” Similarly, a “New Criticism” literary critical approach that assumes that the meaning is “in” the text, and that the teacher’s job is to model ways of teasing our specific meanings of figurative language used in the text without having to refer to authorial intent or one’s subjective experience, perpetuates a transmission model. All of this positions students to assume relatively passive, dependent roles. While you as teacher certainly play a central role in scaffolding and modeling ways of interpreting literature, students need to be more actively engaged in practicing responding to literature with peers but they will not have that opportunity if they are passively watching the teacher perform. And, the student is totally dependent on the teacher’s instruction; if the student doesn’t respond positively to the teacher or fails to keep up with instruction, then the student is at a disadvantage.
Student-centered Theory A second theory of learning derives from the Progressive Movement in education in the 1920s that challenged the teacher-centered model. Proponents of a student-centered theory of learning argue that students should be able to make their own choices for what and how they would learn. If students have choices, they are the more motivated to want to learn. For example, if students could choose whatever texts they wanted to study, they would then be more engaged with those texts than having to study assigned texts. While it is certainly important to provide students with choices and to be concerned about their motivation to learn, one problem with this theory is that it leaves the responsibility for learning up to the student, so if the student sinks or swims, that’s the fault of the student. This points to a larger limitation of this theory—that it fails to recognize that learning is inherently social—that we learn through participation in social contexts or communities.
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Socio-cultural Learning Theory A third theory of teaching is based on socio-cultural learning theory that posits that learning is primarily social. Based on the work of Lev Vygotsky (1978), it argues that we learn to acquire uses of certain practices and tools that serve certain purposes in social groups or communities. Through participation in these groups or communities, people acquire uses of these practices and tools that are then internalized and developed over time. Brazilian street children who are engaged in the practice of selling candy on the street learn to make complicated math calculations as a tool to help them succeed in the work (Lave, 1988). Over time, they become increasing effective at selling candy simply through engaging in that practice. Practices are ways of thinking, knowing, and being and knowing—for example, the practice of greeting someone. We may not be consciously aware of using them, yet we know that we’re deliberately employing certain practices to achieve certain objects of value in a social world. Students learn these practices not as isolated, autonomous participants but through participation in a joint, collective activity motivated by a purpose or object (Cole, 1996; Engestrom, 1987). Members of a soccer team learn the practices of “laying back on the ball” or “swarming the net” as collective activities designed to achieve the purpose of winning the game. The practices they acquire in the world of their soccer team transfers for use in other worlds. What is being transferred is the use of a practice across different contexts and worlds. Socio-cultural learning theory therefore emphasizes the importance of creating a social community that supports learning literature. As a literature teacher, you are socializing students into what could be called a literary community of practice reflected in the practices of a highly engaged literary book club (Edelsky, Smith, & Wolfe, 2002). In this community of practice, students assume the identities of careful readers who acquire various practices involved in interpreting and producing literature. Most secondary students are not familiar with what it means to be participants in this literary community of practice; they are still outsiders who need an opportunity to participate in an apprenticeship in such a community. Your job is to socialize them into membership into this community—to show them what it is like to be the kind of person who values participation in a literary community of practice. For example, one teacher, Karen Smith, continually provided her 5th/6th grade students with information about literature itself, for example, in studying a fantasy text, noting that “When you get into a fantasy like Tuck Everlasting a lot of people say that in order to get into it and enjoy it you have to do what they call suspend disbelief. You have to accept the fantasy world and then you buy into it and then you start believing” (Edelsky et al. 2002, pp. 21–22). Or, Karen engaged in “tourguiding”—giving highlights of her response practices in her “trip” with a text: “it’s kind of like that foreshadowing, where we know all along’’ (p. 23). She also engaged in “lifting the level” by validating students’ responses as being aligned with valued practices. After a student described how re-reading the prologue helped her understand the story, Karen noted, “so it almost sets a mood or a time, doesn’t it,” noting the value of the student’s re-reading and modeling the use of literary terminology. She also provided “support and empathy” for students in ways that positioned them as members of the same community through sharing her own difficulties in interpreting the text. After a student noted that she was confused by a certain episode, Karen noted, “that WAS a hard part, I kinda circled that part too” (p. 28). By acknowledging that she and the students shared the same challenges, she is implying that they are becoming members of the same community of practice, which values the work of literary analysis.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
Another central idea in socio-cultural learning theory is that learning occurs within certain developmental boundaries of what Lev Vygotsky (1978) called students’ zone of proximal development or ZPD. The ZPD refers to their developmental “zone” of sophistication within which students will be able to employ certain practices without undue struggling on their part given the current level, but still, by stretching to the upper level of the zone, improve on the use of their practices.
Modeling/Scaffolding Practices within Students’ ZPD To help students improve in their use of practices, you model or scaffold the uses of those practices by demonstrating your use of practices to achieve certain purposes. You then do a hand-over, letting students engage in the practice themselves with your assistance, employing an “I do, you watch; you try, I watch” sequence. In modeling or scaffolding practices, it is essential that you consider your students’ ZPD so that they will understand your modeling/scaffolding, while at the same time challenging them to grow and develop beyond their existing ZPD. In planning her 11th grade American Literature courses, which she teaches to three groups a year, Molly is continually thinking about her students’ ZPD: Since I can’t cover everything, I have to make choices about what central concepts and strategies of reading and interpreting literature are most important for my students to learn. I make this judgment based on several factors: what will motivate and engage my students, what is possible for them to learn, what is significant and usable in their current and future lives. I also want to make sure that they really learn what I decide to teach, so I consider carefully how I can devote the time and rigor to teaching them well enough so they will be able to move through their zones of proximal development and be transformed in their abilities to read, think, write and problem solve.
Middle-school versus High School Students In many states, your language arts licensure spans both middle and high school students, so it’s important that you understand the developmental characteristics of both levels of literacy learners. The ZPD also reflects differences in students’ developmental level. For those of you who plan to student teach at the middle-school level, your instruction will be based on the developmental abilities and interests of early-adolescents. Much of the “middle-school philosophy” revolves around addressing those abilities and interests as opposed to simply a focus on teaching academic subjects in preparation for high school—as was often the focus of the junior high school. In considering early-adolescents’ ZPD, you need to recognize that they may not as readily infer abstract themes or apply critical lenses to texts with the facility of high school students. On the other hand, you do not want to underestimate their ability to grapple with abstractions or lenses, assuming that you develop activities that engage students with the themes or lenses. The ZPD also influences your text selection. In working with middle-school students, you consider the fact that young-adult novels portray experiences and address themes in a manner consistent with early-adolescents’ thinking and interests. Early adolescents are not all that interested in complex psychological character motivations; they are interested in exploring alterative worlds—as reflected in their reading preferences for story-driven adventure, fantasy, mystery, or science fiction novels.
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Ability Ranges in a Classroom Determining your students’ ZPD may be a challenge when you have a wide range of different ability levels represented in one class—with some students who are having difficulty reading a text and others who, as avid readers, have little difficulty. You may therefore need to develop different kinds of activities—some that address the needs of your struggling readers and some that serve to challenge your avid readers.
Providing Choice Another central tenant of socio-cultural learning theory is the importance of engagement in learning (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). People are more likely to be engaged in an activity when they have some sense of ownership in or responsibility for planning and participating in that activity. In planning her units, Molly believes that students are more likely to be engaged if they have some choice about what they will study and the texts they will read. If students choose a particular topic or text for a classroom activity, they then have a sense of ownership and responsibility for completing an activity because they were part of planning that activity. In the socio-cultural theory of teaching, the primary focus is not simply on the teacher or on the student; the focus is on creating social activities or communities in which students acquire various practices and tools constituting learning literature. Student motivation and engagement with learning is no longer an individual matter, but now is a function of the quality of the activity or community created in the classroom. In summary, a transmission model of teaching literature focuses on imparting knowledge about literature to students. A student-centered model focuses on letting students respond to literature in terms of their own interests and needs. A socio-cultural model focuses on helping students acquire practices and tools through participation in social communities. (See Different theories of teaching literature on the website.)
THE WHY TEACH LITERATURE SHAPES THE WHAT AND THE HOW Each of these models value certain teaching techniques and roles over others. In your own teaching, you will continually be making decisions about how to best foster student learning. Those decisions are based on what you value in terms of “what works.” And, what you believe “works” reflects your preferred teaching model and what you think is important in teaching literature—the larger purposes and goals for teaching literature. In other words, our decisions reflect our theoretical orientation and beliefs about the ultimate purpose for teaching literature. For example, in a study of two high school literature teachers working in the same department in a small-town in New Mexico, Don Zancanella (1998) found that they subscribed to quite different reasons for teaching literature, reasons that shaped what they taught and how they taught. One teacher, who is also the department chair, teaches an 11th grade American Literature course that focuses on authors such as Hawthorne, Twain, and Fitzgerald. Students write in-class essays and devote a lot of time preparing for college admissions tests such as the SATs and ACTs. When asked to provide a rationale for what she does in her class, the teacher noted: Knowing that most students are going to have to have some kind of post-secondary instruction, whatever they decide to do—they’re going to have to be able to do at least short
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
research papers—so they’re going to have to be able to do that correctly. They should be able to write an opinion paper. And they need a sound vocabulary. In fact, they need a good vocabulary to do well at all on SATs or ACTs. These are some of our department’s aims. (p. 103)
This teacher’s purposes revolve primarily around preparing students for college— consistent with what she perceives to be the needs of the largely White, middle-class students in her American Literature course. In contrast, another teacher teaches a course, Southwest Literature and Creative Writing, that attracts a more diverse population. In this course, students read authors such as Rudolpho Anaya, Jimmy Baca, Denise Chavez, M. Scott Momaday, and Leslie Silko. They devote a lot of time to writing personal narratives, poetry, and fictions related to what they are reading. In class, students write about and discuss the texts in small groups based on questions that encourage them to make connections between the text and their own cultural backgrounds and experiences. This teacher describes his purposes for his instruction: I want them to see that they have things to write about. Most of the authors we read have backgrounds very similar to theirs and that’s evident in the literature itself. So it shows the students that they have something to say . . . I want them to have some sense that the world of books and of people in books have something to do with them. I don’t think a lot of kids really feel that very clearly or deeply. (pp. 100–101)
This teacher has a very different purpose for teaching literature. He wants his students, many of whom are Latino and Native American, to perceive some relationship between their lives and the literature they are reading. This opportunity to connect literature to our students’ lives is also one of the foundations of how many teachers approach the teaching of literature (Carey-Webb, 2001) and is one of the foundational principles of a reader response approach to teaching literature (see Chapter 9).
PRACTICES CONSTITUTING A LITERATURE CURRICULUM What then are the practices that are involved in teaching and learning literature? What follows are some approaches and strategies that can help you create the literature classroom that you envision.
Perspective-taking One of the central practices involved in learning literature, and one we emphasize in this book, is the ability to adopt different perspectives of characters, roles in a drama activity, peers, one’s audiences, teachers, and larger ideological or institutional perspectives. Adopting different perspectives is a challenge for adolescents who often assume that their perspective is the only perspective, what David Elkind (1998) described as “adolescent egocentricity.” They have difficulty recognizing that others may perceive the world differently than themselves. As a result, they assume that everyone’s continually watching them as if they were on stage, leading to self-consciousness about appearance and behavior. Part of perspective-taking involves experimenting with the uses of new social languages and voices (Gee, 1996). For example, in a drama activity, when a student takes on the role of a “mad scientist” based on a science fiction text, they are adopting a
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language of science and fantasy to construct that role. When students employ alternative, hypothetical, “what-if” languages portrayed in fantasy or science fiction literature, they begin to perceive their lived-worlds in a new and different light (Blackford, 2004). By adopting characters’ perspectives or roles in a drama activity, students assume the voices of others whose perspectives differ from their own in terms of race, class, gender, age, or historical period. They may adopt the perspective of Richie Perry, an AfricanAmerican from New York City, fighting in Vietnam as portrayed in Walter Dean Myers’ (2008) Fallen Angels, as Perry reflects on the first death of one of his platoon members: I wrote Mama a letter all about how Jenkins had got killed. Then I tore it up and decided not to tell her about it. It would only get her upset. Instead, I told her more about Peewee. I didn’t want to tell her about Jenkins for another reason. I didn’t know how I felt about it. In a way I was really sorry for Jenkins, but there was a small voice inside me that kept saying that I was glad that it wasn’t me that was killed. I didn’t want anybody to see me putting that in a letter. (p. 46).
In adopting Richie’s voice, a student is experiencing the perspective of someone who is both sensitive and fearful over being in a very dangerous world far away from his familiar home.
Constructing Social Worlds In responding to literature, students are constructing text worlds as social worlds. In constructing these worlds, they are defining the roles, norms, beliefs, traditions, and purposes constituting the meaning of characters’ actions based on their knowledge of the historical and cultural forces shaping a world (Beach & Myers, 2001; Beach, Haertling-Thein, & Parks, 2008). Given the popularity of computer games, such as The Sims(tm), students are accustomed to the notion of participating in alternative virtual worlds and learning what it means to be successful in those worlds based on the rules of the game (Gee, 2007). As literature teachers, our job is to help them transfer that ability to enter social worlds into entering the social worlds of a particular text, for example, the world of the rural small town in Harper Lee’s (1988) To Kill a Mockingbird. Or they construct a text world based on knowledge of the class structure and women’s roles in early nineteenth-century England in constructing the world of Jane Austen’s (2009) Pride and Prejudice. In his student teaching using The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (1999), Corry Lund describes how he encouraged students to perceive their own secure suburban worlds from the perspective of a character who is questioning his world related to coping with the Vietnam War: I tried to get them to imagine what it might be like if they had gone through his experience, how they might have been changed their outlook on the world. And we talked about, you know, how at the beginning of the book, Ellie is very secure in his beliefs about the world. I mean he looked around at the world. He had a very, very strong faith and belief in God, you know, God was in control and God was good, and towards the end of the book, he starts to question those things and you know I applied it to them, and said, I’m sure that most of you feel the same way, that you know that the world is a place where bad things happen to you. And they’re aware that they live in, a very privileged community. They don’t have a whole lot of major worries about money or violence or crime, or anything like that, and um, you know,
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
I tried to get them to imagine what it might be like for a 15 year old going through this experience and you know that is what compels him to write his memoirs.
Students also construct texts worlds based on ideas about race, class, gender, and regional/national identity. Molly begins the year with “frontloading” activities to help her students stake their claims and beliefs about different notions of being American, and different positions around current events. I want the kids to put their opinions out there so, first, they can see they have beliefs about the issues that we will study, and second, so we can discuss and debate these now and throughout the year, using the texts we read as a way to converse with characters and authors. At the end of units and the year, we return to these activities to see what’s pushed their thinking or rattled their cage, so they can see that literature is part of the grand conversation about how to live and shape our cultural life together.
Explaining Characters’ Actions Another practice involves explaining characters’ actions—formulating reasons or motives having to do with characters’ beliefs, traits, and goals, as well as the larger social and cultural meanings of those actions. For example, in responding to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou, 2009), students interpret Maya Angelou’s actions as reflecting the development of strong beliefs about race by witnessing her grandmother’s challenges to a racist system.
Inferring Symbolic and Thematic Meanings Another practice has to do with inferring symbolic meaning—that language, signs, images, gestures, dress, behaviors, actions, etc., represent larger meanings. Making these inferences requires students to apply their literary know-how—that they need to go beyond the literal to infer implied meanings that serve some larger purpose. In reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they know that the ghosts represent the previous misdeeds committed in Denmark that Hamlet needs to address. They also learn to infer implied thematic meanings. Interpreting thematic meanings often involves inferring the value assumptions underlying story development. For example, underlying the typical comedy story development in which conflicts and tensions are resolved at the end, is the value assumption that institutions can restore themselves (Frye, 1957). Underlying the murder mystery novel is the assumption that crime doesn’t pay.
Making Connections Students are also making text-to-text and text-to-world connections, drawing on their knowledge of other texts as well as their lived-world experiences. Given the basic learning theory of the need to moving from the familiar—what students already know—to the unfamiliar, new practices they are learning, you build on familiar practices, tools, and experiences within their current ZPD to help them acquire new practices, tools, and experiences. Prior to or during the reading of a text, you provide students with other related texts with similar character types, themes, issues, cultural perspectives, or techniques, asking them to define the similarities and differences between these texts and the current
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text they are reading. Or, you have them connect the text to specific events or experiences in their own lives, while, at the same time, helping them recognize the differences between their lives and those portrayed in the literature. One of the challenges you face in making connections is that students make simply not have read much literature or may bring cultural background experiences that differ markedly from those portrayed in the literature. You therefore need to select related texts and experience based on what you know about your students. For example, in her notion of “cultural modeling,” Carol Lee (2007) builds on African-American students’ familiarity with the symbolic meanings of “doing the dozens” to help them infer implied meanings in literature. The teacher of the Southwest literature course builds on his students’ Latino and Native American cultural experiences in selecting authors who portray these experiences.
Posing Questions/Problem-solving/Re-reading In his book on teaching literature, The Literature Workshop, Sheridan Blau (2003) argues that much of the literature he considers worth teaching is difficult for beginning literature students—they struggle in the initial readings. Given this difficulty, students need to learn to how to admit to and then grapple with what they do not understand about a text through posing questions based on what puzzles or mystifies them, for example, why does Bartelby in Melville’s (1967) story “Bartelby the Scrivener” just sit there and do nothing? Or, in reading a mystery story, students engage in problem-solving to sift through the often contradictory clues, red herrings, and false leads. By defining what they do not understand, they may then re-read or revise their initial readings to formulate new interpretations. As Blau notes: Experienced readers know that their first vision of a text may be entirely misdirected or so minimal as to appear worthless . . . But they also know that such a reading is merely a zero draft, a starting place for a series of rereadings that will gradually yield an increasingly more adequate and illuminating sense of a meaning that they are constructing to reconstitute the text in front of them. Inexperienced readers may regard all encounters with difficult texts to be worthless, because they have never progressed beyond the inchoate and apparently pointless zero draft represented by their first reading. Thus, based on their experience, they will declare quite accurately that for them the reading of poetry (or most other challenging texts) is an utterly worthless enterprise. (p. 54)
Blau notes that as a beginning teacher, he assumed that he needed to give the impression that he knew everything there is to know about a text. He then devoted hours to preparing to teach the text, the result being that the teacher learns a lot, but the students learn little. Now, he recognizes that his students need to be involved in this process whereby both the students and the teacher admit to and grapple with difficulties in a text: In a classroom that cultivates a disposition to uncover and examine problems in learning and understanding, students learn to look more honestly and critically at the state of their own understanding, to make distinctions between what they do and don’t understand, and to note qualitative differences in the kinds of understandings they themselves possess. (p. 57)
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
In this inquiry-based approach, students and teachers formulate and address questions, concerns, dilemmas, wonderings, hypotheses or hunches about texts, topics, themes, or ideas (Beach & Myers, 2001; Holden & Schmit, 2002). Having a question, concern, issue, or dilemma about which they have no simple, easy answer means that they use their responses or writing to engage in an inquiry investigation. For example, characters are often caught in dilemmas created when different characters adopt competing dilemmas—Romeo and Juliet are caught between pleasing their families and continuing their relationships (Mosenthal, 1998). Central to inquiry instruction is that learning revolves around the students’ and teachers’ questions that then frame their inquiry about a certain phenomenon. To some degree, inquiry instruction involves adopting a stance of critical interrogation, of challenging status quo beliefs.
Applying Critical Lenses Another practice involves critically analyzing texts by applying different critical lenses to texts—reader-response, feminist/gender, Marxist/social class, archetypal, deconstructionist, postmodern (see Chapter 9). For example, when Molly’s students read The Great Gatsby, they keep a reading journal with different sections devoted to the feminist/gender, Marxist/social class, biographical/historical and reader-response lenses. Students then are able to see how different theoretical lenses refract different aspects of the novel. For example, the feminist/gender lens brings the portrayal of Daisy into painfully sharp relief, while the Marxist/social class lens sheds light on the relentlessly classist structure of Jay Gatsby’s world and the dreams and aspirations of America’s nouveau riche in the 1920s. In applying these lenses to critically analyze texts, students are analyzing larger aspects of cultural and institutional themes of power, hierarchy, and control. This practice reflects a larger critical pedagogy approach that values critical analysis of the beliefs and ideologies portrayed in texts and in institutions shaping their lives (Edelsky, 1999; Freire, 1973; Fleischer & Schaafsma, 1998). In this approach, the teacher’s role is to demonstrate ways to not only interrogate beliefs and ideologies associated with institutions portrayed in texts, but to also link that interrogation to addressing and acting on injustices inherent in these institutions. For example, in responding to the novel Catherine, Called Birdy (Cushman, 1994), a group of 8th grade females in an after-school discussion group expressed a strong concern about the subordination of the main character, Catherine, who is forced into marriage at an early age (Beach & Myers, 2001). As one student reported in a written log, “they were appalled that girls were told who they must marry. They were also disturbed by the fact that Catherine’s father beat her regularly. They were upset by the lack of opportunity for women during this time period.” This concern led them to also consider the subordination of females in the contemporary world. Working in pairs, the students investigated issues of single sex classrooms, women in the military, the Equal Rights Amendment, girls‚ sports and Title IX, mail order brides, comparing women in different cultures, historical women, women during war, the media and females, glass ceiling, supermom. One group examined the issue of idealized portrayal of body weight in advertising. The students then presented their findings to a group of 6th grade females, something that served to change the 8th graders’ perspective on the need to address and change gender attitudes.
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TOOLS FOR USE IN LITERATURE LEARNING How do students acquire these practices? How do you motivate them to want to learn these practices? Let’s return to the computer games example. Many students are motivated to play games, particularly games involving online chat, because they are participating in social communities with other players. In these communities, they are recognized for their skill in learning the tools involved in playing the game successfully (Gee, 2007). Learning to become community members in a literature class involves learning to employ various practices through the uses of certain tools—language, talk, writing, artwork, and digital media, that help students learn the practices involved in interpreting and producing literature. Based on his socio-cultural learning theory, Vygotsky (1978) defined tools as language, signs, images, or texts that are used to achieve certain purposes or outcomes of activities. A speaker makes a request in order to garner some information. A writer uses narrative to illustrate a point. A photographer uses an image of poor people to portray poverty. A web designer uses a web page to provide information. The meaning of each of these tools is defined by their purposes or outcomes. As Vygotsky argued, without a sense of its social purpose, a tool has no meaning. By itself, a hammer has no meaning. It is only when the hammer is used as a tool to pound in nails that it has a meaning. By itself, a fiberglass pole has no meaning. It assumes meaning when it is used to fling a pole-vaulter over a bar (Wertsch, 1998). People learn to use tools as serving various social uses. As Vygotsky argued, learning evolves from social interactions and collaboration which is then internalized as inner dialogue: “every function in cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later on the individual level; first between people, and then inside . . . all the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals” (p. 46). Vygotsky described the ways in which tools mediate the relationships between speakers, writers, and readers and their purposes, objects, or outcomes. By mediate, he meant that a tool serves to connect the speaker or writer to an audience or reader to achieve a larger purpose. As a teacher, your use of “teacher talk” language mediates the relationship between your role as teacher and your purpose in facilitating student discussion—your language connects your purpose with your role as teacher. Without understanding their purpose, tools are meaningless. Simply giving students access to different tools does not mean that they know how to use them in some purposeful way. When Short and Kauffman (2000) gave elementary students a range of different tools to use as part of inquiry projects, they observed that the students often could not perceive their play with these tools as linked to the purpose of their inquiry projects: Students’ play often seemed purposeless. They did not connect their play with sign systems to either personal or class inquiries—it was just a time to “mess” around . . . The heart of the issue appeared to be that they didn’t know why they were being given time to play with these sign systems—the play was not connected to the curriculum or their lives (p. 12)
We will be discussing purposes for using various tools throughout the book. Drama tools (Chapter 10) engage students in simulated contexts or situations where they can enact different roles, identities, and perspectives. Talk tools (Chapter 11) involve students in sharing their verbal responses to literature. Writing tools (Chapter 12) involve students in informal and formal writing about a text. Digital media tools (Chapter 6) give students the opportunity to animate their experience with literature through new media. (See Purposes for teaching literature on the website.)
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TEACH LITERATURE?
MOLLY’S LITERATURE INSTRUCTION: ISSUES RELATED TO TEACHING LITERATURE TO ADOLESCENTS We began this chapter with the perspective of Molly, an experienced teacher. Molly’s case reminds us of the complexity of teaching literature. She underscores the importance of many of the topics we will explore throughout this text: knowledge of your students and their needs and developmental predispositions, an understanding of your students’ social worlds and how the study of literature can be meaningful within that world; a dynamic knowledge of a wide range of literatures; pedagogical strategies for encouraging your students to write, talk and create their own texts; and finally, methods for assessing your students’ growth as they learn to read and construct meaning with literary texts. We hope that you find all of these issues usefully addressed in the remainder of the book so that your love of literature becomes effectively translated in the classroom: “What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how” Wordsworth (1986).
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION As part of your practicum or student teaching observation, observe several different teachers and, if possible, talk to them about what they believe is important in teaching literature. Do some journaling or notetaking—either in the midst or after the fact. Focus on questions like: how is motivation attended to or not and with what effect? What is the quality of relationships between teacher and student, student and student? How are these relationships organized around learning or not? How are materials and methods employed to assist students? How is sequencing employed, or not? What theory of teaching and learning seems to be dominant? Are there other competing theories at play? Then, create a portfolio entry in which you identify the model(s) that best characterizes the different teachers’ approaches. Describe how these teachers’ adherence to a particular model shapes their instruction—the practices they emphasize, the techniques they employ, the tools they use, the texts they select, and the way they organize or sequence their curriculum. Then, reflect on how or why your own instruction would be similar to or different from these teachers—if you had to emulate any one of these teachers, which one would you emulate and why?
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CHAPTER 2
Teaching Literature With Adolescents In Mind Who Are My Students?
CASE NARRATIVE
LILY’S IDENTITY AS A MILLENNIAL ADOLESCENT In an Angels & Airwaves tee shirt and jeans, Lily is sitting alone at a table, transfixed by a book from the Gothic and Lolita Bible series. She’s just become interested in the Japanese Lolita style of clothing, a movement based on fashions from the Victorian era. Whether she’s listening to a Visual Kei band from Japan, browsing anime on crunchyroll.com, or reading about Taiwanese idol dramas on the web, Lily is passionate about “anything Asian.” Her parents adopted her from China, and they’ve always tried to embrace her Asian culture by celebrating holidays like the moon festival and the Chinese New Year. Today, she is carrying a bag with an imprint of Chairman Mao on the front that she brought back from a trip to China with her mom last year. Lily especially loves to listen to entertainers and bands from Asian countries like Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Korea. Her current favorites are Jay Chou, Big Bang, and LM.C. She and her friends regularly watch dance groups like Quest Crew and Kaba Modern on “America’s Best Dance Crew.” She’s also a big fan of graphic novels and a talented manga artist who regularly shares her work on deviantart.com. Lily’s been interested in manga and anime from the time she bought her first copy of Shojo Beat. She is also a talented pianist and plays in the school’s jazz band. When she isn’t practicing piano or taking Chinese lessons, she can be found curled up in a chair reading books from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer or
Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Lily’s Identity as a Millennial Adolescent Meet the Millennials Getting Past the “Reading Sucks” Syndrome: Developing Motivation and Interest for Reading The Search for Self: Young Adult Literature and Identity Development Race, Identity, and Representation in the Literature Classroom The Multiple Identities of Adolescents/ce Exploding the Monocultural Mindset: Cultural Modeling in the Literature Classroom Taking Inventory: Funds of Knowledge in the Literature Classroom Creating a Classroom Environment: Making Room for Reading Multitextured Teaching: Organizing the Literature Curriculum in an Age of Multiliteracies Putting It All Together: Coming of Age in a New Age
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the Uglies series by Scott Westerfield. With her affinity for new media and digital technologies, Lily is a typical—but by no means ordinary—member of the millennial generation. What are some practices by which or texts through which Lily defines her identity as an adolescent? How do these practices and texts relate to her social relationships with her peers? How do her literacy practices and preferences compare with yours, and how can you relate what happens in your literature classroom to Lily’s varied interests and abilities?
MEET THE MILLENNIALS From Manga sites to text messaging, Lily’s life is intricately entwined with a vast network of electronic and popular texts. To those of us who grew up without YouTube and Facebook, Lily’s literacy practices may seem astonishing, to say the least. Lily’s generation goes by a variety of names such as Generation Y, The Internet Generation, and The Millennials. Often defined as anyone born between 1982 and 1998 (Strauss & Howe, 2000) the Millennial generation is larger than the Baby Boomers and the frequent target of mass marketers. According to a recent article in The Seattle Post, Today’s 17-year-old was . . . 1 when Super Nintendo was released and the CD-ROM was invented. 5 when the Internet entered almost every home and PlayStation was released. 8 when Windows 98 was launched. 11 when PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox were released and DSL gained popularity (Goodnow, 2007)
If you can believe the hype from popular media, millennial teens were born to “helicopter parents” who sported “Baby on Board” bumper stickers and now protect their teenaged children from bad grades and routine disappointments. A recent article in the Boston Globe (2006) paints a dismal portrait of kids in this age group: At the moment, this is a generation that lacks the common sense to stay off deadly train tracks or campus rivers when they’re icy. A generation that can’t seem to make decisions without texting home, and whose helicopter parents so named for their hovering ways have actually begun negotiating salaries with job recruiters on their kids’ behalf.
Are today’s teens really spoiled brats with lots of discretionary income? To answer that question, you need look no further than a typical classroom. In this chapter, you will meet several millennial teens such as Lily. As you encounter each of these adolescents who are hypothetical prototypes of certain common aspects of adolescence, we’d like you to imagine that you were vicariously transported into their classrooms and could see them through the eyes of their teachers. We’ll start with Brian. Brian rushes into your 8th grade classroom in his usual flurry of activity and chaos. It’s Halloween today, and you have to stifle a laugh as his face is painted a bright shade of green and pink, and he’s dressed in an obviously home-made costume—a long ragged tee shirt with a rubber baby doll poking out of the back, appearing to look over his
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shoulder. This is the third time he’s been tardy this week. You know from conversations with his social studies teacher that he’s already received two after-school detentions because of lateness, but you realize that Brian has a locker in the very opposite side of the building from most of his classes, so you’ve decided to let the lateness slide a bit. A thin, slight boy who always seems electrically charged, Brian isn’t exactly a trouble maker, but he always seems to court trouble by refusing to settle down in class. The other day, you caught him break-dancing on the floor while he was supposed to be working in a reading group. You’ve been planning to talk to Brian’s mother to see if she can help him with his organizational problems and off-task behavior, but she’s had to cancel your last two after-school appointments because of work commitments. You wear two hats with Brian. As his coach in the school’s modified track program, you’ve been worried about Brian because he’s missed several after-school practices, and when he does show up, he often waits outside for his ride long after the other kids have been picked up. You know that Brian has a younger brother and sister for whom he babysits, and that his mom has recently moved to your school district from another state. As his English teacher, you notice that he is completely turned off to sedentary activities like reading journals or silent reading. The one clue to his reading abilities so far was when he volunteered to go online and “find a fix” for a problem with one of the class computers. You thought he was speaking a foreign language when he came up to you after class, waving some downloaded information from a tech site and talking about “trashing prefs on Mac OS X.” You make a mental note to see if there is a young adult novel about a teen computer whiz that might just hook Brian into reading.
While many students may have cell phones, expensive athletic shoes, and designer clothing, many others, like Brian, are not so privileged. The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals some sobering statistics about the world that the millennials have inherited: • • • • •
10% of all U.S. families (39.8 million people) have incomes below the poverty level. For single-parent families headed by women, the figure is 29%. 9% of U.S. households are headed by single parents, up from 5% in 1970. 15% of people over the age of five have a recognized disability. 12% of the people in U.S. are foreign born, and 20% speak a language other than English at home. Minorities constitute roughly one-third of the U.S. population. By 2033, it is estimated that half of all U.S. children will be minorities (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007).
In writing about today’s teen millennials, Bob Herbert (2008), columnist for the New York Times, concludes that this generation may not be as coddled and privileged as we have been led to believe: This is a generation that is in danger of being left out of the American dream — the first American generation to do less well economically than their parents . . . Americans in this age group are faced with a variety of challenges that are tougher than those faced by young adults over the past few decades. Among the challenges are worsening job prospects, lower rates of health insurance coverage and higher levels of debt.
Whether you’re in a public or private school, an urban or a suburban setting, the chances are that you will be greeted by a mix of cultures, ethnicities, and income levels in your
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classroom. Many of your kids belong to one-parent households or non-traditional families, and some have recognized disabilities. Many speak a language other than English at home, have parents who cannot drive them to extracurricular activities, and live in households with little privacy or Internet access. These are, indeed, complicated times for our students and for us as literature teachers. Here are some things we should keep in mind about Millennial teens as we plan our literature curricula.
Millennials are Tech Savvy and Media Literate Where millennial teens are concerned, tech-savvy students like Lily are more the norm than the exception. The “Generation M” study, sponsored by the Kaiser Foundation reported the following: •
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Teenagers spent an average of 12.5 hours online per week, engaging in activities such as emailing, Instant Messaging, and casual gaming. Teenagers favored YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace, while early adolescents (“tweens”) favored Webkinz, Nick, YouTube and Disney. Teens and tweens watched 11–12 hours of television per week. 73% of teens and 26% of tweens owned mobile phones (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005).
Similarly, the Pew Internet and American life Project reported that 93% of children and young adults between 12 and 17 regularly go online. Their favorite activities are online gaming, instant messaging, visiting social networking sites, and downloading or watching videos online (Pew Foundation, 2009). It’s not safe to assume that all teens have easy access to technology, however. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that nearly 40% of households still did not have Internet access in the home in 2007 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009).
Compared to Previous Generations, Millennial Teens have More Money and are Not Afraid to Spend It In 2004, the Magazine Publishers of America reported that nearly 40% of American teens had their own savings or checking accounts (Magazine Publishers of America, 2004). Yet, while American teens strongly influence their family’s buying and spending and are the frequent target of mass marketers, it would be a mistake to believe that all of the students in your classroom have discretionary income and the ability to purchase their own books, magazines, or other reading material.
Millennial Teens Love Magazines In 2005, 8 out of 10 teenagers (19.3 million) regularly read magazines. Publications such as YM, Seventeen, Teen People, and Allure topped the list for girls, while Dirt Rider, Four Wheeler, WWE Magazine, and 4 Wheel & Off Road were most popular among boys. Magazine readers are heavily targeted by advertisers, as they are “active consumers,” spending more than non-magazine readers in stores, and significantly influencing household purchases. In 2003, American teenagers spent 112.5 billion on a variety of products from electronics to clothing (Magazine Publishers of America, 2004).
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Good News! Millennials also Read Books Results from the National Endowment for the Arts study of literary reading in 2008 revealed that, despite a steady downturn in reading literature over the past two decades, literary reading is on the rise among American adults and teens. Of all the age groups surveyed, the biggest increases were among young adults from 18–24. Within this age group, reading rates among Caucasian, Hispanic, and African-Americans have increased by 8%, 20%, and 15% respectively since 2002 (National Endowment for the Arts, 2008).
Millennials Still Enjoy Reading, but . . . According to the 2008 Scholastic Publishing Company survey of teens and their parents, the majority of young children still read for pleasure and view reading as essential to success. However, pleasure reading begins to decline in children over the age of eight, and continues declining into the teenage years, particularly among boys. When asked why they don’t read for pleasure more often, the most frequent reasons among children and young adults were “I would rather do other things,” “I have too much schoolwork and homework,” and “I have trouble finding books that I like.” Over half of the children surveyed engaged in some kind of extended online reading experience such as searching for good books, reading about authors, or visiting a fan site (Scholastic Publishing Company, 2008). As these surveys and studies show, millennial teens engage in a multitude of literacy practices outside of school. Although many of your students may have MySpace or Facebook pages and most would probably rather text than talk, a great many teens who engage in reading and writing online may still view themselves as “non-readers” and few of their teachers capitalize on their out-of-school literacies when planning instruction (Pitcher et al., 2007). The challenge is to harness their incredible appetites and aptitudes in their non-school reading for the literature classroom.
GETTING PAST THE “READING SUCKS” SYNDROME: DEVELOPING MOTIVATION AND INTEREST FOR READING America created the teenager in its own image—brash, unfinished, ebullient, idealistic, crude, energetic, innocent, greedy, changing in all sorts of unsettling ways. A messy, sometimes loutish character who is nonetheless capable of performing heroically when necessary, the teenager embodies endless potential not yet hobbled by the defeats and compromises of life. The American teenager is the noble savage in blue jeans, the future in your face. (Hine, 2000, p. 10) At the beginning of each day, Aaron strides slowly into the noise and chaos of his middle school classroom and takes his usual seat in a large overstuffed armchair in a remote corner of the room. An unusually tall blonde boy, Aaron rarely engages with other students at the beginning of class, preferring instead to survey the room with a mix of what looks like amusement and contempt. While the other students push and shove their way to desks, throw backpacks on the floor, and yell “hellos” and insults to each other, Aaron quietly hides his face in a book. Only when you ask students to move into small groups does he slouch over to one of the tables. As he sits down, Bruce shouts “I don’t want to sit with him!” Aaron shoots a sharp rebuff, and there is a moment of strained silence as their classmates shift nervously in their seats. You intervene, telling both boys that insults are not allowed in your classroom.
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After separating them, you get out your grade book and make notes as students choose whether they will be attending the teacher-sponsored literature circle or working independently on various projects connected to their reading and writing. Today, Aaron is not required to attend the literature circle (he hasn’t used up his two “passes” yet), so he stakes out his territory in the big stuffed chair, pulls a book off the shelf and zones out for the remainder of class.
As Aaron’s teacher, what would you make of this scenario? Is Aaron shy or antisocial? A “typical” adolescent or a ticking time bomb? An avid reader or a social outcast? Should you keep an eye on him, protect him, attempt to bring him out of his silence, suggest a book he might like, or leave him alone, hoping that adolescence will some day give way to adulthood and he will grow out of whatever may be troubling him? He is, perhaps, the quintessential model of what Thomas Hine calls “the noble savage in blue jeans.” Perhaps the first thing you might notice about Aaron is the book that continually covers his face as he settles into the big stuffed chair. The cover changes, but the posture and the preference for solitary reading rarely does. After a few weeks and a bit of worry over his antisocial behavior, you may decide to make a connection with him, leaning over the chair and whispering something like, “Gee, Aaron, you always seem to be reading. What kind of books do you like?” His answer may surprise you: “I hate reading. I just do it to get out of doing stuff in here.” Failing to hide the depths of your disappointment, you hold your breath, waiting for the two words you just know will come next: “Reading sucks!” Aaron is just one of the several thousand teenagers you will encounter in a lifetime of teaching, and you can bet he won’t be the last to say those all-too-familiar words, “reading sucks.” As a member of the millennial generation, Aaron can easily find reading materials that are tailormade to his unique interests right on the Internet. An avid BMX biker, Aaron spends every free minute at a local skate park or in his basement, playing video games with his friends. There is, quite literally, no time for pleasure reading in his busy life. Aaron does just the minimum in his reading journal and writing assignments for you. He can read, but he doesn’t. Aaron is not illiterate; he’s aliterate. Like the young people in the Scholastic study, Aaron’s excuse for not reading is simple: “I would rather do other things.” Mary Arnold, president of YALSA in 1999, reported the following: With all the things they are doing — sports, clubs, after-school jobs and more — today’s teens are strapped for time and find it hard to set aside the time to read . . . We want to help change that. As librarians, we are trying to find creative ways to help teens find the time to read the books and magazines they want to read. (Smartgirl and the American Library Association, 2001)
As you might imagine, you’ll barely scratch the surface of your questions about Aaron just about the time he is ready to leave your classroom at the end of the school year. One thing is certain though: You can’t wait until he grows up before you teach him to read critically and passionately, to love reading and do it for a lifetime. You have only this short time, and you’d better make the most of it. Aaron and teenagers like him are a constant reminder of how hard it is to read the reading lives of adolescents. Like many kids who belong to online chat groups for special interests, and regularly pull tailor-made information on any topic off the web, they are used to getting what they want when they want it. When things are not immediately relevant to their own particular preferences and proclivities, young adults like Aaron
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tend to lose interest; sadly, this is more true of boys than girls, and the gender gap widens as young boys move into the upper grades of high school (Scholastic, 2008). Although a good many millennial teens are acutely interested in succeeding, getting a high grade point average, and ending up in a successful career, they fail to see reading as a pathway to those goals. In describing our century-long vacillation between fascination and confusion with the adolescent, Thomas Hine (2000) remarks: Our beliefs about teenagers are deeply contradictory. They should be free to be themselves. They need many years of training and study. They know more about the future than adults do. They know hardly anything at all. They ought to know the value of a dollar. They should be protected from the world of work. They are frail, vulnerable creatures. They are children. They are sex fiends. They are the death of culture. They are the hope of us all. (p. 11)
These contradictions all play a part in how adults treat teenagers, and eventually, how adolescents learn to see themselves. As you’ll soon discover if you haven’t already, getting teenagers like Aaron and Brian past the “reading sucks syndrome” involves far more than simply putting good books in front of them and hoping they’ll work their magic. Before we consider strategies for motivating today’s teens, we need to understand a bit more about this perplexing period called adolescence. The following section will discuss adolescence as a unique developmental period, before examining the many ways that you can create literature lessons with and adolescents like Aaron in mind.
Forever Young: Coming of Age in Contemporary Society Most of us are probably aware that adolescence is a relatively new concept in the scheme of things. Near the dawn of the twentieth century, Granville Stanley Hall (1904) attempted to “scientifically” classify every biological and psychological facet of adolescence from the raging of hormones to the potential for mental disturbance. Perhaps because of its massive size and its focus on minutiae, Hall’s now-famous book languished in libraries for several years before being resurrected by some to become a sort of last word on the care and control of those disturbing teenagers. A long-time admirer of the prewar German Youth Movement, Hall based much of his book on the notion that adolescents should be mentally and physically stimulated by activities that divert them from their more animalistic tendencies. Hence, the birth of “civilizing” organizations such as the Boy Scouts and the juvenile justice system as an antidote to the immense and dangerous energies of America’s youth. One glance at our popular media reveals that many of Hall’s ideas about adolescence are still alive today Although Hall’s demonistic portrait of teenagers has been largely discredited by contemporary psychologists, American society still tends to vilify its youth. We set up a kind of we/they dichotomy between adults and adolescents. Many of us cringe when we run into them in shopping malls or in the streets. This “we/they thinking” not only objectifies youth, but can create a sort of undeclared war in the classroom. Titles and headlines in popular newspapers and magazines echo and contribute to this vilification: “A Vile Teen Fad: Beating The Homeless” (Stoops & Levin, 2006); “The Epidemic Of Meaningless Teen Sex” (O’Connell, 2005); “Children Having Children; Teen Pregnancies Are Corroding America’s Social Fabric” (Stengel & Wells, 1985); and “The Age Of Innocence Isn’t What It Once Was” (Stryker, 1997). Journalist Annette Fuentes (1998) writes:
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In the past two decades, our collective attitude toward children and youth has undergone a profound change that’s reflected in the educational and criminal justice systems as well as in our daily discourse. “Zero tolerance” is the mantra in public schools and juvenile courts, and what it really means is that to be young is to be suspect. Latino and Black youth have borne the brunt of this growing criminalization of youth. But the trend has spilled over racial and ethnic boundaries—even class boundaries, to a degree. Youth, with all its innocence and vulnerability, is losing ground in a society that exploits both. (p. 22)
According to Fuentes, adults aren’t merely puzzled by young people; they’re terrified of them. Current public sentiment seems based on ideals of containment and confinement, where juveniles can be tried as adults in the court system but not treated as adults in the court of public opinion. In such an atmosphere, it becomes difficult to know where to begin helping students to “grow up” or “come of age” through literature. Yet, fictions about what this means are often perpetrated by much published literature and popular media for adolescents, and too many teenagers like Lily and Aaron are unaware of how their lives are influenced by these fictions.
Under Construction: Adolescent Development in the Millennium Across your classroom from Aaron, Stephanie is holding the rapt attention of two other girls who are supposed to be talking about Lois Lowry’s book, The Giver (1993). Most of the time, Stephanie is the quintessential “good girl.” Though she seldom talks in large class discussions, you know from her reading journal that she is an avid reader who regularly buries herself in a good book. Right now she’s hooked on the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers. Her friends have also read most of the series and raved about the movie. But today Stephanie and her friends are talking about their favorite television show, Gossip Girl. The girls in Stephanie’s group are not alone, as the show was voted number one in the recent Teen Choice Awards, followed by Friday Night Lights, Grey’s Anatomy, House, and One Tree Hill (Teen Choice Awards, 2008). One might argue that all five of these shows are not exactly appropriate for a teenage market. However, Gossip Girl is perhaps the most interesting, as it was based on a popular young adult novel series written by Cecily Von Zeigstar. Both the book series and the TV show center on a group of privileged adolescent girls in the Constance Billard School for Girls in the Upper East Side of New York. There’s been a lot of talk about Gossip Girl in your classroom lately, especially since the episode where one of the high school boys has just started an affair with a former teacher. For the past couple of weeks, it seems that everybody’s been talking about Rachel and Dan. A few days ago, having never seen the show yourself, you make a trip to the Gossip Girl website and find a Gossip Girl blog, an episode guide, and weblinks to everything from Teen Vogue and Target to Apple computer and AT&T. You’re surprised to discover that, with a click of a mouse and a credit card, kids like Stephanie and her friends can download iPhone “apps,” tunes, soundtracks, and Gossip Girl ringtones. As you look at the copies of The Giver strewn across the desks of Stephanie’s group, you wonder, how can Lois Lowry compete with Rachel and Dan?
It’s disturbing that any teenager with access to television can gain electronic, if not material, access to this hyper-sexualized world of privilege and shallow self-indulgence. As a literature teacher, you can try to counter these unrealistic images with texts that invite students like Stephanie and her friends to reflect upon how media images and
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social expectations on what it means to “come of age” in contemporary society. But where to begin? There are literally thousands of classic and current coming-of-age novels, stories, films, other texts. To list them here would be a book-length task (for a more complete discussion of young adult literature, see Chapter 5 and click on the “Young Adult Literature” link on the book’s website.) According to Piaget (1955) adolescents are moving from concrete to formal operations. As they do so, they move away from egocentric thinking and become more adept at what Piaget calls “decentering.” This means that as teenagers mature, they become more aware of, and often mildly obsessed with, how others see them. They become self-conscious about physical and emotional developments such as the appearance of acne, changes in their body, and sexual feelings. As they move through early adolescence in their middle school years, and as they take on more mature responsibilities such as babysitting and part-time employment, they begin to develop a sense of independence and think of their future careers. In middle and later adolescence, they move from same-sex friendships or peer groups toward dating and romantic relationships. New research on the teenage brain tells us that adolescents still lack the foresight and planning abilities of mature adults; so there is often some risk-taking behavior (Giedd et al., 1999). According to Erik Erikson (1968), adolescents are just beginning to develop a sense of identity. In the period of crisis that he calls “Identity vs. Role Confusion,” adolescents typically experience self-doubt and inferiority, accompanied by a process of experimentation, as they move toward a mature view of themselves as successful, competent men or women. These general theories of adolescent development leave out the profound influence of social factors such as gender roles, class, and racial identity. Stephanie and her friends have some commonalities with a great many other adolescent girls. Due to social expectations about females, many adolescent girls are reluctant to participate actively in class discussions. Social class also plays a part. For example, Hartman (2006) observed that adolescent working-class girls adopted what she called the role of “Good Student,” which limited their willingness to speak in class. When compared to middle-class girls, working-class girls in Hartman’s study “lacked confidence” and feared that they might not give the answers that the teacher either wanted or valued. They did not want to be “wrong” because this would mean not being a “Good Student” (p. 110). Issues such as race, class, and gender complicate blanket statements about adolescent development. Cognitive developmental or psychosocial theories such as that of Piaget or Erikson take us only so far in understanding how teenagers like Lily, Brian, Aaron, and Stephanie develop in our fast-paced millennial world. To much of society, adolescents are in a perpetual state of “becoming.” Nancy Lesko calls this an “ideology of emergence” (2000, p. 3) where adolescents are viewed as biologically and emotionally inferior to adults, in a state of “coming into” themselves, yet paradoxically, never arriving, at least not during the period we call the teenage years.
THE SEARCH FOR SELF: YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT As a literature teacher, you’ve probably discovered that most books marketed to adolescents have some sort of coming of age theme implicit in their larger plot. Writers of adolescent or young adult fiction typically present the struggle to grow up as a universally defining characteristic of adolescence, one with which all readers will resonate. Yet, the very phrase “coming of age,” especially when applied to an entire genre of
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texts for and about young adults, is fraught with contradictions between what seems to happen in books and what students like Lily, Aaron, and Stephanie know happens in their lived worlds. It is simply not as easy to grow up as the books make it seem. Literature units such as “The Individual and Society” or “Who Am I?” are designed to capitalize on the adolescent’s intense concern with self. As literature teachers, we assign coming of age books like Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now (2004), David Almond’s The Fire Eaters (2004), and Esmeralda Santiago’s When I was Puerto Rican (1994) hoping our students will “find themselves” in a Daisy, a Bobby, or an Esmerelda. We ask our students to read The Diary of Anne Frank (Frank, 1993) and hope that they’ll speculate about whether they would have had the courage to shelter the Frank family as Miep Gies did or if there are parallels to the Holocaust in today’s world. We ask them what it means for a character like Holden Caufield in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1991) to resist the conformist demands of the depersonalizing and shallow elements of society, only to end up in a mental hospital, or for Jerry in Cormier’s The Chocolate War (2004) to stand up for his convictions, only to be emotionally and physically abused in the end. We invite them, through literature and other language activities, to define their own sense of self and to resist the false fronts that seem to accompany their teenage years and often get them into trouble. When we make global references to “adolescent identity development,” or “coming of age,” however, we run the risk of glossing over the very real complexities that we face whenever we decide to sponsor a book or a short story on a potentially volatile topic like racism, sexism, or any of many “isms” that plague our contemporary society. Developmental theories must be viewed in light of the host of social and political circumstances that surround today’s young adults.
RACE, IDENTITY, AND REPRESENTATION IN THE LITERATURE CLASSROOM Brittany rushes over to you with a late pass in her hand, explaining that she’s just been to a student council meeting. You can always count on Brittany to make a fashion statement, and today’s no exception. She seems to be turning quite a few heads in a pair of black leggings, open-toed boots, and a white sleeveless tee shirt with a pair of red lips across the front. Brittany’s a bit of a social queen and a mix of contradictions. An honors student with a gorgeous voice, Brittany sits on the student council and is a regular soloist in her church choir. Whenever the conversation turns to race, she’ll proudly tell you that she’s “mixed.” A few months ago, when the class was talking about the civil rights movement, you read aloud an excerpt from Mamie Till Mobley’s book Death of Innocence, (2003) in which she describes events surrounding the death of her son, Emmett Till. A few days later, Brittany surprises you by bringing in a book on the civil rights movement and showing the class a picture of a relative who was involved in the famous Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. Her connection to the civil rights movement and pride in her racial heritage have led you to believe that she’d be acutely aware of racism in contemporary America, but she surprises you during a class discussion one day, when you ask if the students believe that racism still exists in America. Brittany is the first to respond with a resounding “No!” She goes on to explain that she herself has never experienced racism and thinks that too many people make a “big deal” about it. Several of her classmates chime in to echo Brittany’s sentiments. A look at some of the other faces around the room convince you to trouble Brittany’s statement. You tell the class about a documentary film on public television that explains how institutions like slavery allowed White Americans to accumulate money while Blacks were
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kept in poverty for many generations. You ask the class, “How do you explain the fact that African-Americans still make, on average, less money than European Americans?” Brittany fixes you with a glare. “What? What do you mean?” she demands. You go on to explain that “on average” doesn’t mean everybody, and that statistics don’t tell us everything. You tell her that many African-American professionals do, in fact, earn as much or more than European Americans, but that income levels . . . Your explanation is cut short when you look at Brittany and see the tear streaking slowly down her face. You realize that what you thought was an innocuous fact about “average income levels” had profound personal implications for a young person who is realizing—perhaps for the first time—that she is a member of an “underprivileged” group. The room is silent, as you realize you have a lot more explaining ahead of you.
As English teachers, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma: On the one hand, as Cornell West (2001) argues, “race matters” always and everywhere for students of color; on the other hand, racial generalizations about anyone or any body of literature are always inaccurate and partial. We can’t conclude that all Black kids will enjoy reading Alice Walker or all Chicano kids will be drawn to Gary Soto. This is about as silly as assuming that all White kids will like Shakespeare. Yet, we bear a responsibility to students who have traditionally been left out of the classroom canon. Many of us correctly believe that what kids read and how they talk about texts should embrace a variety of critical perspectives and enlarge students’ understanding of issues such as race, class, and gender. This is often a tricky proposition, especially when kids who are most vulnerable in such discussions are sitting right there in your classroom. The untroubled assumptions that Brittany and so many of her classmates hold about the lack of racism in contemporary society are perhaps the result of a common tradition in secondary schools to select one or two “multicultural” texts that are expected to bear the burden of cultural representation. When Mildred D. Taylor’s (1991) Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry or Harper Lee’s (1988) To Kill a Mockingbird are chosen as the texts by and/or about African-Americans in a curriculum, or when Langston Hughes becomes the sole spokesperson for the Harlem Renaissance, the result is not a broader representation, but a kind of misrepresentation of the diversity, nuance, and variety of cultural, racial, ethnic, and other influences represented in our literature choices. Even if you work hard to choose authors and protagonists representative of a broad array of cultural and ethnic perspectives, there’s the problem of time and resources. You step on the slippery slope of a “Noah’s ark” philosophy of text selection (two books each to represent every race, culture, ethnicity, and so on). In fact, no one text can (nor should) speak for a broader representation of culture. In a sense, we are all “multicultural,” and this goes for authors and protagonists as well as readers. Beyond the texts we select, there’s also the problem of how to handle the Pandora’s box of social and political issues they threaten to unleash in our classrooms. As teachers, we are caught between wanting to help our students mature into secure and responsible citizens, and realizing that, for students marginalized by race, class, culture, or ability, discussions of social issues like race can be dangerous or damaging. This makes issues of book selection and curriculum planning very tricky terrain. In today’s diverse classrooms, you may find yourself in a process of role identity confusion similar to that of your adolescent students, as you struggle to meet the needs of an entire classroom, while attending to the unique abilities, needs, preferences, and cultural backgrounds of individual students like Brittany.
WHO ARE MY STUDENTS?
THE MULTIPLE IDENTITIES OF ADOLESCENTS/CE What do we really mean by The Self? It’s a question that postmodern scholars have been asking for years, as they challenge the notion of a stable, essential identity. Cultural anthropologists, for example, tell us that identity is not a singular, unchanging construct, but is continually constituted through social and cultural practices in different contexts. As Kenneth Gergen (2000) argues, identity is “an emergent by-product of persons in relations, each drawing upon his or her conversational resources [i.e., his or her networks of relationships] as the moment unfolds” (p. 149). In other words, an adolescent girl who gets an A on her math quiz may feel secure in her identity as “a good student,” only to feel like a complete nerd two hours later as she trips over her feet in the cafeteria. The voices that surround her are not always harmonious. Her parents think she is the most beautiful girl in the world, while in her opinion, her braces and gawky frame mark her as a “dweeb,” a “nerd,” definitely nobody’s party date. Such is the case of Veronica. Of all the students in your classroom, you have a special place in your heart for Veronica. You know that she has auditory processing problems and ADHD, but you wouldn’t know about the ADHD by looking at her. Like a great many students who control this disability with a combination of medication and conscientiousness, she is a shy but able student, whose only outward sign of a disability is that she uses an F-M system, which looks like a small earbud and is linked to a transmission device that you wear during large class activities. Veronica’s disabilities do not require an I.E.P. (Individual Educational Plan), but she does qualify for a “504 accommodation plan,” so-named for section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the American’s with Disabilities Act. Veronica’s 504 plan stipulates that, in addition to wearing the hearing device for her auditory processing problems, she will be allowed to go to a separate testing room in the cafeteria and receive double time on tests. You asked Veronica to go to the test management room last week when you gave a multiple-choice quiz on a short story in preparation for your state’s upcoming English language arts examination, but she chose not to go. Apparently, the test management site is in the cafeteria, and the noise is worse than in your classroom. Veronica’s grade on the exam was a 76%—much lower than her other grades this semester, and you wonder if you should have tried harder to get her to test management. Although Veronica is an honor student, English is her most challenging subject. You know from meeting her parents that it takes her twice as long as other students to finish her assigned reading, and any kind of in-process written reflection, such as that in a reading journal, often keeps her up until late in the evening. Veronica also has some minor speech issues, which don’t interfere with your ability to understand her, but which seem to make her extremely self-conscious and reluctant to participate large class discussions. You do notice, however, that she is a leader in small group activities, often befriending shy or reluctant students and carrying more than her weight in group projects. Veronica is a talented artist and participates in the school’s advanced art seminar. You suspect that her group’s lovely poster for a Langston Hughes short story was mostly Veronica’s work. You also suspect that she is embarrassed by wearing her hearing device, as she has “forgotten” to bring it from her locker several times this past month.
Adolescents like Veronica carry contradictory beliefs about themselves, continually asking “Who am I?” Much of learning to be an adolescent involves learning to be somebody. Veronica juggles multiple identities during her school day: honor student,
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talented artist, and—always at the top of her list—the kid with the hearing device. As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, 15% of children in the United States have a recognized disability, so you will meet a great many young people like Veronica in your teaching career. Veronica’s case is really not that unique, however. Looking back at your own adolescence, you can remember what a difference it makes if your peers think you’re “cool” or “uncool,” “geeky,” an “Aberzombie,” or a “metrosexual.” Your adolescent students struggle with where they belong in the social order of school and community. At various points in the day, they might adopt stances as “jocks,” “goths,” “punks,” “rappers,” or “drama queens,” only to lose these postures in the company of parents and other adults. There are, figuratively speaking, many verbal and nonverbal “languages” in the world of adolescence, and teenagers must constantly code-switch from among these different discourses (Gee, 2007) in order to develop not one, but a host of identities, in the midst of an ever-changing array of social situations. The private lives of the teenagers in your classroom float like glaciers under the surface of their classroom identities. Whether you’re in an urban setting or a suburban school with little racial or ethnic diversity, there’s no such thing as a “heterogeneous classroom.” (See General resources on adolescents/individual differences on the website.)
EXPLODING THE MONOCULTURAL MINDSET: CULTURAL MODELING IN THE LITERATURE CLASSROOM Eddie and Lamont are out of their seats for about the third time this morning. You’ve been going around the room, holding brief conferences with the students about what they’ve chosen to read for what you call “Free Fridays.” This is a time for kids to sit back and relax with a good book without any thought of completing a reading journal or getting a grade. Some of the kids have brought books from home and are already quietly reading, when Eddie and Lamont start to tug at and tease each other near the pencil sharpener. Lamont’s always testing your patience and tickling your sense of humor. Without fail, each morning, you have to stop everything and tell him to take out his iPod earphones. Lamont gives you “the eye” as he slowly tears himself away from Jay-Z or Kanye West. He’s the only kid you’ve ever met who can lift one eyebrow, and you wonder if he’s missed his calling as a caricature of a crabby old English teacher. He has a great sense of humor, and often provides a bit of sarcastic comic relief in the middle of an otherwise ordinary day. But sometimes it gets to be too much, especially when he blurts something out in the middle of your lesson and a whole bunch of other kids suddenly start to shout and talk over each other. When Lamont and his group get started, the noise is deafening, and it takes you quite a bit of time to get everyone else back on track. You’ve been worried about him for some time now, as, you’ve noticed what looked like gang tags appearing on his notebook. A couple of week ago, you found some similar graffiti on your back wall in permanent marker. You have no proof, but the marks look suspiciously like the signs on Lamont’s notebook. You don’t know if he’s bright or not, because he simply won’t do anything for English. As hard as you try to interest him in reading, and as many books as you place in his hands, he’s more interested in getting a laugh from Eddie and the others than passing your class. His sense of humor and dramatic antics tell you he’s probably smart, but just not interested in school, and especially not interested in English. Lamont’s friend Eddie is another story. Both boys have known each other since they were five and Eddie’s dad coached them in basketball at the local community center. Their families regularly volunteer at the center. Eddie likes to joke around with Lamont, but he’s
WHO ARE MY STUDENTS?
rarely the instigator. The first day he walked into your classroom, you took one look at his shy smile, and were immediately charmed. Eddie has some real problems with reading, though he has no documented disability. The few times he’s read anything aloud in class seemed tortuous as he stumbled over the simplest of words. You’ve given him all kind of books for reluctant readers, but he never seems to finish them, and he often leaves them under his desk in his haste to pass to the next class. You’ve talked to the reading specialist about the possibility that he might have a reading disability, and she’s agreed to contact his parents, but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet. You’re most concerned that Eddie won’t be able to pass the state-wide competency test in English language this spring. You’ve given a couple of sample exams this year, and Eddie has done poorly on both the multiple choice items and the longer critical essay, which asks him to compare and discuss two works of literature. Your biggest surprise from Lamont and Eddie came a couple of weeks ago at a school assembly, when the two boys took the stage and performed some original hip hop music, much to the delight of their classmates. Apparently, they’ve been composing and performing hip hop and rap songs with a group for the past year. The boys in their hip-hop group have been hanging out at the center since it opened a full production recording studio last year. A couple of their songs are slated to be on an original cd that the center is planning to produce. You look over at them and wonder, “Why isn’t reading more like hip-hop?”
If you’re a literature teacher reading this book, chances are you’re a White female. The shortage of minority teachers has been documented since the 1970s. It’s a sad irony that, while the majority of teachers and students in colleges of education are middle-class White females, schools in America’s inner cities are populated by increasing numbers of African-American and Latino youth (Green, 2004). Because so many children of color are taught by White teachers, there is much room for misunderstanding. Carol D. Lee refers to the noisy, spirited talk that Lamont and his friends engage in as “multiparty talk” (2001, p. 108). In her many years of studying oral language in classrooms, Lee has observed that many teachers unfamiliar with African-American discourse style view multiparty talk as “out of turn and disruptive” (p. 110). White teachers in Lee’s study were often fearful of students’ demeanors and overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness as they witnessed multiparty talk. She concludes, “I believe that understanding discourse patterns of speakers of African-American English, as well as students who speak other varieties of English or for whom English is a second language, is a necessary tool in a teacher’s pedagogical toolkit” (p. 130). Rather than chalking up such talk as rude or disruptive, Lee argues that literature teachers should view it as a sign of engagement and find ways to harness its potential for teaching students about literature. Lee believes that African-American students like Eddie often struggle with reading, not because of deficiencies in decoding words, but in failing to develop the interpretive strategies for understanding larger literary techniques such as satire and symbolism. Yet, in their everyday lives, young people like Eddie and Lamont use these strategies every time they listen to rap music or engage in African-American discourse practices such as the practice of ritual insult called “signifying.” Through what she calls “cultural modeling” (2007) Lee engages African-American teenagers in reading and interpreting the lyrics of rap artists such as The Fugees as a bridge for learning complex aspects of literary interpretation such as irony, satire, symbolism, and the use of unreliable narrators. Similarly, Marc Lamont Hill (2009a) argues that street fiction, or a type of independently produced and published hip-hop literature, can be a rich resource for bridging contemporary and canonical literature with African-American teenagers.
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The biggest hurdle you will face in today’s culturally diverse society will be avoiding a deficit mindset and viewing your classroom as rich in linguistic and cultural resources.
TAKING INVENTORY: FUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE LITERATURE CLASSROOM Carol Lee’s work stems from the notion of “cultural funds of knowledge” (Moll & Greenberg, 1990), or the idea that children from non-mainstream cultures bring rich untapped resources from their homes and communities into the classroom every day. Though each of the young people in this chapter have special needs and circumstances that could get in the way of their learning, they don’t come to you as empty vessels. Brittany, Lily, Aaron, Stephanie, and Brian have all made reading and language work for them in their daily lives. They might be reading something you don’t exactly approve of, or they might not read in school-sanctioned ways, but they’re still reading and talking about their reading with their peers just like adult pleasure readers do. Lily, Brian, and Aaron have a powerful aptitude for technology. These skills could be useful in designing web pages or web quests, creating Facebook pages for literary characters, or engaging in online author studies. Eddie, Lamont, Brittany, and Lily are all talented musicians with the potential to connect those talents to performances and presentations as well as the interpretation of poetry and song lyrics. Lamont has an innate sense of comic timing, and Brittany is a natural performer; both would shine in dramatic enactments or readers’ theatre presentations. Lily and Veronica are visual artists who might enjoy making PowerPoint productions, collages, book covers, or posters. Lily’s strong attraction to manga can be harnessed in creating her own graphic novel or comic books and sharing them with other teenagers online. Kids like Brian, Eddie, and Lamont probably learn best by doing something physical, engaging in discussions and debates, role-playing, choral reading, and music or video production. Brittany, Stephanie, Lily, Veronica, and Lamont all seem to have strong social skills, though that aptitude manifests itself in different ways. Brittany and Lamont are natural performers who are comfortable in front of a large group, while Veronica and Stephanie aren’t active in large group discussions, and Veronica is shy. Yet, Stephanie comes to life in a small group, chatting with friends about books and TV shows, while Veronica is a natural leader in small group projects (for a useful tool in determining students’ reading interests and habits, see the “Literature/Media Interests Survey” in the Chapter 2 activities included in the website for this book). Their reading styles and tastes are no doubt divergent as well. With her auditory processing issues and ADHD, Veronica needs quiet time for uninterrupted reading before being asked to go public with her response. Unless it’s to prepare her for standardized examinations, she should not be given complicated oral directions, multiple-choice tests on literature, or assignments to stop and respond to teacher-selected questions at several points in the reading process. It also takes her longer to read a piece of literature than other students typically need, so you might want to reduce the number of books and stories she has to read in favor of a more in-depth understanding of a smaller number of key works. Aaron, Eddie, Lamont, and Brian all need help in finding books they like and staying on task. Harnessing the interests they already have would be a first step. While Aaron might enjoy non-fiction and fiction books about BMX biking and other action sports, Lamont and Eddie might be interested in non-fiction books about music production or hip-hop artists, as well as recent realistic fiction about urban teens in circumstances similar to theirs. With his technological expertise, Brian could explore various non-fiction books on computers, software, or websites. All three boys would
WHO ARE MY STUDENTS?
probably benefit from audio books or videos to accompany the print literature you sponsor. Stephanie and her friends need to be moved out of series books and TV shows into more complicated kinds of literature, but this will happen in due time. In the meantime, they might enjoy non-fiction books about fashion or music and more complicated fiction with the same kind of compelling narrative and suspenseful chapters as the Twilight (Meyer, 2006) series. There is currently a wealth of excellent fantasy novels and series books, such as Phillip Pullman’s (2008) His Dark Materials Trilogy or Ursula Le Guin’s (2005) Earthsea Trilogy. Lily already loves graphic novels, manga, and anime, but there are a number of non-fiction books on creating your own manga, anime, and cartoons that might interest her. Lily’s interest in “anything Asian” can be easily satisfied by much of the contemporary fiction, non-fiction, and historical fiction on Asian culture.
CREATING A CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT: MAKING ROOM FOR READING For most busy adolescents like those in this chapter, reading is a zero sum game. Lankshear and Knobel (2002) have argued that the greatest demands of the millennium are not so much on our ability to access information, but the attention we must selectively devote to an avalanche of textual material from sources ranging from the Internet to television, to a burgeoning print industry. Part of capturing their attention for reading involves creating a space where reading practices go beyond the mundane and resemble the outof-school literacies that a good many adults enjoy. Angela, a veteran middle school teacher, has created such an atmosphere. She describes her classroom as a cross between Barnes and Noble and a train station. Students come and go at the sound of a bell every 80 minutes; there is constant noise and chaos in the halls and outside on the playground. Yet for those 80 minutes, her students can find a space where reading is supported, privileged, and made more enticing by the ready availability of books, music, and comfortable furniture. Beyond these physical accouterments (however enticing they may be to students), there is a sense that reading is something to be shared, books are to be recommended, trips to the library are as exciting (well almost) as a trip to American Eagle or Hot Topic. Maren shouts to her cousin Ebony, “Oh, you just gotta read that one! I read it last month! It’s great!” (this, in response to Ebony’s protests that Margaret Walker’s (1999) Jubilee is almost 800 pages long). Jake (shy in English class, but a regular visitor to the principal’s office for his offenses) sidles over to his teacher’s desk and asks to be helped in selecting a book for independent reading. Veronica already has her book—a copy of Alice Sebold’s (2002) The Lovely Bones, purchased (and approved in advance) by her mom at Borders. Willie’s asked for a library pass, and Robert has persuaded Angela to let him read a complicated gaming manual as part of the non-fiction reading requirement that every student must fulfill at least once each marking period. If Angela’s classroom procedures seem a bit too informal for the demands of your high school curriculum, consider interspersing whole class instruction one or two workshop days per week, where students can engage in silent reading or collaborative projects such as author studies on favorite books, locating and synthesizing critical reviews (especially those written by other teenagers), interviews, syntheses of critical reviews, writing critical essays, and designing their own web pages focused on favorite authors and books. Think about how good it feels to settle down in the coffee shop of your favorite bookstore, then create that same kind of atmosphere for your students.
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MULTITEXTURED TEACHING: ORGANIZING THE LITERATURE CURRICULUM IN AN AGE OF MULTILITERACIES Given the astounding array of print, visual, and electronic texts currently available to us as literature teachers at the dawn of a new century, it doesn’t make sense to look at the curriculum in old ways. As the New London Group (1996) has argued, in today’s global economy and expanding world of technological change, a multitude of literacies—or “multiliteracies”—are essential for young people as they design their social futures and pursue a fulfilling life. Many times, when new technologies become available, teachers operate from an additive model, assuming that if you add more magazines and bestsellers to reading lists, and add more electronic and popular texts, your students will be magically transported into a lifetime of learning and reading. But adding more texts to an already outdated curriculum will not solve the problem. This is because one text alone, no matter how brilliantly written or conceived, can do little to enrich your students’ understanding of their place in this complicated world. As an alternative to additive models, we’d like you to consider what we call multitextured teaching. We’ve boldfaced the word “text” in this term, because teaching from a multitextured perspective means consciously layering text upon text and meaning upon meaning throughout the course of a unit, a semester, or a whole school year. Multitextured teaching operates from two basic premises. •
•
First, it means using all the texts at your disposal: print literature (fiction, non-fiction), the texts of popular culture (magazines, television shows, videos, graphic texts), and electronic texts (web searches, fan sites, blogs, wikis, author pages). Second, it means using these texts to help adolescents to critically “read” the texts of their own lives as teenagers in contemporary society. In the process of viewing literary texts against a backdrop of other popular and canonical texts, teenagers can begin to move more critically through the “identity crises” that Erikson talks about.
Mulitextured teaching takes you beyond the one-text-fits-all approach of organizing a theme such as “Coming of Age” around one text such as William Armstrong’s Sounder (1969) or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1988). It’s not that young people shouldn’t read these books, but that the rather simple portraits of growing up that they present should be viewed against a host of other perspectives, leading to a richer, more nuanced understanding of the multiple ways in which growing up could be defined. At its simplest level, using only literature texts, this approach could look something like the following scenario.
Coming of Age in an Era of Globalization Using texts in different time periods and geographies, ask students to consider what it means to come of age when you are: • • • • •
surviving political upheaval (Tessa Bridal’s (1997) The Tree of Red Stars) crossing religious and cultural boundaries (Chaim Potok’s (1967) The Chosen) challenging tradition (Suzanne Fisher Staples (1989), Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind) discovering sexual orientation (M. E. Kerr (1995), Deliver us from Evie) resisting colonialism (Chinua Achebe (1996), Things Fall Apart).
WHO ARE MY STUDENTS?
Constructions of Racial Identity in America To add more complexity—more texture, if you will—consider mixing print and nonprint texts. Start with a classic novel and view it in light of several literary and nonliterary texts that students can read and explore independently, in small reading groups, or as a whole class over the course of a semester. For example, instead of making one novel or story the centerpiece of a unit on race or racial identity, compare the treatment of race in a canonical novel like Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (1981), Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (2000), or Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1988) with portrayals of race in other media. Consider the following scenario, which uses print and non-print texts as a backdrop for viewing a canonical text: •
•
•
•
Rap and hip-hop music – How do various artist portray “blackness”? – Is it okay for rap and hip-hop artists to use the “N” word? Magazines for African-Americans such as Ebony and Jet – Who makes it on the cover of magazines? – Why did African-American models look White in the early days of magazines, and has that changed? Stereotypic television characters such as Mad TV’s Ms. Swan – Do media stereotypes still exist? – Why are they funny? Non-fiction such as James McBride’s (1997) The Color of Water, or Gregory Williams’s (1995) Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black – Is race biological or constructed? – If we didn’t have people of color, would we create them?
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: COMING OF AGE IN A NEW AGE When implemented over a period of a few weeks, multitextured teaching would look something like the unit on “Coming of Age” that Karen, a 9th grade teacher, has designed. She begins by showing the film Whale Rider (Caro, 2004). After comparing Paikea’s experience with their own experiences growing up in their family, community, and neighborhood, students join one of four small book clubs that meet on Mondays and Fridays. Because hers is a suburban school with limited racial and cultural diversity, Karen tries to select books that portray coming of age in different cultural contexts. This year, for example, the reading club books are Zee Edgell’s (1986) Beka Lamb, Mark Haddon’s (2004) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Mathabane’s (1998) Kaffir Boy, and Susanna Kaysen’s (1993) Girl, Interrupted. Because the books are relatively short, students typically finish them in two or three weeks, reading outside of class or during days when Karen is sponsoring other activities. During each phase of their reading, book clubs have different tasks. In their first couple of meetings, students are asked to simply jot down reactions during or after their reading, then boil their reactions down to five or more questions, ranging from questions of fact (What is autism?) to questions of value (Should Susanna Kaysen have been institutionalized?) to questions tied to their own curiosity or confusion (Why don’t American kids have the freedom to roam around town that Beka seems to have? How did Mark Mathabane’s early school experiences influence the person he became?).
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Students write their questions on five or more index cards, shuffle the pile, then discuss them informally each time their group meets. Somewhere near the middle of their reading, groups are asked to generate some questions about the culture, historical period, and/or social issues portrayed in their novel, then conduct a mini research project on their questions. For example, groups might research the topic of autism or Asperger’s Syndrome, the history of Apartheid, the country of Belize, or the history of McLean Hospital where Kaysen was institutionalized. Students are urged to use several types of texts and media in their research, from live interviews, to web and library research, to films, television shows, and popular media such as newspapers and magazines. After groups have completed some research, they discuss how “coming of age” in their book differs from or is similar to coming of age in contemporary American society. Groups use this research to make more formal final presentations to the whole class about the theme of “coming of age” as it relates to the their particular novel. Presentations must include references to the text and information from their outside research as well as a visual and verbal component. Students can create PowerPoint slide shows, write and perform original scripts, create original soundtracks, engage in panel discussions, or use other innovative forms of presentation. These are just a few of the ways that teachers can help students like those you have met in this chapter to get past the “reading sucks” syndrome. Engaging students in multitextual reading practices such as these is more than a motivational strategy. It is true that, with a relative abundance of leisure time and discretionary income, and when compared with teenagers before “adolescence” was created, today’s adolescents need to feel as though they “count” in American society. They no longer work in fields or in factories as did their counterparts at the turn of the twentieth century, so they need to feel a sense of importance and agency. In a world that may seem altogether treacherous and frightening, it’s easy to dismiss adolescents as useless at best and dangerous at worst. This is all the more reason to remember our responsibility for making them not only more literate individuals, but critically informed and productive citizens of our future world. They are, after all, “the hope of us all” (Hine, 2000, p. 11). (See Strategies for addressing students’ individual differences on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Reflect back to your own adolescent years and recall your own reading and media interests. What were some reasons for your engagement with particular books, films, TV programs, music, and/or video games? How did those interests/preferences reflect your particular needs and traits as an adolescent? Then, ask some adolescents to describe their reading and media interests, as well as reasons for those interests in terms of what appeals to them, as well as how those interests reflection their needs and traits. Compare their interests with your own both in terms of your own unique characteristics as well as larger generational differences. Reflect on how you will build on their interests in planning your instruction.
PART II
What Literatures Are We Teaching?
CHAPTER 3
Planning and Organizing Literature Instruction How Do I Decide What to Teach? “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.” Carroll (1916/1971, p. 60)
Case Narrative: Considering Different Factors in Planning Lessons Curriculum Goals for Teaching Literature The Planning Model (Questions for Planning Instruction) Designing Units Creating Units of Instruction: Melissa’s 9th Grade Unit on The House on Mango Street
CONSIDERING DIFFERENT FACTORS IN PLANNING LESSONS Given the importance of her student teaching experience, Laura Hammond knew that she needed to plan some engaging lessons for her students. She decided to have her students use the iMovie editing program as a tool to create video versions of poetry. She also knew that in planning her lesson, she needed to consider a wide range of different factors. Read over her reflections on her lessons and identify a range of different factors she is considering in her planning, for example, her purpose/goals, assumptions about student learning and motivation, what she needs to know and do to teach the lesson, knowledge and preparation, how she would evaluate student learning, and how to address potential challenges. With iMovie students can demonstrate their understanding of a poem by using images, voice over, text, sound, and/or music. This technology can engage their prior knowledge of music and images. This creates a bridge of prior knowledge to
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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new knowledge and students create ownership of the poem, linking it to music and images they are familiar with and enjoy. Students can also take ownership of their work and share it via blog or Ning. This may increase motivation and pride in a student’s academic performance. Our use of iMovie transforms the way students understand and interact with poetry. Instead of simply reading words on a page, students are returning to and rereading the text; focusing on particular words, imagery, and metaphor; and transform their response and interpretation of the poem into a multimedia presentation. Instead of a teacher imparting knowledge, the classroom becomes a constructivist environment in which students collaborate and learn from each other. Students are responsible for their own interpretation and response to the text. For technological preparation for this lesson, the teacher must be proficient with iMovie. Specifically, the teacher should know how to record a voiceover, how to add images from the Internet or a flash drive, how to import music, and how to add video and text. The teacher must also know how to access and play poetry in motion examples for anticipatory set on the first day of the lesson. Once the project is complete, the teacher must also understand how to share students’ projects across platforms by saving them to different video storage and playback formats. Not only must teachers know how and where to save these movies, teachers must also know how to share them on wikis, Nings, and blogs so students can view their own work and the works of their peers as well as share them with the world. An important aspect of pedagogical knowledge for this lesson plan requires a teacher to provide constant feedback to students throughout their creation of the iMovie by monitoring and observing student collaboration and progress. The handout provided should be well structured and include a detailed rubric of the assignment so as to supply the students with information as to how to successfully create and complete the project. The teacher should engage in a discussion with the students before the project about proper use and behavior with the technology and also be aware of potential behavioral problems that could arise with the use of the Internet and iMovie technology. The teacher must have a firm grasp of canonical American poetry and the ways in which it could be adapted. This includes both archaic and modern forms of text. The teacher should have knowledge of metaphor, mood, and imagery and how to transform the text into images, metaphor, and mood. The teacher should also have knowledge of textual adaptations of canonical and modern text and examples of diverse interpretations of the same poem. The teacher should have a good understanding of common literary techniques and devices in poetry. One foreseeable challenge with working with technology is the knowledge gap between students concerning technology. If the teacher pairs students instead of letting the students pair themselves, the teacher can use prior knowledge of students’ technological expertise and pair a strong student with a weaker one. If students choose their own groups, the teacher can rely on student collaboration both inside and outside their groups along with the teacher’s monitoring. Before the introduction to the project, the teacher might record a video tutorial to post on his/her own classroom Ning/wiki/blog. The teacher could model how to include each of the parts of the presentation step by step. This tutorial is an efficient way to instruct how to make the project because the students can reference the tutorial however many times they need to and whenever they need to and the teacher doesn’t need to be present. This differentiation helps different kinds of learners in the classroom.
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Students may become hyper-focused on one aspect of the project and neglect another, such becoming engrossed in finding images and forgetting about the sound. In order to avoid this challenge, teachers should make sure students are following their proposed outlines and suggest that they make deadlines for themselves during the allotted two and a half work days. In addition to this, proper teacher monitoring should also help to avoid this issue. Another idea is that by the end of the first workday, students could turn in concrete ideas for songs and several images. Their voiceover could also be due on the second day, as previously mentioned. This might be difficult to set parameters because students will have poems of differing lengths. However, proper student time management should be stressed.
Given all of the different factors Laura considered in her planning, in this chapter, we elaborate on ways to address these different factors in planning literature instruction. We’ll start at the overall curriculum level of your basic goals for teaching literature and then focus on your course or unit objectives and then on objectives for specific, daily activities to demonstrate that your larger purposes and goals can shape your more specific objectives. Long-term planning is also difficult to do as you’re teaching on a day-to-day basis, particularly during student teaching. As a student teacher, you’ll need to have planned out your units or curriculum in advance of your student teaching. Students, as well as your cooperating teacher, expect and deserve clearly defined, coherent curriculum. Good literature teaching is purposeful and the result of careful planning. It doesn’t simply just happen, even though we like to believe in the magical and mysterious nature of teaching. While teaching is both an art and craft, both that art and that craft need to be directed to the learning goals you have for your students. Before you begin to plan your lessons, it’s important to think through what you want to accomplish with your students through teaching literature. Therefore, this chapter on planning begins with our goals for teaching literature (For further descriptions of the planning process, see Activities on the website).
CURRICULUM GOALS FOR TEACHING LITERATURE Clear goals are central to good teaching. For the purpose of this chapter, we refer to curriculum goals as those goals that drive your overall literature curriculum planning. For example, your overall goal in teaching literature may be to help students to understand the uses of literary techniques or to engage in critical inquiry, goals that each serve to define what you will focus on in the curriculum. We contrast these goals with learning objectives, defined as those specific learning outcomes you want to achieve through use of specific activities in a lesson plan or unit. For example, in having students create a storyboard representation of a short story, your learning objective is to help them visually capture narrative and character development in the story.
Theories of Literature Instruction and Curriculum Goals The goals you adopt reflect certain theories or models about what you value in teaching literature. In Chapter 1, we described three different theories of literature instruction:
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a text-centered focus on analysis of texts, a student-centered focus on fostering students’ response, and a socio-cultural theory of the importance of the social context and community in learning. Recognizing that these theories overlap, in this chapter, we unpack these three different theories in terms of defining curriculum goals, drawing on research on models of literature instruction (Caughlan, 2007).
Text-centered Theory Text-centered theory draws on use of New Criticism that focused on uses of language “in” the autonomous text itself as divorced from one’s subjective experiences (“the affective fallacy”) as well as formalist instruction involving identifying instances of character types, point of view, setting, story development, and theme. It also draws on structuralist and deconstructionist literary analysis of binary oppositions in texts between “good’’ versus “evil,’’ “male’’ versus “female,’’ or “dark’’ versus “light,” as well as the limitations of these categories, for example, how “male’’ versus “female’’ perpetuates essentialist notions of gender differences. One advantage of text-centered theory is that it emphasizes the importance of analyzing specific aspects of a text. One limitation of this theory is that it fails to consider individual differences in students’ responses as shaped by differences in their knowledge, beliefs, and purposes (Rosenblatt, 1978; 1938/1996). As noted in Figure 3.1, in valuing a text-centered theory, teachers adopt the curriculum goal of having students learn analysis of a text as an autonomous, aesthetic object as modeled by the teacher as the expert reader who is often assumed to have the “right answers.” Related to this theory is the use of literature to teach reading comprehension strategies such as inferring the main point, predicting, or using graphic organizers to organize perceptions. While teaching these strategies is certainly important, this focus on reading instruction often assumes that the meaning is inherent “in” the text so that student answers, particularly on a test or quiz, are judged as “correct” or “incorrect,” ignoring variations in meaning based on students’ own knowledge, beliefs, and purposes—the “student-centered” theory—associated with the students’ transactional, aesthetic experience. This theory also often ignores how these strategies may vary considerably due to differences in genres, something we describe in Chapter 8. And, a text-centered theory also is related to the curriculum goal of teaching background historical information about the time and place shaping the text, as well as information about the literary periods, a goal often reflected in the organization of the college literature survey course or curriculum based on literary periods, for example, eighteenth-century British literature. The curriculum goal is to provide students with knowledge of the “content” of literature, so that, for example, students know the characteristics of the Romantic period. While it is certainly important for students to appreciate the historical and cultural forces shaping writers’ portrayals of a period, one limitation of this approach is that all texts from a certain period are assumed to reflect similar influences.
Student-centered Theories In contrast to these text-centered theories, student-centered theories emphasize the importance of students’ individual responses as shaped by differences in their knowledge, beliefs, or purposes, theories based on Dewey’s (1904/1974) progressive theories of education and Rosenblatt’s (1978; 1938/1996) notions of aesthetic versus efferent stances. In adopting an aesthetic stance, students engage in various “envisionments’’ with
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Theories of literature
Goals: Students learn:
Text-centered: Literature is the autonomous and opaque text for analysis.
Analysis of a text as an autonomous, aesthetic object as modeled by teacher as expert reader.
Text-centered: Literature is a tool for teaching reading skills.
Reading comprehension strategies with less emphasis on students’ aesthetic experience.
Text-centered: Literature as expression of/window on a place or time.
Background understanding of historical and cultural contexts or literary period in which it was set.
Student-centered: Literature provides personal enjoyment through an aesthetic transaction.
Responding to literature as a transaction with a text.
Student centered: Literature is a tool for clarifying beliefs and values.
Defining connections to and reflecting on ethical and identity issues in their own experiences.
Socio-cultural focus: Literature is capable of being seen from different critical perspectives in a social context.
Creating the classroom community to foster and respect diverse expressions of different critical perspectives.
Figure 3.1 Relationships between Models of Literature and Goals for Student Learning
their “living-through’’ experience with texts as well as connections to related autobiographical experiences and other texts (Langer, 1995) as well as perspective-taking through empathizing with or anticipating characters’ thoughts and feelings (Wilhelm & Edmiston, 1998). Teachers who adopt student-centered theories adopt a constructivist approach to learning that emphasizes fostering students’ expression of their responses through discussion, writing, drama, artwork, and digital media. For example, in teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, one teacher, Ms. Stewart, had her students create a project that was somehow related to the book—character diaries, dioramas, poetry collections, original art etc. (Brooks, 2010). She describes one example: I’ve had kids who had looked up the recipes and one girl did one of the Lane cakes–a big honking thing–three layers–it was huge and she’s a little tiny girl. She brings it in and you could see her little muscles and she said “I’ve carried this all the way from the front–can you take it?” I took it and I was like Woah! It had to have been at least 10 pounds. (p. 94)
She described the value of such activities: It’s a celebration of their skill. They tie it to the book so it’s a celebration of the book and if that doesn’t create at least an appreciation for literature, I don’t know what will. If we have an appreciation for literature, then pretty soon we’ve got some lifelong learning skills here and isn’t that really what we’re here for? (p.94)
Teachers may also subscribe to a student-centered theory of literature as providing insights into their beliefs and values; this justifies adopting the goal of having students make connections to and reflect on ethical and identity issues in their own experiences. For example, in a discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird, Ms. Stewart asks the students to interpret the symbolic meaning of the mockingbird in the title (Brooks, 2010). When one student notes that the mockingbird represents innocence, she notes that:
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Think about the people that you know that are smaller than you or weaker than you. Some people who are less than you–not that they aren’t important but they may not have these abilities. Think about people who might pick on them—those people might never get it. Sometimes it helps to ask yourself when you see someone at the mall, “Who is this person ever going to hurt?” Usually the answer is nobody. We all do it–it’s a natural thing to do. (p. 94)
One student then responds, “When you treat someone mean you teach them that mean is normal and then that’s how they treat other people.” (Brooks, 2010, p. 102). It’s important to distinguish between making connections between students’ lives and texts versus using texts, as was often the case in the nineteenth century, to teach moral lessons.
Socio-cultural Theories One limitation of student-centered theories is that they may over-emphasize individual responses without considering how the meaning of responses are shaped by differences in unique social or cultural contexts and communities (Lewis, 2001; Sumara, 2002). This theory leads to the goal of creating classroom communities designed to foster and respect diverse expressions of different critical perspectives, as well as the need to build on students’ cultural “funds of knowledge” and identity construction (Lee, 2007). Teachers also help students recognize tensions within text worlds as well as between students in ways that serve to challenge their status-quo beliefs (Beach, Haeartling-Thein, & Parks, 2008).
The Importance of Formulating Your Theories and Goals As student teachers and then beginning teachers, you will be under pressure to conform to the prevailing, status quo methods of the schools in which you are working. While you will certainly need to adopt to the context in which you begin your career, it is also important that, if you perceive them as being inconsistent with beliefs in more innovative methods that you may have acquired from your program, then you will need to be able to justify your adoption of those methods to your colleagues or administration. Having a clearly defined set of beliefs will make it easier to formulate that justification to defend your use of certain methods. Preservice teachers who have a strong, welldefined set of beliefs were less likely to conform to the traditional teaching practices operating in the schools than those teachers who do not have a well-defined set of beliefs and attitudes (Smagorinsky, Gibson, Moore, Bickmore, & Cook, 2004). For example, one preservice teacher, Natalie, completed a program that promoted a student-centered curriculum valuing student lives and growth through active participation in individualized, authentic learning. However, in her student teaching, she was working with a cooperating teacher who focused primarily on teaching “skills” for preparing students for the state graduation test, a focus that was inconsistent with Natalie’s beliefs. In teaching To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, 1988), she therefore resisted using the teacher’s true-false tests to adopt more student-centered approaches, in, for example, teaching symbolism in the novel involving students developing symbols representing themselves. Natalie perceived this activity as consistent with her commitment to a student-centered approach: I really want it to be meaningful for themselves. I really try to talk about, you know, how they can relate to this because Scout is so much—her growing up and the things that she does are so much like our own growing up. (p. 230)
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Then, as a first-year middle-school teacher in a district with a standardized curriculum and testing, she continued to resist based on her beliefs, ultimately leaving her school after two years to go to another school whose curriculum was more consistent with her beliefs. Adopting a more student-centered stance can be a challenge for preservice teachers whose previous secondary or college literature instruction has involved a more textcentered theory of literature instruction—the need to “cover literature” as a subject matter or discipline. When you reflect on your own beliefs about literature, which of these different models is most consistent with your beliefs? Which of these models do you believe are value in your teacher education program? Then, given the fact that you subscribe to these models, what goals will you adopt to drive your curriculum and instruction? For example, if you adopt a model of literature as an autonomous object to be analyzed, then you may focus on close reading or formalist analysis of a text. These different theories and goals certainly overlap—you may actually subscribe to all of them or adopt some of them in working with certain groups of students. Then, based on your discussion with and observation of your cooperating teachers’ instruction, what models and goals do you perceive as most prominent in your cooperating teachers’ classrooms? And, based on observation of your cooperating teacher’s different classes, or other teachers’ instruction in the same school, do you perceive any variation in their adoption of these models and goals? If you sense some disparities between your own and your cooperating teachers’ models and goals, what will or could you do to address these disparities, particularly given the fact that your students are accustomed to operating with your cooperating teachers’ models and goals? From reflecting on these models and goals, you may recognize that there are conflicts between your models and goals and the models and goals valued in your school.
Accommodating for Individual Differences in Planning Activities In planning activities for a class, you are considering how to accommodate your activity for the particular group of students with a range of individual differences as described in Chapter 2. It is, of course, particularly in working with a large group of students, difficult to accommodate for all individual differences. However, you may still consider ways in which your activity at least attempts to accommodate for as many of the following individual differences as possible.
Reading Ability Students range considerably in their reading ability within a class. Knowing something about their reading ability will help you in selecting texts that are either not too difficult or too easy for the majority of your students. In some cases, you may simply assume that students’ reading ability will not be a factor and overestimate their ability to interpret relatively difficult texts. Unfortunately, students are often labeled as reading at a certain “grade level” based on scores on standardized reading tests. One problem with such labels is that students may vary considerably in their reading ability in terms of differences in type or genre of a text, their knowledge about the text’s content, their purpose for reading, and the larger context constituting the reading activity.
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You can garner some rough sense of students’ level of reading ability by providing them with some short stories with engaging content that are written at different levels of difficulty. By asking students some basic comprehension questions, you can then ascertain differences in the degree to which students readily understand a less difficult story— for example, one written for young adults, versus a story that is more difficult.
Accommodating for Individual Needs You also need to build on students’ individual needs. For example, in working with students at a school for students coping with alcohol and drug use, Amy Berentson planned a literature unit for the novel, Comeback (Fontaine & Fontaine, 2006) based on her students’ experience in coping with alcohol and drug use (for a complete narrative description of her planning process, see Selecting texts on the website). I wanted them to understand that there are books that explored their life experiences and authors that tackled issues they faced every day. I also wanted to give them the chance to see the challenges they faced in life affected other people. Comeback was a great tool to reach these goals. It is co-written by a teenager who went through the addiction and recovery process and that child’s mother. Throughout the book, the reader is given two perspectives that provide the reader the chance to see the impact addiction has on the user as well as the loved ones in their lives. In order to achieve my goal of seeing through another’s eyes, I had to come up with a project that would both benefit them academically and on a personal level. I decided that I would have them complete an interview. They were to go through the whole interview process: choosing a subject, writing questions, doing the interview, taking notes, and reflecting on what they learned. This way, they learned the interview process while achieving one of the goals I had for the class. This interview would be of someone who was with them and supported them throughout both their addiction and recovery process. In doing so, they would be able to learn how their actions while using drugs and alcohol affected other people, which is much like what the main character from Comeback experienced. Most of the students chose to interview either a parent or their best friend. Once they chose their interview subject they brainstormed at least ten possible questions they would ask during the interview. They then set up and completed the interview, taking copious amounts of notes on what their interview subject said. Once the interview was complete, the students had to type up their questions along with the responses given by their interviewee. The students were also required to add their personal reactions to what their interviewee said. This allowed them to reflect on the impact of their past actions and see those same actions through the perspective of someone close to them. Looking back at how the literature unit went, I can say that doing all the preparation I did definitely helped make this unit successful. The students were able to connect to the literature and learn how they affected peoples’ lives. It was rewarding to see so many students reconnect with reading after such a long absence.
For students with learning disabilities, you can use technology tools to accommodate for individual differences in student learning by providing additional support for your students or by varying instructional design to accommodate for individual differences in learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002). For example, CAST, The Center for Applied Special Technology (http://www.cast.org), is an organization focusing on the use of technology
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to address learning diversity that provides teachers with various online tools for accommodating to these differences, particularly differences in reading ability (see the website for related links).
THE PLANNING MODEL (QUESTIONS FOR PLANNING INSTRUCTION) In this chapter, we propose a planning model based on a series of questions that you are continually asking yourself as you plan activities using certain teaching techniques based on the metaphor of taking your students on a journey: • • • • •
Where am I going? Who am I going there with? How will I get there? How will I show them where to go? How will I know I have arrived?
You will not just be posing these questions in a chronological order; these questions are recursive in that you’re continually posing them questions of yourself, but not in any set order.
Where Am I Going?: Defining Learning Objectives for Specific Activities As with developing objectives for a unit or course, you are also defining learning objectives for each of the specific, daily activities you include in your unit or course designed to address the question: Where am I going?
District, State, and National Curriculum Standards In formulating your unit or course learning objectives, you also need to relate them to local school district, state, or national standards. Many schools’ English curriculums are organized around standards derived from district, state, or national standards. As of the writing of this book, in 2010, many states have opted to employ the national Common Core standards organized by grade level (http://www.corestandards.org; see Standards on the website). These standards were designed to provide teachers with general expectations for instruction as opposed to prescribing how and what to teach. For example, for grades 9–10, for “key ideas and details,” students are expected to be able to: cite the evidence in the text that most strongly supports a specific analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text; analyze how multiple themes or central ideas in a text interact, build on, and, in some cases, conflict with one another; and analyze how complex characters, including those with conflicting motivations or divided loyalties, develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
For “craft and structure,” they are expected to be able to: Evaluate how an author’s use of language, including formality of diction, shapes meaning and tone in a text (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place, how it sets a
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formal or informal tone); analyze how an author structures a text, orders events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulates time (e.g., pacing) to create mystery, tension, or surprise; and analyze a case in which the author’s work takes a position or stance on a social issue or other topic and describe how the author carries out that purpose.
And, for “integration of knowledge and ideas,” they are expected to be able to “compare and contrast the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums (e.g. Auden’s “Musée de Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus); and analyze a wide range of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, comparing and contrasting approaches to similar ideas or themes in two or more texts from the same period (Council of Chief State School Officers/National Governors Associations, 2010, p. 33). One advantage of adopting these standards is that teachers in a school can have certain expectations as to what topics are addressed at what grade levels so that they can assume that their students have acquired certain background strategies and knowledge that they can build on at their own grade level.
Specificity of Objectives It is also important that you formulate your objectives in specific terms so that they will be useful for you in defining specific learning activities. An objective such as “my students will learn to interpret a story” does not provide you with much direction in terms of learning activities. A more specific objective, “my students will learn to identify violations of social norms constituting unusual character behaviors to infer the theme or point of a story” provides more specific direction for planning activities. Or rather than state that students will understand story development, a more specific objective would be “my students will define the causal relationships between unfolding story events, as well as predict story outcomes based on knowledge of prototypical genre storylines.”
Five Types of Teaching Techniques: Selecting/Sequencing, Immersing/Facilitating, Modeling/Scaffolding, Orienting/Socializing, Reflecting Once you have formulated objectives, you then need to decide on what teaching techniques will fulfill your learning objectives. We have organized these activities in terms of five types of teaching techniques: selecting/sequencing, immersing/facilitating, modeling/scaffolding, orienting/socializing, and reflecting. As illustrated in Figure 3.2, these five types of teaching techniques address the questions Who am I going there with?, How will I get there?, How will I show them where to go? which are not sequential, but are more recursive in nature—they continually intersect with each other.
Selecting/Sequencing: Who Am I Going There With? Selecting/sequencing addresses the question Who am I going there with? This involves choosing those interpretive strategies and critical lens you want to employ that will achieve your goals given the particular group of students you are working with and then selecting tasks or creating contexts involving the uses of discussion, writing, and computer tools that will best help students acquire these strategies and approaches. This involves
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Selecting/sequencing Who am I going there with? How will I get there?
Immersing/facilitating How will I get there? Reflecting
Modeling/Scaffolding: How will I show them where to go?
Orienting/socializing How will I show them where to go?
Figure 3.2 Five Types of Teaching Techniques
determining your students’ reading interests and preferences. As we noted in Chapter 2, you also need to take into account the variation within your class in students’ ZPDs— the fact that some students will have more difficulty than others given differences in their prior knowledge and experience. This means that you then need to consider some variations in your activities to accommodate for these differences or shoot for some middle ground.
Setting Up an Individualized Reading Program Based on the information you gather on students’ reading interests, you could set up an individualized reading program or what is often referred to as “sustained silent reading” (SSR), in which you devote several weeks or one day a week to having students simply read self-selected texts. A central goal of such a program is to foster a positive attitude toward reading through allowing students to choose their own texts to read and to gain satisfaction from that reading. The very fact that students make their own choices provides some incentive for them to reading a text, as opposed to assigned texts. This does not mean that they necessarily need to complete the text—they also need to learn to reject texts that they may not enjoy and choose another text. In response to the criticism of individualized reading programs, Nancie Atwell (2009) justifies these programs given the fact that students read very little outside of school; that students often avoid reading assigned “classics” by going to Spark Notes, Cliff Notes, or Wikipedia; that students often do not understand the adult themes in “classics,” that it is not the case that “anything goes” because she assumes an active role in promoting a range of different kinds of books; that these programs are designed to benefit students of all ability levels, not simply less-able readers; and that, with her students averaging 53 books a year, this “frequent, voluminous book-reading builds fluency, stamina, vocabulary, confidence, and comprehension. It also sharpens tastes and preferences, critical perspectives, and knowledge of genres and authors” (p. 5). In setting up your program, you need to provide students with a lot of optional choices of texts. It is important to help them learn how to make selections based on their prior reading experiences and interests. However, finding texts consistent with students’ own interests can often be a challenge. Making choices about literature, as opposed to non-fiction, is often difficult, because readers may not have a clear idea as to whether they would enjoy a particular text. (See Selecting texts and Online literary texts on the website). To introduce books to students or to engage them in topics, you or the media specialist can conduct book talks in which you briefly summarize or abstract the storyline of the book, along with some particular aspect of the book that would make it appealing.
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It is also important that you have a lot of current paperback books available in the classroom or in the media center. Establishing a close, working relationship with staff in the media center is critical because they can assist you in making books available. You can often purchase these books at a local warehouse or discount outlet or ask students or parents to loan you books. And, you should provide choices from a wide range of different genres in addition to novels, including short stories (particularly for less-able readers), biographies, autobiographies, magazines, and poetry. To help students make these choices, you can talk with them individually about their prior reading experiences or favorite authors. You then help them clarify their own interests by narrowing down or eliminating genres or authors they do not enjoy in order to consider those genres or authors they do enjoy. Students can enter information onto websites that serve to link their interests with particular texts. Rather than recommending or advising them to select a particular text, it is preferable to have them consider some optional texts based on your own suggestions. By proving students with a lot of options, they are learning how to make their own choices based on some emerging sense of their particular interests and preferences. The primary focus of an individualized reading program is simply to provide students with time to read during class. Students could read similar texts and share responses to those texts in small groups. You can ask students to share their evaluations or recommendations of texts with each other. Students could post brief reviews and ratings on 3 × 5 cards or on class web pages. They could also nominate certain books, authors, characters, or illustrators for class book-awards, to be juried by a group of students. You can evaluate students’ reading by having them report on the number of pages and/or books they have completed, as well as journal responses to their books. However, the primary focus of the evaluation should be on the amount of reading, as opposed to their responses. (See Organizing instruction and classrooms on the website.)
Selecting/Sequencing: How Will I Get There?: Selecting Interpretive Strategies and Critical Approaches In planning activities, you select those interpretive strategies and critical approaches that will best address your learning objectives based on the particular group of students you are working with. For example, you may want to help students learn to construct the cultural world of the 1920s in America as portrayed in The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991). To do so, you may first want to unpack your own interpretation of the world of the novel by reflecting on your own processes of constructing that world—an instance of how reflecting intersects with selecting/sequencing. You may reflect on how you use other, related interpretive strategies—inferring patterns in characters’ practices or defining intertextual connections that suggest that certain cultural norms are operating in the world of the novel—the fact that there are differences between a world of old, inherited wealth of Tom and Daisy and the world of new, recently acquired wealth of Gatsby. You may also note the disparities between the upper-middle class and the working-class worlds of Myrtle. And, you may also infer the larger cultural world of the “roaring 20s,” a world of economic growth that would eventually lead to the Stock Market crash. You then select tasks as response tools that help students employ those interpretive strategies or critical approaches you’ve selected (see Selecting response tools on the website). In formulating your tasks, you would then select those tools that would best assist students in completing these tasks. For example, to help students define patterns, you may select the writing tool of “listing” a character’s actions, followed by “mapping” similar patterns
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in those actions, and then “freewriting” about the meaning of those similarities in terms of how these patterns reflect certain cultural norms. For example, in teaching The Great Gatsby, a student may then infer a pattern in Gatsby’s practices of consistently displaying his wealth and status, a pattern that reflects his allegiance to the upper-class world of new wealth. In devising your tasks, you need to consider which talk, writing, or computer tools are most likely to fulfill competing a task for your particular group of students. Rather than limit yourself to one tool, you may consider the use of different tools. For example, if students are writing up an investigatory news report about a character, they may first engage in some mock oral interviews with different characters. They may then post their news report on a website or blog. Once you’ve selected your activities and your talk, writing, or computer tools, you then need to organize the tasks so that each task builds on the next, how, for example, pre-reading activities lead to activities during reading that lead to post-reading activities. In sequencing your tasks, you are continually reflecting on whether students have the background preparation or knowledge necessary for successful completion of that task. This requires you to think in terms of “first things first”—what tasks do students need to complete first in order to complete subsequent tasks. For example, you could start a classroom with a large-group discussion of a story. However, you may find that many students do not contribute to the discussion or have little to say about the story. Adopting an alternative “first-things-first” approach, you back up and consider those events that would better prepare students for a large-group discussion. That might include an initial freewrite about their responses to the story followed by sharing their freewrites with each other in small groups. Through this writing and discussion, students are articulating and extending their responses. Then, when they are in the large-group discussion, they can draw on their writing or discussion, resulting in the greater likelihood that they may contribute to the discussion.
Immersing/Facilitating: How Will I Get There? In immersing/facilitating, you are involving students in activities so that they become engaged in the activities through how you facilitate their participation in the activities. This means that you want to select those activities that are most likely to engage students in some sustained manner. It is often preferable to begin with having students share or recount their experiences as a lead-in to a discussion about a critical approach. If you are doing a unit on gender roles and media, you may begin with having students describe their own experiences with gender-role stereotyping in their own daily lives or in the media. By beginning with students’ own experiences or interests, you are working in a “bottom-up,” inductive way to link their lives to the classroom. You can then provide them with concepts, critical lenses, or frameworks in a more deductive manner that serve to help illuminate those experiences. By having students actively involved in producing texts through drama, oral activities, writing, or video/hypermedia production, you provide them with opportunities to express their own experiences and ideas to others, as well as produce their own texts, sharing that allows them to display competence to their peers. One study of high school students’ engagement in various school activities found that students were most likely to be engaged with things such as art, music, sports, or drama productions in which they could physically display their competence to peers (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984). In contrast, students reported relatively low levels of engagement in many of
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their classes, particularly classes in which they had little opportunity for active participation. In participating in these events, students derive a sense of purpose and audience from the need to display competence to their peers or adults, something that contributes to developing their social status and self-worth. For example, students may construct and perform their own skits based on their everyday experiences or on fictional characters. Performing these skits for others gives them the opportunity to display competence. All of this suggests that students become engaged in activities that involve their active involvement in constructing their own versions of texts and social worlds.
Stating Purposes for Activities In giving directions for activities, it is important that you state the purpose for doing a certain task based on the interpretive strategies or critical approaches associated with that task. Knowing the purpose for why they are doing something provides students with a road map or sense of direction so that they can determine not only when they have achieved that purpose, but also criteria for self-assessing their performance on a task. For example, you ask students to list characters’ practices associated with these different categories, male versus female and upper versus working class. In doing so, you also need to clarify your purposes for doing so—that you want students to define the binary oppositions operating in the world of the text—the fact that upper-middle class males are perceived as having all of the power, particularly in contrast to working-class females.
Modeling/Scaffolding: How Will I Show Them Where To Go? In modeling/scaffolding, you are demonstrating how to employ certain interpretive strategies, critical lenses, and tools, particularly in terms of building connections to their own cultural backgrounds. Modeling involves showing students how to engage in certain tasks within their ZPD, or employ certain interpretive strategies or critical approaches, as opposed to telling them what constitute appropriate responses. One limitation of much literature instruction and textbooks is that students are given certain tasks but simply do not know how to complete those tasks. For example, in reading “The Lottery” (Jackson, 1988), they may be asked to “infer the symbolic meaning of the lottery in the story,” without any specific understanding as to how to infer symbolic meanings. By modeling your own uses of strategies or approaches, you are providing students with assistance in how to employ new, unfamiliar ways of thinking or responding. You are building on students’ familiar knowledge to help them understand the unfamiliar. In doing so, you are providing students with what Carol Lee (2007) describes as “cultural modeling” of the problem-solving specific to knowing how to interpret literature, knowing-now that can be modeled based on connections between the students’ cultural background and what they are learning. This requires determining how certain funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzales, 2001) specific to students’ cultural backgrounds are most relevant to interpreting literature. Middle-class students often bring non-school practices and funds of knowledge that are consistent with in-school critical interpretations of written texts, for example, how to make thematic generalizations across contexts (Gee, Allen, & Clinton, 2001), while non-middle-class students may lack that practice, disparities reflected in “achievement gap” data on test scores. As Lee notes, for 17-year-olds on the 2004 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test, while 45% of White students could make inferences representing “understanding complicated literary and informational passages,” only 17% of Blacks and 20% of Latino students were operating at this level.
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All of this suggests that many students simply lack knowledge of how to engage in interpretive practices. Because these students are often labeled as “struggling readers,” they then receive reading instruction that often focuses on inferences about informational texts, as opposed to acquiring literary interpretive strategies. In working with African-American students, Lee (2007) builds on their background knowledge of “cultural data sets” such as rap lyrics, experience with “signifying”—ritual taunting, symbolic or popular culture texts. She identifies those potential difficulties or “interpretive problems” (Lee, 2001) students may have in interpreting a text, for example, the symbolic meanings of figurative language in Toni Morrison’s (2004) Beloved, and then has students reflect on how their use of language in rap songs involves similar uses of symbolic meanings. She also demonstrates uses of “rules of notice” (Rabinowitz, 1998) to detect cues such as titles, names, beginning and final lines/sentences, in a rap song, that invite readers to infer larger, symbolic meanings, leading to applying the rules to certain symbols in the novel. And, she models what Rabinowitz (1998) defines as “rules of signification” to help students recognize that certain textual details are particularly significant or relevant to interpreting larger symbolic meanings. As students begin to formulate interpretations, they are also attempting to determine whether their interpretations are valid or “warrantable” (Lee, 2007, p. 55) based on both evidence from the text as well as corroborating experiences and texts from their livedworld experience. And, she has students continually reflecting on how they are drawing on their funds of knowledge by continually asking students what knowledge they are drawing on and how they are able to make their interpretations.
Orienting/Socializing: How Will I Show Them Where To Go? Orienting techniques include how you are introducing students to what it means to be an active participant in and member of your classroom community. In doing so, you are not attempting to create an exclusive or a controlling, rule-bound community. Rather, you are assuming the role of “tourguide” (Edelsky, Smith, & Wolfe, 2002) who supports students so that they perceive themselves as contributing something of value to a community, as well as respecting each other as community members. You can most effectively orient students as much through how you operate in the classroom as through direct, deliberate modeling. How you respond to students’ challenges to your role as teacher, student conflicts, classroom crises, or school/community events, as well as the everyday operation of the classroom indirectly conveys powerful messages to students about your own identity as a teacher and as a person. In his discussion of teaching as a “moral activity,” David Hansen (2001) quotes John Dewey (1904/1974), who noted that “It is not too much to say that the most important thing for the teacher to consider, as regards his present relations to his pupils, is the attitudes and habits which his own modes of being, saying, and doing are fostering or discouraging in others” (p. 326). Hansen identifies three important elements of teachers’ classroom actions in a classroom: manner, style, and tact. Manner has to do with how you conduct yourself in working with students, for example, the extent to which you are open-minded, flexible, tolerant, or civil in their relationships with students. Style has to do with particular, consistent, typical ways of interacting with students that reflect your beliefs and attitudes. Tact has to do with how you react to immediate, specific classroom situations. Knowing how to react on the spot requires a certain thoughtful, sensitive “mindfulness” to the particular aspects of a situation.
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You are also orienting by demonstrating your own passion or interest in literature through how you talk about certain texts—the fact that you have certain strong preferences for certain authors or texts. As in teaching any subject, exuding your own passion or interest in the classroom may do more than anything to foster student interest in literature. While your students may not all share your own enthusiasm, they may appreciate the fact that you have an enthusiasm for what you are doing.
Reflecting: How Will I Know I Have Arrived? A final, and underlying teaching technique is reflecting. As you engage in immersing, orienting, facilitating, and modeling, you are continually reflecting on your teaching in order to anticipate subsequent teaching activities and changes in your plans. You are reflecting on three basic aspects of your instruction: • • •
what went well with students’ learning what did not go well with students’ learning what things you need to work on to address what did not go well.
As we describe in more detail in the final chapter, such reflection is essential for your growth and development as a teacher. By identifying specific aspects of your teaching in which you need work, you can then focus your attention on improving those aspects.
DESIGNING UNITS Now that we have described the planning model, we can apply that model to designing units. In designing units you are going beyond planning for individual activities to organize your activities according to some coherent, overall topic, theme, issue, genre, archetypes, historical/literary period, or production. During your student teaching, you may be employing a number of different units lasting from a couple of days to several weeks. It is important to prepare these units in advance of student teaching when you have the time to conduct research and pull together relevant resources. You can also discuss units with your cooperating teachers in terms of how they are integrated into that teacher’s curriculum. (See Curriculum resources and Sample course syllabi, units, lesson plans, and activities on the website).
Different Organizational Structures for Units You first need to define a central focus around which you organize your specific daily activities in terms of a topic, theme, issue, genre, production/writing, archetype, literary period. There are advantages and disadvantages to these optional structures to consider in selecting your central focus. In many cases, units combine different aspects of these alternatives; there is no pure prototypical example for each of these different approaches.
Topics Organizing your unit around a topic such as power, evil, suburbia, the family, etc., means that you are finding texts that portray these different topics. For example, you may select a series of texts that portray mother/daughter relationships, as in The Bean
PLANNING AND ORGANIZING
Trees (Kingsolver, 1998) or A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (Dorris, 1987). Students may then compare or contrast the different portrayals of the same topic across different texts. It is important to select topics about which students have some familiarity or interest, or that may engage them. You may also want to have students study how certain topics are represented in literature and/or the media. For example, students may examine how the family is represented in nineteenth-century literature compared to twentieth-century representations. Or, how the rural, small-town social worlds are represented in twentiethcentury American literature. One advantage of a topics approach is that topics do not imply the kind of value or cultural orientation associated with a thematic or issue unit. Students may construct their own value stance related to a topic, for example, defining different attitudes towards the topic of mother/daughter relationships. However, without that additional value orientation, students may lack motivation to be engaged in a topic.
Themes You may also organize your unit around certain themes portrayed in texts. A frequently used theme is that of individualism or conformity to society—the extent to which characters must conform to or resist societal norms. As we just noted, one advantage of thematic units is that students may become engaged with related attitudes or values associated with a theme. One disadvantage of thematic units is that they can readily become too didactic, in which you attempt to have students “learn” certain thematic lessons—the importance of not conforming to society or the need to be courageous. This problem of didacticism relates to how you organize your unit. You can organize your unit in both a “top-down” deductive manner, providing students with theoretical perspectives or frames for them to apply in a deductive manner. You can also organize your unit in a “bottom-up” inductive manner, encouraging students to make their own connections and applications. To avoid the didactic tendency of a thematic unit, you can move more to an inductive approach, allowing students to make their own interpretations and connections that may differ from any presupposed central thematic focus. (See Thematic literature instruction on the website).
Issues You can also organize your units by issues, for example, the issue of gender and power— the degree to which women may have to assume subordinate roles in a culture. One advantage of using an issue is that students may adopt different, competing perspectives about an issue, tensions that may create interest in that issue. One disadvantage of studying issues is that students may bring often rigidly defined stances on issues such as gun control or school vouchers, which may not allow for further development or consideration of alternative perspectives. You may have students identify their own issues portrayed in a text. For example, students may identify the issue of social pressure from peers to adopt certain practices valued by the group, but perceived as problematic by certain group members.
Genres You may also organize your unit around studying a particular genre—short story, novel, ballad, rap, drama, memoir, biography, poetry, film noir, or hybrid combinations or
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mixtures of genres evident in a multi-genre approach to writing instruction (Romano, 2000). (For discussion of genres in film/television, see Chapter 6). In studying a particular genre, students examine similar features of that genre in terms of prototypical settings, characters, storylines, and themes, as well as shared literary techniques. One advantage of a genre approach is that students learn a larger literacy practice of making generalizations about similarities between different texts based on certain genre features. For example, having read a number of different autobiographical essays, students may then identify similar features common to those essays. One disadvantage of a genre approach is that it leads readily into pigeonholing or categorizing texts as representing certain genre features without critically analyzing those texts. Moreover, such reductionist genre approaches can also reify a formalist approach to English instruction—over-emphasizing the study of formal structures without examining other aspects of texts. For example, it may be assumed that all short stories have “rising action,” “conflict,” and “resolution,” when in fact there are many stories that do not follow that formal structure.
Archetypes You can also organize units around mythic or literacy archetypes, drawing on the critical approach of the archetypal approach discussed in Chapters 8 and 9. For example, you may organize a unit around the archetype of the romance quest narrative pattern evident in epic and medieval texts, as well as contemporary journey or travel quests of the Star Wars and Fellowship of the Rings series. As part of this unit, you may focus on the initial initiation of the hero in preparation for the quest, linking the hero’s initiation to adolescents’ own experiences of initiation in their own lives. One advantage of archetypal approaches is that students may enjoy studying what are larger mythic aspects underlying a range of different texts associated with their own lives, if, for example, they understand that initiation rites as portrayed in literature also pervade their own experiences. One disadvantage of archetypal units is that they may lead to the same pigeonholing as with genre units. Moreover, unless students are familiar with a lot of literature, they may not be able to make generalizations about certain archetypical patterns in that literature.
Literary Periods You may also create units based on certain literary periods, for example, the Romantic or Victorian period in British literature or the Harlem Renaissance in American literature. In studying these periods, you can incorporate background historical events or cultural attitudes shaping texts, as well as similarities between literature, art, music, and popular media. For example, Coleridge’s and Byron’s artwork reflect much of the spiritual and political romantic perspectives found in their poetry. One advantage of such units is that you can study writers’ work as shaped by their historical and cultural contexts. One disadvantage is that it may simply become a matter of covering a lot of historical information or facts about features of the period without fostering critical response to the literature itself.
Historical/Regional/Cultural Worlds You may also organize units around certain historical, regional, or cultural worlds, for example, the short story literature of the American South—stories by William Faulkner,
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Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Reynolds Price, Bobbie Joe Mason, and others whose stories portrayed the world of the “Old South” and “New South.” Or, you could organize a unit around the historical period of Puritan America based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s stories and The Crucible (Miller, 2003).
Designing Units Initial Interest Rousers In designing units, you need to begin with an interest rouser activity that hooks students into the topic, issue, theme, genre, etc. By initially engaging them with texts, material, or phenomena you will be studying, you are providing them with an experience that enhances their interest and leads them to perceive the value or worth of the unit. For example, in doing a poetry unit, rather than beginning with a discussion of “what is poetry,” students may begin by bringing in and sharing favorite poems.
Providing Variety/Choice In planning your unit, you also want to include a variety of different types of experiences in order to avoid redundancy and repetition. You can create variety by incorporating a range of different tools discussed throughout the book: drama, videos/DVDs, different forms of discussion, art work, creative writing, hypermedia, etc. You may also build in choices between the use of these different tools; again, students are more likely to be motivated to participate when they are given options. For example, rather than writing a final report, students may have the option of creating a hypermedia production. You may also consider organizing your unit as a webquest, putting the tasks and related resources/links on a website using a wiki, blog, or Google Pages in which students complete a series of inquiry-based tasks (See Developing/designing literature webquests on the website). In creating webquests, it is important to move beyond worksheet tasks to foster students’ open-ended interpretations of texts.
Final Projects Unit activities can lead up to a culminating final project that serves to draw together the different, disparate elements of the unit. This final project should provide students with an opportunity to extend approaches and ideas from the unit to create their own interpretations of texts. For example, in a unit on gender and power, students could analyze the portrayal or representations of gender roles in texts not read in the unit. Again, providing choices for different projects enhances motivation to complete their chosen project.
Activity: Analyzing Units Go to the website and select some units from the sample course syllabi, units, lesson plans, and activities link. What do you perceive to be strengths and limitations of these units? How would you revise these units to improve them?
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CREATING UNITS OF INSTRUCTION: MELISSA’S 9TH GRADE UNIT ON THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET Melissa is a preservice teacher and is planning a three-week unit on teaching The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1991) during her student teaching based on some of the planning questions described in this chapter (See Melissa’s entire unit on the website under “files” for Chapter 3).
Where Am I Going? Melissa began by thinking about the class makeup and organization. She would be working in a 9th grade advanced placement English class, consisting of 27 students— 15 girls and 12 boys. Realistically, since this was only a six-week placement, she planned to keep many of the structures her host teacher had already set up. Classes ran on a block scheduling arrangement of 80-minute periods. Her host teacher’s classroom was spread into an arc of desks with a smaller circle of desks in the center. In Melissa’s words, “the students often seem to be comfortable enough to switch seating areas on occasion to talk to less-familiar peers.”
Who Am I Going There With? The class was comprised of both African-American and Caucasian students in a 40:60 ratio. During her early observations, Melissa wrote in her teaching journal: They are an animated classroom, interact well with one another, and respond well to direction. During my observations, I noticed several students who appeared to take charge, some who quietly watched the rest of the class, and some who moved comfortably from group to group. While none of the students have IEPs, there are several students who tend to fall behind the others and who can benefit from individualized organizational help. Interestingly enough, when I asked Mrs. Mariani [her cooperating teacher] how these students were placed in an AP class, she explained that should a parent simply request that his or her child be put in an advanced class, the child was automatically enrolled.
More specifically, in terms of her 9th grade students, she wanted to incorporate a mix of reading, writing, oral language, listening, viewing, and artistic representation in her lessons. She chose Cisneros’s novel because, in her words, “it represents the diverse Chicano culture, provides multiple themes to build on and because of my personal desire to study the text.” Her goals for reading were to help students to recognize “Cisneros’s style of writing, culture, and character development.” Her writing goals included “developing a final autobiography chapter book in order to practice creative writing for an outside audience, exploring autobiographical writing, and using a text to model common conventions of writing.” Beyond these academic goals, Melissa wanted her student to explore aspects of their own personal identity, their neighborhood and community, and “their possibilities for the future.”
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How Will I Get There? Melissa planned to focus on themes such as homes, families, neighborhoods, and city life in daily focused writing activities. Since the text is divided into short vignettes, she designed what she called a “creative autobiography writing project” as a culminating activity. “In my experience,” she reflected, “most 9th-grade students have not written a lengthy project paper yet, and I feel that an autobiographical multiple chapter book will introduce them to the ideal fairly easily.” Considering the diverse needs and preferences of her students, she wanted to combine techniques such as read-alouds, silent independent reading, listening to the author on tape, and discussion in small and large groups. At times when students listened to the book on tape, Melissa made sure they had copies of the text as a way of fostering what she called “double sense accommodation, listening and seeing while following along in the book.” She also planned to use a variety of print and non-print texts such as music, film clips, newspaper articles, poetry, and short stories as a supplement to the main text. Even though The House on Mango Street is broken into fairly short vignettes, Melissa wanted to supplement her instruction with a variety of shorter texts. For, example, on her second day of teaching, she read “My Name” from Mango Street while the students followed in their books, making notes about questions or comments on scrap paper. She then led a discussion about Esperanza’s name, their own names, and the symbolic importance of names. For homework, she asked the students to observe their own neighborhoods or talk to a neighbor, then write a 10-minute reflection on what they saw or learned. During the three-week unit, students wrote autobiographies, acrostic poems, and letters to friends. They responded to each other in peer writing groups, read companion literature by Gary Soto, and listened to music from Ally McBeal and also song lyrics by Tupac Shakur and Vonda Shepard. They created collages and other visual renderings, watched videos of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Harriet the Spy, visited websites, researched in reference books, and interviewed parents and other adults. The biggest question still remaining for Melissa was how to grade and evaluate such a broad spectrum of activities and assignments.
How Will I Know I Have Arrived? At the beginning of her unit, Melissa planned to use a mix of formal and informal evaluation techniques for her unit. Periodically, she planned to assign what she called “process points” for class participation and attentiveness, based on a simple “check, checkplus, and check-minus” system. Her overall grading and evaluation system was broken down into 15% for participation, with the remaining 85% to be divided among several aspects of the final autobiography project. Melissa’s plans for The House on Mango Street demonstrate the multifaceted nature of planning literature instruction. Your goals for teaching literature and your plans for instruction must connect and inform each other. As your plans begin to take shape, revisit your goals and revise those plans accordingly. The triangulation of students, texts and contexts will ensure that your planning changes every time you enter your classroom.
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PORTFOLIO REFLECTION For your portfolio, collect and insert representative items or artifacts related to the contexts of community, school, curriculum, classrooms, and students: a community or school website, the school’s mission/code of conduct, a school or department curriculum guide, your teachers’ curriculum or units, or students’ writing about literature. Then, reflect on how these items or artifacts reflect the beliefs and practices operating in their respective contexts and how these beliefs and practices will shape your development and planning of units you may use in your student teaching. Describe your personal goals for teaching literature and how you will need to adopt those goals given these contextual factors. Review your state’s teaching standards and/or literature standards and describe how your goals are consistent with these standards and how your work in your program has addressed these standards.
CHAPTER 4
Teaching the Classics Do I Have to Teach the Canon, and If So, How Do I Do It?
Case Narrative: Teaching a Classic Novel: The Scarlet Letter The Enduring Nature of the Canon The Value of the Canon Approaches and Strategies to Teaching the Classics Lesson Planning Assessment
TEACHING A CLASSIC NOVEL: THE SCARLET LETTER Sarah teaches at Jefferson Park High, a first-ring suburban school of a large metropolitan area in the Midwest. Her department has made the collective decision that all 11th grade teachers will include Nathaniel Hawthorne’s (2009) The Scarlet Letter in their American Literature curriculum. As a new teacher, Sarah knows she has to teach the novel, even though she’s a bit worried about how her students might respond to it. Jefferson Park has a fairly diverse student body: about 20% African-American students; 12% students of East Asian descent, two-thirds of whom are English language learners, and approximately 8% Hispanic Latino students. Nearly 20% of the school’s population qualifies for free or reduced price lunches. About half of the students who graduate continue on to college. As she thinks about her curriculum and themes around which her course is structured, Sarah considers a variety of ways to approach The Scarlet Letter with her students. Eventually, she decides that the book would be useful for eliciting conversation about a number of important themes: community and social norms, unintended pregnancy and non-traditional families, and the destructive nature of secrecy. She thinks, too, about the ways in which contemporary American society replicates the behavior of the Puritans: a pervasive belief in punishment for shaping public opinion and behavior; a focus on ethical
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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and moral conflict; the efficacy of guilt; reverence for public proclamations of sin without attention to sinfulness itself; and the conscious exclusion of those who do not conform to community expectations. As Sarah thinks about the novel itself, she realizes that there will be several challenges in teaching it to high school juniors. First of all, the language of the novel is difficult for less experienced readers. The sentences are long, with multiple coordinate clauses and frequent embedding of one sentence within another. The vocabulary, while not difficult, exhibits unfamiliar usages. Most importantly, there is a subtlety to the language that can be easily missed. Statements made by the narrator are frequently tentative, couched in language that more experienced readers will recognize as indeterminate, ambiguous, leading readers to doubt whether something—Dimmesdale’s comet, for example—was actually present or merely imagined by a character. Sarah knows that her students will have to come to recognize this subtlety if they are going to be aware of the novel’s interpretive possibilities. Another potential challenge involves the narrative ambiguity of the novel. A hallmark of American Romanticism, this ambiguity works directly against the reader who attempts to closely determine what is and is not real in the telling of the story. It requires readers instead to consider events from the perspectives of the characters than to weigh the plausibility of those perspectives. It also forces readers to acknowledge that the narrator’s perspective may not be accurate. The great advantage of teaching the romance is that it compels readers to extend the range of their interpretive skills. The disadvantage is that it can be overwhelming to novice critics. Sarah, then, needs to decide how much help she can give without undoing the lesson by too closely circumscribing the interpretive possibilities of the novel. Historical context, for example, will be something Sarah needs to consider as she prepares to teach The Scarlet Letter. It would greatly help her students to know the history and cultural mindset of the people about whom the book was written. If understood literally, though, this history might overwhelm Hawthorne’s characters and inhibit the readers’ interpretive sensibilities. A potential confusion of Hester Prynne with the antinomian Anne Hutchinson, for example, could entirely derail the lesson. Sarah needs to consider, then, how much history to provide as background and how much to let the book stand on its own. If Sarah decides to focus on close reading rather than historicism in scaffolding the students’ reading of the novel, she will certainly want to focus on romance as a fictional genre. This strategy, too, runs the risk of leading readers to find what they are supposed to be looking for in the text. For example, once acquainted with the rudiments of allegory and the knowledge that Hawthorne was a self-proclaimed “writer of allegories,” Sarah’s students might become preoccupied with the discovery of the novel’s lesson. As a well-versed reader of Hawthorne, though, Sarah knows that Hawthorne’s own words are no more to be trusted than those of his narrator’s. The classic novel also presents questions about the interpretation of symbols. Symbolism works because readers have a shared understanding of the meaning of symbols. These meanings, however, change with time. The comet (astrological event) that Dimmesdale witnessed would certainly have seemed more mysterious and significant to a nineteenth-century reader than to a twenty-first-century reader. As a symbol, then, it probably invites both more possibility and more literary scrutiny to
TEACHING THE CLASSICS
readers of Hawthorne’s day, and thus its cultural significance might be lost on a contemporary close reader. Sarah thus needs to decide what strategies she will ask her students to employ in interpreting this romance. Contemporary culture might also mask some of the social significance of Hester’s motherhood out of wedlock. Today, this circumstance is no longer viewed with the degree of shame that it entailed just a few decades ago. Given the decreased social stigma of unwed motherhood today, students might wonder how this book is relevant to their lives. The same is true for any discussion of adultery, a word now relegated to use in discussion of scripture. Students looking at the response of Salem’s citizens to Hester’s situation might decide that at least today we’ve gotten this right, and, thank God, this could never happen today. Sarah will need to find a way to make students feel sympathy for Hester and Dimmesdale. One last problem that Sarah contemplates as she prepares to teach this novel is diversity of perspectives. While Hawthorne clearly makes Hester the central figure of the novel, he does not admit a great variety of cultural viewpoints. The only non-White, non-western people we encounter (and then only indirectly) are American Indians, who are distinctly seen as heathens and savages because of their non-Christian worldview. While Sarah believes that great books speak to students about great ideas, she also understands that she might need to pair The Scarlet Letter with a more contemporary text that speaks to the same ideas in different ways from a different cultural perspective. But what could she use? What are some “classic” novels that you have read or taught? What do you perceive to be the challenges in teaching these novels? What are some methods that you could employ to engage students with these novels?
THE ENDURING NATURE OF THE CANON The twenty-first-century world has seen revolutionary changes to our daily lives and is markedly different from the past—cars, telephones, how we buy and listen to music, how we communicate with one another through new technologies such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, even how we read, with the advent of devices such as electronic readers, is all dramatically different. Yet there is one thing that hasn’t changed very much: the books that we require young people to read. According to a report by The Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, the most frequently taught books are Romeo and Juliet; Macbeth; Huckleberry Finn; Julius Caesar; To Kill a Mockingbird; The Scarlet Letter; Of Mice and Men; Hamlet; The Great Gatsby; Lord of the Flies (Applebee, 1990). This alltoo familiar list is a reminder of the durability as well as the limited perspective of the high school canon. We could certainly make an argument for augmenting this traditional list, as we do elsewhere in this book, but the practical reality remains that if you are going to be a secondary literature teacher, you will most likely, like Sarah, find that you will be expected to teach some canonical literature. So rather than debate whether these books should still be taught, let’s explore how one might most profitably approach teaching them, which, of course, includes an invitation for students themselves to take on the canonical debate (Graff, 2007).
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THE VALUE OF THE CANON Study of canonical works is without value if students don’t gain an understanding of the basis of canonization. The canon is itself an argument. It purports to name the most significant literary works within a national literature and/or historical period. It is also an invitation to students to engage in this argument, and that invitation needs to be framed and extended by teachers of literature. A well-founded literature class should engage students with this question and allow them the opportunity to pursue an authentic answer. This may be particularly difficult when the subject matter consists of canonical literary works, but the question may be even more important in this case.
Preparation to Teach Canonical Works Before inviting students into an argument about the validity of the canon, teachers need to be well versed in the criteria that lead to canonization. They need to be able to explain that the very existence of the canon grows out of a desire to create a particular kind of cultural representation, one that shows a nation, its people, and its literature in the best possible light. If students are to understand what the canon is, teachers need to help students discover and question the criteria for canonization. In this way they can get at the critical ideas that canonical works entail.
Themes and Big Ideas If it is the case that great books speak to us about important ideas across the generations, then we might want to start thinking about a classic by looking at the ideas it contains. One might, for example, introduce The Scarlet Letter, for example by beginning with a series of questions like these: How does a society establish the norms that control human behavior, and, in the end, are these constraints good or bad? How effective are guilt and punishment within a social system? How does inclusion in a society inhibit individual moral choices? How does exclusion from a society enable a person to accomplish things that she or he would otherwise not be moved to undertake? To what extent is ‘sin’ a human construct, and to what extent is it an expression of God’s desires for human action and restraint? What basic human motivations does this book examine? This set of big questions leads to a more specific list of questions for the interpretation of The Scarlet Letter. As seen through the perspective of Hawthorne’s novel, what does Puritan society value among its members? According to Hawthorne, do these values work well to bind the community of Salem together? To what extent do the primary characters of the book conform to Salem’s expectations, and what are the results of their behaviors, both those that conform to social expectations and those that do not? In the end, we are likely to judge the society of Salem by its responses to the book’s three main characters—Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth—and the extent to which these responses match our own. Where, then, do we sympathize with the people of Salem, and where do we take them to task? These open-ended questions should lead to fruitful conversations about both The Scarlet Letter and the larger questions that it seeks to address. Teachers of classic literature might also find Mortimer Adler’s six great ideas useful for framing questions about the works they are teaching. These ideas include truth, beauty, goodness, justice, liberty, and equality. It is a near certainty that more than one of these ideas will present itself in the discussion of any great work of literature.
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Considerations of Language A successful reading of any work of fiction requires the reader not only to decode the literal meaning of the work and to track its main ideas, but also to read the nuances of the narrative for hints about tone, mood, the subtleties of motivation, hints of judgment, or intimations of doubt. These nuances are like the subtle facial expressions that accompany a speaker’s words. Sometimes they tell us more than the words themselves. For this reason, readers need to have a keen ear for style. Each historical era has its own characteristic features of linguistic style. The literary style of the American renaissance—the era of Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville—for example, seems to favor long sentences, with multiple modifying phrases that are frequently embedded within other phrases and clauses (reflecting, somewhat, the style of this sentence). Coupled with uncharacteristic usage and occasional strange words, this syntax challenges readers to maintain attention to the immediate idea while piecing together the events of the narrative. This exercise has value of itself; the AP Literature and Composition exam, for example, requires students to read and understand difficult passages from a variety of historical eras. Before students can begin to discuss the issues of a text like The Scarlet Letter, though, they need to be able to decode the language of the narrative. There are several strategies that teachers can use to prepare students to encounter a text from another historical period. One strategy is to introduce readers to the author’s style by giving them a shorter work by the same author to habituate them to the language and style the author favors. This strategy will work particularly well for The Scarlet Letter, since Nathaniel Hawthorne was a prolific writer of short stories. Another strategy involves pre-teaching the vocabulary of the story so that students can read without interrupting their train of thought by going to the dictionary or otherwise stopping to puzzle out the meaning from context or other cues. Teachers can also preview the plot of the novel so that students don’t need to spend as much time trying to work out the events of the narrative and discover what is happening. This preview could include showing students scenes from a film adaptation or the work. In addition to these specific strategies, teachers can set up more expansive strategies by breaking students into groups or literature circles to attack the text from different angles. Within this familiar strategy, students can take any of a number of roles: travel tracers, whose job it is to follow the narrative from setting to setting; character experts, who keep track of who’s who in the book; vocabulary specialists, who look up unfamiliar words or usages and explain their meanings; story predictors, who attempt to logically link the events of the story together to see where it might lead; plot summarizers, who keep track of the events as they transpire; and finally, question askers, whose job is both to locate uncertainties in the text and to ensure that everyone is focused on the salient features of the literary work.
Historicism and Cultural Considerations An understanding of the historical context within which a story is set provides readers with a number of important interpretive advantages. First, if the story is part of a larger historical occurrence—for example, the colonization of North America, the migration of farmers from the Dust Bowl to California, or the Vietnam War—an historical overview serves as a backdrop for the story at hand. Students may recognize not only typical events of the era but also their historical and cultural significance. They will
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know whether a character’s choices or actions are typical or atypical because they will know how real people from that historical period acted and thought, what they actually did, and how their choices turned out. Second, understanding a cultural mindset like that of the Puritans, the Okies of The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck, 2004), the soldiers of The Red Badge of Courage (Crane, 1990), or the lives of women and men in Elizabethan England as portrayed in Shakespeare’s plays, allows readers to get a glimpse inside a character’s mind. If students can successfully adopt this perspective, they will know what is possible or impossible, acceptable or unacceptable, purposeful or futile within a character’s scope of choice because they will comprehend the cultural constraints under which that character is operating. Third, a historical framework supplies readers with a set of plausibility measures for possible interpretations. Knowing about the physical isolation and scarcity of resources among the Puritans, readers know better than to suggest, even to themselves, that Hester ought to leave Salem in favor of a more accepting community. Background in Calvinist theology would also explain the prevailing cultural outlook of seventeenth-century Salem, a community in which religious and social constraints were one in the same. The Puritans would have had a clear understanding of Dimmesdale’s mysterious death, a death perhaps made less mysterious to us by our understanding of their abiding belief in God’s providence. A historicist reading would also help our students understand Hester’s social position as a Puritan woman or Tom Joad’s social status as an itinerant farmhand. It might also give them more insight into both the cowardice and the courage of Henry Fleming when they realize—as the book does not tell us but historical scholarship has since revealed—that The Red Badge of Courage is set at the battle of Chancellorsville, a particularly difficult and gruesome battle. Reading historical literary works without benefit of cultural background might lead to interesting, even productive interpretations. When we attempt close readings without historical context, though, we risk the imposition of contemporary cultural assumptions upon circumstances quite different from our own. While universal themes undoubtedly abide in “timeless” classics, we do well to remember that even timeless themes are colored by the times through which they have moved.
Points of Relevance The key to active, involved reading of literature is engagement with a text. Readerresponse critics sometimes like to say that “experiencing no response to a text is, in fact, a response,” although maybe not the one for which we had hoped. Although the term has been overused in education, relevance is crucial to a student’s ability not just to understand but also to experience a text. Relevance is the source of engaged reading. Students want to know that the subject they are reading about is pertinent to their lives, their decisions, the shaping of their individual worldviews. They want to know that the lessons of human behavior related in works of literature can be applied in their own lives. Often, they want to read about people like themselves, people they can recognize. One critical task of the literature teacher, then, is to help students see this relevance where they might otherwise not. One effective means for helping students to connect their own unique experiences to those of other students or other people, is to look for shared points of experience that share a sense of value as well. If we understand that each student’s mind is a closed system, each shaped differently by a different set of life experiences, then we need to help them find meaningful points of connection to the experiences of other people,
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both real and fictional. The beauty of literature is that we read and respond to fiction as if it were real, at least to some degree. When we read, we hold at arm’s length our literal realities, and we enter into fictional worlds that, amazingly, we understand in concert or in contrast to those same literal realities, even as we acknowledge their fictional nature. It is a sense of common ground that allows us to do this, a sense that we know how and why fictional characters ought to react to fictional circumstances. Classic works of literature are classics because they allow us to locate this common ground. It is precisely the timelessness of literary themes that makes reading classic texts important to our students, and so issues of diversity and history may well need to be balanced with issues of common ground. Part of our job as teachers is to know our students, to know the literary canon, and to know where these two might meet harmoniously.
APPROACHES AND STRATEGIES TO TEACHING THE CLASSICS If we accept that teaching classic and canonical works of literature can lead to fruitful discussion of important, even universal ideas, then we need to start thinking about how to ensure the best possible conversation among our students. To do so, we need to think in terms of four stages for our own preparation: selection, context, focus, and method. The first step is to select appropriate, interesting, and important works of literature. Our primary criteria here relate to the experience of our students: personally, academically, and in their communities. If we aim too high, we teach over their heads; if we aim too low, we waste our time and theirs. Once we have identified an appropriate literary work, our next step is to consider a secondary set of connections that students can make by reading related texts. A favorite way to do this is by pairing a classic with a more contemporary or more easily accessible text so that students can make triangulated comparisons among their own experiences and the worlds of two distinct but comparable texts. These paired texts are selected for their thematic congruity, the ways in which they treat similar ideas. And finally, teachers need to strategically select a critical method (or methods) for approaching these texts.
Accessibility As experienced readers of literature, we all have favorite literary works: pieces that seem to speak to us, telling us more each time we reread them. At times we might feel as we do when viewing a waterfall: the experience is richer if it is shared, and we imagine that our students might feel the same way. If we choose to share a work by Thomas Pynchon, on the other hand, we may find that we have made an invitation to a train wreck rather than a waterfall. It is not just the postmoderns, though, who provide problems to access. Even Shakespeare requires us to help students find a way in. This point of entry might be a synopsis or an introduction to the main character and a source of conflict. It might be a familiar theme, such as mistaken identity, lust for power, a consuming infatuation, or one of the deadly sins embodied within a character. It might be a question about one’s role in life: the duties of a prince, loyalty to friends and kin, or submission to the will of a deity. Once inside the text, students will typically take up the exploration on their own. Granting admission to the text, then, is among our most important tasks.
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For that reason, selecting accessible texts is a key to making our students successful. This is especially true early in each term or course. Again, language, cultural context, social convention, and literary technique—working singly and in concert—provide formidable barriers to less experienced readers. Good early text selections, then, will be marked by the presence of important but familiar ideas, recognizable language, wellknown customs and social practices, and simplicity of narrative style and voice. There are sometimes external factors that enter into the selection process, and there is some validity to these concerns. They continue to say something to students, and to all of us, despite the passage of time. Many teachers claim that they teach classics for resource reasons—the books are in the bookroom—and in school districts with tight resources, this may be a legitimate concern. Still, this should not be a deciding factor in the selection process. Another reason for teaching classic and canonical texts is that they are more likely to be appropriate than more recent texts. Graphic sex and graphic language are more common in newer books, and so issues of parental and community approval are less likely to arise when teaching canonical works. Again, though, this should not seem to be a reason to teach classic texts; it is more a reason not to teach contemporary works. In the end, teachers should choose classic texts for what they offer, not for the problems they avoid. The primary issue in text selection should be literary merit. While all teachers will establish their own criteria for arguing this merit, several criteria seem universal: multidimensional characters, complex themes, narrative intricacy, and cultural importance. Matching our selections to our students’ backgrounds is also a successful strategy, at least early on in the course. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991) even though it has something of a universal appeal, may speak more to people in an affluent suburb than in an urban school. At the same time, though, it is replete with significant ideas. It addresses the themes of identity construction, the appeal of wealth, social mobility, the desire to be loved, the compromise of personal integrity for external rewards, etc.
Pairing In the end, it’s not why we teach classic texts but how we teach books that challenge kids. We want to present students with a variety of possible interpretations and a series of competing arguments for those interpretations. We want students to develop comfort with ambiguity by helping them recognize the sources of literary complexity, the subtlety of language, the origins of metaphor, and the intricacy of human motivation. For example, to help students see the relevance of literary works to their own lives and communities and by pairing classics with newer texts, we can demonstrate important themes more clearly, more fully, and in greater multiplicity. If two books, one canonical and one contemporary, address the same theme or illustrate similar ideas, the best tactic may be to pair the two rather than to choose between them. The difference in the treatment of the central idea within the texts will, of itself, make the case of teaching the classic. Typically, the complexity of the classic will help a teacher illustrate the intricacies of the issue at hand. Assigning readings with thematic links also makes for greater ease of access. For example, some teachers have successfully paired King Lear with the contemporary novel A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (2003), Beowulf with Grendel by John Gardner (1989) or Hamlet with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1994). In When Text Meets Text: Helping High School Readers Make Connections in Literature, Barbara King-Shaver (2005) provides a variety of suggestions
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for pairing core texts with other texts, both classic and contemporary. For example she suggests pairing Jane Eyre (Bronte, 2009) and The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (2001), or The Canterbury Tales with the River Sutra by Gita Meht (1994). In the case of The Scarlet Letter, she suggests Salem Falls by Jodi Picolt (2002), a contemporary and highly readable novel that deal with the historical context of the Puritans’ issue of community norms and the shame that falls on those who violate them. Teachers might also draw on material from shAme, a rock opera by Mark Governor (2008) based on The Scarlet Letter. In addition to pairing canonical texts with other literary texts, one could also pair them with more contemporary film interpretations of that text, for example pairing Romeo and Juliet with Baz Lurhmann’s (1996) version or The Taming of the Shrew with Ten Things I Hate About You (Junger, 1999) or Emma with Clueless (Heckerling, 1995).
Thematic Focus There is a good reason why most classic texts are repeatedly taught. Teachers continue to assign time-honored books because they know what classics have to offer, year after year, class after class. Students continue to find fascination in the themes and situations that these books present. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain, 1981) seems to speak to students about a childhood that kids long for but no longer get to have—they wish for both the freedom and responsibility that Huck experiences, and so they identify with Huck. Aldous Huxley’s (2006) Brave New World asks students to consider the roles that they will be expected to play in their society and the ways in which they are prepared to play them. Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck, 1993) raises timeless questions about friendship, ambition, alienation, and opportunity, while decades of students have been offered the opportunity discuss issues of prejudice and inequality with the ubiquitously taught To Kill A Mockingbird (Lee, 1998). (It’s hard to find a teacher who hasn’t had to teach that staple of the literature curriculum.) The real motivation for selecting a classic text is the opportunity it provides to talk to students—and have students talk to each other—about an important issue or idea. While we value the chance to acquaint students with canonical works, the lesson is ultimately about more than the book. For the students, the value of the book is in what it says to them. Our students don’t care that the book is old. They just want the book to deliver something interesting, something that helps them understand the world in which they live. One measure of the importance and timelessness of a book is the reflections we find of it in the world around us. With consistency, while we are teaching a classic we find stories in the newspaper about that idea the book is about. It is not the case that contemporary or non-canonical texts are better aligned with popular culture than a classic would be. As one teacher put it, “You can tell that a book has made it if you see it on The Simpsons.” Such allusions speak both to the status of the work and the importance of its central theme. Finding interest in what students think about—finding a way to get to know the students, how they are going to respond to a well-known text—is part of the fun of teaching classic works of literature. When teachers make careful choices about the classics they teach, they don’t wonder about whether their students will like the text, but rather what they will like about it. The excitement of teaching classics is in seeing what students in your school, in your class, bring to the book. We never just teach the book; we teach the idea that the book happens to be about.
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Critical Method Using a variety of critical methods can help students see canonical texts from a variety of critical perspectives. Viewing canonical texts from multiple perspectives helps students see that the value and meaning of a particular text is not a given, that they have to opportunity to create meaning themselves even about texts that have been taught for generations. While new historicism is the most obvious method for approaching classics, there are at least three other lenses that offer productive analysis. Archetypal criticism, structuralism, and biographical criticism work well because they each address aspects of literary tradition. These methods can be used singly or in combination. See Chapter 9 for a more extended discussion of the use of lenses. Archetypal criticism focuses on recurring story structures, symbols, and character types. Certain recurring themes are prevalent enough to lead us to posit an underlying formula. Others seem to play off of prevailing modes of thought—what Jung would have called “primordial images,” or what cognitive scientists today would attribute to kinesthetic image schemas: typical ways of seeing experience, such as a path to a goal (a quest), a cycle (such as the seasons of a year), or something that contains something else (whether a dungeon or a refuge). In the end, archetypical stories tend to be about quests and tests, journeys and struggles that lead to highly sought rewards. Structuralism overlaps with archetypical criticism to the extent that it focuses on our expectations for a given kind or piece of literature. Like grammars, these expectations are part of our unconscious knowledge. We expect a typical narrative, for example, to revolve around a conflict involving the main character. This character struggles against a host of obstacles and antagonists until tension rises to a peak and the conflict is finally resolved. We imagine this structure as an arc—a Cartesian drawing representing the increase and decrease of tension over time. We learn these structures by repeated experience, without even knowing that we know them. Dreamworks Studio’s Shrek (Adamson & Jenson, 2001) includes running commentary by the characters about these expectations and our disappointment at seeing them subverted. Poetic meters, epic tropes, and genres of all forms lend themselves well to structuralist critique. Biographical criticism is always a bit risky, since it suggests connections between the text and the author’s life that might have little basis. At the same time, though, it is useful to know what experiences the author did have in order to better understand the perspective of the literary works that the author has left behind. No matter which critical methods we choose, it is best to be explicit about our methodology. As Terry Eagleton (2008) reminds us, there is no such thing as an atheoretical reading of literature. The better we prepare students to understand and use critical methods, the better they will be able to focus on the task and hand and arrive at coherent critical conclusions. (See General classic resources and General resources about authors on the website.)
LESSON PLANNING Overview of the Lesson In lesson planning we need to provide more support for students as they approach a classic text. We may need to assign more pre-reading to set up their investigation of the text. We may need to introduce them to the author, his or her prevailing themes, and the periods both in which the story was written and in which in takes place. We may
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need to provide historical and cultural context for the story. All the while, we will do well to remember that this preparation is motivated more by the complexity of the text than by its status as a classic. If we return to our case above, we can imagine Sarah reviewing all the considerations we have named in this chapter and attempting to put them to work. The Scarlet Letter is a subtle and challenging text, one that will not be easily interpreted by high school juniors. Careful planning will be the key to Sarah’s success. Let us speculate, then, about what she might do with this nineteenth-century American romance.
Who are Sarah’s Students? While most of the students in Sarah’s class come from a majority cultural background, there are enough non-majority students in the class to suggest that Sarah should include other cultural perspectives in the discussion that she hopes to have about The Scarlet Letter. The students for whom this book will present the fewest cultural challenges are students from White Christian backgrounds. African-American students will relate to a discussion of early American community experiences in very different ways from White students. East Asian and Hispanic/Latino students may relate in a variety of ways to Salem’s treatment of Hester and to her choice of isolation; these will be based on their own community’s values concerning family, morality, romantic love, and responsibility to community. Sarah can anticipate, then, that her students will bring diverse responses to the dramatic situation around which The Scarlet Letter revolves, each representing a perspective about appropriate social responses to a member of the community who violates its social norms.
What Kinds Of Literary Experiences Do They Need? The decision that Sarah’s department has made suggests a number of implicit values for literary experience. First, since 11th grade English classes are devoted primarily to American literature, they presumably value literature as a means to explore national and historical perspectives. The specific choice of The Scarlet Letter suggests at least three values concerning the students’ literary experiences: first, that they should reflect America’s cultural heritage; second, that their reading should familiarize them with the conventional literary aesthetic that the canon represents; and third, that the ability to read a complex text marked by narrative ambiguity is an essential part of their literacy. Given these three values, Sarah will want to ensure that her students’ experience of The Scarlet Letter goes well beyond their familiarity with the story. Their reading of this book should allow them to answer three fundamental questions: To what extent is literature a valuable means for examining a nation’s heritage? What is it that makes The Scarlet Letter a classic work of literature, and how does it embody beauty and importance? And finally, what is the value of romance, or any other complex genre, for understanding human motivation? If Sarah’s students can successfully answer these questions, their experience of The Scarlet Letter should be a valuable one.
What Approaches Should Sarah Use to Accomplish Her Goals? As the previous discussion of teaching the classics suggests, there are several literary lenses that Sarah can use to teach The Scarlet Letter. The first among these will be new historicism, which will require the class to delve into the history of America in both the seventeenth
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ACTIVITY 1—CHARACTER LOG Background Over the course of this unit, we will be reading The Scarlet Letter and preparing to write a literary analysis on it. One way to prepare for an analysis paper is to pay close attention to the text and stay focused on a particular aspect of it. For The Scarlet Letter, we’re going to be focusing on characters. There are three main characters: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth (aka Roger Prynne). Each of you will be assigned to one of these three characters.
What to Do You will keep a character log that records important information on the character you have been assigned. As you read, look for information about your character. Then, record the page number and write the information. In many cases, you will want to quote portions of the text directly. This will aid you greatly in using evidence for your analysis papers.
What Kind of Information • • • • • • • • •
Physical characteristics Personality traits Relationships with other characters Mannerism or other telling actions Symbols associated with the character Surprising revelations Puzzling actions Psychological traits/hang-ups Questions you have about the character
How Much to Write At the very least you should be averaging five items a day. Of course, some days your character will hardly appear in the chapters. On other days, however, there will be a chapter focusing directly on your character. Thus, sometimes you’ll have very little to write and other days you’ll have multitude of comments to make. Overall, it should be several pages of notes.
Reasons to Do Well First, it’s worth 25 points, easily enough to affect your grade. Second, it will help you on other assignments. Third, I’m having you do this instead of quizzes.
Grading 10 points for number of entries (if you want full credit, impress me) 10 points for quality of entries (same as above) 5 points for having it organized in a matter that makes it easy to understand
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ACTIVITY 2—SCARLET LETTER DISCUSSION/DEBATES In The Scarlet Letter there are many questions that seem like they have simple answers, but upon closer examination, they are more complex than they seem. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will debate several of these questions. Each of you will be assigned a question and a side to argue.
What to Do Prepare a 1–11⁄2 minute speech in which you argue your point. Another person will argue the other side of the question. Each of you will tell what the stance you are representing is and offer support for your argument (citing the text). After you have each argued your points, there will be a brief period for questions. You may have notes when you present but do not simply read off of a paper.
What to Turn In Turn in notes that tell what question you are answering, which side you argued, and what your main points are. Your notes should also include a summary of your position and the reasoning behind it. You should also have a list of textual evidence (at least three quotations with page numbers) that support your stance.
Points and Grading You will receive up to 10 points for delivering a fluent argument in class. You will receive up to 5 points for having a well-prepared, well-organized sheet of notes to turn in.
The Questions Hester 1 2 3 4
Is Hester Prynne a victim? Is Hester Prynne ashamed or proud of her sin? Is Hester a good mother for Pearl? Does Hester deserve the punishment she received?
Dimmesdale 1 2 3 4
Would Dimmesdale be better off if he confessed to his “sin”? Should a reader feel sympathy for Dimmesdale? Is Dimmesdale a good clergyman? Does Dimmesdale know (consciously or unconsciously) who Chillingworth really is?
Chillingworth 1 2 3 4
Is Roger Chillingworth an evil man? Is Chillingworth justified in his deep examination of Dimmesdale? If you were living in this town and you fell ill, would you go to Chillingworth to get better? Is Roger Chillingworth a wise man or a fool?
Overflow Question To what extent is your character responsible or blameworthy for the adultery?
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ACTIVITY 3—SCARLET LETTER FINAL PAPER This paper is a 2–3 page literary analysis. You will be allowed to choose your own topic, but your paper should focus on the character you have been assigned. Your paper should present an argument and be thesis driven. This means that you will be required to form an interpretation and support it using the text. By Thursday, you should have a topic chosen for your paper. On a note card or sheet of paper, write what your preliminary thesis statement is. You may decide to change it later, but I want to ensure that you are thinking about your papers. This will be worth an all or nothing 5 points. This paper will be due on Tuesday, November 9th.
Requirements A title distinct to your paper Thesis statement (A sentence in your introduction that summarizes your argument) 2–3 pages Double spaced Parenthetical documentation (no works cited/bibliography required)
Sample Topic Questions •
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Each of these characters undergoes a change during the seven years between the beginning and end of the book. How has your character evolved over time? What has been the toll of the 7 years? Be specific (go beyond: Dimmesdale/Chillingworth gets worse). All of these characters have two distinct sides that seem to be at odds (i.e. Hester’s pride and shame). Identify two opposite sides of one character and argue which of them is dominant. Compare two chapters that deal with your character (i.e. “Hester at the Needle” and “Another View of Hester” or “The Interior of a Heart” and “Minister in a Maze”). What does an examination of these chapters tell us about a character or the relationships between two characters? Choose a symbol that is closely associated with your character. Why is this symbol associated with the character and what does it tell us about him/her? Is the symbol constant or does it change over the course of the book? Are there any points with regard to your character that you and another person in your group disagree on? Write a paper that argues your side of the disagreement and have your friend write the opposite point of view. All three of the main characters have a conflict between their conscious and unconscious desires. Write a paper that identifies both of these desires and argue in favor of the one that ultimately controls them. Adapt one of the questions from the discussion/debate for a paper. You will need to narrow the topic and make it more specific. Choose a topic of your own and get it approved by Thursday at the end of class.
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and nineteenth centuries: the historical setting for the story and for the author’s reflections upon it. While the story will no doubt take center stage, it would be hard to develop a complete historical perspective for the novel without some understanding of the American Renaissance and the aesthetic that it gave rise to. To the extent that Sarah decides to introduce her students to the conventions of American romance, she will be able to make use of structuralism approaches as well discussion of the ways in which this genre creates expectations for its readers. Should Sarah choose to address symbols and images within the text, she may find that archetypal criticism is valuable, as this approach will allow her students to interrogate the cultural and psychological bases of the story. Of less importance would be an investigation of Nathanial Hawthorne’s life. While much has been made of his Puritan roots, especially in interpretations of “Young Goodman Brown” (Hawthorne, 1999a), the author’s connection to the place and people of The Scarlet Letter will lead to marginal results at best. Sarah decides to create several activities to help her students connect to the characters and the themes of this canonical novel. She wants to balance close textual reading with relevant connections to contemporary issues. First, she creates a character log assignment that requires students to become experts on a particular character through the text (see Activity 1, page 72). In keeping with her goals of having students argue with a canonical text, rather than simply receive it, she creates a discussion/debate activity (see Activity 2, page 73). Finally, to give students the opportunity to construct an individual interpretation of the text, she designs an essay assignment (see Activity 3, page 74).*
What Kinds of Texts Will Supplement Their Reading of The Scarlet Letter? The subject of pregnancy out of wedlock is clearly an emotional and controversial one, and so any discussion of this topic in literature will require sensitivity and a good bit of preparation. Adding the perspectives of literary texts from other times and cultures, though, can be a valuable method for examining the issue. A few texts that look at this topic from differing cultural and historical perspectives are Maxine Hong Kingston’s (1989) The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Gloria Naylor’s (1983) Women of Brewster Place, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s (2004) Purple Hibiscus. To familiarize students with both Hawthorne’s prose style and with seventeenthcentury Salem, Sarah could assign “Young Goodman Brown” or “The Maypole of Marymount” (Hawthorne, 1999b).
ASSESSMENT There are four general outcomes that we want for students as outcomes of literacy education: cultural literacy, aesthetic appreciation of literary art, well developed interpretive skills, and the ability to apply critical and theoretical perspectives. How can teachers assess these outcomes? By cultural literacy we mean, literally, an ability to read our culture: the common beliefs, values, and ideas of our society. Classic literary texts allow us to do this because they represent, in significant part, our cultural heritage. They provide a perspective that spans our history as they represent historical choices about literary subjects, moral decisions, personal characteristics, and social conflicts.
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Classics also allow us to track the history of our aesthetic judgments. They show us how narrative structures change over time, how the limits of taste and social tolerance shift, and how standards of beauty change and cultural values change. The assignment of “classic” works of literature contributes directly to these outcomes. Gauging our expectations for the reception of classic texts is a matter of knowing the students. It depends on the kind of place in which you are teaching, the experiences the kids in the school have had, and the expectations they have for themselves and their school. Students from more traditional schools or more affluent districts may accept canonical texts without question, simply thinking that these are among the things they are supposed to do. Students attending an affluent suburban high school might be more friendly toward a book like The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991) than students at a less affluent urban school. The learning objectives that we plan around thus need to fit the settings in which we work. For a book like The Scarlet Letter, we might imagine a specific set of objectives like the following: • • • •
Understand and articulate the motivations of each of the main characters. Recognize and explain instances of narrative ambiguity. Understand and critique the novel as a reflection of American social norms. Apply a variety of critical lenses to the novel to discover more than one interpretation of the text. (See Teaching American literature on the website.)
Additional Resources You will find the following books helpful as you consider using classics in the classroom. Abrams, M. H. (1999). A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Appleman, D. (2009). Critical encounters in high school English: Teaching literary theory to adolescents. 2nd edition. New York: Teachers College Press & Urbana: IL, National Council of Teachers of English. Blau, S. (2003). The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Carey-Webb A. (2001). Literature and Lives; A Response-based, Cultural Studies Approach to Teaching English. Urbana, IL. : National Council of Teachers of English. Jago, C. (2004). Classics in the classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Moon, B. (1999). Literary terms. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Scholes, R. (2001). The crafty reader. New Haven: Yale University Press. For additional resources, see Teaching British literature, Teaching Shakespeare, and Syllabi, units, lesson plans, and activities on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION What classic texts did you read as a high school student? What memories to you have of how those classic texts were presented to you. Recall, in as much detail as you can, how, one of your literature teachers approached that text. Then, create your own lessons around that text, detailing what changes you would make and why.
* The authors thank Matthew Jabaily for these lessons on The Scarlet Letter.
CHAPTER 5
Teaching Contemporary Young Adult Literature How Do I Teach What My Students Are Reading?
Case Narrative: Millennial Teens and Contemporary Young Adult Literature The Recent Rise of Young Adult Literature What Exactly is Young Adult Literature, and Why isn’t it in the Book Room? On Texts and Teaching: Young Adult Literature as Cultural Ideal or Cultural Access? Young Adult Literature in the Millennium: What Teens Read, What Teachers Teach If it’s Not in the Book Room, Where Can I find it? Locating Quality Young Adult Literature How do I Possibly Choose? Developing Selection Criteria What Can I Do (or Should I Avoid) with the Anthology? Using What’s in the Book Room What if I Get into Trouble? Censorship and the Complications of Choice
MILLENNIAL TEENS AND CONTEMPORARY YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE Judy Blume, meet MTV’s The Real World. Where once the protagonists of young-adult fiction simply pondered the prospect of sex, many of today’s teen characters are actually doin’it! Though outlets like Wal-Mart may decline to stock some of the racier titles in their stores, there’s a growing market for teen fiction (Barnes & Noble reports double-digit growth in YA sales in the past six years). And that’s let to more envelope pushing for an easily jaded audience. “These are the kids watching The O.C. on [Thursday] nights,” notes FSG editor Wesley Adams. “That’s going to inform what they want to read.” (Gilbert Cruz, Entertainment Weekly, 2009) For literature teachers, the teenage population boom and the booming market for young adult literature is both a blessing and a curse. The good news is that teens are buying and reading young adult fiction in record numbers. The bad news for some is that what they are reading is even harder to control than it was in 1967 when S. E. Hinton wrote the Outsiders and Robert Lipsyte wrote The Contender. The frank and open inclusion of topics from AIDS to alienation in contemporary young adult literature may cause consternation with churches, parent groups, and school boards alike. On the other hand, if judiciously selected and tactfully handled, young adult literature such as that described by Gilbert
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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Cruz can act be a vicarious safe passage into the complicated and dangerous terrain of adulthood for millennial teens. As you prepare to read this chapter, take a few moments to consider how you will manage this deluge of literature written for young adults within your increasingly complicated and culturally diverse classroom. Given the fact that many young adult novels date quickly, how will you acquire knowledge of current young adult literature? How do you hope to incorporate young adult literature into your classroom?
THE RECENT RISE OF YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE Today’s teens have a seemingly endless supply of literature to help them grapple with issues from suicide to surviving high school cliques. In the past decade, the field of young adult literature has experienced a quantitative and qualitative shift. Michael Cart (2005), writing on behalf of the American Library Association, has reported that, [b]etween 1990 and 2000 the number of persons between 12 and 19 soared to 32 million, a growth rate of 17% that significantly outpaced the growth of the rest of the population. The size of this population segment has also increased as the conventional definition of “young adult” has expanded to include those as young as ten and, since the late 1990s, as old as twenty-five. (para. 2)
Book publishers have quickly responded to the teenage population growth that began in the early nineties. An astounding array of texts for young adults can now be found on the shelves of bookstores and libraries, accompanied by a deluge of websites, blogs, booklists, fan sites, and other Internet resources related to young adult literature. According to Cart (2005), there has been a 25% increase in the publication, and a 23% rise in the sale of books for young adults from 1995 to 2005. These changes in the marketing of young adult literature have been accompanied by changes in the style, format, and features of the books themselves.
Hamlet Was Eating Strawberries: The Changing Shape of Young Adult Literature “Do you believe in ghosts?” Horatio asked him. He was lying on Hamlet’s bed. Hamlet was sitting on the stone floor, in a corner, the corner farthest from the door. The prince was eating strawberries. He smiled. It was the first time Horatio had seen him smile since the funeral. (Marsden, 2009, p. 2)
So begins the opening scene in John Marsden’s clever re-invention of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This is just one of a spate of compelling books that focus on the lives of classic authors or re-invent classic texts (see “twists on the tale” in the “Young Adult Literature” section of the website for more examples of these retellings). Today‘s young adult book buyers have a much greater variety of authors, formats, and topics from which to choose. Crossover books such as Gregory Galloway’s As Simple as Snow and Aidan Chambers’s Postcards from No Man’s Land are an example of the industry’s attempt to capture a twin market of adults and young adults. In the United States, young adult literature has gone
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global, with increased marketing of and greater access to books by authors outside the United States, such as Padma Venkatraman’s Climbing the Stairs and Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does my Head Look Big in This? Many contemporary novels such as Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson and Witness by Karen Hesse are written in verse. Novels such as Shooter by Walter Dean Myers and Powers by Deborah Lynn Jacobs are written from multiple viewpoints. In addition to multiple narrators and viewpoints, contemporary young adult literature also features shifts in voice and time, alternating past and present tense, and parallel stories in different time periods (Koss & Teale, 2009). The heightened fascination with fantasy fiction among teens is both reflected by and reflective of the popularity of books such as those in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and the movie by the same name. The Twilight “fanfiction” site yields another kind of “literature” in the form of the multitude of fictional spinoffs written by series fans (http://www. twilightmovie.org/page/Twilight+Fan+Fiction). Print literature has also undergone a sort of shape shifting, as graphic novels such as Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, Aimee Major Steinberger’s A Tall Girl’s Adventures in Japan, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood have arrived on the scene. It’s not unusual to see teens reading comics and graphic novels or trading playing cards, based upon Japanese anime movies. A visit to the many websites devoted to anime and Japanese manga reveals an array of popular manga, ranging from “classic” series such as Mai, the Psychic Girl by Goseki Kojima and Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuya Kudo to the more recent Dragonball series by Akira Toriyama (See Comics and graphic novels on the website.) Electronic fiction and non-fiction is also rivaling print literature as ebooks become more available and popular. Production companies such as the Pixar division of Disney have further fueled adolescents’ interest in animation and graphic narratives. Picture books for young adults such as Marybeth Lorbiecki’s Just one Flick of a Finger or Sherry Garland’s I Never Knew Your Name now portray a wealth of mature topics such as gun violence and suicide. The print and electronic texts associated with contemporary young adult fiction would have, no doubt, been unimaginable to authors such as S. E. Hinton and Robert Lipsyte as they penned the first young adult novels over 50 years ago. So, why, you might ask, are books like these absent from your school?
WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE, AND WHY ISN’T IT IN THE BOOK ROOM? There are many ways to define young adult literature, but three operational definitions seem to prevail: what is marketed to teens; what teens read in schools; and what teens actually read. These three sources of young adult literature are often mutually exclusive. For example, teenagers do not always have money to buy their own books for leisure reading, so what they actually read can be more a matter of affordability and availability than marketing trends or teachers’ prescriptions. In addition, they often reject anything taught in a classroom, so what they choose to read for pleasure ends up being remote from what’s available in a classroom or school library. We’ll save the discussion of teens’ pleasure reading for later in this chapter. First, let’s look at two important sources for young adult literature: book publishers and classroom teachers. Although the estimates vary, it’s clear that contemporary teenagers do spend a sizeable amount of their discretionary income on books (Magazine Publishers of America, 2004), and this fact is not lost on publishers. Interestingly, advertising does not sell young adult books as well as browsing in bookstores or word of mouth. In a 2009 survey by Publishers’
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Weekly, 83% of teens were influenced by the book recommendations of friends and 82% found books by browsing in bookstores. Often, teens have a hard time finding books appropriate to their age (Fitzgerald, 2009). Over the past decade, you may have noticed a deliberate change in the location of young adult sections in bookstores. Because teens avoid the children’s area of a bookstore, large chains such as Borders and Barnes and Noble have begun to place the young adult section nearby, but in a separate section, from the children’s area. Publishers have also produced young adult books that look more like adult books and have responded to the preference among teens for smaller, lighter books that can fit into a pocket or a purse. The very use of the term “young adult,” as opposed to “teen” or “adolescent” is no doubt partly due to the fact that teens don’t like anything with “teen” in the title (Yampbell, 2005). Cat Yampbell notes another change in young adult literature prompted by the publishing industry: Publishers also are encouraging authors to use one-word titles, such as Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (2001), Patricia McCormick’s Cut (2000), Melvin Burgess’s Smack (1998), M. T. Anderson’s Feed (2002), and Thirsty (1998). (2005, p. 355)
The number one selling feature in the young adult fiction market seems to be the book cover. Teenage girls, for example, are “smart, savvy shoppers and they want the look of what they read to reflect current trends. Hence, the covers that have bold single images or use the most popular colors of the season tend to fare very well” (Hessler, quoted in Yampbell, 2005, p. 357). It’s somewhat of a cruel irony that the new titles mentioned in this chapter may not make it into your school’s book room or in your department’s (often unwritten) literature curriculum. This is partly because books cost money, and once a class set or an anthology is purchased by a school, an underground curriculum, based upon budgetary concerns, territoriality, and turf, begins to develop. Eventually, certain texts become associated with a particular grade level and teaching patterns become rigidly entrenched. Any new teacher who has ever tried to teach a novel or short story “out of sequence” and been reprimanded by a teacher at another grade level can attest to the ferocity with which many teachers cling to those lesson plans and assessment materials for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, or Romeo and Juliet. Young adult author and former editor of the English Journal, Chris Crowe describes a disappointing trip to a typical middle school library: The “Young Adult Literature” section of this junior high library was stocked with Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Dickens’ Great Expectations, Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Wharton’s Ethan Frome, and novels by Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne, Louisa May Alcott, and such. Only a handful of books by post-World War II authors appeared on the shelves, and the closest book I found to what I consider young adult literature was John Knowles’ A Separate Peace . . . I realized that teachers or students who might come into the library looking for YAL would find instead a collection of adult books and classics that make up the bulk of the required reading in secondary school literature programs. (1998, p. 120)
As the following history of young adult literature will show, since literature for young adults made its first appearance on the American scene, innovative teaching theories and contemporary texts have been tossed in a storm of historical developments and opposing political forces.
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ON TEXTS AND TEACHING: YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AS CULTURAL IDEAL OR CULTURAL ACCESS? For over a hundred years, literature teaching has experienced a constant tension between two over-arching and often opposed perspectives; the first defines literature as a way of promoting and perpetuating what we will call a cultural ideal, while the second defines literature as a form of cultural access. Let’s begin with a brief description of the two views (see Figure 5.1). While the view of literature as a cultural ideal has changed very little over the past century, the cultural access perspective has undergone four significant shifts, each yielding a different view of the reader’s role in literary reading: reader as productive citizen; reader as active meaning maker; reader as personal authority; and reader as transformative agent.
The Reader as Productive Citizen: From Uniform Lists to Nancy Drew In 1874, the industrial revolution was in full swing in America. The railroad had been invented, women were fighting for voting rights, and the idea of literature as a cultural ideal was gaining a firm foothold. In that year, a group of eastern colleges had just created their “uniform lists” of books that every prospective college student should read before Literature as Cultural Ideal
Literature as Cultural Access
Role of literature: Promoting and preserving a cultural standard or ideal.
Role of literature: Engaging students in developmentally appropriate reading practices, and promoting access to a broad array of texts and cultural perspectives.
View of texts: Emphasis on a fairly fixed canon of classic literature, representing the pinnacle of western culture.
View of texts: Emphasis on literature’s potential in developing the cognitive, aesthetic, social, and political capacities of readers.
View of readers: Readers are subordinate to the larger ideal of preserving the timeless cultural values of classic literature. As they understand and gain familiarity with a prescribed set of texts in the traditional literary canon, readers are inculcated into the dominating culture and carry its traditions to the next generation.
View of readers: Readers are active meaning makers whose skills and personalities develop throughout a lifetime. As readers encounter and engage with literature, they develop the necessary cognitive, linguistic, aesthetic, and critical skills for participation in a democratic society and the larger global community.
View of reading: Based upon an implicit argument that reading classic works of literature develops rigor and mental discipline.
View of reading: Based upon a view of literary texts as agents of transformation in the lives of readers as they assume full participation in the larger world.
View of assessment: Standardized tests on knowledge of classic literary works, genre characteristics, literary techniques, and literal or inferential comprehension of a prescribed canon of literary texts.
View of assessment: Authentic, contextualized assessments focused upon multiple dimensions of literary reading (comprehension, aesthetic response, reading behaviors and strategies) within various social contexts (solitary reading, large and small group discussion, teacher and peer conferences, dramatic enactments, and so on).
Figure 5.1 Competing Perspectives in the Literature Classroom
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entering college. For the next several years, high school teachers would become increasingly preoccupied with teaching the traditional canon of literature to collegebound students. Since there was no such thing as “young adult literature” in the late nineteenth century, teenagers of the time read books that were published for adults. In school, they read Shakespeare and Silas Marner; in their free time, they read the “ragsto riches” stories of the Horatio Alger series or what were called “domestic novels” (moralistic tales of women’s experiences) and “dime novels” (cheap paperback melodramas about the frontier and other aspects of American life). These simplistic melodramatic books must have seemed as outrageous to “cultured” society as the novels of Danielle Steele and Stephenie Meyer may seem to many segments of American society today. Around the time the American Library Association was founded in 1875, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer were appearing on the scene. Books such as these were undoubtedly more accessible to young readers than the texts they were required to read in school. Even then, we can imagine that there existed a rather sharp line of demarcation between what young adults read in schools and what they read for pleasure. As the twentieth century dawned, the industrial revolution had made its impact on American society. The automobile had been invented, and The Sears and Roebuck catalogue was one of the most popular books in America. Many young adults in those days read series books published by the Stratemeyer syndicate: Tom Swift, The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew were just a few popular series books. Stratemeyer was one of the first publishers to aim its books at an audience of young readers. Like the earlier “dime novels,” these series books were cheaper than adult books, but these were manufactured to look as much like adult books as possible. As sales of these series books grew to enormous proportions, they were written by ghost writers under pseudonyms. While young people devoured them, they would be denounced by everyone including librarians, teachers, and even Granville Stanley Hall (the supposed “father” of adolescence) himself (Romalov, 1995). As young adults were reading dime novels and series books, the mood of the nation was shifting toward a view of literacy and learning as a form of cultural access. From 1900 to the 1930s, the Progressive movement spawned a view of the reader as a productive citizen, promoting the idea that all students, regardless of abilities, social classes, or career paths, should have access to an education that would prepare them for their roles as successful members of democratic society. John Dewey, the leading proponent of Progressivism in America (1900, 1902), argued passionately that children were not empty vessels, but curious, active learners who should be given access to meaningful real-life learning activities, in order to prepare them for the important tasks they would face as citizens of a democracy. Dewey’s ideas would emerge in the field of English education almost thirty years later, as the newly-formed Progressive Education Association commissioned Louise Rosenblatt to write the landmark Literature as Exploration (1938/1996). Rosenblatt’s theories became a literary animation of Dewey’s theory of progressive education. Though not herself a “reader-response critic,” Rosenblatt would become known as the founder of the movement known as “response-centered” teaching that captured the hearts and imaginations of many American teachers in the 1970s and 1980s, and is still alive in contemporary classrooms. Rosenblatt opposed the ideal of “one correct interpretation” of a literary text, inspiring reader-response teachers in the latter half of the twentieth century to create independent reading programs where teenagers could respond in highly personal ways to popular young adult texts of their choosing.
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Just as the idea of literature as cultural access began to gain popularity through the work of progressivist thinkers, the perspective of literature as cultural ideal asserted itself once again. In 1920, Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler created a list of 100 books, which they believed to be the best of the Western literary canon. The narrow canon of “great books” was adopted by many college English departments of the time, eventually gaining firm footing in 1952, when Encyclopedia Britannica first published a 54-volume set of Great Books of the Western World. Interestingly, the Great Books Foundation is still in existence, though the current organization has rejected Adler and Hutchinson’s original canon and now includes works by women and minorities in its anthologies.
The Reader as Active Meaning Maker: From New Criticism to the Learner-centered Classroom In 1941, a few years after J. R. R. Tolkien had published The Hobbit, and a year before Maureen Daly would write Seventeenth Summer, John Crowe Ransom published The New Criticism (1979), which elucidated the principles of the movement by the same name. Although it began in the 1920s, The New Criticism rose to prominence in the 1940s and remained extremely influential well into the 1960s. The New Critics argued that the meaning of literary texts could only be found in “close reading,” or the study of figurative language, genre characteristics, and literary technique. Even today, you can see evidence of the New Critical movement in the form of quizzes and other classroom activities focused on genre characteristics and literary terminology such as foreshadowing and figurative language. Six years after the founding of New Criticism, the Soviets launched the famous “Sputnik” and started the “space race.” Americans were shocked at the prospect of losing America’s preeminence in science and technology. As in most times of economic insecurity, a “back to basics” mentality pervaded much of American schooling. At the same time, John Holt, Jonothan Kozol, and George Leonard—the so-called “romantic critics” of education—launched scathing attacks on American schools as sites of oppressive, meaningless, decontextualized learning. John Dixon (1967), influenced by the developmental theories of Piaget and a progressivist view of the child as active, creative learner, joined a group of educators from the United Kingdom in creating the “language and learning” movement, which promoted informal, expressive language and student choice in writing topics and reading materials. This learner-centered perspective re-defined the earlier progressivist view of the reader as productive citizen to a psychological view of reader as active meaning maker. Learner-centered views were strongly opposed by organizations such as the College Entrance Examination Board, which vigorously attacked the English curriculum in secondary schools as “an unhappy combination of old matter unrenewed and new matter that rarely rises above the level of passing concerns” (cited in Dixon, 1967, p. xviv). While American classrooms were caught in the tensions between the progressivist learner-centered curriculum and the text-centered perspectives of New Criticism, literature for adolescents was just about to come into its own.
From The Outsiders to A Nation at Risk: The Reader as Personal Authority The post-Sputnik world witnessed a strong tension between those who held a cultural access perspective (all students should have access to engaging, developmentally appropriate
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literature) and those who espoused a view of literature as cultural ideal (the literature curriculum was deteriorating into mindlessness). It was into this contested space that what we now know as young adult literature made its debut. In the wake of McCarthyism and the “red scare” in 1955, two important, but philosophically opposed, events took place: Rudolph Flesch (1955) wrote Why Johnny Can’t Read, an impassioned back-tobasics plea for a return to phonics instruction, and J.D. Salinger wrote the controversial and often-censored novel The Catcher in the Rye. By 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma would be fired for assigning Salinger’s book to an 11th grade English class. By 1967, the first examples of what became known as “realistic fiction” appeared in the form of books such as Hinton’s The Outsiders and Lipsyte’s The Contender. The appearance of what was then called “adolescent literature” would prove extremely threatening to those who held a view of literature as cultural ideal. Librarians refused to stock it on shelves; teachers and parents denounced it as mind-numbing trash. Nevertheless, realistic fiction began to capture the fledgling teen market and push the boundaries of what had been once considered taboo for a teenage audience. In 1969, Paul Zindel wrote My Darling, My Hamburger, which featured a young girl’s struggle with abortion. Six years later, Judy Blume wrote Forever, a controversial story of a young girl’s first sexual encounter. A decade after that, in 1982, Nancy Garden would write the highly controversial Annie on My Mind, a story of two high-school girls who fall in love. The availability of realistic fiction for young adults was paralleled by a growing interest in making such books available to adolescents. In 1967, G. Robert Carlsen published Books and the Teen-age Reader, and in 1968 Daniel Fader and Elton McNeil published Hooked on Books, both promoting the idea that adolescents should be allowed to read literature that was accessible and appropriate to adolescent development. Very slowly, classroom teachers began to introduce young adult fiction into their classrooms, teaching paperback novels instead of anthologized literature, and creating classroom libraries of books for students’ independent reading. The various “learner-centered” movements in the 1960s and 1970s promoted a vision of the reader as personal authority. In choosing their own topics, young writers were given authority over their writing; in choosing their own literature and responding in highly personal ways, they became authorities over their own reading. In the 1970s, a genre of young adult literature called the “problem novel” emerged. Go Ask Alice (Anonymous), the controversial story of a young girl’s struggle with mental illness was published in 1971. Three years later, Robert Cormier wrote The Chocolate War, the story of a young boy’s refusal to sell chocolates for a school fundraiser and the disturbing consequences he faced. Many problem novels such as The Chocolate War, although popular with teenagers, were originally marketed to an adult audience, and have been widely censored, since their publication, by everyone from parents to school boards. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as student protestors were burning draft cards and protesting the war in Vietnam, college methods courses in English education were advocating this new view of the reader as personal authority. Advocates of what would become known as the “personal growth” movement argued that readers should be given access to popular texts and provided with learning experiences, tailored to their unique personalities and preferences. In contrast to the dry dull adult texts that had, for so many years, dominated the secondary English classroom, students were discovering the pleasure of reading about people their own age in circumstances similar to theirs. In 1973, the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) was formed within NCTE for the
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purpose of promoting excellence in the teaching of adolescent literature. ALAN was one of the first professional organizations devoted to the promotion of quality young adult literature, and is still a strong force in the field of English teaching. Its journal, The Alan Review, features articles on young adult literature, reviews of current books, interviews with authors and practical articles on teaching literature to adolescents. Around this time, Louise Rosenblatt dealt a significant blow to the New Critics with the creation of her “transactional theory” of literary reading (1978). Rosenblatt argued that the meaning of a text lay not in the text or the reader, but in the transaction between the two. Most reading in schools was what Rosenblatt called “efferent” (or informational) reading, focused on gathering information to be used in demonstrating knowledge to teachers. Reading literature, she argued, should be a process of immersing oneself in the moment-to-moment experience of the text, or what she called the “aesthetic stance.” Aesthetic reading, she argued, rarely occurred in the classroom. Rosenblatt’s transactional theory continues to influence literature teachers who allow students time for private independent reading, choice in the literature they read, and space in the classroom for reading as an engaging, aesthetic process. As America moved into the “me generation” of the 1980s, the country was experiencing another time of economic uncertainty. American youth had performed poorly on achievement tests when compared with those of other industrialized nations, and Japan was vying with the United States for economic supremacy. As in earlier times of turmoil, America was moving, once again, toward a view of literacy and literature as cultural ideal. “A Nation at Risk,” published during the Reagan administration, concluded: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war“ (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, para. 2). In 1987, E.D. Hirsch published the bestselling book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know, in which he argued that America’s literacy problems were due the fact that students were not taught the common body of information necessary to function as a successful member of society. In The Closing of the American Mind (1988) Allan Bloom leveled a similar critique on university programs for failing to immerse their students in a rich tradition of classic literature and philosophy. Against this rather conservative backdrop, Ken Goodman published What’s Whole in Whole Language (1986). The Whole Language movement promoted the belief that, in learning to read, students should be given whole texts of culturally diverse, highquality literature as opposed to piecemeal exercises and phonics drills. A year later, Nancie Atwell published In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing, Reading, and Learning (1987/1998), an enormously successful book for middle school teachers, which popularized the idea of “reading and writing workshops” in which students meet regularly to talk about self-chosen books, engage in authentic reading for real-world purposes, and publish their own writing for a classroom audience. In the mid 1980s, the growing racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity in American classrooms spurred an intense interest in teaching multicultural literature (see Stallworth, Gibbons, & Fauber, 2006). Literature anthologies began to reflect this movement, as quality classic and contemporary literature replaced the traditional canon of White European-American males (Applebee et al., 2006; Beers et al., 2009). By the end of the 1980s, several awards such as the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature had been created to honor writers of young adult fiction. In the eighties, series books had made a rousing comeback. Sweet Valley High, The Babysitters’ Club, and The Boxcar Family were
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tremendously popular with older children and early adolescents. Even Nancy Drew and The Bobbsey Twins reappeared for the occasion. The 1980s also witnessed the publication of several contemporary classics of young adult literature such as Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt, Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block, and Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. In this decade, “young adult” sections of libraries and bookstores typically featured books more appropriate for middle school than high school students. Often, older teenagers had to look in adult sections of libraries and bookstores for reading materials appropriate to their development. Literature for young adults was itself about to “come of age,” however, as an explosion of new technologies, and a growing population of teenagers loomed on the horizon.
Multiliteracies, Critical Theories, and Literature for Social Justice: The Reader as Transformative Agent At the dawn of the millennium, young adult literature is now available in a dazzling array of topics, formats, and genres, as the seismic growth of new technologies has changed our definition of “texts” and transformed our notions of readers. In 1994, a group of ten scholars met in New London, New Hampshire for the purpose of redefining literacy pedagogy. The New London Group created the concept of “multiliteracies,” or the notion that a multitude of literacies are needed for participation in today’s global economy and rapidly expanding universe of technological change. In defining a pedagogy of multiliteracies, the New London Group (1996) noted two primary goals for students: “creating access to the evolving language of work, power, and community, and fostering the critical engagement necessary for them to design their social futures and achieve success through fulfilling employment” (p. 60). The New London Group argued against “the old, monocultural, nationalistic sense of ‘civic’” and proposed “a new sense of ‘civic pluralism’ . . . in which differences are used as a productive resource and in which differences are the norm” (p. 69). At the same time as The New London Group was redefining the reader’s role in a global society, a wealth of critical theories was becoming available for use in the secondary literature classroom (Appleman, 2009). Through the influence of movements such as formalism, deconstruction, gender studies, Marxism, and historical criticism, we are urged to become more sensitive to the ways in which issues like race, class, gender, and other sociopolitical factors influence the literacy practices of students. Appleman argues: We may not be able to name our theories, nor are we always aware of how our ideologies (for that is what they are) become internalized and may in fact prevent us from understanding worlds and perspectives different from our own. We also may not be able to recognize an oppressive ideology when we are confronted with it, whether it’s a textbook, a tracking system in a high school, or in the workplace. (p. 133)
Paralleling the growth of contemporary critical perspectives, terms like “social justice,” “anti-racist,” “anti-bias,” or “service learning” have entered what was once thought to be the rather apolitical sphere of the literature classroom (Allen, 1999; Edelsky, 2006; Kesson & Oyler, 1999). When literature teaching is viewed as a sociopolitical practice, it is not enough to simply include multicultural literature or promote tolerance of others in the classroom. We are challenged today as never before to make issues of race, class, gender, and injustice explicit aspects of our literacy teaching. At the dawn of the
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millennium, the view of the reader has again shifted from the sociolinguistic perspective of reader as personal authority to a more sociopolitical view of readers as transformative agents, who not only negotiate, but transform the world they inhabit. Through engaging with and critically exploring texts from multiple perspectives, readers are challenged to move beyond the literary text and the literature classroom, actively opposing issues like racism and helping to create a world that is more socially just and equitable. In this new view, as readers become more acquainted with literature’s transformative potential, they gain access to an increasingly global sphere and become active change agents in their own futures. As we write the current edition of this textbook, this more transformative view of literature as cultural access is once again offset by a nearly a decade of educational reforms aimed at large-scale standardization of a narrow band of skills. The Goals 2000 initiative during the Clinton administration introduced a series of standards upon which the No Child Left Behind legislation (Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2001), with its standardized testing mandate, has dominated American schooling. In 2009/2010, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), in collaboration with the National Governors Association, drafted a common core of state standards in language arts for grades K–12. At the time of writing, 49 states have agreed to adopt national twelfthgrade exit standards (CCSSO, 2009). It is plausible that there will soon be a large-scale examination to accompany these standards. The tensions between literacy as cultural ideal and literacy for cultural access are as strong today as they have been for over a hundred years. It is within this milieu that today’s young adult must learn, live, and discover the transformative power of literature.
YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE IN THE MILLENNIUM: WHAT TEENS READ, WHAT TEACHERS TEACH Often, books that fulfill our teaching goals and are safe from the censors are worlds apart from what teens seek out on their own. While Holden Caufield may have regaled us with his wry cynicism and shocking vocabulary in The Catcher in the Rye, he’d probably bore most contemporary teenagers to tears. It’s interesting to view the results of the two most recent surveys of teens’ favorite books (from teenreads.com and The Young Adult Library Services Association) against Ted Hipple and Jennifer L. Claiborne’s survey of 78 adults, including English teachers, authors of young adult literature, college professors, librarians, and publishers (2005) (see Table 5.1). A look at the books in the teen surveys tells us a couple of important things. One is that young people today, as they did in past decades, often enjoy escaping from the mundane and frightening world of “real life” into the reassuring peril of science fiction and fantasy. The popularity of books, movies, and television shows such as Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight series, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy speak volumes about teenagers’ voracious appetite for fantasy, gothic, and science fiction books. Novels by Meyers, Rowling, and Pullman fly off the shelves as soon as a new book in the series rolls off the presses. It’s noteworthy that six of the ten books chosen by teens in the 2009 teenreads.com survey and seven of the ten books chosen by teens in The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) survey were science fiction or fantasy, whereas Lois Lowry’s The Giver is the only non-realistic book to make it on the list of adult favorites in Hipple and Claiborne’s study. A look at teen favorites also reveals that series books are as popular today as Nancy Drew and The Babysitter’s Club were once upon a time. You need to realize that it’s
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Table 5.1 Teens’ and Adults’ Favorite Literature Titles Teenreads.com 2009 Top Ten
YALSA 2009 Teens’ Top Ten
Adult Favorites Hipple & Claiborne (2005)
Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer
Paper Towns, John Green
Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling
Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer
Lois Lowry, The Giver
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
Vampire Academy, Richelle Mead
City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare
S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders
Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, James Patterson
Identical, Ellen Hopkins
Gary Paulsen, Hatchet
City of Bones, Cassandra Clare
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Louis Sachar, Holes
The Sweet Far Thing, Libba Bray
Wake, Lisa McMann
Walter Dean Myers, Monster
Extras, Scott Westerfeld
Untamed, P. C. and Kristin Cast
Chris Crutcher, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
Before I Die, Jenny Downham
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart
Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade
Twisted, Laurie Halse Anderson
Graceling, Kristin Cashore
Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust Paul Zindel, The Pigman Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat Chris Crutcher, Chinese Handcuffs Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl Robert Cormier, After the First Death Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind Chris Crutcher, Ironman Mildred D. Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
okay if your students get stuck on Rowling’s Harry Potter or Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series. They’ll probably forget the books themselves, but they won’t lose feeling of getting hooked into a world of stories and familiar characters that adult lifetime readers often experience. It’s a pretty good bet that the books mentioned by teens in the YALSA and teenreads.com surveys are not typical of the books currently taught in schools. Granted, Hipple and Claiborne’s survey is four years older than the annual teen surveys, but it’s likely that there would be few changes in adult favorites, even if the survey were conducted today. Although Laurie Halse Anderson made it on the lists of both adolescents
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and adults, the contrast between adolescent and adult preferences is rather striking. We might wonder if, perhaps, there is now a “canon” of young adult titles lying around in school book rooms or teachers’ bookshelves from the last time they took a course in young adult literature. While many of us may have fond memories of reading Salinger, Cormier, and Taylor, the works included in the titles listed by Hipple and Claiborne may seem incredibly dated and, in some cases, juvenile to present-day adolescents. There are also recent titles that might better fulfill our curricular objectives than those on this list. For example, there are now books about gay teens that don’t end with negative consequences such as the firing of two favorite gay teachers in Nancy Garden’s classic early novel, Annie on my Mind. M. E. Kerr’s Deliver us from Evie, David LaRochelle’s Absolutely, Positively Not!, and Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower come to mind immediately. And while adult readers may enjoy the multigenred texture of Walter Dean Myers’ Monster or the nuanced California patois of Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat, many students may have trouble making their way through Myers’ shifting genres, Weetzie’s breezy slang, or Block’s tangled prose. Finally, it’s sobering to realize that, even after years of attempts to include a multicultural mix of authors and protagonists in the literature classroom, only four titles (and three authors) of the twenty-three on Hipple’s and Claiborne’s list—roughly one-fifth of the total number of texts—were authored by people of color. A recent study of 307 awardwinning, bestselling, and popular young adult literature bears out this finding. Despite the growing availability of texts from non-mainstream cultures and countries outside the United States, Koss and Teale noted that only 20% of the books in their study could be called “multicultural.” Most often, books that featured characters from more than one culture depicted the non-mainstream characters in supporting roles (Koss & Teale, 2009). Of course, recency and relevance aren’t all. There are surely times when you need to push adolescents past Stephenie Meyer and Cassandra Clare to classic and contemporary classic literature that they might not seek out on their own. When choosing from among our personal favorites, however, it would be good to remember the lessons we can learn from adolescents themselves. Here are just a few. • • •
Notice how many science fiction, fantasy, and gothic novels make it on the lists of teenage, as opposed to adult favorites. Series books have not lost their universal appeal, though these are not mentioned by adults. Whether we like it or not, clever twists of phrasing and literary devices are less important than suspense and fast-paced action for a good many adolescent readers. While we may see Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust as a terrific chance to combine our love of poetry with an interdisciplinary unit on the Great Depression, some students may not find it as gripping as, say, Hesse’s Stowaway, about the long voyage of Captain James Cook or Phoenix Rising, about the dramatic consequences of a nuclear meltdown.
This does not mean holding popularity contests where text selection is concerned; but it’s good to remain humble when choosing books for adolescents. As adults, we are always mentally “role-playing” our students in terms of what they might profit from and enjoy; sadly, we’re probably wrong more often than we are right in even our most educated guesses. It’s important to balance whole class reading with opportunities for independent or “free choice” reading, book clubs, and other activities that more closely
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mirror the reading practices of lifetime pleasure readers. (See General resources on teaching young adult literature on the website.)
IF IT’S NOT IN THE BOOK ROOM, WHERE CAN I FIND IT? LOCATING QUALITY YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE Though it’s refreshing to read about the wealth of literature currently available for your adolescent students, sorting through the annual avalanche of books and other texts may seem pretty daunting. Luckily, there are others who have simplified the process a bit. If you’re clueless about where to start, try some of the following avenues.
Check out the Award Winners For a one-stop shopping experience, visit the Award Annals page (http://www. awardannals.com/wiki/Main_Page), a site that features over 10,000 creative works from books to films and music that have received some of the 180 awards currently available. Within the site is an Honor Roll Of Young Adult Books page, featuring cover shots and synopses of over a thousand books that have won at least one award. The books are given a ranking, based upon the number of awards received, so you can be assured that books on the top of the list are considered of high quality and literary merit.
Ask a Teenager For a reality check, it’s fun to ask teenagers at informal social gatherings what they’re reading at the moment. When Susan asked a friend’s middle-school daughter about her reading preferences one evening, the girl replied, “We never read the books on the Newbery Award list for pleasure. Teachers love ‘em, but they’re wicked boring to kids!” Asking teens what they read for pleasure often provides an eye-opening contrast with what’s on those award lists. As a classroom teacher, you can conduct informal surveys or reading interest surveys with your own students as a way of finding out what they read for pleasure.
Hang out in a Used Bookstore Although used bookstores don’t have the latest young adult bestsellers, they do have lots of good books at affordable prices. For a few dollars, you can begin stocking a shelf of young adult books for your students to peruse during independent reading time or to take home and read on their own time. Susan used to make used books available to her high school students on a “bring-one-and-take-one” basis. Many of her students and their parents were eager to donate books for this classroom library; and since they were always trading books with those from home, the shelves were constantly changing.
Visit Commercial Websites If you don’t have time to hang out in a bookstore, go to where a great many teens find and share their opinions on books. Visiting websites like teenreads.com or finding “Listmania” booklists created by teenagers on Amazon.com can be a good way to identify texts that contemporary teens will read. Although you might be justifiably suspicious of how these lists get created (How does a teen’s list make it on the Amazon website?), when checked against the award winners for quality, these lists can be a starting place
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for creating our own pleasure-reading lists. Not surprisingly, these teen-created lists often include a healthy mix of classic and contemporary books from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to more contemporary titles such as John Green’s Looking for Alaska or Matt Haig’s The Dead Fathers Club.
Take a Young Adult Librarian to Lunch Even if your library doesn’t have a young adult librarian, there is usually someone who is charged with purchasing and promoting literature for adolescents. Young adult librarians are usually avid readers of young adult books themselves, and can be a treasure trove of information about what’s new and worth reading. Libraries are also a great source of brochures and pamphlets, as well as public programs on topics like “banned books week” or “great titles for gay teens.”
Ask ALAN The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) is a terrific source of information about current and classic young adult texts. If you don’t already subscribe to the ALAN Review, you should do so. In the meantime, you can visit their website (http://www.alanya.org/) for everything from book tips to author interviews and notices of upcoming conferences. Be sure to check out “ALAN’s picks,” the monthly book review column devoted to current young adult titles. Because of its engaging style and contemporary content, young adult literature provides a rich resource for teachers of marginalized, struggling, or less academically successful readers. A survey by Hughes Hassell (2007), for example, revealed that 72% of urban adolescents regularly read magazines and 54% read comics, contrasted with 30% who regularly read books for pleasure. The many high quality graphic novels available for young adult readers are a great resource for teachers wishing to reduce the frustration connected with reading print texts and build student confidence. Because visual images are accessible and universal, English language learners and struggling readers can engage in deep thinking without the laborious struggle of decoding unfamiliar words. Graphic novels like Pitch Black by Youme Landowne and the Real series by Takehiko Inoue focus on serious topics like homelessness and disabilities in an immediate and gripping way. They invite struggling readers to develop oral language in class discussion and to think deeply about important social issues while they are learning to read. Accessible, engaging print books on contemporary topics like Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Jacqueline Woodson’s After Tupac & D Foster encourage struggling readers to explore compelling issues of identity and race. Many young adult texts have companion audio books that can be purchased or found in libraries. For students who can read but choose not to, each year the ALA publishes “Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers” (http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/teenreading/ teenstopten/tttcriteria.cfm), a list of fiction and non-fiction books that teens will pick up and read for pleasure. For more mature or academically successful readers, you can also find many sophisticated and engaging contemporary young adult novels to suit their unique reading processes and preferences as well. Each year, the American Library Association gives the Alex Award to ten novels written for adults that also appeal to adolescents (see Booklists, recommendations, and reviews of YA literature on the website).
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HOW DO I POSSIBLY CHOOSE? DEVELOPING SELECTION CRITERIA You might begin by exploring your (perhaps unspoken) criteria for choosing books and other print materials. After you’ve made a list of your own “must haves,” try developing the final criteria with the help of your students. A good place to start might be with a set of criteria developed by six pilot groups of teens who developed the criteria for the Teens’ Top Ten Books survey sponsored by the ALA. 1. Appeal and Involvement. Books should have a “lasting and universal” appeal, an attractive cover, and high degree of personal, emotional involvement. 2. Literary Quality. books should be substantive and not “fluffy.” They should offer unique perspectives and ways of thinking. 3. Characters. Characters should be old enough to understand the problems and concerns of teenagers. They should be realistic, compelling, and distinctive. 4. Content and Style. The subject matter should be relevant to teenagers, with good descriptions, vivid imagery, and an appropriate (not condescending) tone. 5. Plot. The plot should have a good blend of action and description with a satisfying (not necessarily happy ending). 6. Genres. The final list should contain many different genres on topics that appeal to a variety of teen readers. (For other resources on selecting and teaching young adult literature, see YA literature authors; Information on young adult novels; Online YA literature; Blogs on YA literature; Organizations focusing on YA literature; Listserves and email groups; YA literature publishers/ book distributors; and Sample YA literature syllabi, units, lesson plans, and activities on the website.)
WHAT CAN I DO (OR SHOULD I AVOID) WITH THE ANTHOLOGY? USING WHAT’S IN THE BOOK ROOM Fortunately, many of the current literature anthologies have a cornucopia of great teaching ideas and shorter texts for use in your literature curriculum. Since the early 1980s, anthologies have broadened the offerings well beyond the classical canon of the early twentieth century, including more works by women and minority authors, representing a rich and diverse array of cultural, ethnic, and other perspectives. In keeping with technological advances, anthologies are no longer confined to print texts, but include CD-ROMs, videos, translations, transparencies, and other materials. Though most contemporary anthologies are organized thematically in the earlier grades, many are organized by historical period in the 11th and 12th grades when the typical high school curriculum shifts to American and British (or world) literature. If you are teaching grammar skills or literary techniques as part of your English curriculum, or if you are trying to satisfy particular state standards, most anthologies have some kind of “scope and sequence” chart, indicating where these skills can best be taught in the context of reading. The comprehensiveness of the typical anthology can be a blessing or a curse, however. Many of the materials in what’s often called the “ancillary” packet or box, when used without a great deal of thought, can actually undercut your teaching goals. In general, it’s not a good idea to use anything out of an ancillary packet that you haven’t tailored to your particular students. Few, if any, of those worksheets or pre-prepared tests are
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useful for your students right out of the box, and many actually divert students from a deep understanding of what they’re reading. If you do find good ideas from those worksheets, consider sponsoring one or two options for quick in-class freewrites at the beginning of a class period, or allowing students to choose one option they like best instead of completing the entire sheet for homework. Here are some other rules of thumb for using the activities and assessment materials in your anthology. •
•
•
As tempting as those materials in the test bank might be, avoid giving objective tests on literature, unless you want your students to read for fact finding rather than deep understanding. Literature is, by definition, indeterminate. That means that a text can have several different possible meanings. Be careful of how often you interrupt a student’s reading by asking him or her to engage in note-taking, question-answering, chart drawing or other supposed “cognitive strategies.” Remember that no two readers benefit by exactly the same strategies, and many of what Rosenblatt would call “aesthetic readers” (1938/1996) are irritated and derailed by those constant interruptions. When you provide readers with strategies, be sure to allow them to abandon any that get in the way of, rather than enhance their comprehension. Be careful of how many of those prepared exercises you send home. Consider what would happen if you had a mandatory journal assignment or were interrupted at random points to answer someone’s questions during your own pleasure reading. If you do provide journal prompts, consider allowing students some choice about when they stop reading and write (i.e., choose four different prompts at four intervals of their choosing). Better yet, ask them to create their own questions and prompts rather than relying on yours.
WHAT IF I GET INTO TROUBLE? CENSORSHIP AND THE COMPLICATIONS OF CHOICE Teaching literature involves far more than putting books in the hands of adolescents and hoping they will somehow work their magic. Considering the myriad of controversial issues in current young adult literature, it’s a good idea to prepare yourself for potential challenges from parents or community members. A trip to the American Library Association website at www.ala.org yields a curious and amazing array of books that have been challenged in recent years, from the Harry Potter series (wizardry, magic) to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (racism), to Bridge to Terabithia (offensive sexual content, occult/Satanism). People censor books and other texts for a variety of reasons, most borne out of fear. They worry about the following issues: • • • •
Children will face issues they aren’t prepared for. They will learn things that get them into trouble or harmful circumstances. They will encounter provocative or hurtful words, images, stereotypes. They will question the religious or moral beliefs of the family.
Certainly parents in a democracy have a right to know what their children are reading and to request alternative choices. As English and language arts teachers, we know that texts can be used as a catalyst for bringing troubling issues to the surface where they can be discussed with caring adults. While parents and community members have a right to know what their children are reading and doing in classrooms, neither they nor we have
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a right to dictate what happens to all students on the basis of narrow religious or political principles. Perhaps it’s helpful to distinguish between text selection and text censorship; the former is based upon critical judgment while the latter is borne out of exclusion and fear. If you are teaching a potentially controversial book, your first stop should be at the National Council of Teachers of English Censorship page (http://www.ncte.org/action/ anti-censorship). Here you will find a host of helpful information and resources, including NCTE/IRA position statements on intellectual freedom; action plans and strategies for preventing and confronting challenges; ideas for resolving challenges once they have been made; and contact information for a variety of state, national, and international organizations interested in intellectual freedom. For example, the NCTE currently publishes over 200 rationales for commonly challenged books in CD-Rom format (http://www.ncte.org/action/anti-censorship/rationales). In general, when you decide to sponsor a text that you think might be objectionable, consider the following strategies: • • •
• • •
Look for rationales and reviews of the text in sources like NCTE or ALAN. Involve others in your decision. Talk with your department chair, principal, and parents about your choices. Consider sending home a reading contract that parents must sign whenever a student chooses a book for independent reading. Encourage parents to read and talk about books along with their children. Organize a book selection committee made up of concerned parents, community members, and other teachers. Be ready to offer alternatives to any text you select for whole class reading. Make sure that your department has developed a formal written complaint form.
Asking would-be censors to complete a written complaint form can reduce the emotional aspects of reacting negatively to texts perceived as offensive, sacreligious, racist, sexist, or sexually explicit. In grappling with the ethical dilemmas associated with text selection and censorship, it is important to not lose sight of the larger purposes for using these texts—to help students to become more aware of the diverse cultural and political perspectives in the United States. Barbara Kingsolver (1996) writes: If there is a fatal notion on this earth, it’s the notion that wider horizons will be fatal. Difficult, troublesome, scary—yes, all that. But the wounds for a sturdy child will not be mortal. When I read Doris Lessing at seventeen, I was shocked to wake up from my placid color-blind coma into the racially segregated town I called my home. I saw I had been a fatuous participant in a horrible thing. I bit my nails to the quick, cast nets of rage over all I loved for a time, and quaked to think of all I had—still have—to learn. But if I hadn’t made that reckoning, I would have lived a smaller, meaner life. (p. 57)
In these complicated times, we must know when to allow discord and discomfort in the midst of an otherwise peaceable classroom. At the same time, we must provide a safe haven within which students can take risks and develop those all-important lifetime reading habits. If this isn’t hard enough, we must invite them to step, if only vicariously, out of this safe space and recognize how literature connects them to larger social responsibilities. We write this chapter in the hopes that all of us can be more mindful
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of the personal, social, and political consequences of our choices and their implications for our students’ reading lives. (For a more complete discussion of censorship, see Chapter 5 censorship excerpt and Censorship issues on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Recall some young adult literature texts that you have read. Reflect on what aspects of these texts appealed to you as well as how you would judge their literary quality. What criteria were you using to assess their appeal and quality? Then, talk to some adolescents about some young adult texts they have read. Ask them about what aspects of those texts appealed to them and how they might judge their literary quality. What criteria do you believe they were drawing on in assessing appeal and quality and how might those criteria differ from your own?
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CHAPTER 6
Media Makers and Media Readers Teaching Analysis and Production of Media
CASE NARRATIVE
JUSTIFYING MEDIA/DIGITAL LITERACY INSTRUCTION IN A TRADITIONAL ENGLISH CURRICULUM Two English teachers, Jessica Dockter and Anne Holmgren, who teach in the Bloomington, Minnesota school district, face the challenge of developing a media literacy curriculum for their 7th grade language arts classes that are consistent with the state standards for media literacy: •
evaluate the accuracy and credibility of information found on internet sites • make informed evaluations about television, radio, film productions, newspapers and magazines with regard to quality of production, accuracy of information, bias, purpose, message and audience • evaluate the content and effect of persuasive techniques used in print and broadcast media • identify distinctions in how information is presented in print and non-print materials • critically analyze the messages and points of view employed in different media, including advertising, news programs, websites, and documentaries. In attempting to implement these standards in their teaching, they found that, based on their district’s labeling of English standards as “essential,” “important,” or “enhancement” for each grade level, most of the media literacy standards were labeled as merely “enhancements” in 7th grade meaning that it is not necessary that the standard be met at that level.
Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Justifying Media/Digital Literacy Instruction in a Traditional English Curriculum Justifying a Media Literacy Curriculum Accessing and Responding to Online Literature Responding to and Creating Digital Texts Studying and Creating Film Adaptations of Literature Critical Analysis of Media Representations Studying Film/Television Genres Studying Audiences’ Construction of Media Texts
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All of this raises difficult questions regarding priorities you give to teaching media literacy within the English curriculum. It’s often assumed that teaching media/digital texts is a distraction from or even irrelevant to teaching print literature or that classroom time should not be devoted to viewing. These assumptions ignore the fact that: • • •
students are highly engaged in use of digital media—YouTube, video games, social networking, texting, etc. “texts,” including “literary” texts are being redefined as digital involving multimodal, interactive experiences. students need to learn to critically analyze media messages and representations as shaping their identities and beliefs.
If you were in Anne and Jessica’s situation, how would you justify teaching of media literacy? How would you respond to the state standards? How would you integrate media literacy activities into the curriculum in the school in which you are working?
JUSTIFYING A MEDIA LITERACY CURRICULUM As future English teachers, you are experiencing a major reformulation of the traditional, print-based English curriculum that is being redefined based on Web 2.0 literacies (Jenkins, 2009) associated with uses of texting, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, podcasting, digital storytelling, e-portfolios, etc. (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009; Carrington & Robinson, 2009; Davies & Merchant, 2009; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). In using these digital tools, students acquire four important digital literacies associated with engaging in a “participatory culture”: multimodality, hyperlinking, connectivity, and collaboration, literacies involved in engaging in critical inquiry, constructing spaces, assuming agency, and enacting identities. In acquiring these digital literacies, students are learning various social skills of play/problem-solving, performance/ improvisation, simulation, appropriation/remixing, multitasking, collective intelligence, transmedia navigation, networking, negotiation, and visualization (Jenkins, 2009). The uses of these tools have also transformed traditional print-based literature curricula in several ways in terms of not only responding to and producing digital video and storytelling, but also providing alternative ways to share responses to literature through online discussions or blogs and to participate in virtual literary worlds (Rozema & Webb, 2008).
Texts Are Being Redefined as Multimodal and Multi-Media Your students continually use email, chats, blogs, games, cell phones, and websites as tools for communicating with others and/or building social relationships. In doing so, they draw on other media texts—digital images, music, video clips, texts, etc., in creating texts. For example, in creating a website, they are combining hypertext (texts linked together by multi-linear nodes) and multimedia (photos, video, art, audio, text, etc.). This suggests that we need to rethink traditional notions of traditional texts to think of texts as highly multi-media and interactive (Beach, 2007; Beach & Myers, 2001). Understanding media now requires an understanding of how new digital media forms have transformed or “remediated” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000) traditional media forms of television, radio, music, and print texts. For example, cnn.com or msnbc.com provide continually updated news information along with multiple hypertext links to related bits
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of information, a digital form that has influenced CNN and MSNBC television news broadcasts, in which updated headlines stream across the bottom of the screen or references are made to the websites for more information. Learning to effectively communicate involves the ability to combine print and media/digital texts in engaging ways. For example, creating a website involves combining print and digital images in ways that convey information and point users in certain directions. This suggests the need to incorporate learning new media/digital literacies (Kress, 2003) into the English curriculum. Having students produce their own media texts helps them understand the relationship between purpose and their use of media/ digital literacies. In creating their own ads, students assess the degree to which their intended message has been conveyed in the ad, judgments based on their intentions. (There are extensive online resources for teaching media literacy included on the website, particularly Media literacy and curriculum resources and Richard Beach’s (2007) site for Teachingmedialiteracy.com: A Web-Linked Guide to Links and Activities, http://www. teachingmedialiteracy.com, as well as a wiki that contains examples of teachers’ projects, http://teachingmedialiteracy.pbworks.com.)
ACCESSING AND RESPONDING TO ONLINE LITERATURE One of the major changes in teaching literature has to do with the increased access and availability of literary texts online (Webb, 2007). While you may have been limited in the past to teaching texts based on what class sets of textbooks or novels were available in the bookroom, students can now readily access literary texts from a range of different digital archives and sites such as Google Books (http://books.google.com/books), the Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org), Bartleby.com (http://www.bartelby.com), and the Academy of American Poets (http://www.poets.org) (see the website for other sites). Students can also listen to audiobooks in the public domain at LibriVox (http:// librivox.org) or at Open Culture (http://www.openculture.com/2006/10/audio_book_ podc.html). And, the advent and increased use of e-readers such as the KindleTM and the Apple TabletTM reduces costs of online literary texts for students, as well as providing more multimodal forms of literary experiences through the inclusion of images, video, and sound. Moreover, because these are online texts, students can respond to them by copy/ pasting them into their blogs to then add annotations, links, or comments, as well as revise, rearrange, rewrite, illustrate, or remix texts, practices we describe in more detail in Chapter 12 on writing about literature. We should also note that these practices of revising, altering, or remixing copyrighted texts are covered under new principles of “fair use” (Center for Social Media, 2009). For example, students may “deform” a poem by moving words into a different shape or adding spaces, for example, moving a poem about football into the shape of a football (Webb, 2007). Working in groups, students can also create their own collections or anthologies of online literary texts based on similarities in genres, topics, themes, issues, authors, etc., along with illustrations, annotations, glossaries, and notes, groupings illustrated on the Academy of Poets site (http://www.poets.org). (See Online literary/poetry texts and Digital literature/poetry on the website.) You can also promote books using online digital book talks to add to your course website, blog, or wiki—for information on creating digital book talks see the Digital Booktalk site at the University of Central Florida (http://digitalbooktalk.com), or sites such as Guys Read (http://guysread.com/), Readergirlz (http://www.readergirlz.com/),
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Teen Voices (http://www.teenvoices.com/), Teen Reads (http://www.teenreads.com/), or lists of award-winning books available on the Young Adult Library Service Association (http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklistsbook.cfm). In creating digital booktalks, you or your students can promote books through use of visual appeals, just as movie trailers promote movies (Gunter & Kenny, 2008). (For information on digital booktalks, see Nancy Keane’s site: http://www.nancykeane.com, the Digital Booktalk site: http://digitalbooktalk.com, or Crystal Booth’s tutorial on creating book trailers: http://www.squidoo.com/booktrailers). (See Digital booktalks and trailers on the website.)
Online Images and Videos Students can also collect images from sites such as Flickr, Picasa, or Google Images and videos from YouTube, TeacherTube, Vimeo, Hulu, or CurrentTV for use in analyzing media representations. James Trier (2007a; 2007b) has his preservice English teachers collect YouTube clips to create playlists for analysis of parodies, for example, a video of McDonald’s billboards on which the words “Double Cheeseburger” had been changed to “Double Bypass” (2007a, p. 411). Students are creating YouTube videos on Shakespeare plays as evident in the “Shakespeare English project” search results on YouTube, including Hamlet, The Silent Film, a Keystone Kops version of Hamlet’s sword fight with Laertes (Smith, 2010; http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-shakespeare-digitalmedia). Students can then import these images or video clips into VoiceThread, iMovie, or Windows Movie Maker to add voice-over commentaries or music or to create their remixes or parodies of ads. Middle school students can use the digital production tools on the My Pop Studio site (http://www.mypopstudio.com) to engage in remixing material. (See Analyzing images and Online videos for showing in class on the website.)
RESPONDING TO AND CREATING DIGITAL TEXTS Once students collect online images and videos, they can then use that material to respond to or create their own digital texts in the form of digital storytelling or video (Carrington & Robinson, 2009; Davies & Merchant, 2009). In doing so they can combine, alter, or remix existing images, video, or music, or create their own original material. In doing so, they are drawing on their knowledge of narrative and cinematic conventions to create engaging texts.
Copyright Issues In using online digital images, video, music, or text in creating digital stories, poetry, or podcasts, students need to be aware of the fact that this material is often copyrighted, requiring that they obtain permission for and give attribution for using this material. They should therefore consider using only material in which owners have granted Creative Commons copyright permission to use their material. And, you need to provide students with guidelines for in determining whether or not they are violating copyright with the classroom context governed by “fair use” of copyrighted material, principles and video available from the Center for Social Media (http://centerfor socialmedia.org/fair-use). “Fair use” of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright based on the:
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• • • •
purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes nature of the copyrighted work amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. (See Copyright issues on the website.)
Digital Storytelling Students can engage in digital storytelling—the use of digital video to create narratives or essays through images, video clips, music, and a voice-over (Center for Digital Storytelling, http://www.storycenter.org; Ohler, 2007). In working in a high school class of 16 female students, Kelly Wissman’s (2008) students created visual autobiographies (http://www.urbanedjournal.org/archive/Issue3/notes/notes0006.html) countering stereotypical media representations of students of color. For example, one student, Geneva, describes how she believes others perceive her: “What Do You See When You Look at Me? This is What I See,” “I see a young African-American girl wearing long/braids like my African ancestors did./Eyes that I use to see if someone is good or not so good” (Wissman, 2008; p. 32).
Learning Film Techniques Through video production, students learn to identify purposes for using different types of camera shots, angles, and editing techniques, uses that transfer to analysis of films, as well as an aesthetic appreciation of effective use of techniques. In an after-school digital storytelling program located in Oakland, California, the D.U.S.T.Y. project, students used digital storytelling to portray their lives based on the aesthetics of digital rhetoric. One student, Randy, created “Lyfe-N-Rhyme”, described by Hull and Katz (2007): Randy narrates the movie, performing his original poem/rap to the beat of a Miles Davis tune playing softly in the background. He illustrates, complements, or otherwise accompanies the words and the message of his poem/rap, along with the Miles Davis melody, with approximately 80 images. Most of these images are photographs taken by Randy of Oakland neighborhoods and residents, while others he found on the Internet, and a few screens consist solely of typed words.
Hall and Katz note how this video functions effectively on an aesthetic level by connecting Randy and his social world with “works of art and African-American icons, past and present” and “recontextualizing them in his own creative universe of this digital story” (p. 58). (See Digital storytelling on the website.) Students can then apply their knowledge of shots and editing to considering how they would create a film adaptation of short stories or scenes from a novel. In Jennifer Larson’s 11th grade literature class, at Maple Grove High School, Maple Grove, Minnesota, students study film technique in conjunction with formalist analysis of novels. She first provides students with analysis of still images—photos, artwork, comics, magazine ads, and asks students to identify use of various techniques. She then shows clips from films, stopping frequently to discuss plot, character, and story development and asking students questions about the purpose for using film techniques:
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1 point for each item checked off in numbers 1–6. _____ 1. Summarizes the film _____ 2. Sets up the context for the clip _____ 3. Points out the message being delivered _____ 4. Explains how the film technique delivers that message _____ 5. Shows the clip _____ 6. Meets the time limit (10–15 minutes) _____ 7. Accuracy 2 3 4 _____ 8. Quality insight into how technique delivers message 2 3 4 _____ 9. Clear, accessible delivery 2 3 4 _____ 10. Succinct explanations 2 3 4 Total: _____/22 points
Figure 6.1 Evaluation of Student Film Analysis
• • • • •
How is the character being portrayed? What is the mood in this part of the film? What’s happening with the plot? Why is this plot point important to the overall story? Why is this setting important to the overall story? How does the film technique communicate any of this—lighting, camera angle, camera movement, camera positioning, framing, color, sound, etc.?
She also uses freewrites to focus on specific aspects of the film clips. In doing so, she encourages students to focus on specific images and sounds using an “image-sound” skim in which they list specific images or sounds. Then, next to these images and sounds, they could describe the types of emotions or feelings evoked by these images or sounds. For example, if they list “close-up of raised knife in killer’s hand,” they may then list “fear about what will happen.” Students then share their lists and discuss some of the reasons for the associations between certain images/sounds and certain emotions, associations that may be based on semiotic meanings. Working together in pairs, students choose a five-minute clip of a film to analyze the techniques and what is being communicated about character, plot, setting, and theme. They then present their analysis of the clip to the class in a 10–15 minute presentation. They must give a brief summary of the film, set up the context for the clip, point out the message being delivered and how the film techniques deliver that message, and show the clip. She uses the point-system shown in Figure 6.1 to evaluate the presentations. To help students learn to analyze the function of specific clips in a film, Adam Kinory (2002) had students freewrite and discuss those clips, particularly in terms of four types of textual connections. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Text to Text—This reminds me of something in another book, film or media. Inter-Text—This reminds me of something in this book, film, or media. Text to Self—This reminds me of something in my own life. Text to World—This reminds me of something in the world.
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Once they have acquired expertise in editing, students could create their digital stories. To develop ideas for their stories, students could study features of effective narratives described in Chapter 8—to focus on dramatizing the unusual or extraordinary aspects of events or tensions and conflicts associated with an event. They could also identify how their character copes with these events or challenges, often leading to transformation in the character. They could then create a “story map” (p. 79) that fleshes out the events in a story, leading to a storyboard or script for a digital video production (Ohler, 2007). The Center for Digital Storytelling (2005) suggests use of criteria for creating effective digital stories—that digital stories focus on a specific point, revolve around a dramatic question (who did it, who will win, will the hero succeed), emotionally engage audiences, involve adopting an authentic voice, employ music to add emotional cues, and are edited in a manner that only includes relevant material. To evaluate students’ digital storytelling, you could provide students with criteria or a rubric (see Kevin Hodgson’s rubric: http://www.umass.edu/wmwp/Digital Storytelling/Rubric%20Assessment.htm), criteria that focus on: • • • • • •
story development through well-integrated uses of images, video, audio, and text fostering audience engagement and reflection through appropriate pacing and editing use of variation in pacing, tempo, and editing speed to engage audiences effective use of music choices and voice-over appropriate to the content selective use of video versus still images quality of self-narration that employs an authentic, conversational style and pauses. (see Video production and Vlog resources/Digital video on the website).
STUDYING AND CREATING FILM ADAPTATIONS OF LITERATURE Another approach to having students understand the use of video production techniques is to have them study film adaptations, particularly if they are reading a book that is the basis for an adaptation. In studying film adaptations, you could have students compare a text, theater, and/or film version of the same text, not in terms of whether one is “better” than the other, but more in terms of differences in how the different media present the same material. For example, the experience of time and space differs between watching a play and viewing a movie. Louis Giannetti (2007) notes that time in film is highly flexible, while in theater, it is continuous. He notes that space in film depends on how and where the camera positions an audience, while in theater, audiences can select what they and how they focus their attention; space in film exploits “off-frame” action—the fact that we are aware of someone outside a frame, while in theater, once actors leave the stage, they are forgotten. Films can obviously employ a range of different settings, while the theater is limited to what can be done on a stage. Giannetti (2007) contrasts three different types of adaptations, “the loose, the faithful, and the literal.” (p. 406). In a loose adaptation, a director may only use the original situation, story idea, or characters to create a film that bears little resemblance to the original text. For example, the film Clueless (Heckerling, 1995) was based on the storyline and comic, ironic wit of Jane Austen’s (2001) Emma, but it is set in a contemporary world with quite different characters. Faithful adaptations attempt to recapture the original text as closely as possible, a careful translation of the original into film form that retains the characters, storylines, and most events, for example, Emma, Henry V, and Much Ado About Nothing. Literal adaptations are typically older video versions of play productions, with limited use of cinematic techniques.
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In teaching film adaptations at Champlin Park High School, Champlin, Minnesota, Rachel Malchow (2002) avoids the use of literal adaptations because they, as simply filmed stage dramas, lack cinematic quality. She is more likely to use faithful adaptations because they attempt to “re-create the tone of the literary work in filmic language” (p. 6): Franco Zeffirelli’s (1968) Romeo and Juliet captures the passion and violence of 16th century Verona best through its music and visual imagery. Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989) uses flashbacks from the Henry IV plays and gruesome slow-motion depictions of war to problematize the issues of leadership. Conversely, Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (1993) manages to create a lusty, sunny comedy through its “giddy” panoramic shots of the Tuscan countryside and musical score.
Rather than showing entire films, she shows clips and has students compare clips of films with the original texts. You can also find a lot of other adaptations and related resources/reviews on various online sites included on the website, particularly The Internet Movie Base (http:// www.imdb.com/), a database of film and television productions, including information about directors, filming locations, awards, and trailers. Students could also study and create mashups or remixes of literary texts. For example, students can study examples of video mashups of Shakespeare plays on YouTube, for example, “Hamlet Is Back,” with clips from Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Action Hero (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBGq5DQygV4), Living Iambic Pentameter (http://www.youtube.com/FolgerLibrary), “Romeo & Juliet Stop Motion Style” (http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLHsU9GeDLI), “CSI: Macbeth” (http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=62gG5US2wIk&feature=related) (Desmet, 2009).
Annotating Video Adaptations Students can also use the VideoAnt tool (http://ant.umn.edu) to add text annotations to specific scenes or techniques in videos of different film adaptations (for an introduction to use of VideoAnt created by Richard for the 2009 K-12 OnLine Conference: http://tinyurl.com/y9srmcn). Students import a YouTube video URL into VideoAnt, view the video in a screen on the left side, and then stop the video to write annotations in a sidebar on the right. For use in their student teaching, Molly Schned and Jane Dolan created a unit for having students contrast the Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson YouTube video clips of adaptations of Hamlet (http://tinyurl.com/yexbmrf). In annotating adaptations, students could compare scenes from the original print version with the film version in terms of the use of types of camera shots, angles, editing, and music to convey a certain interpretations of those scenes. In responding to the film adaptation of Henry V, John Golden (2006) describes the use of film techniques to portray Henry’s delivering the “St. Crispin’s Day Speech” to rally his troops to defeat the French: As he begins, he is in the center, on the men’s level, but as he continues he moves to a make-shift platform above the gathered crowd. The nonidegetic music changes radically to a very light, then swelling and rousing, melody . . . Throughout his speech, we cut from medium shots of Henry back to shots of the soldiers who are clearly being deeply affected by his words. When Henry says that “We few, we happy few” are the only ones to share in this glorious victory, we the audience see the only close-up in the scene. The music reaches its crescendo just as Henry shouts “upon St. Crispin’s day” and we see long shots of the men shouting and pumping their fists in the air. (pp. 65–66)
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Students could also compare portrayals of point of view between a print versus film version. While readers of literature can readily adopt a character’s or narrator’s firstperson point of view, portraying a character’s first-person point of view in film requires the use of a voice-over and subjective camera work so that the audience adopts the perspective of that character, what Golden (2006) describes as “focalization” (p. 72), as illustrated by the portrayal of a lion-hunter in the jungle: Imagine, for example, that we see a man hunting lions in the middle of a jungle. We hear a sound and we see him looking around then we cut to what he sees: something rushing in the bushes. Then maybe we cut back to his face tensing up, and then we cut back to the lion leaping out. The lion is rushing directly towards the hunter, toward the camera, and thus toward us. We see what he sees and feel what he feels. (p. 73).
(See Film or TV study and adaptations on the website.)
Creating Video Adaptations Students can also create their own video adaptations, focusing on portraying specific scenes. Students can work as teams to first create a script and storyboard version that serves as the basis for filming those scenes. For their student teaching, Karena Hunt and Elizabeth Charboneau developed a unit in which team members assumed specific roles of casting director, dialogue director, director, soundtrack designer, and storyboard artist for creating an adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (http://tokillamockingbird adaptation.pbworks.com/). Students adopting these roles created sticky-note responses to selected scenes from the novel relevant to their particular responsibility. For example, the casting director had to focus on which actors or actresses would be best suited for the characters in the selected scenes. The dialogue director had to select and revise dialogue from the text for creating a script for those scenes. The director and storyboard artist had to describe the use of film techniques and props for portraying the scenes. And, the soundtrack designer had to find music appropriate for conveying the mood of the scenes. Based on these responses, students would select and film one scene. They would then compare their productions with different Hollywood adaptations. Students can also find online images or create their own images and import them into VoiceThread (http://voicethread.com), iMovie, or Windows Movie Maker, or tools such as Stupeflix (http://www.stupeflix.com) or Animoto (http://animoto.com) that allow students to add images to pre-set background templates. For example, in creating an adaptation of S. E. Hinton’s (2007) The Outsiders, which portrays conflicts between the “socs” and the “greasers,” Drew Buddie (2009) had his students find online images of the greaser culture from the 1950s and 1960s and add them into Stupeflix (http:// k12onlineconference.org/?p=548). Then, Buddie’s students used Google Maps and Google Streetview to find images from specific neighborhoods in Tulsa, Oklahoma to add to their adaptation. Similarly, in teaching a graphic novel version of The Odyssey and The Lightning Thief (Riordan, 2005), Kevin Hodgson (2009) had his students creating their own “heroic journey” stories using Google Maps and Google Earth in which their heroes journey through images of settings from Google Maps and Google Earth (http://sites.google.com/site/heroicjourneymaps/). James Cahalan (2008) describes his use of Google Earth to provide students with locations for teaching “hometown literature”:
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We fly around the globe to the different hometowns of the authors that we read together, focusing in enough to show even the topographies of those regions . . . I am able to focus in on the Kentucky River near Port Royal, where I once sat on Wendell Berry’s porch interviewing him, and then move to the sharply different landscape of Leslie Marmon Silko’s northwestern New Mexico . . . Then we take a second tour on Google Earth, as we tour my students’ hometowns around the United States and also to the foreign countries of some of them. Each add their voices as we go, telling us where the “bad” side of the tracks is in their Pennsylvania town or what those Mississippi fields are like . . . Not only is this simply fun, but it gives students a vision of what they are reading and learning about and where they are from. (p. 258)
Podcasting Students can also use podcasting to create audio productions as a form of adaptation or performance of their own or others’ literary texts, as well as book talks or productions about literary texts. For example, students could record their own and or others’ readings of poems or excerpts from a novel, story, or play, and then add reflections on why they selected these excerpts. Students in Robert Rozema’s college literature class created a podcast based on their reading of the futuristic novel Feed (Anderson, 2002), in which the main character, Titus, summarizes events in the novel, along with other students quoting passages with background music (Rozema & Webb, 2008). Students could also record a readers’ theater production (http://podtheatre. pbwiki.com/Background) using scripts in the public domain (http://www.teachingheart. net/readerstheater.htm) or create their own scripts addressing issues in their lives. Or, they could produce their own radio show about a topics or issue, for example, a show based on the NPR This I Believe program or create stories for a fictional town based on stories about the town of Lake Wobegon on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion program. Students who produce the Radio WillowWeb broadcast (http://www. mpsomaha.org/willow/radio) write scripts for mini-dramas that include use of sound effects or conduct interviews with guests or with people about their perceptions of news events. Students can also obtain audio from the Creative Commons Mixter (http:// www.ccmixter.org) and remix interpretations of dialogue from the play with music and sound effects (Shamburg & Craighead, 2009). Students could also create documentary podcasts about a topic or issue that concerns them (for activities created by Josh Axtman, Chris Baldridge, John Byrnes, Peter Ilten, and Chris Miller: http://documentary methods.ning.com: to sign in: user name:
[email protected] and password: rbeach). Students can also employ Skype (www.skype.com), free telephone software, for interviewing people long distance. For example, in the global podcast Rock Our World project (http://www.rockourworld.org), students create and share podcasts and videos about music across seven continents. To create podcasts, students can first create an outline, notes, or script, and then use mikes, digital recorders, or cell phones to create audio files that, if necessary, can then be edited using GarageBand or Audacity (for some tutorials on creating podcasts, see http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com/McCauley+and+Beach:+Tutorials+on+Creating +Podcasts). Students then create a podcast feed from these files using Feedburner (http://Feedburner.com), FeedForAll (http://www.feedforall.com), or Podomatic (http://podomatic.com). (See Audio or podcast productions or responses to literature on the website.)
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CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS As they are working with images and videos, it is important that students adopt a critical stance in terms of how these images or videos represent differences in race, class, gender, age, or professions in the media (Beach, 2007). Media representations often essentialize, generalize, or categorize people or institutions based on essentialist notions or stereotypical generalizations. For example, urban communities or neighborhoods are often portrayed in television news or crime shows as crime-ridden or poverty-stricken, without providing addition contextual information about the causes of these phenomenon: high unemployment, lack of government support, or lack of affordable housing. Students can conduct critical-inquiry analyses of media representations, posing inquiry questions such as, “How often are people of color portrayed in prime time television?” or “How are teachers portrayed in Hollywood films?” and then create productions or exhibits representing their analysis (for a low-tech option, students could tear out images from magazines to create collages on poster-boards). Students could search for online images to create online collages or online image slideshows using Flickr or Google Images to portray consistent patterns in media representations of gender, race, class, and age differences, as well as the workplace, vacations, “desirable” neighborhoods, food consumption, etc. In analyzing these representations, students ask the questions: “Where do these representations come from?” “Who produces these representations,” “Why are they producing these representations,” “How is complexity limited by these representations,” and “What is missing or who is silenced in these representations?” The following are some topics about which students could create their productions or exhibits (See Analyzing film/TV and Media representations on the website.)
Gender Students could analyze how females are frequently represented in terms of their femininity and sexuality based on idealized images of feminine beauty that objectify women. For example, female athletes are often described in terms of their appearances or relationships while male athletes are represented more in terms of their physical strength and skills. Students may also examine representations of masculinity portrayed in sports, ads, and action/detective TV programs/films in terms of physical violence and toughness, as well as portrayals of homophobic attitudes in films such as Brokeback Mountain (Lee, 2005). Anne and Jessica, referred to in the beginning of the chapter, have students analyze gender representations of male and female teenagers in teen magazines, creating poster presentations with images from the magazines to support their claims. They also write a response to the presentations answering these questions: “What message about your gender do teen magazines give to readers of the opposite gender? Is this message accurate?” Finally, based on analysis of these representations, students write a proposal for an original teen sitcom or drama, depicting the characters, their typical dilemmas, and the intended audience, as well as some sample storyboards.
Class Students could also examine representations of differences between working- versus middle- versus upper-middle-class worlds. For example, students may note how workingclass people are represented in the news, political ads, or prime-time shows as “good,
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hard-working, salt-of-the-earth” people who differ from knowledge-economy workers. These representations shift the focus away from analysis of an economic system in which blue-collar wages have remained flat since the 1980s and that are used to pit workingclass people in opposition to “government bureaucrats” in political campaigns.
Race Students may also define connections in terms of how certain racial and ethnic groups are represented in the media in which “whiteness” often operates as the invisible norm positioning people of color as the “other” (Roediger, 2002). Few if any AfricanAmericans or Latinos assume roles as news anchors, main characters in drama shows, talk show guests, characters in ads, or organizational spokespersons. Students could examine media representations of Mid-eastern and Muslim people portrayed in largely negative ways as suspicious and exotic. In teaching Smoke Signals (Eyre, 1998), an adaptation of Sherman Alexie’s (2005) stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, to her 8th grade students, Rachel Godlewski began with the familiar topic of media representations of gender by having students first list adjectives associated with different gender groups and then have students find examples of gender representations from film, television, commercials, magazine articles and advertisements, newspapers, websites, books, songs/music videos, and cartoons. Students then made presentations in which they addressed the questions: “What adjectives describe the men and women being portrayed in their examples? If there is a power dynamic between people, who has the power? Who solves the problems? How do they solve the problems? What activities are the people doing in the images? Are all forms of media providing the same range of representations of gender? Are some widely different? If so, which ones? How can you account for the differences? How do the audiences affect the representations offered? Where are certain representations most prevalent?” Students then turn to the less familiar topic of media representations of Native Americans. She started by having students list adjectives they would use to describe American Indian culture and people as a reflection of their preconceptions. Students then viewed “Images of Indians: How Hollywood Stereotyped the Native American” (O’Brien & Witmer, 2003) and read excerpts from Hollywood’s Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film (Rollins & O’Connor, 1999). Students then read the screenplay Smoke Signals, and wrote in their dialogue journals about the two characters’ relationships with each other. Students then view the film, noting the use of techniques, leading up to writing a final review of the film.
Places or Regions: Urban, Suburban, Rural Communities Students could also examine how different places such as urban, suburban, rural communities are represented. While urban communities are often portrayed as problematic, dangerous, and blighted, without providing addition contextual information about the causes of problems: high unemployment, lack of government support, or lack of affordable housing (Macek, 2006). Suburbia or exurbia is often perceived in terms of being more “white,” as described in the book Searching for Whitopia (Benjamin, 2009). Representations of rural American in the news also paints a relatively stereotypical portrayal of the issues facing rural America (Center for Media and Public Affairs, 2002: 75% of news stories about rural towns focused on crime; few stories dealt with issues of agriculture, despite the loss of jobs, and the decline of family farming).
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Advertising In critiquing advertising, students can draw on semiotic analysis of the social and cultural meaning of signs and codes in ads (Scholes, 1985). Signs consist of an image, a word, or an object whose meaning depends on the relationships between the signifier (the image, word, object, or practice) and the signified (the implied meaning) (Barthes, 1974) whose meaning is constituted by cultural codes, for example, “codes of beautification” (ChristianSmith (1993) —that a woman’s physical attractiveness contributes to building relationships, or codes for “good” (heroes dressed in white) versus “evil” (the “bad man” dressed in black) in films. Ads for luxury items such as expensive jewelry or cars often employ images associated with an upper-middle-class lifestyle, for example, showing an expensive car parked in front of a mansion, meanings based on codes for class differences. Students could also analyze rhetorical appeals to audiences through attempting to gain audience identification with groups or causes. For example, Pepsi ads portray people having a good time at a party, an activity with which audiences would identify given the fact that they would also want to be at a party. The ad may then show that the people at the party are drinking Pepsi, so that audiences may then equate having a good time with drinking Pepsi. To engage in rhetorical analysis of ads, students can pose these questions: • • • •
Who’s the intended or target audience? What signs, markers, images, language, social practices imply that audience? How is the audience linked to use of the product? What are the underlying value assumptions? (Having white teeth enhances your popularity; casino gambling is enjoyable.)
Learning to critique advertising becomes important given the influence of advertising on adolescents’ lives. For example, much of television advertising by fast-food restaurants targeted to children and adolescents involve promotion of often high-fat/calorie food, equating, as do McDonald’s ads for children, food with themes of adventure and magic. One result of this glamorization of high-fat food is increased rates of obesity and diabetes in children and adolescents, who often select this food over more healthy vegetable or fruit options. (See Analyzing advertising on the website.)
A Unit on Consumerism Central to all of this is a critique of a consumer culture/economy that attempts to create the need for consumer goods—the fact that one’s life is always inadequate or unfilled without certain products or that products will enhance one’s popularity and happiness. For her student teaching, Becca Dalrymple created a unit based on the science fiction, young-adult novel Feed, by M. T. Anderson (2002). In this novel, adolescents live in a future world in which they are continually fed consumer messages into their brains. Becca began the unit by having students identity their consumer habits—what they buy and what influences what they buy. The students then read popular teen magazines and identified teen consumer norms. Students then went to a shopping mall and interviewed store employees about their teen patronage; students also reflected on their feelings about being in the mall—whether they found it stressful, rejuvenating, exciting, boring, anxious, or calm. Students then responded to the first section of Feed, entitled “Eden,” which portrays a world dominated by large corporations. Students discuss their attitudes about large
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corporations—particularly Clear Channel, Fox News, Disney/ABC, Time Warner, and News Corporation—which control much of the media. For example, the students noted that Clear Channel not only owns nearly 1,200 radio stations, but they also own SFX Entertainment, the primary concert-venue owner and touring promoter in the country. Clear Channel can therefore choose to promote only certain musicians on their stations that they have also signed up for their concerts. Students then discussed alternative media texts such as Utne Reader and Mother Jones magazines that portray alternative perspectives outside of the media conglomerates’ texts. In responding to the second section, “Utopia,” students discussed the ways in which the main character, Titus, began to resist the consumer feeds, as he begins to recognize marketing strategies: They’re also wanting to make you want things. Everything we’ve grown up with . . . it’s all streamlining our personalities so we’re easier to sell to . . . they do these demographic studies that divide everyone up into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you’re supposedly like. They try to figure out who you are, and to make you conform to one of their types for easy marketing. (p. 80–81)
Students then identified the types of ads they might receive given their own possible “types.” They also discussed the ways in the school in the novel (“SchoolTM”) is run by corporations to teach students how to consume, and the ways in which adolescents’ spending can result in financial debt and depression, as portrayed by the death of one of the characters in the novel, Violet. For final activities, Becca’s students debated positive versus negative aspects of advertising or “feeds.” For final writing projects, students compared the novel to 1984, created a futuristic society that was similar or different to the society in Feed, surveyed their peers’ consumer habits and created a “handbook” for responsible teenage consumerism, or addressed an issue associated with media conglomerate control in which they assumed an active role in challenging a corporation’s control.
STUDYING FILM/TELEVISION GENRES Students could also study film/television genres, analyzing prototypical roles of hero, heroine, sidekick, alien, monster, criminal, cowboy, mentor, detective, villain, talk-show host, etc.; settings; imagery; plot/storyline having to do with the nature of the problem, who solves the problem, and how they solve the problem; and the themes/value assumptions reflected in the text: • •
roles: roles of hero, heroine, sidekick, alien, monster, criminal, cowboy, mentor, detective, femme fatale, villain, talk-show host., etc. settings: the prototypical setting or world associated with a genre, for example: – – – – –
•
western: wide open vistas of the Western plains/dessert the small-town gangster: dark, urban, back-street settings soap opera: indoor, upper-middle class setting spy-thriller: exotic, often urban international setting science fiction: futuristic worlds
imagery: certain prototypical, archetypal images (black = evil, vs. white = good) or symbols (the sheriff’s badge, water as initiation) associated with a setting or world
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•
plot/storyline: predictable narrative sequences of events often revolving around familiar problem and how those problems are solved.
For example, in analyzing the television crime detective show, students could identify the typical detective/side-kick roles; the setting of the urban world; the imagery of darkness, the storyline development based on the problem of crime; the detective as a one who solves a crime; and the means of often tough-minded, even violent actions; and the underlying thematic values that crime doesn’t pay. Examining the underlying value assumptions helps students critically examine some of the values that are presupposed in certain genres. For example, the crime-detective program often assumes that crime is best solved by violent control as a deterrent, as opposed to alternative approachesreducing poverty, providing jobs, instituting drug prevention programs, or enhancing education. Or, in a comedy, the problem/solution structure is often as follows: • • •
What is the typical problem?—mixed identities: someone is confused with someone else. Who solves the problem?—the characters eventually sort out the confusion. With what means?—characters discover the true person by exposing deceit or clarifying the confusion.
Or, students could study the fantasy film genre’s portrayal of the mythic, magical quest journey in which the “good” heroes confront various challenges associated with “evil,” challenges that test their tenacity, particularly in the final challenge. In The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001), Frodo Baggins lives alone in a rural village until he is summoned to lead a group to face a whole series of bizarre, supernatural creatures and worlds, each requiring him and his companions to outwit the enemy in the land of Mordor; the hero therefore triumphs not through greater physical prowess, but through his knowledge of specific details, outwitting the enemy. And, the adventure science fiction film such as the Star Wars series (Lucas, 1977), as Joseph Campbell (1991) demonstrates in his book, The Power of Myth, share with fantasy quest films the focus on mythic/archetypal quest, for example, Luke Skywalker’s search for the father represented by Darth Vader, involving the traditional tension between good versus evilthe encroaching power of “the empire,” made up of the “Jedi Knights,” the “Jawas” who trade “androids,” and the “Droids.” Science fiction films dealing with issues of “science” portray threats or challenges to society in the form of technology gone amok—nuclear disasters, mutant insects, computer breakdowns, skyscraper fires, or the threat of environmental destruction, epidemic diseases, mind-control, and genetic manipulation. Students could study how technological devices serve both positive and negative ends in films such as Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002), in which the police can project themselves into the future prior to people committing a crime; A.I. (Spielberg, 2001), in which robots assume humanlike identities, or Avatar (Cameron, 2009), in which military technology destroys a planet’s natural environment. One approach to studying film genres is to have students view parodies of different genres. One preservice English teacher, Jeff Blanchard, examined parodies of the horror film: One of the best-known parody series of this kind are the Scary Movie films. As the name implies, these films put a humorous twist on many of the most popular horror movies of our
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time. There are currently four films in the Scary Movie series, and each one focuses primarily on a few specific major horror films that make fun of the teen slasher films, Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, arguably the two most popular horror franchises of the 1990s. One particular scene illustrates how the film makes fun of the now iconic ghost mask worn by the killer in the “Scream” films. The first time you see the killer in the clip, his mask is as it appears in the actual horror film, and it is very terrifying. But as the clip progresses, you will obviously notice the mask change from scary, to smiling, and finally to the face of a drunk. Parody is most effective when making fun of the most memorable aspects of films and genres, and the “Scream” mask is a perfect target for those acquainted with modern horror films.
(See Genre teaching activities on the website.)
Documentaries Students can also study the increasingly popular genre of documentaries. In doing so, they can address the basic question as to whether a documentary simply captures or represents “reality,” or whether it creates its own version of “reality.” Students can also view examples representing different degrees of representing or constructing “reality” (Golden, 2006). For example, they could view Hoop Dreams (James, 1994) which portrays the lives of two high school basketball players or High School II (Wiseman, 1994) which portrays daily life in a New York City high school and discuss the extent to which these documentaries realistically capture the world of high school, as well as whether the world of high school portrayed in these films has changed since 1994. They can also view examples of propaganda documentaries, noting how a filmmaker constructs a distorted or one-sided perspective on an event or issue to achieve certain goals. During wartime, documentaries are constructed in a way that transform “the enemy” into the object of hatred and anger and the sponsoring country into a heroic, virtuous agent of good. The documentary, Triumph of the Will, directed by Leni Riefenstahl (1935), was designed to glorify the Nazi regime and Hitler as the admired leader who will unify the German people as a master race. At the other end of the spectrum, they could study examples of cinema verite documentary that attempts to capture experience in as unobtrusive, realistic manner as possible with long takes with little editing or commentary, as represented by Frederick Wiseman. Wiseman’s documentaries focus on peoples’ experiences in various institutions or sites—schools, hospitals, towns, government/welfare agency sites, prisons, stores, parks, etc. He shows long segments of people interacting with each other or with the site with minimal editing and no interviews or voice-over. There are also far fewer interviews in favor of having participations converse with each other. Events are portrayed as they unfold, without having the presence of a camera influencing those events or any staging or playing for the camera to shape those events. Students could also study examples of documentaries in which the filmmaker selects and edits material based on a clearly defined perspective or agenda, an orientation evident in Michael Moore’s or Ken Burns’s documentaries, as well as examples of docudramas—fictional reenactments of actual events or people’s lives, in some cases, based on a book or historical novel about those events or lives, for example, Steven Speilberg’s (1997) Amistad portrays a slave revolt on a slave ship in 1839 and their trial in America.
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You can integrate documentaries into your units to provide background historical or cultural information about a certain topic or issue (for examples of classroom integration, see the sample chapter from Golden (2006): http://www1.ncte.org/store/ books/124789.htm). For example, in studying To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, 1988), you can use documentaries about the civil rights movement in the South, for example, the PBS series, Eyes on the Prize, Part I (1986) and Part II (1989), as well as Spike Lee’s (1997) documentary, 4 Little Girls, that portrayed the bombing of a Birmingham church that resulted in the deaths of four young Black girls. You can find relevant documentaries for certain topics at the Internet Movie Data Base (http://www.imdb.com), as well as the Education Media Foundation (http://www.mediaed.org), which provides teaching units for their documentaries. Or, for studying portrayals of social class in literature, students could view Michael Apted’s (2005) Up series, that tracked a group of British children every seven years since age 7, portraits that represented differences in social class. Students can then create their own documentaries based on issues or topics associated with their own lives (Albers, 2007; Golden, 2006). For example, as they are reading The House on Mango Street (Cisneros, 1991), they may create a documentary about issues of crime, housing, employment, retail, social cohesion, etc., in their own neighborhoods that include interviews with members of that neighborhood. (See Analyzing documentary on the website.)
Popular Music Students could also study different popular music genres: jazz, be-bop, rock, soul, blues, country, Cajun, calypso, gospel, punk, heavy metal, hip-hop, and rap, by exploring the evolution of those genres (http://tinyurl.com/y892keb). They could also study how these genres both reflect and shape larger social and cultural forces, for example, how rock music in the 1960s reflected and expressed counter-culture values. Students could share or write about their own listening experiences, describing reasons for those experiences in terms of genres, tastes, preferences, quality, performance, and influences of the music industry/radio on their music experiences. For example, they could study how rap music emerged out of a hip-hop culture of the 1960s and 1970s with its emphasis on political expression and resistance through graffiti, modes of dress, language, and social practices. As we note in Chapter 8, students can draw on their knowledge of rap for responding to poetry. They can also study how rap and hiphip culture provides a voice for urban youth to express the difficulties of coping with urban blight, crime, and unemployment. In one project, students selected a poem and a rap song and prepared group presentations on the relationships of these texts to their historical and literary periods (Morrell, 2002). Students then completed an anthology of ten poems and presented five of these poems at a poetry reading. For their final unit project, they wrote a five- to seven-page critical essay on a rap song. In a unit for use in his student teaching, Noah Mass had students examine the ways in which music serves as statements of protest. Students begin with an exploration of the meaning of protest, both in their lives and in the larger society. The students discuss how individual protest becomes a larger, collective protest. In studying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” students examine the effectiveness of different protest strategies. Students then listen to various protest songs such as “Dear Landlord” by Bob Dylan and “Signed D.C.” by Love, comparing them to King’s letter in terms of purpose and
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audience. They then listen to Jimi Hendrix’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” as an expression of his anti-war attitudes in 1967 at the Woodstock Music Festival. Students then formulate responses to “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” by the rap group Public Enemy: “I got a letter from the government / the other day / I opened and read it / It said they were suckers / They wanted me for their army or whatever / Picture me given’ a damn—I said never / Here is a land that never gave a damn about a brother like me . . . .” Students also study “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2 related to the conflicts in Northern Ireland, and “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke in terms of these songs’ portrayals of resistance to change. Students then begin work on a final unit project, in which they will write a twopage essay about their protest issue that explores the problem, its historical antecedents and modern/future consequences, and proposed solutions, as well as text or work of art—visual, aural, written etc.—that could be used to rally support for their issue. (See Analyzing popular music/culture on the website.)
STUDYING AUDIENCES’ CONSTRUCTION OF MEDIA TEXTS In studying media, it is important for students to recognize that the meaning of media texts evolves out of the activity of audiences’ social participation with media texts. Audiences engage in fan-club chat exchanges about favorite television programs. They burn music CDs and share those CDs with peers. They play video games with others. They organize viewing events around going to films or viewing at home. They visit theme parks, attend concerts, or shop in malls, experiences that are highly mediated by media. Students could analyze audiences’ activities of using media texts by studying how audiences or participants as fans construct meaning in television viewing, internet chat rooms, blogs, online fan club activities (soap opera/Star Trek), responses to magazines/ezines, participation in media events (sports broadcasts, rock concerts), playing video games, or surfing the Web. Students can examine how audiences construct the meanings of texts or events as part of being a member of a social community in which their expertise is valued by other members. For example, students could study game players’ social participation in their game playing, as well as their acquisition of problem-solving strategies (Gee, 2007). In observing audiences’ practices, students can take written field notes, recordings and photos to capture details about those practices. They can also interview audiences about their responses to texts and reasons for being a member of a fan community. In one media ethnography unit, Melissa Chiri had her high school students study children watching television. They recalled their own experiences of watching certain children’s television programs and what they may have learned from characters on those programs. They then studied one selected program—its history, target audiences, viewing schedule, genre, and video techniques employed in the program. Students then observed a young child or group of children watching a children’s television show, noting the: • • • •
atmosphere: where, when, other setting factors physical and emotional reactions of the child/children and in what part of the program those reactions took place conversations about the program with you or others in the room differences to reactions to commercial breaks versus the program itself.
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If parents or guardians were available, students interviewed them about their perceptions of their children’s responses to these programs and their television-viewing habits. Students then produced a final report of their findings about the children’s responses. (See Media ethnography/audience analysis on the website.) Students could also study audience participation on fan sites for fans (see the Organization for Transformational Works: http://transformativeworks.org) to share their experiences with certain film/book series: Star Trek (http://www.startrak.com/startrek/ view/index.html or http://www.trekweb.com), Star Wars (http://www.starwars. com), Harry Potter (http://fanfiction.mugglenet.com), Lost (http://abc.go.com/prime time/lost/index), or Twilight (http://community.livejournal.com/twilight_fandom). They could also study and create their own fanfiction—narratives written for sharing on sites such as Fanfiction (http://www.fanfiction.net) or on blogs about popular culture, literary, or media characters or stories, for example, Harry Potter or Star Trek (http:// trekfanfiction.net) (Black, 2008). When people submit their narratives to these sites, they received feedback or reviews from audiences, which can be helpful for fostering student revisions. Students could study how audiences construct their identities or interact with others on these sites. For example, the online virtual site Barbiegirl (www.barbiegirls.com) invites tween females to enjoy the experience of “fashion, fun, friendship” by creating their own avatars and talking or shopping with other tweens in this virtual site. Or the Stardoll (stardoll.com) site that involves tween females in dressing up paper dolls. (See Fanclubs/fanfiction on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Reflect on your own media uses and preferences and how you plan to draw on your uses and preferences in your teaching. To find out about your students’ media uses, ask them to complete anonymous surveys of time devoted on a daily and/or weekly basis to film, television, radio, music, web browsing, chat, email, magazines, popular fiction, etc., as well as particular media texts they enjoy and reasons for their enjoyment. Then, based on your results, reflect on how you can draw on students’ media uses and preferences in your teaching. (See Individual uses of digital media on the website.)
PART III
How Do We Engage Students With Literature?
CHAPTER 7
How Do I Help Students Understand What They Are Reading?
Case Narrative: Getting Started: The Pre-Requisites to Helping Students Navigate Texts: The Case of 9th Grade Teacher Jamie Heans Helping Students Acquire General Reading and Literary Response Strategies Working with “Struggling” Readers
GETTING STARTED: THE PREREQUISITES TO HELPING STUDENTS NAVIGATE TEXTS: THE CASE OF 9TH GRADE TEACHER JAMIE HEANS Jamie Heans is an extraordinary teacher. He is particularly adept at reaching kids who are considered reluctant or resistant. One wintry night, Jamie went out to dinner with some colleagues in downtown Bangor. He went on and on about his ideas for “messing it up’ in the classroom, especially about the possibilities for changing his students’ outlook on their world. The next day was one of those special pick-up days when you could leave out pretty much anything for the garbage men to cart away – furniture, stereo equipment, appliances, etc. It was severely cold, but Jamie kept stopping to paw through piles of people’s cast-off belongings as he walked past them. “This speaker could be fixed!” he said. “It just needs some new wiring!” Or “this chair could be cool if you would just reupholster it.” Sometimes he would think of wild new uses for something: “You could take the shelves out of this bookcase and it would probably make a good sandbox!” This was why Jamie was such a great teacher. He saw the possibilities in everything. He saw the potential of every student and what they could be become. He sometimes referred to his students as “rough diamonds” as if he knew with the right care and assistance they could become something special. He expected to have to tinker and to work carefully
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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and attentively with his students as individuals. A cookie-cutter approach to teaching was not something that worked for Jamie or his students.
Creating a Caring Context for Learning Still, there were some questions Jamie needed to answer. In what ways can you express caring to students? How can you express, both explicitly and implicitly, your belief in their potential? How can you do so in a way that is professional and supports student learning? Socio-cultural theorists argue that teaching and learning are relational pursuits. What options do you have for creating learning contexts that are relational, where people work together on projects of significance, and where there is social support to work through the challenges? Jamie thought about these questions as a matter of course as he thought about what his students needed. Later that spring, Jamie had a specific problem. The school’s curriculum required him to teach Romeo and Juliet to his basic and average English classes, and the kids were not into it. They didn’t get why they were reading this text. “Why do we have to do this stuff?” they asked. Some complained that the text was “in a foreign language!” Yes, Jamie replied, that would be late-middle English. Some didn’t understand how to read dramatic scripts. “It’s just people talking to each other!” one boy complained. “You have to go back after every page and figure out who said what to who! And even then you don’t know enough to know what the heck is going on!” Jamie is not the kind of guy to push on mindlessly when things are not working. He likes to figure out with the kids what they could do differently. “Ok, guys,” he told his class, “we have to read this play. What can we do to make it easier and better and more fun?”
Thinking and Rethinking Practice Effective teachers are highly reflective. They learn from their students how to best teach them. They are constantly soliciting feedback through formative assessment. Every classroom activity provides feedback and information that assists them in planning the next teaching episodes. What options do you see for soliciting feedback from students, and for tracking student learning and challenges during the natural course of a lesson? With Jamie’s careful guidance, the students came up with a lot of excellent ideas. To give their reading a purpose close to their hearts, they framed their reading of the play around the inquiry question: “What makes and breaks relationships?” To explore this idea, Jamie created a frontloading assignment (Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001) to activate student interest and background that could be used as resources for reading the play. The students responded to his survey about relationships with statements like “The hottest fires burn out fastest” and “You can’t change a person by loving them.” They then wrote little stories based on experiences from their own lives that would explain their responses to the statements they agreed or disagreed with most strongly. They shared their stories and the other students who were listening had to guess which statement from the opinionnaire was supported by their classmate’s little tale. To help them with translating and understanding the language, different groups of kids took on “the mantle of the expert” to become video documentary makers. Each group was assigned a scene, and their job was to take an assigned literary device, reenact a part of the scene in which this literary convention was used, explain the scene and the use of the device in modern language, and explain how the literary convention
HOW DO I HELP STUDENTS UNDERSTAND?
contributed to the meaning of the scene. The kids took to their roles as video designers with relish and panache, and did exciting and creative work that they could not wait to show their classmates. At the end of the unit, these videos were put together onto a DVD. The DVD provided a synopsis of all major scenes, definitions of all literary terms that were on the district-wide test, and explanations of how each device helped to create meaning when used by Shakespeare to compose Romeo and Juliet. Again and again Jamie fell back on this basic principle: good teachers always look for ways to actively engage their students with making and doing things. What kinds of projects can students engage in before, during and at the conclusion of units that would support and demonstrate their understanding of new concepts and strategies?
HELPING STUDENTS ACQUIRE GENERAL READING AND LITERARY RESPONSE STRATEGIES In this chapter, we describe ways of helping students acquire general processes of reading and foundational literary response strategies for comprehending and beginning to literary texts. We argue that students are most likely to acquire these strategies by actively constructing meaning through the use of frontloading strategies, through informal and formal response, and writing in different forms: including responding to texts through think-alouds, engaging in drama activities, and composing their own “literary texts,” all of which involve various uses and responses to different literary techniques.
The General Processes of Reading Most textbooks and resources on reading identify “general” reading strategies, i.e. those strategies that all good readers use any time they read anything at all. General process strategies include setting purposes; activating schematic background; decoding words; making personal connections; visualizing settings, scenes, characters, events and ideas; summarizing and bringing meaning forward throughout a reading; predicting; asking questions; and monitoring comprehension and using fix-up strategies as needed. All of these strategies are important and necessary, and are pre-requisites to all comprehension. Jamie understood this, and so he set out to help his students develop these strategies through the reading of the play. Though these strategies are necessary to all comprehension, they must be supported and taught to students. They have the biggest transfer value since they are always used in any reading situation. However, they are insufficient to becoming an adept reader of literature. Therefore Jamie needed to address other demands that Romeo and Juliet was placing on his students, including strategies we can call text or genre specific strategies – like those needed for reading a script or an ironic monologue – and task specific strategies – like understanding irony or narrator unreliability. Teaching these text and task-specific strategies will be explored at the end of this chapter and throughout the next chapter (See General reading strategies on the website.)
The Power of Essential Questions and of Frontloading Jamie knew that the most important time to teach is before kids begin to read a new text or take on a new challenge. He knew that you have to prepare readers for success by
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connecting to their prior interests. That’s why he was pleased with the essential question about “What makes and breaks relationships?” It connected to the kids’ interests, it was an issue of importance to kids and out in the world, and it got directly after the heart of the matter about the play. After all, Shakespeare didn’t write Romeo and Juliet to torture 9th graders. He wrote it to explore the issues of what makes a good relationship and what things can interfere with relationships. Jamie knew that the bard’s answers about what screws up a relationships: parental interference, gang membership, deceit, religion, etc. were all still true today and would resonate with his students.
The Power of Purpose Readers’ understanding varies according to the purpose for reading a text within the context of a larger activity (Duffy, 2003). Having a clear sense of purpose—what they want to learn from reading a text—means that a reader knows what kind of information or ideas they want to extract from a text. The video-game player who’s not sure about a certain rule peruses through the game directions knowing just what to look for in order to play the game more effectively. Helping students clarify their sense of purpose for reading helps them know what aspects of a text to attend to that address what they want to learn from a text. This is a primary reason why framing literary texts with an essential question (as Jamie’s students did when reframing Romeo and Juliet with the essential question What makes and breaks relationships?) is so powerful: it frames the reading with a clear purpose. The readers’ sense of purpose often influences their degree of engagement with a text, as well as their investment in the activities that surround that text and influence their understanding of it (Guthrie, 2004). The video-game player is highly engaged with winning the games, which means that they are engaged with learning from the directions what’s needed to win. Having a purpose motivates reading, and shapes what you notice, attend to and remember. Without a purpose, it is difficult to become engaged in reading. Conversely, students will learn highly sophisticated strategies in service of coming to understand an issue or problem that compels them. Good essential questions can frame a unit or textual study with a clear purpose, and this motivates students, encourages them to bring their life experiences and responses to bear on the reading, and helps create curricular coherence, i.e. the students understand what they are doing and how one lesson builds on another to create meaning over time. There’s a lot of research around essential questions and what makes good ones (see, e.g. Wilhelm, 2007a and Wilhelm, Wilhelm, & Boas, 2009) but it all basically boils down to two issues: 1) does the question grab the kids’ attention and 2) does it get after the heart of the matter about the text you are reading? Some teachers worry that by focusing attention with an essential question you are limiting student response. The opposite has been found to be true – by foregrounding purpose more response is encouraged and enabled. And because knowledge is a network of relationships, more issues get explored since thoroughly exploring one major issue like relationships means that you must explore related issues like power structures, religious influences, family dynamics and the like. Try brainstorming essential questions for some longer texts you might teach. Make sure they are edgy and interesting to kids – that the answers are debatable. Also make sure that you are getting after a central issue explored by the text. If you can do those two things, you are sure to have a workable essential question. Jamie also knew that he had to activate his students’ prior interests and background knowledge. Those were the only resources available for bridging students to the text.
HOW DO I HELP STUDENTS UNDERSTAND?
That’s why he created the survey and had his students write little stories about the ones that they agreed and disagreed with the most.
The Importance of Background Knowledge Readers’ understanding of a text is determined primarily by their prior knowledge about certain content or subject matter. A student who knows a lot about playing video games may breeze through directions to a game while another student who knows little about playing video games may spend a lot more time trying to understand the directions. This means that you need to consider what your students may know about certain topics, concepts, ideas, or disciplinary knowledge related to understanding a certain text. This is particularly the case with links to other texts with similar storylines, character types, themes, topics, issues, or perspectives. Encouraging students to draw on inter-textual links from their previous reading helps them inductively define similarities constituting genre knowledge. In reading a story such as The Turn of the Screw (James, 1981) with a narrator whose perspective they begin to challenge as unreliable, they may recall other texts with unreliable narrators.
Building a Basis for Opinion An important basis for creating understanding of a text involves a link to personal beliefs. Of necessity, interpretations must be rooted in a larger understanding of the world and its possibilities. One way to prepare students to interpret texts, then, is to ask them to identify their beliefs about the world in which they live. To accomplish this, Jamie used the questionnaire on page 122 to get his students to take an inventory of their own beliefs and attitudes. After his students had shared their stories about the love and relationship survey questions, Jamie had them go back and look at their stories to see how characters were portrayed, and how character attitudes, and changes in character attitudes and circumstances helped to convey the survey statement as a theme. Consider a text you will be teaching. What kind of introductory “frontloading” activity could you use that would: 1) motivate students for reading and inquiry; 2) activate or build the students’ prior knowledge or background information regarding the essential question and unit theme; and 3) work to organize inquiry, set purposes and consolidate learning about the theme throughout the unit, i.e. how will it help students set purposes for their reading, focus their learning, clarify what they are coming to know, and help them to monitor their learning progress? Simple brainstorming is the simplest kind of frontloading, but there are hundreds of other activities that can fulfill these purposes: rankings, surveys, K-W-L (what do you know, want to know, what have you learned), etc. At the end of the unit on Romeo and Juliet, Jamie asked his students to write another story in multimodal form (cartoon, anime, manga, video, picture book, etc.) that would demonstrate a theme about relationships to others through the use of the literary techniques, particularly those regarding character, that they had learned about throughout the unit. In writing their own literature, Jamie’s students were acquiring knowledge of literary strategies and conventions constituting the meaning of more specific literary techniques: using figurative language, using dialogue to portray characters, exploring character change and much more.
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EXHIBIT: OPINIONNAIRE/SURVEY Identify whether you agree (A) or disagree (D) with each statement. Then choose one statement that you feel particularly strongly about and write a short story about what in your experience of the world leads you to feel so strongly about the statement. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Love at first sight is possible. Love means never having to say you are sorry. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. You are never too young to fall in love. You can’t expect a person to change his or her habits after you enter into a relationship with them. Love takes a lot of hard work. Opposites attract. If you are really in love, physical appearance doesn’t matter. Teenagers are capable of true love. Love is a decision that you make, not something that happens to you. (original idea from Kahn, Walter, & Johannessen (1984))
Developing Competence with Literary Reading Strategies with Think-alouds Students also learn to understand and use literary strategies and conventions through the use of think-aloud responses (Wilhelm, 2001) that can foreground general processes of reading. Once students are familiar with “thinking aloud”, they can use the technique for more sophisticated strategies (like those we will explore in the next chapter) and that might involve applying “rules of notice” necessary to interpret when reading a particular genre or a text that uses particular literary conventions (Rabinowitz, 1998). When teachers model a think-aloud, they articulate what cues the author is asking them to notice, and describes the interpretive operations students put into play as a result of the cue. In mentoring students to do a think-aloud, teachers are asking students to verbally report on what they are attending to as they are reading, and what they are doing as a result. Teachers typically model the strategies they want students to learn in a think-aloud, then mentor students to do it by asking students to help them do a thinkaloud, or by helping a small group to complete one. Eventually students can be monitored as they complete their own independent think-aloud (Wilhelm, 2001; Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001). To model think-alouds for students (Wilhelm, 2001), first select a short text and note some strategies that you will focus on along with your purposes for reading. Then read the text aloud to students and model your own think-alouds by underlining certain words or phrases that cued and helped you to use a strategy. Next describe the strategies that you used, along with real-world situations in which students could use these strategies. Finally, you then have students conduct their own think-alouds with each other and/or with you based on your modeling of think-aloud processes. It is important for the teacher to model doing “think-alouds,” and to mentor students to practice doing “thinks-alouds,” helping them learn to focus on reporting their thinking and reading processes. Sometimes students want to summarize what they are reading rather than thinking aloud and talking about what they are noticing, doing, and
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feeling as they read. By modeling your own use of think-alouds with a text, you can demonstrate what you mean by reporting thoughts. You can also have students write their think-aloud in a notebook held next to the text, or by using sticky notes or a variety of other techniques (for a book-length discussion of various ways to use thinkalouds, see Wilhelm, 2001). You can use think-alouds as “free response protocols” that report out on whatever the reader is thinking, or as “cued protocols” that focus on certain reading processes associated with particular conventions or genres (Wilhelm, 2001). The following are some general prompts for engaging in free response think-aloud before and during think-alouds as well as for engaging in metacognitive reflection.
Think-aloud before Reading (Setting Purposes, Activating Background; Building High Expectations) For example, what do participants think the selection is about by looking at the title, headings, and skimming through the text? • • • •
Tell me what you think this is about. Talk about what you expect to learn from this (and how it might relate to our essential question and inquiry). Talk about why you think it might be useful to read this and how you might use what you learn. Tell me how you think reading this might be useful in terms of the class project or inquiry.
Think-aloud during Reading (Online Comprehension) What is the reader understanding from the text; what is difficult about the text (comprehension or problems with words, vocabulary); what are they doing to make sense of the text; and what strategies can they use? What parts of the text are particularly important or relevant to their purpose for reading? • • •
• •
Talk aloud (or write) about what you are thinking as you read the text. Talk about what you think is most interesting as you read. Articulate personal connections to what you are reading, or connections you can make to other texts you have read in this unit or elsewhere, or connections to the world and possible applications. Tell me what you are thinking about difficulty/what is hard—or what is easy about the text. Talk about what you are doing to try to understand it—what are you doing to figure out the difficult parts?
Think-aloud while Monitoring: Developing Metacognitive awareness and Self-monitoring What is the reader aware of as they read? Are they aware of whether they are understanding the text and how they are coming to understand? How does the reading connect to their prior experiences and interests, and how is that helpful as they read? If they are having problems reading (words or understanding) do they know what the problems are?
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• •
• •
As you are reading, tell me what you are thinking about your understanding. In the beginning, you talked about what you expected this to be about and what you expected to learn—talk about whether this text seems to be what you expected it to be. As you are reading, talk about what this text reminds you of (like things you know, interests, other things you have read). Now that you are actually reading this, tell me about how you think it will help you in your work on an assignment or project.
Using Think-aloud Data Listening to the students’ think-alouds (or reading students’ written think-alouds) should provide you with rich feedback about their abilities to construct meaning from texts, and about the specific strategies they use or do not use. In some cases, for example, the students’ reports may reflect a focus on attempting to comprehend the words or local level meanings without attempting to infer larger meanings or ideas. These students may need help in learning to infer larger meanings or ideas. For example, Amy Eva-Wood (2008) used think-aloud data to analyze her 11th grade students’ strategies in responding to poetry. She found that through thinkalouds, the students grew in their capacity to notice and respond to key words and phrases, to visualize and use the senses, to relate the text to personal experiences, and identify with the speaker. She also stressed the importance of building think-alouds around sensory and emotional responses as triggering uses of these strategies, responses having to do with “(a) the emotional connotations of words, (b) the bodily experience of poems through the senses, (c) the personal memories that passages awaken, and (d) the sense of resonance and even empathy that readers can feel with a poem’s speakers” (p. 573).
WORKING WITH “STRUGGLING” READERS A particular challenge for teachers is working with struggling readers. These readers may have damaged learner identities, be unmotivated, and possess a diminished sense of selfefficacy as readers. Using essential questions and frontloading are particularly important for these students. So is connecting what you are reading to their personal concerns and background, and getting them to make personal connections. “Thinking-aloud” models for them “how to do it” and responding to their “think-alouds” gives you the chance to name and celebrate what they already do as readers—as well as naming what they could do next. This builds motivation and self-efficacy. There is nothing more motivating than feeling a developing sense of competence, and the growing capacity to meet a challenge (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002; 2006). There are some other caveats in working with students who seem to be “struggling” or “poor” readers. Teachers sometime assume that if they are having difficulty with decoding vocabulary, then they will not be able to understand the assigned texts (VanDeWeghe, 2004). If someone is stumbling in reading aloud a story, you may assume that they will not be able to make any thematic interpretations of that story. In a study of English teachers’ perceptions of students’ reading, Fred Hamel (2003) found that teachers may underestimate students’ capacity to interpret texts based on narrow measures of “reading ability,” and thereby have low expectations for their potential success. At the same time, he also found that literature teachers need to recognize that students require help with reading comprehension as something that’s part and parcel of literary
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interpretation. Helping students with reading comprehension means more than just assisting them with decoding; it means having students engage in think-aloud activities as they are reading a text to determine the ways in which they can make interpretations as well as resolving the difficulties they are encountering. Jeff Wilhelm (2007a; 2007b) has likewise found that “think-alouds” are a powerful way of inducting struggling readers into more engaged reading and strategic competence as readers of literature. While students acquire these conventional ways of reading largely through reading, you can certainly model or scaffold their experience in encountering new text genres by making explicit the strategies you employ with these texts. For example, when the class is reading a Jonathan Swift parody, you can describe how you identify his use of language and a mock-serious tone as signals that he’s engaging in parody. This is something Jamie had to take up with his students when he noticed that some of them struggled with the conventions of dramatic scripts. Readers’ understanding of language or vocabulary is certainly a factor shaping their understanding. A key element in understanding word meaning is understanding how that word is being used in a certain context. When a female character, Jill, utters to her date after their first time out, “That was a nice dinner,” these words could mean any number of different things depending on the larger context. Jill could be meaning that while the dinner was “nice,” the date itself was less so. Or, she could be meaning that she actually enjoyed the date. Sorting out these competing meanings requires an understanding of characters’ beliefs about each other, motives, agendas, and goals. All of this means that trying to teach reading in a vacuum—teaching reading skills or strategies in isolation for their own sake—won’t be as successful as teaching reading within the context of a unit, project, or activity in which reading is used as a tool to accomplish some larger purpose driving student engagement. For example, a group of middle school students had to write a letter to their school board arguing their case to not shut down their school (Sheehy, 2003). They conducted surveys of their peers’ attitudes about the school and then interpreted the survey data to create multiple drafts to build their case for why they wanted to stay in their school. In this activity, they were engaged with achieving a larger purpose—convincing the school board of the value of their school—that shaped their understanding of survey data and their drafts. When they lacked knowledge on how to craft a convincing argument, their teacher provided them with assistance about genre conventions of argument. This is why Jamie had such good success. He taught students about literary conventions and how they worked in the context of making videos for use by their peers. He explored what promoted and disrupted various relationships in the play in service of a final project where they would tell their own stories exhibiting a theme about relationships. If students do not possess facility with the general processes of reading, then this is what we must teach our students. In any unit of instruction, we must make sure that pre-requisites such as having a clear purpose, activating background, sharing knowledge of how to navigate the text, e.g. through think-alouds, and sharing our evolving thinking and response about the inquiry are all very important. (See Population-specific reading strategies on the website.) However, the teaching of reading can also break down when students lack knowledge of genre conventions. Many researchers (see, for example, Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001) argue that this is the reason for the well-known 4th-grade slump. Students have been reading narrative and learning general reading strategies for several years. Suddenly they are faced with new task- and text-specific demands that they are never assisted to
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learn, and which teachers seem to assume they will learn on their own. In 5th grade, students are starting to focus much more on specific subject matter texts in science, social studies, or math, texts that require specific disciplinary ways of thinking, for example, how to conduct an experiment. If students are not provided with these discipline-specific ways of thinking and prior knowledge as part of larger units or projects, they struggle. In their study on boys and literacy, Smith and Wilhelm (2002) found that many boys said they used to be good readers, and then they, as one boy put it, “got dumber.” This assuredly did not happen. They weren’t necessarily “poor readers.” They were “poor readers” of a certain kind of text requiring certain kinds of genre or disciplinary knowledge they never acquired from their teachers. Some of the boys recognized this and complained that “teachers give you really hard stuff to read, and not help you know how to read it.” (See Content-area-specific reading strategies on the website.)
Moving Beyond the General Processes Jamie knew he had to help his students understand the conventions of scripts, so that they could be helped to both read Romeo and Juliet (and all other dramatic scripts) and to write the scripts for their videos. Dramatists rely entirely on dialogue and extra-textual directions because they cannot take advantage of the same textual features that novelists or other writers can. This is because scripts are written to be performed. Therefore students are confronted with textual conventions they may not have seen before. If students don’t pay attention to these conventions, they will be missing a major part of dramatic work, and will miss much of the meaning. Jamie found out that the drama theorist Esslin (1987) identifies 22 basic elements used in dramatic scripts that no other kind of text uses. Esslin divides these 22 elements into 5 basic categories: framing systems, systems at the actor’s disposal, visual systems, the text, and aural systems. David Anderson (1987) has adapted these systems for viewing drama to make them useful to reading drama. These conventions require what could be called “text specific” reading strategies, since the demands of scripts require readers to make very particular meaning-making moves that are specific to this text type or genre. Anderson’s categories are pre-reading, descriptions of settings, technical stage directions, the character’s words, stage directions and character descriptions. Pre-reading strategies help students to build background that will guide them in reconstructing and visualizing the action in their mind. They need to know what kind of script it is and how it is intended to be performed (radio, television, proscenium stage, etc.). They will need to look at the title, the genre (tragedy, comedy), lists of characters, names and titles, and character descriptions. As they read, students will need to know how to ascertain important information and make inferences from descriptions of settings, which imply tone and mood, reveal character as well as social and historical perspective. They also need to know how to read dialogue, understand speaker designation, and understand that in scripts, dialogue will be expected to convey mood, tone, symbolism, setting, and clues for story and character development. And, students need to learn to visualize stage directions describing sounds, lighting and properties, and the movement of characters and properties. Finally, students need to learn how characters are represented through the dialogue— their own and others —and how characters are represented through stage directions and descriptions.
HOW DO I HELP STUDENTS UNDERSTAND?
So What’s a Teacher to Do?: Making Explicit Your Ways of Reading What this means is that in addition to embedding reading instruction within an engaging, purposeful unit or project, you need to make explicit your ways of reading or interpreting specific kinds of texts by describing the genre conventions and prior knowledge you apply to those texts. This means that advanced reading of texts for your units or projects, you need to identity differences between your own reading processes as an experienced reader and the processes your students will bring to the texts. In planning his activities, Jamie knew that he had to understand the demands placed on readers by dramatic scripts. Then he had to find a way to assist his students to learn how to recognize and deal with these demands so that they could meaningfully comprehend and interpret the text they were being asked to read. Jamie identified the most important of those demands as setting directions, stage directions, character directions. You then need to determine how to provide your students with the genre conventions for understanding specific kinds of texts. To help his kids understand how these directions needed to be used to create a visual image in the mind, Jamie brought in several cartoon strips that dealt with the topic of romantic love in a way that helped address the question “what is a good relationship.” He told his students that they needed to translate the cartoon into a script. The students brainstormed what kinds of information were encoded in a cartoon that could not be encoded in a straight textual presentation. The students identified how characters looked, what they wore, facial expressions, where they stood, how they interacted, how they moved, how they said things, how things changed from panel to panel, etc. Jamie informed his students that scripts used particular kinds of “codes” to communicate this kind of information so that a reader or play director would know how to visualize and stage the scene in her mind. Students spent a couple of days practicing translating cartoons into scripts and identifying the kinds of script conventions they had to use. They were now much better prepared to write their own scripts and to read Romeo and Juliet. Student teacher Andrew Porter was faced with the same problem when introducing the play The Diary of Anne Frank (Frank, 1989) to his 8th graders. He chose another method for introducing his students to the conventions and importance of dramatic script. Andrew went on to the Internet and downloaded the scripts for famous scenes from popular shows like The Simpsons (Groening, 1989–2010) and Seinfeld (David & Seinfeld, 1990–1998), for example, the scene where Homer teaches Bart how to fight, and the scene where Kramer drops a mint candy into a patient during surgery. He split the class into groups and allowed them to choose the scene they wanted to reenact. He gave them time to review the scripts and to rehearse. The kids then enacted their scenes and talked about what made an enactment powerful. They then talked about where they received the clues for how to enact a scene. Though a few students had seen and remembered these scenes from their television viewing, most of them relied somewhat on the stage, setting, and character directions. Andrew identified these conventions of scripts and the class had a discussion about how to read these directions and how to use them to visualize a scene and “re-enact it in your mind.” Short “procedural frontloading” (i.e. ones that develop new strategic facility) activities like these helped both Jamie’s and Andrew’s students induce and master the use of these conventions and greatly assisted their reading of the plays they were subsequently asked to read. Moreover, because the students had some larger purpose for reading the texts—to prepare for a drama production in which they could display
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competence in front of their peers—they were engaged with wanting to understand their texts. Jamie and Andrew were not teaching “reading” in a vacuum. They were helping their students acquire certain ways of reading of certain kinds of texts within larger, engaging contexts. They paid attention to the general processes of reading that are necessary to all successful reading, but they also paid attention to the text and taskspecific strategies that the particular texts they were reading at that time required of their students. This is tremendously important for the teacher of literature and doing just this is the focus of our next chapter. (See Genre reading strategies on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Reflect on instances in which you and/or your students experienced difficulties in reading texts by identifying the specific type of difficulty encountered and reasons for those difficulties related to prior knowledge of a topic or genre, purpose for reading, interest in a text, or engagement with an assignment. Then, reflect on strategies you employed or taught your students to employ to cope with these difficulties and reasons those strategies did or did not help you or your students cope with these difficulties.
CHAPTER 8
Teaching Literary Genres How Do I Engage Students in Reading Different Kinds of Literature? Case Narrative: Creating Facebook Profiles for Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird Helping Students Acquire Knowledge of Genre Conventions Responding to Poetry Responding to Narratives Responding to Fables/Myths Responding to Comics/Graphic Novels
CREATING FACEBOOK PROFILES FOR SCOUT IN TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD For a unit on teaching To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, 1988), Rick Filipkowski had students create a Facebook biographical profile for the character Scout (Jean Louise Finch), as well as other characters in the novel with whom Scout would “friend” and interact. He notes that students could draw on their genre knowledge of creating Facebook profiles to construct Scout’s profile (http://www.facebook. com/people/Jean-Louise-Finch/100000518236624): I argue that Facebook effectively scaffolds critical analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird via affording students incremental opportunities to appropriate the roles & perspectives of self-selected/assigned characters of inquiry; produce complete, multi-modal, research-based Facebook user profiles representative of the appropriated roles & perspectives of said self-selected/assigned characters; engage the larger world of the text AND surrounding cultural, social, and so on, contexts via participating in research-based, multi-modal-enriched, interactive role-play. As students continue to progress through the text at potentially differing paces, they will incrementally create research-based, multi-modal Facebook profiles representative of various characters’ unique roles & perspectives; in other words, students will “become” the characters they appropriate, making research-based profile production decisions to accurately represent “their”
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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individual characters. As students incrementally create individual character profiles throughout the text, they will be required to base specific Facebook page elements on research-based, textual inferences (e.g., characters’ basic biographical information including birthdays, relationships to other characters and family members, relationship status, political views, and religious views, contact information, education, and work information; as well as characters’ more detailed personal information including activities, interests, favorite music, favorite TV shows, favorite books, favorite quotations, and “about me” information). (Filipkowski, 2009, p. 1) In this activity, what knowledge of different kinds of text and social genres are students drawing on? How would students employ this knowledge in creating their character profiles and interpreting the novel? In the last chapter, we described some general strategies for helping students to read and respond to literature. In this chapter, we take up from the ending of the last chapter to focus on helping students to learn task- and text-specific strategies for reading particular literary genres: poetry, short stories/novels, myths/fables, and graphic novels. Interpreting texts in these genres requires applying knowledge of the particular genre conventions constituting those texts—“reading-as” someone who applies that knowledge to the text. For example, a student familiar with the conventions of the graphic novel knows how to read the panels, balloons, graphics, images, etc., in graphic novels. Such reading may also entail knowing how to deal with literary conventions such as symbolism, irony, or unreliable narrators, which can be used in the context of any genre, e.g. unreliable narrators can be used in ironic monologues in poetry or short stories, or even in graphic novels.
HELPING STUDENTS ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE OF GENRE CONVENTIONS How then can we help students acquire knowledge of specific literary genres, or what Deborah Dean (2008) describes as “genre awareness” (p. 47), as well as strategies for navigating these genres. “Genre awareness” involves knowing how and why people use certain types of texts in certain consistent, conventional ways to accomplish certain purposes. For example, in the past people used myths with relatively predictable storylines for the purposes of explaining natural phenomenon—the origins of the earth or changing of the seasons, or teaching moral lessons. They used fables to explore human behavior, particularly foibles and alternate ways of behaving more positively. To inductively foster “genre awareness” with everyday writing, Dean has her students list the different uses of written language to achieve certain purposes—notes, grocery lists, text messages, email, blog posts, etc. They then share their lists and identify the different purposes achieved in using these different kinds of writing—the need to communicate, acquire and share information, project one’s identity, influence others, etc. To then help students recognize how their genre knowledge influences reading literature, Dean reads a fairy tale, The Paper Bag Princess (Munsch, 1992), to her students. She asks them to first identify the type of genre based on the cover with a picture of a dragon and the title including the word “princess.” Students then list their expectations for what they will find in a fairy tale: “a handsome prince; magic; some problem that has to be overcome, usually by magic; a castle; a prince who saves the princess; love;
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
a happily-ever-after ending” (p. 51). Dean then reads the story, which portrays the princess, Elizabeth, as saving the prince through her brains, as opposed to physical force, and then, not marrying the prince at the end. The students then discuss whether this text that challenges their expectations is still a fairy tale. She also has them discuss how they would respond to the text if they had no knowledge of fairy tale conventions and therefore had no genre expectations that were challenged by the text.
Fostering Transfer Across Texts In teaching interpreting strategies based on genre conventions, you are also attempting to foster transfer of knowledge from ways of understanding one illustrative example of a genre text to another example of the same genre text, transfer that serves to build genre knowledge (Wilhelm & Smith, 2010). For example, students recognize that, on their quests, the hero in story A typically fails in initial attempts to cope with adversities, they then ideally transfer that knowledge to story B. Because students often have difficulty making that transfer across texts, you need to model ways of inductively connecting common features of texts so that they build their genre knowledge, in this case, knowledge of heroes’ multiple attempts to cope with adversities on their quests.
Helping Students Inductively Acquire Genre Knowledge To help students acquire this genre knowledge, as you plan your units, you can provide students with multiple short examples of texts from the same genre (or representing use of the same task-specific conventions, such as symbolism). You can then have students inductively define the similarities between these texts to build their genre knowledge. As students read a number of different fables, they can identify and define the conventions shared by these different fables, for example, that they impart some moral lesson for human behavior that can be expressed in a one sentence moral that mirrors the trajectory of the fable itself. You can continually ask them: “How does this text remind you of other similar texts?” or “How is this text similar to other texts you’ve read?” You can also have them define similarities across texts using The Inquiry Square (Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001; Wilhelm, 2001), a heuristic for defining what readers and writers of particular genres need to know and be able to do. In applying The Inquiry Square (see Figure 8.1), students identify certain formal features of the fable form, for example, the fact that animals are often used as symbols, features that have symbolic DECLARATIVE
PROCEDURAL
FORM
Features of the fable including animals as symbols, etc.
How to generate the substance of the proposed fable in an appropriate form. Explore foibles that irritate you. Think about how people with this foible act. What animals have that foible as a trait? Choose a big one that causes problems for self and others. Choose a foible that is correctable.
SUBSTANCE
Human qualities that are evil or immoral or irritating in some way to the writer, foibles, etc. Knowledge of content in fables.
How to produce the substance of fables, brainstorming for qualities that are immoral or irritating. Generating foibles and their concomitant actions, etc.
Figure 8.1 The Inquiry Square
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substantive meanings—the ways that animals have human-like qualities and stand in for humans with these qualities—as in the mischievous fox. Students could then create their own fables within the genre form, considering how to create animal characters who have certain traits. For example, to define knowledge of purpose, students may infer that fables make fun of human shortcomings, of people themselves so they don’t know they are being made fun of; that they explore alternate ways of being in the world (Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001).
Recognizing Disparities in Students’ Prior Knowledge of Genre Conventions From these activities, you may discover a wide variation in your students’ prior knowledge of genre conventions. If your students have little prior knowledge, you’ll then need to provide them with that knowledge through the kinds of frontloading activities described in Chapter 3—to activate, and build, scaffold and model the use of interpretive strategies appropriate to the genre in question. You may also discover that your students have a lot of knowledge about certain genres, knowledge that you can build on to help them understand less familiar genres. For example, your students may have a lot of knowledge about films, TV series, or game genre conventions—detective, comedy, hero/adventure, or science fiction genres that you can build on in reading text versions of these genres. All of this suggests that a primary goal in teaching genre-specific texts is to help your students acquire prior knowledge of relevant genre conventions, recognizing that acquiring this knowledge will take time, particularly for those students with limited knowledge of these conventions.
RESPONDING TO POETRY One of the more challenging literary genres, particularly for struggling readers, is poetry. Because students may have limited experiences in reading poetry, they may lack knowledge of these genre’s conventions. You may therefore need to provide them with instruction on strategies and “rules of notice” (Rabinowitz, 1998) for reading and writing/performing poems in general, or with particular kinds of poems (ironic monologues, lyrics, sonnets, etc.).
Selecting Poems One major challenge involves selecting poems that will be engaging and comprehensible given your students’ grade level, reading ability, prior knowledge, interests, and maturity. One problem with using poems in a textbook is that they may not necessarily engage students. One alternative is to have students bring in their own poems and/or find poems online (see Online poetry texts in Poetry on the website for poetry sites, for example, The Academy of Poets, http://www.poets.org or The Poetry Archive, http://www. poetryarchive.org). You would also do well to construe of poetry widely by including concrete poems and song lyrics. Another good move to make is to avoid poetry units, and instead to include poetry as part of inquiry units, or to pair them with stories or novels that explore similar themes. In this way, poetry can be pursued by students as a unique and powerful way of knowing about particular issues.
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
Introducing a Poem To foster responses to poetry, it’s important to remember that the origins of poetry are in performance. It is good to initially read aloud or perform poems so that students experience the sound of the poem. It’s also important to first elicit immediate subjective responses or reactions by having students describe emotions and memories evoked by the poem—curiosity, anger, guilt, passion, intrigue, etc., and then what words or images in the poem led them to experience those emotions.
Performing Poetry Students are most likely to appreciate poetry through performing poetry, particularly given their interest in hip-hop and rap. Through performing poetry, students are learning how to convey the meaning of poems, particularly their own poems, through pitch, alliteration, assonance, rhythm, metaphor, pauses, emphasis, sounds, and alternating voices.
Performing Published Poems/Oral Interpretation Students could select certain published poems to perform through oral interpretation in which they use their performance to convey certain meanings. (For an anthology of poems that lend themselves to performance, see Poetry Out Loud: http://www. poetryoutloud.org.) To prepare for their oral interpretation, students first study the poem to determine the meanings they want to convey through their performance by marking words for emphasis, noting flows from one line to the next, or places for pauses. You can model oral interpreting strategies by having students view performances of online clips from the PBS Poets Read: Fooling with Words (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/fooling withwords/main_video.html) or Poetic License (http://www.itvs.org/poeticlicense). They then practice their performance with each other to receive feedback on whether their intended meanings are being conveyed. Students could also conduct group performances or reader’s theater in which different students adopt different lines/voices in a poem or performing alternative readings of the same poem, perceiving themselves much like members of an orchestra using their voices as instruments (Murphy, 2008; O’Connor, 2004). By standing in different corners of the classroom, students could create stereo/quadrophonic performances; students could also determine ways to add sound effects to their performances of examples of onomatopoeic words imitating certain sounds found in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Bells” (Gardner, 2008). Hear the sledges with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night!
And, students can create podcasts or Voicethread (http://www.voicethread.com) audio performances of poems. By using podcasts or Voicethread, which involves recording audio comments to images, students can include images and/or music/sound effects associated with their poem to create multimodal, digital productions as described in Chapter 6.
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Performing Spoken-word Poetry Given the increased interest in poetry slams and spoken word contests, students can also perform their own spoken-word poetry to voice their concerns about issues in their lives (Fisher, 2007; Hill, 2009b). These performances draw on the importance of embodied performances in hip-hop culture—DJing, mixing and playing sounds/music, gestures, and dress (Alim, 2006; Chang, 2005). In working with students, it’s important to address some of their apprehensions about performing in public. You can have students practice their performances where they learn to project their voices in a confident, enjoyable manner. Students can also practice their readings in which they work on the use of pacing, pauses, pitch, and rhythm (Jocson, 2007).
Studying Different Types of Poetry Students could also study the genre structures found in different types of poetry—lyrics, ballads, sonnets, odes, elegy, epic poetry, free-verse, haiku, rap, etc., given differences in the purposes and effects of these different types on audiences (Somers, 1999). Students could identify the characteristic features and structures of these different types of poetry and how these features and structures evoke different kinds of responses in audiences. Discussions can lead to writing these particular types of poetry (Jones, 2009). For example, students may discuss what specific aspects of rap lyrics appeals to them—the use of rhythm, rhymes, musical background, voice, addressing social problems, etc.
Lyric Poetry One of the most common types of poetry is lyric or sonnet poetry in which poets are reflecting on the subjective experience of life, often using a deliberate rhythm and rhyming pattern or meter such as the iambic pentameter which involves the use of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. (More contemporary lyric poetry imagist poets such as Ezra Pound’s (1913) “In a Station of the Metro” were less concerned with following certain structures and more concerned about capturing the subjective experience of “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough.”) In reading aloud lyric poems, students could study the ways in which meter is established through identifying which words to accent and how the meter is used to appeal to audiences’ appreciation of creative uses of language and sound (Powell & Halperin, 2004). For example, the sonnet follows a defined pattern for a set number of lines, typically 14 lines, with a distinct iambic pentameter rhyme pattern. In studying Shakespeare’s sonnets, they could note how the sonnets develop an argument in a set of stages, as evident in Sonnet 18 in which the speaker initially compares his lover to a summer day and the earth, but then posits that comparisons to summer days that are “Sometimes too hot” and that nature is continually on a “changing course untrimmed,” fails to capture the more permanent comparison through the sonnet itself whose “eternal lines to time thou grow’st. / So long as men can breathe or eyes to see/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” (Moon, 2001, pp. 68–84). Students could also count the beats involved in iambic pentameter employed in sonnets—five beats a line in which there is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable as in “So long lives this, and this give life to thee” (Moon, 2001).
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
Ballads One primary subgenre of the lyric poem is the ballad that is frequently structured according to four-line stanzas with iambic or tetrameter meter and the second and fourth line rhymed, as in Coleridge’s (1798/1997) “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: “Day after day, day after day, / We stuck, nor breath nor motion; / As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, everywhere, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink.”
Blues The blues ballad that draws on African-American music typically involves repetition of a lament about a loss or problem in one’s life and the difficulty of a possible solution, so that the repetition of the lament reflects the challenge of having to deal with something that is a continuous burden.
Raps Students can also respond to the use of rhythm and rhyme in rap performances, noting the importance of “flow”—in which rappers maintain a consistent syncopation to a particular beat, the use of rhymes, and the creative use of figurative language (Alim, 2006; Bradley, 2009; Pate, 2009). Students can note creative instances of rhyme in raps, noting the range of different words that rhyme (for an online resource for rhyming words: http://www.rockstargames.com/rhymerator/). In reading rap, as contained in collections such as You Hear Me?: Poems and Writing by Teenage Boys (Franco, 2001), The Yale Anthology of Rap (Bradley & DeBois, 2010), Hip-Hop and Rap: Complete Lyrics for 175 Songs (Spense, 2004), or Tapuc Shakur (2009), The Rose that Grew from Concrete. Students could also study the evolution of rap lyrics as reflecting changes in the Hip Hop culture from the 1970s in the Bronx, when local neighborhood artists began to play records on record players in new, original ways, to the Gangsta Rap and political commentary rap of Public Enemy, KRS-One, and Queen Latifah in the 1980s to the increasing commercialization of rap in the 1990s and initial years of this century (Chang, 2005; Runell & Diaz, 2007). They could then create rap lyrics that voice their concerns about societal issues for performing for their peers (Fisher, 2007; Jocson, 2008). Based on their genre knowledge of rap lyrics, students in Rebecca Oberg’s 10th grade class at Roosevelt High School, Minneapolis, created and recorded rap lyrics using Garageband in response to Catcher in the Rye (Salinger, 1991) (http://tinyurl.com/ yannm8v). One group, De’Andre, Deoncio, Nostalgia, and Yasmine, created the following first stanza of their rap lyrics: My name is Holden and I attend Pencey High. I call people phony ’cause I’m a cocky type of guy. My grades are low so they kicked me to the curb. I explain to my teacher, Mr. Spencer, that’s not what I deserve. But the only thing he gave me was a whole bunch of words. The real reason why I wanna leave ’Cause I’m surrounded by phonies. One day they’re my friends, the next day They don’t know me.
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Inquiry-based Approaches to Responding to Poetry As we argued in Chapters 3 and 4, in planning your instruction, it is useful to scaffold students’ responses around certain topics, themes, or issues that provide “ways into” a text, something that also applies to responses to poetry.
Modeling inquiry-based approaches You can model or scaffold an inquiry-based approach by posing your own questions about a text. We will model this process ourselves by describing steps applied to the following poem, “Womanhood,” (Anderson, 2000), about a 15-year-old female who moves from the space of being in a car listening to the radio into the space of an enclosed rug factory, two different spaces defining her identity, along with the institutional forces of child labor. This poem (Anderson, 2000) could work well in an inquiry about the rights of children and young adults, or about gender roles or what it means to be an adult. WOMANHOOD She slides over the hot upholstery of her mother’s car, this schoolgirl of fifteen who loves humming & swaying with the radio. Her entry into womanhood will be like all the other girls’— a cigarette and a joke, as she strides up with the rest to a brick factory where she’ll sew rag rugs from textile strips of kelly green, bright red, aqua. When she enters, and the millgate closes, final as a slap, there’ll be silence.
She’ll see fifteen high windows cemented over to cut out light. Inside, a constant, deafening noise and warm air smelling of oil, the shifts continuing on . . . All day she’ll guide cloth along a line of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders rocking back & forth with the machines 200 porch size rugs behind her before she can stop to reach up, like her mother, and pick the lint out of her hair. “Womanhood,” copyright 2000 by Catherine Anderson
Strategies for Responding to Poetry In fostering responses to poetry, it is important to emphasize students’ emotional or sensory responses to specific language in a poem through the use of the following “thinkand-feel-aloud” strategies (Eva-Wood, 2008).
Responding to Key Words and Phrases In reading poems, students learn to notice that certain words or phrases are particularly significant in conveying the meaning of a poem (Rabinowitz, 1998). For example, they notice or recognize that the title provides a summary or topical clue for what a poem
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
is addressing, in this case, the idea of “womanhood”—that the poem is addressing issues of constructing identities as “women.” To emphasize the role of titles, you can also give students the poem without the title so that they can proffer guesses about the title as a clue for the poem’s thematic focus. Then, you can give students the poem with the title and have them reflect on how knowing that title enhances their understanding. In responding to “Womanhood,” students may also note how words represent the movement between and within these different spaces—the use of “&” in “humming & swaying/with the radio” to emphasize a positive, open experience associated with music, and the use of “All day” to highlight the length of time she is confined to this space. Students could describe how the girl moves from the open, alternative space of the radio music to the closed, regimented space of the factory to the past time of her mother engaged in the same work. Students could note the uses of pauses after the short lines, as in “final as a slap, / there’ll be silence” to contrast the factory space with the music of the radio space, as well as pauses between the lines, “before she can stop / to reach up, like her mother, / and pick the lint / out of her hair” in which a pause after “stop” captures the literal movement of stopping her arm movement and the pause after “mother” emphasizes the importance of the mother in the poem.
Visualizing and Using the Senses Students could also describe their visual or sensual responses to a poem—what they picture or feel as they are reading the poem. They could describe or draw the images of the girl listening to the radio in which she is the agent “humming & swaying” as contrasted to the movement of “rocking back.” And, they may describe the kinetic experience of language describing the factory space: the door that “slap(s)” and the “whirring needles” that reiterate the closed, constancy of the “all day” movement. Relating the text to personal experience, students could then infer autobiographical or intertextual connections to a poem, for example, how going to work in a relatively controlled workplace environment involves entering into a world that differs from their other worlds, as well as how the idea of “movement into womanhood” refers to the larger initiation of adolescent females into adulthood.
Identifying with the Speakers Students may also describe their connections with the speakers or characters in the poem, noting the extent to which they share certain feelings or experiences with those speakers or characters. In responding to the girl picking “the lint / out of her hair” as representing the fact that she is probably going to be doing the same things as her mother for the rest of her own life, students may reflect on whether or not they will be engaged in the same work as their parent(s).
Identifying Difficulties in Understanding Poems In adopting an inquiry-based approach, it is also important the students continually pose questions about aspects of a poem they don’t understand. Experienced readers of poetry recognize that poems are difficult and require identifying certain words, phrases, or ideas that puzzle them (Blau, 2003). They also know that they need to determine what it is that they don’t understand, identify reasons why they are puzzled, and then determine
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what they need to know more about to address these reasons by re-reading the poem. To identify what they don’t understand about the poem, students could the ask questions such as: • • •
What is it that I don’t understand in this poem? What are some reasons I don’t understand these things? What can I look for when I re-read the poem to help clarify what I don’t understand?
Posing questions about what one doesn’t understand in a poem leads to the need to reread the poem to attempt to search for clues to address these questions. Since students may not be accustomed to re-reading poems, you could model the process of posing questions leading to re-reading to answer those questions. For example, on an initial reading of “Womanhood,” a student may wonder about the meaning of the final lines, “like her mother, /and pick the lint / out of her hair.” She may ask, why the description of picking the lint out of her hair? This question then leads to reflecting back over the poem to consider why both the daughter and the mother are described as picking the lint out of their hair. In re-reading the poem, the student may first notice the title, “Womanhood,” and consider that if the poem is about what it means to be a “woman” or achieving “womanhood,” then the girl may be defining “womanhood” in terms of her mother as role-model, a model that, through working in the factory, she’s already adopting. Then, generating other questions about the poem, particularly about things that puzzle or intrigue you leads to further re-reading and revision of your initial interpretations. In working with students, you could have them pair up to share their think-alouds about specific aspects of a poem that they don’t understand. When one student notes something that they don’t understand, for example, the meaning of the title, “Womanhood,” they can both begin to pose questions related to what it is that they don’t understand, for example, “What does it mean to be a woman in the poem?” Then, with these questions in mind, each student re-reads the poem and shares possible answers to these questions, reflecting on the degree to which their re-readings yield satisfying answers.
RESPONDING TO NARRATIVES Another central literary genre is that of narratives. By narrative, we are referring to a text that tells a story in time, including everyday oral anecdotes or stories, as well as written autobiographical or fictional narratives—short stories or novels. (See Narratives, Biographies, Short story, Novel, Historical fiction, and Romance on the website.) Narratives serve as simulations of everyday life in a manner that provides some understanding of the complexities of life (Mar & Oatley, 2008). For Mar and Oatley (2008), readers draw on their experience of constructing characters to create simulations as models of others’ inaccessible mental states so that readers can infer other’s thoughts or feelings. And, simulations provide models for how to interact within certain complex social worlds or systems: Literary fiction provides simulations of social complexes as they unfold, as characters interact with each other and react to the repercussions of plans and the intrusions of accidents. These intricate interpersonal situations, such as a person being tempted to retaliate in complicated ways against someone he or she loves, is the kind of material that constitutes narrative fiction of the sort that we find fascinating. (p. 175)
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Literary versions of social worlds are not replications, but abstractions and generalizations that simplify and select those certain details most relevant for creating models of social interactions. In contrast to expository essays, readers experience first-hand the simulations through uses of sensory images that evokes readers’ imaginative construction of experience, leading to the emotional experience of empathy for characters’ experiences, for example, “feeling pleased when someone we like is doing well” (p. 181). And, experiencing these simulations provide readers with social knowledge about how to cope with interpersonal interactions and conflicts. Readers acquire these abstractions and generalizations from experiencing characters from an ironic stance in which they both adopt characters’ perspectives while at the same time perceiving the limitations of those perspectives, limitations that lead to generalizations about the limitations of those perspectives, and enhanced understanding about one’s own perspectives. Students may then respond to the ways in which, in explaining characters’ actions, they need to consider alternative characters’ perspectives— how different characters will have different explanations or versions of the same actions in ways that are similar to their own experience of competing perspectives on events in their own lives. To explore how characters’ different versions of the same event reflects competing beliefs, students can go to the online story, “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell (2004), first published in 1927 (http://www.learner.org/exhibits/literature/story/ fulltext.html). This story portrays the murder of a husband who is found to be dead by a neighbor, Martha Hale, in a rural farmhouse. The wife, Minnie Wright, claims not to know who killed him. However, she is charged with the murder and is awaiting trial. When Martha Hale and another female neighbor go to the house to gather clothing for Minnie, they note clues of her husband’s violent abuse. The conflict in the story revolves around different beliefs as to whether, or how, Minnie killed her husband and, if she did so, any motives for her action. The males in the story apply their beliefs to interpret the murder, while the two women begin to formulate quite different beliefs, differences that reflect differences in gender—that the women were more sympathetic about the fact that the wife was abused by her husband. Inferring differences in characters’ perspectives involves interpreting: • • • •
how the main character(s) perceives other characters how other characters perceive the main character(s) differences between these characters’ perspectives differences between their own perspectives and characters’ perspectives.
To infer differences in characters’ perspectives, students engage in what Lisa Zunshine (2006) calls “mind-reading,” or “our ability to explain people’s behavior in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires” (p. 6). For example, in responding to a mystery/detective story, readers engage in “mind-reading” of the detective’s thinking processes in sifting through various clues or interviewing potential suspects. At the same time, they are also, when a suspect is being questioned, inferring what the suspects are thinking—the fact that they may not want to provide an incriminating answer to a question. Zunshine posits that in adopting a detective character’s thinking process, readers are storing up and assessing the truth of competing facts about a crime. In doing so, readers learn to initially suspect all characters as potential criminals until they acquire enough evidence to rule them out as innocent.
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Students may practice “mind-reading” in fishbowl drama activities in which one student engages in a dialogue with another student in front of a group of students. After several lines of dialogue, students in the audience as well as the other students engage in “mind reading” to infer what they believe each student is really thinking or feeling, as well as noting those words or nonverbal cues they used to make those inferences. The speaker/student then reveals what he or she was actually thinking. At the end of this activity, students then reflect on how to determine what others are thinking and how to then apply that to the reading. Students could then conduct hot-seating activities with students assuming the roles of characters or authors in which they may quote from the text or describe their actions in a text. Students would then engage in “mind-reading” about these characters or authors by guessing what these characters or authors might have been thinking relative to their quotes or descriptions of their actions. The students assuming the roles would then provide their own “inner thoughts” and compare these “inner thoughts” with those guessed by the others.
Inferring How Values Influence Perspectives Students are also reflecting on how characters’ values influence their perspectives (Haertling-Thein, Beach, & Parks, 2007). For instance, in A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (Dorris, 1987), three main Native American characters—Rayona (an adolescent), Christine (her mother), and Ida (Christine’s presumed mother)—each share their own version of the same events from very different generational and cultural perspectives, with Ida adopting the more traditional Native American values. To interpret the influence of characters’ cultural values on their perspectives, students may start by listing their own values in terms of what they value the most or least: friendship, career/work, family, appearance, having fun, power, fairness, social acceptance, independence, etc., leading up to listing the top and bottom four values and then comparing their own values to those of their peers (Johannessen, Kahn, & Walter, 2009). They then rank the most versus least important values of character. For example, in responding to Alice Walker’s (1994) story “Everyday Use,” Dee, a graduate student who has developed a strong interest in African-American history and culture, and her boyfriend come for a brief visit to her mother, Mama. In contrast to the assertive, worldly, college-educated Dee, the mother’s other daughter, Maggie, still lives at home and subscribes to Mama’s values. While they are visiting, Dee asks the mother if she could have an old butter churn and a quilt, items she considers to be valued parts of her heritage. Her mother is reluctant to give up the quilt, which she wants to give to Maggie for her own “everyday use.” Dee is applying a more academic perspective of the outsider anthropologist/ethnographer who would treat butter churns and quilts as cultural artifacts rather then items for “everyday use” by Mama and Maggie. Students may then rank what Dee, Mama, and Maggie value (Johannessen, Kahn, & Walter, 2009), for example, that Mama and Maggie value their family ties over Dee’s academic agendas, while Dee values her academic agendas over her family ties. Students can then use these values rankings to explain characters’ actions, for example, the fact that Mama keeps the quilt for Maggie because she values the fact that Maggie has remained with her while Dee has entered into another world.
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
Adopting a Point-Driven Stance In listening to or reading stories, students learn to adopt what Hunt and Vipond (1992) define as a “point-driven” stance—they can listen to or read narratives for the purpose of inferring generalizations or their underlying point. In responding to their peer’s narrative about walking to school on a certain day, students may wonder why the peer is telling this story in terms of making some point. In doing so, they are going beyond simply adopting an “information-driven” stance in which they focus simply on acquiring certain information in reading a text—for example, in reading a bus schedule to determine when their bus leaves for their destination. And, they are also going beyond a “story-driven” stance in which they are simply determining what happened in a story without inferring the larger point or theme. To help students learn to adopt a “point-driven stance,” you and your students can share everyday oral anecdotes or stories and reflect on how they then identify those specific features or cues that create “tellability” by dramatizing violations of norms through adopting a “point-driven stance.”
Attending to Cues Implying “tellability” Given the ways in which narratives selectively portray experience to invite generalizations, readers learn to attend to those specific cues in a story that invite those generalizations or the “point” of a story. Readers learn to employ “rules of notice” (Rabinowitz, 1998) to identify how various cues are being used to signal the fact that a story has what William Labov (1972) defined as “tellability”—that something has happened that is unusual or significant enough to make them worth telling—that the story is not pointless or insignificant. These cues dramatize the unusual, extraordinary nature of the event based on some violation of social norms or expectations. If a student reports to her peers that she walked to school, this story has little “tellability.” Her peers might simply respond with the question, “So what?” or “Why are you telling us about this?” However, if, in describing her walk to school, the student may note, “I was walking down this quiet street where I usually walk, when all of a sudden this vicious dog comes out of nowhere towards me and attacks me.” In this case, the student enhances the “tellability” by emphasizing the unusual nature of the event—that the dog attack is a deviation from the norms operating in this neighborhood—the fact that, in this neighborhood, vicious dogs do not normally attack people. By describing the scene as “this quiet street,” she emphasizes that one wouldn’t expect dog attacks in this context—that the attack is a violation of the norm that makes it an unusual event worth sharing, and that it has some point—that she was surprised that such an attack would occur in this “quiet street.” Dramatizing the unusual, extraordinary nature of the attack conveys the fact that the story is not pointless—that it has a point.
Interpreting Settings Central to inferring “tellability” by identifying instances of violations of norms is the ability to infer those norms operating in the world of the text. Rather than treating settings simply as physical places, students need to perceive settings as social or cultural worlds constituted by certain norms shaping characters’ actions. In other words, setting is a kind of “rule setting” to the degree that it shapes and constrains character action
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within the cultural text world portrayed in a story (Smith & Wilhelm, 2010). In responding to the story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson (1988), the citizens of a small town conduct an annual lottery that results in the stoning of one citizen. The citizens perceive this lottery as an acceptable norm; they adhere to community traditions regardless of their destructiveness. Inferring the point of this story requires defining the norms operating in this closed, small-town world—that the townspeople accept the lottery as a tradition that should not be questioned. When some of the characters begin to challenge these norms, particularly the woman who is stoned at the end of the story, as she is challenging the fairness of the lottery, they are ignored by the townspeople— signaling that any objections to conducting a lottery are inappropriate. To help his students determine how the norms operating in a setting shapes their own behavior in lived worlds, Scott Filkins (2008) has them define those cues or signals regarding appropriate behavior in different classrooms or in other settings such as a party. Students may note that in classroom A, there are strict rules constituting their behavior while in another classroom B, there are few if any rules. They may then interpret other students’ actions based on their behaviors in these two different settings—a student can be perceived as “deviant” or a “behavioral problem” by not conforming to the strict rules in classroom A, but as a “good student” in classroom B that has few rules. Then, in reading a text, students can apply “rules of notice” (Rabinowitz, 1998) to note instances in which characters adhere to or violate norms. In some cases, this involves focusing on different characters’ reactions to or perceptions of main characters’ actions— whether they perceive those main characters as conforming to or violating norms, as well as inferring differences in characters’ beliefs about the validity of these norms. To help students attend to instances in which characters’ actions are perceived to be inappropriate and therefore a violation of norms in a setting, you can pose the following questions: • • •
What are some instances in which characters are perceived as violating certain norms? (The woman challenges the annual holding of the lottery.) What are the consequences for their violations? (She is ignored by her peers.) What do these violations and consequences suggest about the norms operating in the setting? (The town believes that the lottery is an appropriate event in their town.)
Inferring Historical and Cultural Norms In interpreting settings, students also need to be able to infer particular historical or cultural norms operating in a story or novel, requiring some background knowledge of the historical period or culture. Interpreting To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, 1988) requires defining the cultural norms operating in the segregated South that created racial and class hierarchies challenged by the civil rights movement. Atticus’s principled defense of Boo Radley based on the vision of a new world of integration challenges the practices of the town’s segregated world. And, understanding the portrayal of witch-hunts in the play, The Crucible (Miller, 2003) involves understanding how Puritan religious beliefs led townspeople to believe that their peers were agents of the devil, a parallel to the 1950s and 1960s as shaped by McCarthyism and anti-Communism. And, in studying The Kite Runner (Hosseini, 2004), students construct the cultural world of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion as shaped by fundamentalist Muslin beliefs associated with the Taliban control of the country.
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
Because students generally lack this background knowledge to define these norms, you will need to provide students with background readings or artifacts about the historical or cultural worlds portrayed in texts. For example, in studying Pride and Prejudice (Austen, 2009) you can provide students with information about the class hierarchy in early-nineteenth-century England. You also need to help them use that information to define norms constituted by these class differences constituting the meaning of characters’ practices. For example, because Elizabeth Bennet’s family is simply middle class, they differ from the upper class families represented by Darcy’s family. As a result, the females the Bennet family must focus on finding a husband to insure their financial future, something that does not concern the females in wealthier families who will simply inherit wealth. Elizabeth’s sisters, Charlotte and Lydia, are desperate to be married, entering into marriages Elizabeth perceives to be less than desirable. It is therefore the norm for middle-class females to define their agenda primarily in terms of finding a husband, something that is not a priority for Elizabeth, much to the concern of her mother.
Interpreting Story Development Students are also learning how to interpret story development by drawing on their knowledge of prototypical storylines related to changes in characters. For example, stories often revolve around characters coping with problems or challenges, creating conflicts that need to be resolved (Ohler, 2007). For example, a main character’s normal life may be interrupted by a problem or challenge, requiring them to set off on a journey or to transform themselves, leading them to the realization that their world or they have changed (Ohler, 2007). To chart story development, students could create story maps that chart a sequence of story events related to: • • •
the problem or challenge confronting the main characters creating conflicts for the characters strategies the main characters use to cope with the problem or challenge representing changes in characters’ development in coping with certain problems or challenges.
In doing so, students may identify those events they would consider to be significant in a story as contributing to a conflict or resolution to those conflicts (Schulze, 2007). Students could identify these different events on their story maps and then share them so that you can list these events with the students. Because students will be proposing different events, they could then discuss reasons for why they nominated those particular events—why these events would be significant as well as why other events were not as significant.
Predicting Story Outcomes Interpreting story development also includes predicting story outcomes based on knowledge of text genre conventions or story development. In asking students to make predictions, it is useful to have them formulate reasons for their predictions based on perceived patterns and/or on knowledge of genre/story conventions. Students could engage in making predictions based on titles or opening sentences of texts that serve as clues for identifying the text’s genre or typical storyline. For example, the opening line,
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“Detective Barnes knew that he was headed into a dangerous part of town,” evokes prior knowledge of mystery/detective genre storylines students can use to predict what will happen next to Detective Barnes—the fact that he may discover a dead body or that he may receive a threat. Students could pair up and conduct think-aloud reflections on how they are using certain words or topics to predict potential storyline or character development. As they acquire more information about the story, they can begin to narrow down the number of optional predictions. When their predictions are violated by story events, they then revise their predictions and formulate new predictions.
Drawing on Archetypal Narrative Patterns to Interpret Storylines To interpret storylines, students also draw on archetypal narrative patterns—Romance, Comedy, Irony/Satire, and Tragedy (Frye, 1957). For example, the setting of the Romance quest is typically an idealized world in which good and evil are clearly defined— the hero is good and the villain is evil. In the Romance quest (Frye, 1957), the hero engages in a quest or journey to destroy an evil force and often to rescue or save a person or valuable treasure, something we discuss further as part of studying mythology. In contrast to the world of Romance, Frye argues that in the contemporary world of Irony/Satire, the distinctions between good and evil are not clearly defined—the antihero lacks the powers of the super-hero and does not represent either good or evil given the lack of a clear distinction between good versus evil in contemporary society. This opposition is portrayed in the John Cheever (2000) story “The Swimmer,” in which the hero, a successful suburban male, begins his quest by swimming from pool to pool. In the beginning of his quest, he appears as a triumphal romance hero in the midst of summer. As he moves from pool to pool, he is rebuffed by his ex-mistress and former friends. At the end of the story, as a storm moves in, he returns to find his home dark and empty, representing his failure as a hero. These anti-heroes are trapped by systemic, institutional breakdowns. Joseph Heller’s (1996) Catch-22 portrays the frustrations of Yossarian, who must cope with the madness and inanities of a corrupt military system filled with “Catch-22” contradictions. Frye identifies two other narrative patterns: tragedy and comedy. A key characteristic of tragedy is that the tragic hero, like the anti-hero, challenges the system, but, in contrast to the anti-hero, the proud tragic hero suffers in a noble manner, conveying the theme that life involves mistakes, frailties, and suffering. For example, Oedipus, King Lear, Job, and Willy Loman were too proud to perceive their limitations until it is too late. Hamlet must revenge his father’s murder, leading to his death. Joan of Arc, in George Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan, sacrifices her life for her principles. In responding to these texts, students could describe how the tragic hero challenges the institutional status quo and reasons the hero must suffer the consequences of that challenge, raising questions about the tragic limitations of both humans and institutions, and the complexities of the tragic hero. In comedies, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, or The Importance of Being Ernest, there are institutional break-downs as characters are challenged by instances of mixed identities—characters confusing one person for another, momentary break-ups in relationships, or thwarted plans. However, in contrast to tragedy, these challenges are resolved at the end, celebrating the idea that institutions such as the family, school, or community can ultimately be restored even when they seem to be falling apart. And, the often prototypical characters in comedy lack the complexity of the brooding tragic hero. (See Comedy on the website.)
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
Explaining Characters’ Actions based on Traits, Beliefs, and Goals Another basic strategy involves explaining characters’ actions based on inferences about their traits, beliefs, and/or goals. For example, students may explain why, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain, 1981), Huck Finn decides to support Jim by going with him on the raft given his loyalty, integrity, and belief in the need for social justice. To identify these traits, beliefs, and goals, students can employ mind-maps in which they place characters acts in central circles and their use spokes to other circles related to traits, beliefs, and goals that can be used to explain certain actions. To teach the process of explaining characters’ actions, you can model ways for formulating different types of reasons for characters’ actions. Robert McMahon (2002) proposes examining five basic components for explaining characters’ actions: action, situation, agent, purpose, and attitude, based on a question for each (p. 3): Act: “What does the character do?” Situation: “How does the character understand the situation in which he acts?” Agent: “What is the character’s moral character?” “How does the character understand himself as the agent in this act?” Purpose: “What does the character intend—aim to gain or accomplish—by this act?” Attitude: “With what attitude or feeling does the character perform this act?”
One teacher (Rekrut, 2003) who adopted these questions for her 10th graders studying the actions of Abigail Williams in The Crucible (Miller, 2003) noted: We examined Abigail’s Moral Character—the students decided that she was a selfish liar— and we readily recognized that Abigail’s Self-Understanding indicated she knew what she was doing, even though she might not be ready for the consequences. The class suggested that Abigail had two purposes—to get John Proctor back and to keep the spotlight on herself—and that her Attitude was negative, even cynical (although they didn’t use that word), because she focused only on what she wanted. (p. 532)
Students could use a hot-seating activity to pose questions to students who assume the role of either the character or the author about these students’ reasons for their actions. For example, a student would assume the role of Abigail who needed to justify her actions.
Inferring Traits, Beliefs, and Goals from Characters’ Dialogue Students learn to infer characters’ traits, beliefs and goals based on their interpretations of the types of speech acts characters are performing in their dialogue: requesting, promising, inviting, asserting, praising, apologizing, challenging, etc. (Austin, 1975). This heuristic involves inferring: • • •
the meaning of characters’ dialogue as speech acts the effects or “uptake” of these acts on other characters how characters traits, beliefs, and goal influence the types of speech acts performed.
Speech acts are the actions performed through language as when a minister, priest, or rabbi pronounces or declares a bride and groom as married or an umpire calls a baseball
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player as “out.” The same utterance can be used to perform different actions, as when a teacher utters to a student entering the classroom, “you’re late to class”—which could be interpreted as simply a describing act—the fact that the student is late, or as an ordering act—that the student has to report to the principal’s office because she is late. Based on the type of speech act being performed, students infer characters’ beliefs about their own and their audience’s status or power, their intended meaning and actual effect, their ability to perform the act, their sincerity, and the social context in which the act occurs. For example, two people, Bill and Molly, husband and wife, are talking at the dinner table. Bill: “There’s a new restaurant opening up this Thursday down the street.” Molly: “That’s nice.” Bill: “I heard that it’s going to be mostly Cajun food.” Molly: “I don’t really like Cajun and besides, I’m busy this Thursday.”
In this exchange, Bill and Molly infer the meaning of each other’s utterances by inferring the type of speech act being performed and the intended effect of those acts, or “uptake” (Austin, 1975). “Uptake” refers to whether or not an audience follows through on a speech act’s intended force. In making a request for assistance, a speaker believes that her audience will follow through on that request. However, an audience may not believe that a speaker has the power or right to make a request, and therefore not follow through on the request. Molly may interpret Bill’s initial utterance, “there’s a new restaurant opening up this Thursday down the street,” as simply an announcement about or description of the restaurant or as an invitation to go to the restaurant. Bill may then interpret Molly’s reply, “That’s nice” as either a confirmation of his description or as a rejection of his invitation. Molly may then interpret his next statement, “I heard that it’s going to be mostly Cajun food,” as a further description of the restaurant or as a reiteration of clarification of the invitation. Her own statement suggests that she reads the uptake of his statement as an invitation, which she rejects. To interpret the meaning of speech acts in literature, students then need to employ a heuristic for inferring the meaning of speech acts related to inferring traits, beliefs, status, agency, and goals. Students could analyze transcripts of recorded conversations with each other to discuss how they make inferences about each other based on dialogue using their knowledge of speech acts and conversational maxims. Then, they could apply the same analysis to discussing how they make inferences about characters’ traits, beliefs, status, agency, and goals, as well as narrative conflicts, in response to dialogue in a story or novel. For example, in the short story “Raymond’s Run” by Toni Bambara (1971), the main character/narrator, Hazel, an African-American early-adolescent female, is continually responsible for taking care of her younger brother, Raymond, who is mentally challenged and needs constant attention. Hazel perceives herself as a track star, who is now about to be challenged by Gretchen, a newcomer to the neighborhood; two of Hazel’s former friends, Mary Louise and Rosie, are now Gretchen’s friends. In the following scene (with just the dialogue included), Hazel and Raymond meet up with Gretchen, Mary Louise, and Rosie on the street: “You signing up for the May Day races?” smiles Mary Louise, only it’s not a smile at all . . . “I always win cause I’m the best,” I say straight at Gretchen . . .
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
“What grade you in now, Raymond?” [Mary Louise] “You got anything to say to my brother, you say it to me, Mary Louise Williams of Raggedy Town, Baltimore.” “What are you, his mother?” sasses Rosie. “That’s right, Fatso. And the next word out of anybody and I’ll be their mother too.”
In this exchange, Hazel and Mary Louise/Rosie are sparring with each to establish status that is similar to the oral genre “playing the dozens” in which participants taunt each other. Mary Louise begins by putting down Hazel with the implication that she may lose to Gretchen. Hazel retorts to the challenge by asserting that she will still beat Gretchen. Mary Louise then poses a question to Raymond designed to further taunt Hazel. Again, Hazel challenges Mary Louise by implying that she has her own limitation as a resident of “Raggedy Town.” Rosie then challenges Hazel by reverting to taunts frequently found in “playing the dozens,” making references to one’s mother. However, again Hazel retorts with her own challenge to the three girls that ends the conversation. This series of speech acts of taunts and retorts functions to not only develop character relationships, but it also sets up potential narrative conflict with the now expected May Day race between Hazel and Gretchen.
RESPONDING TO FABLES/MYTHS In reading fables or myths, students are transported into different worlds that portray or represent larger universal themes related to the meaning of life. Fables or myths are particularly popular for early adolescents who are attracted to the idea of entering into and exploring alternative worlds. Myths often function in cultures or societies to explain certain phenomena—the creation of the earth, the meaning of birth and death, the seasons of the year, natural disasters, etc., consistent with the values of a certain culture. Fables explore human behavior and different ways of being in the world, and the various consequences of each. Understanding myths and fables therefore requires some understanding of the culture or society that produced these fables and myths. For example, in the Greek creation myth, the children of the marriage between Earth and Heaven battle for control of the universe with Zeus emerging as the winner. Zeus then assigns his family members responsibility for the different parts of the world, including Prometheus to create humans, but because Prometheus gives humans fire, he is punished by Zeus. In the Norse creation myth, three gods—Odin, Ve, and Vili—kill a wicked giant, Ymir and from Ymir’s body create the earth. Odin then creates a huge ash tree and two chips from the tree become man and woman—Ve gives them speech and hearing, and Vili, thoughts and emotions. In a Native American creation myth, a holy man, Wenebojo, is assisted by a wolf to help him hunt. However, an enemy tribe, the Manido, kill the wolf, so Wenebojo kills the Manido king. The Manido, who control the waters, try to drown Wenebojo, who climbs a tree and asks another tribe, the Otto, to bring him earth. This earth becomes an island and eventually the world. These myths share a similar pattern of gods creating earth, but differ in terms of the values of the different myths’ cultures. In the Greek myth, the culture values of military power and control are reflected in the Zeus’s authority. In the Norse myth, the emphasis on nature reflects that culture’s nomadic cultural values. And, the Native American myth depicting animals as playing a key role reflects the ecological values of that culture.
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Studying Mythic Characters, Storylines, and Images Students could study examples of mythic characters, storylines, and images.
Characters: Gods One basic set of characters in Greek, Roman, Norse, Chinese, Aztez, and Native American myths are gods who represent different aspects of life or values, as in Greek and Roman myths where Zeus/Jupiter represented supreme power; Hades/Pluto, hell/evil; Poseidon/Neptune, water; Dionysis/Bacchus, wine/fertility; Athena/Minerva, wisdom; Aphrodite/Venus, love/desire; Hermes/Mercury, travel/invention; Artemis/ Diana, hunting/fertility; Hera/Juno, women/marriage; Hephaestus/Vulcan, craftsman/ artisan; and Apollo, poetry/music. Students could study these different gods and the phenomenon, power, or values they represent, accessing sites such as: http://www. ancienthistory.about.com, http://www.bulfinch.org, http://www.mythweb.com, and http://www.messagenet.com/myths. Then, they could write and perform a monologue of a mythic story that represents their particular powers or values as gods, for example, how Eros sprinkles a love potion in the eyes of two strangers who then fall in love.
Characters: Human-like They could also study examples of human-like mythic characters including the heroes/heroines such as Odysseus, Sir Lancelot, Indiana Jones, Antigone, Frodo Baggins, Mulan, Aragorn, Luke Skywalker, Superman, Batman/Batwoman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc., who engage in a quest/journey or continuous battles against evil forces. Other characters in myths include female roles of the earth mother who represents nourishment; the damsel in distress who is rescued by the hero; and the temptress, who attempts to distract the hero from achieving his goal, as well as the side-kick, the friendly beast, or the star-crossed lovers.
Storylines: The Quest As previously mentioned, the quest serves as a metaphor for a search or self-discovery in life on which they face insurmountable odds and confronting evil forces. To prepare for this quest/adventure, the hero/heroine undergoes training as an initiation into the challenges of adulthood and the recognition that potential failure could expose his own dark side. For Joseph Campbell (1991), the hero’s quest represents the “killing of the infantile ego and bringing forth an adult” (p. 138). On the quest, the hero attempts to discover and conquer the dark side of the ego, which, in The Earthsea Trilogy (Le Guin, 2005) is the hero’s shadow. The Tolkien (1986) Lord of the Rings trilogy popularized by the Lord of the Rings (Jackson, 2001) films portrays the quest of a Hobbit. Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit, makes a perilous journey through Middle-Earth to the Crack of Doom to attempt to destroy the One Ring which is controlled by the Dark Lord, who wants to use the ring for evil purposes. Similarly, in Tolkien’s (2009) The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, goes on a quest to reclaim a fortune from an evil dragon. In studying a number of different texts portraying the hero quest story, students may define common narrative features across these texts (Jago, 2000)—the fact that the hero: • •
has certain superhuman/supernatural powers represents “good” in opposition to “evil”
TEACHING LITERARY GENRES
• • • •
faces numerous challenge and set-backs relies on others or side-kicks for assistance knows how to out-smart or out-maneuver the opposition achieves success in the end.
Joseph Campbell (1991) argues that in the quest myth, the hero’s journey also involves the search for the self—the attempt to define one’s identity through recognizing one’s own inner strengths. For Campbell, the quest involves the “killing of the infantile ego and bringing forth an adult” (p. 138). In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker discovers that it is his father beneath the mask of Dark Vader. Vader is only an impersonal “robot,” “a bureaucratic, living not in terms of himself but in terms of an imposed system, a foil to Luke’s discovery of his own humanity” (p. 144). This training or initiation is guided by a mentor such as Ben Kenobi in Star Wars or Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back serving as a teacher/parent who provides the hero/ heroine with advice and counsel about how to cope with potential challenges. Students can draw parallels to their own experiences as adolescent initiations into groups or new experience. Given their familiarity with video games, students could also study examples of narrative development or conflicts in games based on the types of increasingly moredifficult challenges facing the game protagonist/avatar, as well as the strategies the protagonist/avatar employs to cope with these challenges. They could then reflect on similarities between their use of strategies for responding to literary narratives and their strategies for responding to narratives in games.
Archetypal Images Myths/fables also include archetypal images: light (hope/renewal) versus darkness (despair/ignorance), water as rebirth or initiation, forest/wilderness as danger and the unknown, fire as life, and magic weapons used by the hero to vanquish enemies, images that are found in all of literature. For example, Frye’s narrative pattern of the Romance often occurs in an idealized green world of summer, while the anti-hero/quest narrative pattern of contemporary literature is equated more with the dark world of winter and death. In the story “The Swimmer” (Cheever, 2000), as Ned encounters difficulties in his quest, the weather worsens and when he ends up at his house, it is dark and empty, symbolizing the failure of his quest. (See Mythology on the website.) Certain genre narrative patterns are also evident in fantasy/science fiction, horror, mystery/detective, and adventure novels and films referred to in Chapter 6. For example, Stephen King’s horror novels often deal with the issue of coping with mortality and life-after-death while the mystery/detective novel involves sorting through alternative versions and clues related to a crime. (See Mythology, Fantasy/science fiction, Horror, Mystery/detective, and Adventure on the website.)
RESPONDING TO COMICS/GRAPHIC NOVELS While these are not genres per se, but rather ways of visually formatting certain genres, comics and graphic novels require knowledge of reading strategies unique to responding to the use of formatting and iconography (Chute, 2010; McCloud, 2006). For example, students need to know how to respond to the use of panel layout, perspectives on characters or events through uses of different shots—close-up versus long shots or high versus low angles, lettering or captures, variations in balloons for dialogue or thoughts,
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and gutters or blank spaces between panels. They also learn how text and image meanings support each other, a shifting focus that can require higher levels of concentration than with traditional print-only texts (Bitz, 2009; 2010; Carter, 2007; Gorman, 2003; Monnin, 2009; Tabachnick, 2009). Struggling readers and ELL students find these texts accessible as they provide visual support for decoding words, episodes and genre elements, and they are assisted into visualizing the story world (Frey & Fisher, 2008; Wilhelm, 2004; 2007b). The highly visual aspects of graphic novels also enhance their appeal with male readers (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). And, the popularity of comics/graphic novels builds on adolescents’ multimodal, interactive engagement in video games and online virtual worlds. Literature teachers are increasingly teaching high quality graphic novels such as the Maus series (Spiegelman, 1986; 1991), Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Satrapi, 2004), American Born Chinese (Yang, 2008), the Bone series, Volumes 1–9 (Smith, 2009), Batman: Year One (Miller & Mazzucchelli, 2007), as well as The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need (Pink & Pas, 2008), a manga novel providing students with career guidance. For example, the Bone series portray the three Bone cousins engaged in adventures that can be used in conjunction with study of the quest narratives such as The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings, or the Harry Potter novels. You can also use Persepolis, which portrays the experience of an Iranian female during the Islamic revolution, to explore how historical or cultural contexts influences gender role construction (for a Webquest for the novel, see Spangler, 2008). There are also high quality graphic novel versions of adaptations of classic literary texts, such as those produced by Classic Comics (http://www.classicalcomics.com/index.html), as well as the Scholastic Comix series for middle-school students. It is also important to provide explicit instruction on ways of interpreting graphic novel design features—the use of font size, panels, frames, angles, colors, speech balloons, captions, etc., to create stories (Bitz, 2009; 2010; Carter, 2007; Gorman, 2003; Monnin, 2009; Versaci, 2007). It is also useful to have students go back and re-read a graphic novel and reflect on uses of these design features (Hammond, 2009). Students are also more likely to learn these features when they are creating their own comics using comicscreation software (Comic Life, ToonDoo, MakeBeliefsComix, Pixton, ReadWriteThink Comic Creator). (See Graphic novels or manga on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Find some writing about literature from your secondary or early college years, and compare that writing to some more recent writing about literature. Identify differences in your use of interpretive strategies the reflect development of your knowledge of poetry or narrative genre conventions. Then, reflect on how you acquired this knowledge and implications for how your students could acquire knowledge of these conventions. Recall and/or collect some written narratives from your past. Reflect on some similar features in the use of narrative techniques in creating settings, development storylines, employing dialogue, or constructing characters as representing your development of narrative genre knowledge. Then, given assumptions about your students’ own knowledge of genre conventions, reflect on how you would teach or model strategies for teaching genre conventions. (See Sample units, lessons, or activities on the website.)
CHAPTER 9
Multiple Perspectives to Engage Students in Literature What Are Different Ways of Seeing?
Case Narrative: Applying Different Critical Perspectives to To Kill a Mockingbird Reading Texts, Reading the World Preparing to Teach Multiple Perspectives A Brief Synopsis of Some Major Theories Getting Your Class Started Lesson Planning
APPLYING DIFFERENT CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES TO TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD For decades, To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, 1988) has been a staple of the high school curriculum. Its perma-bound status in bookshelves across the county attests to its enduring presence in literature classes. Like many school districts across the country, the Lake Woebegone school district, located in the suburban Midwest, includes To Kill A Mockingbird as a required part of its 10th grade curriculum. The teachers love teaching it, and the students, well, if they didn’t love it, they didn’t complain about it, either. In recent years, the Lake Woebegone district has experienced radical demographic changes. The largely White, blue-collar population has been diversified by many families of color, predominately African-American and Latino. Until this year, the changing student population was not reflected by changes in either the content or approach of the high school literature curriculum. All of this has led to an increased infusion of multicultural literature into the curriculum, literature portraying multiple cultural perspectives. (See Multicultural literacy on the website.) Recently, however, several students of color report feeling uncomfortable in the classrooms where To Kill A Mockingbird is taught. They object to the use of the
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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“N” word, to teachers reading the text aloud, to feeling singled out as representatives of the “black experience.” An emergency meeting is held with the language arts department. All of the district’s teachers are White, and most of them are unwilling to stop teaching the novel, since it has long been a centerpiece of their curriculum. Harry, a veteran teacher who has recently been introduced to the idea of using multiple perspectives, has an idea. He doesn’t want to stop teaching the novel, either, but he understands why some people might object to it, especially since it’s the only novel that all 10th graders are required to read. He creates a set of exercises that uses both the feminist and social class lens to question and resist the portrayal of characters in To Kill A Mockingbird. Harry feels that by inviting students to read the text through different lenses, lenses that highlight ideology, he is addressing the concerns of those who object to the text and at the same time, preserving the role of the text in his curriculum. Harry remarks, “The lenses help us read the text in a richer way. We are no longer ignoring its problematic aspects; we are actually teaching them. Using the lenses helped me address the community’s legitimate concerns about the text without abandoning it entirely. I guess there’s more than one way to kill a mockingbird!” (See Harry’s handouts for applying lenses to To Kill a Mockingbird under Activities on the website.) If you walk down the halls of Southeast High School, an aging and traditional school at the edge of a large Midwestern city, you are sure to stop short at the door of Ms. Crosby’s classroom. In front of the door is a mannequin, clothed in a pink sleeveless debutante dress. The dress is covered with feminist slogans: “the personal is political,” “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” “equal rights for humankind.” The sign on the classroom door reads: “Ms. Crosby: IB Literature From A Feminist Perspective.” Ms. Crosby, a recent college graduate with two years of teaching experience explains, I just thought I’d go all out. My class isn’t any more one-sided than the traditional IB curriculum; it’s just that I approach it from the other side and that I’m honest about it. I teach to offer some balance in an ideologically unbalanced world. The kids are loving it. And I feel like were doing something really important together. This approach works well for so many texts, both traditional and contemporary. They went crazy with Hamlet from a feminist perspective. I really think that using critical theory makes the literature seem more alive and more relevant. Needless to say, Ms. Crosby’s classroom threshold provides a dramatic visual reminder of some paradigmatic shifts in our approach to teaching literature. It is important to note that Ms. Crosby is not teaching a course called feminist literature; rather, she is integrating, contemporizing, and perhaps, remediating, a very traditional canon through the use of critical lenses. Both Harry and Ms. Crosby have integrated the use of critical theory with traditionally taught texts such as To Kill A Mockingbird and Hamlet. They also find that the multiple perspectives critical theory affords is useful with contemporary short stories, poetry, and novels such as Persepolis (Satrapi, 2004), The Life of Pi (Martel, 2007), Peace like a River (Enger, 2002), Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Sijie, 2002), and Snow (Pamuk, 2005) to name a few. Integrating literary theory into the literature classroom can help bring our goals of teaching literature into sharper relief. What critical perspectives did Harry and Ms. Crosby adopt? How did adopting those perspectives influence their students’ responses? In your previous literature classes, what types of critical perspectives did your teachers adopt and how did they influence your responses? To what degree did they consider ideological aspects of literature?
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES TO ENGAGE STUDENTS
READING TEXTS, READING THE WORLD What exactly are we trying to accomplish when we read literary texts with adolescents? If we think back to the goals that we discussed in Chapter 2, it is clear that we want to do more than simply transmit our literary cultural heritage. We want to help young people understand the social, political, and cultural contexts that shape their lives. We want to help them see that the literary texts we assign them to read are inscribed with issues of power and shaped by ideological influences as they are created and as they are read. Teachers like Harry and Ms. Crosby know that the world of their classrooms, bounded by texts and interpretive conventions, is shaped and influenced by larger forces. In order to teach To Kill A Mockingbird effectively, Harry needs to take into account the context of the changing nature of his community. To make the canon of International Baccalaureate relevant to her twenty-first-century students, Ms. Crosby wants her students to read and resist the ideology of traditional texts through the use of critical theory. In other words, Harry and Ms. Crosby do want to help their students to read and interpret the literary texts, but they also want to help their students read the worlds that are inscribed in those texts. Of course, reading the world is a concept perhaps first most powerfully articulated by Paulo Freire (Freire & Macedo, 1987). He writes: Reading the world always precedes reading the word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world . . . [T]his movement from the word to the world is always present; even the spoken word flows from our reading of the world. In a way, however, we can go further and say that reading the word is not preceded merely by reading the world, but by a certain form of writing it or rewriting it, that is, of transforming it by means of conscious, practical work. For me, this dynamic movement is central to the literacy process. (p. 25)
Central to the literacy process is the ability to read and think critically, to become “enlightened witnesses” as bell hooks (2003, p. 89) puts it. Being an enlightened witness, possessing multiple ways of seeing means understanding the nature of ideology. Bonnycastle (1996) provides a straightforward, adolescent-friendly definition of ideology: In essence an ideology is a system of thought or “world view” which an individual acquires (usually unconsciously) from the world around him. An ideology determines what you think is important in life, what categories you put people into, how you see male and female roles in life, and a host of other things. You can visualize your ideology as a grid, or a set of glasses, through which you can see the world. (p. 33)
Others emphasize a less benign conception of ideology. For example, Michael Ryan (1999) argues that ideology is what preserves the social power structure in the absence of direct coercion. Norman Fairclough (1989) calls this preservation of social power “ideological common sense” (p. 2). It’s what makes us surprised at female airline pilots, African-American senators, or househusbands. Fairclough writes: Ideology is most effective when its workings are least visible. If one becomes aware that a particular aspect of common sense is sustaining power inequalities at one’s own expense, it ceases to be common sense, and may cease to have the capacity to sustain power inequalities, i.e., to function ideologically. And invisibility is achieved when ideologies are
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brought to discourse not as explicit elements of the text, but as the background assumptions which, on the one hand, lead the text producer to textualize the world in a particular way, and on the other hand, lead the interpreter to interpret the text in a particular way. Texts do not spout ideology. They so position the interpreter through their cues that she brings ideologies to the interpretation of texts—and reproduces them in the process! (p. 85).
In order to see what Fairclough means, let’s consider the poem “The Road Not Taken” (Frost, 1916/1993): “THE ROAD NOT TAKEN” by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
Most American students have encountered this well-known poem in their secondary education, most commonly as part of their 10th grade American Literature curriculum. When asked, readers of this poem easily offer the theme or lesson embedded in the poem. “It’s about individuality, about nonconformity, about walking to the beat of a different drummer.” “It’s about how America privileges the individual.” “It’s about refusing to succumb to peer pressure.” Or is it? All of these sentiments seem consistent with an Emersonian ideal of selfexpression, a Whitman-like celebration of individuality. But can these interpretations really be supported by the text of the poem? Is it about which path the poem‘s speaker chose or the fact that he had to make a choice? According to Fairclough (1989), we let the text spout ideology because it fits into our notion of who we are, about what America is and what it might stand for. Yet this approach doesn’t encourage students to resist any common-sense readings. Without reading the text from multiple perspectives, we are transmitting traditional cultural messages, not teaching students to read critically.
PREPARING TO TEACH MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES We hope that the foregoing discussion on the notions of ideology and reading the world have convinced you that helping students view literary texts through multiple critical lenses should be integrated into your approach to teaching literature. We also acknowledge that up to this point your English education may not have prepared you to feel comfortable teaching literary theory. Remember, that the point of using theory is not to make either you or your students certified literary theorists. The point is to use literary theory as a means to some larger educational ends—the ability to inhabit a variety of perspectives, at the same time the ability to understand the point of view and
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perspective of others, the ability to read resistantly, whether it’s the textual or actual worlds and the ability to become the kind of “enlightened witness” that bell hooks describes. Still, although we don’t expect you to be able to write a textbook on deconstruction, you should have a solid grounding in the basic outline of the theories. (See Glossaries on literary theory/criticism, and General descriptions of a range of different literary theories/criticism on the website.) For our purposes right now, here are some very brief definitions of some of the major critical perspectives that you might want to use with your students.
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF SOME MAJOR THEORIES The following are some synopses of some different critical perspectives that students could apply as “lenses” for analyzing texts, as well as strategies (derived with permission from Lynn, 2010). There are many short glossaries of these perspectives available (see Appleman, 2009, or http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rbeach/teachingmedia/module4/index. htm), or the Summaries of different critical approaches (for use with students, adapted from Lynn, 2010) as handouts that are available on the website.
Reader-response Perspective Reader-response critics reject the traditional idea that a literary work has meaning built within it; they turn their attention instead to the responses of individual readers (see New Criticism on the website). By this shift of perspective, a literary work is converted into an activity that goes on in a reader’s mind. It is through this interaction that meaning is made. The features of the work itself—including narrator, plot, characters, style, and structure—are less important than the interplay between a reader’s experience and the text. Advocates of this perspective believe that literature has no inherent or intrinsic meaning waiting to be discovered. Instead, meaning is constructed by readers as they bring their own thoughts, moods, and experiences to whatever text they are reading. In turn, what readers get out of a text depends upon their own expectations and ideas. For example, if you read “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin (1995) and you have your own troubled younger brother or sister, the story will have meaning for you that it wouldn’t have for, say, an only child. (See Reader-response criticism on the website.)
The Archetypal Perspective In literary criticism, the word “archetype” signifies a recognizable pattern or a model. It can be used to describe story designs, character types, or images that can be found in a wide variety of works of literature. It can also be applied to myths, dreams, and social rituals. The archetypal similarities among texts and behaviors are thought to reflect a set of universal, even primitive ways of seeing the world. When we find them in literary works they evoke strong responses from readers. As noted in Chapter 8, archetypal themes include the heroic journey and the search for a father figure. Archetypal images include the opposition of paradise and Hades, the river as a sign of life and movement, and mountains or other high places as sources of enlightenment. Characters can be archetypal as well, like the rebel-hero, the scapegoat, the villain, and goddess. (See Archetypal/myth criticism on the website.)
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The Formalist Perspective The word “formal” has two related meanings, both of which apply within this perspective. The first relates to its root word, “form,” a shape or structure that we can recognize and use to make associations. The second relates to a set of conventions or accepted practices. Formal poetry, for example, has meter, rhyme, stanza, and other predictable features that it shares with poems of the same type. The formalist perspective pays particular attention to issues of form and convention. Instead of looking at the world in which a poem exists, for example, the formalist perspective says that a poem should be treated as an independent and self-sufficient object. The methods used in this perspective are those of close reading: a detailed and subtle analysis of the formal components that make up the literary work, such as the meanings and interactions of words, figures of speech, and symbols. (See Formalist/structuralist criticism on the website.)
The Character or Psychological Perspective Some literary critics call the character perspective the “psychological” perspective because its purpose is to examine the internal motivations of literary characters. When we hear actors say that they are searching for their character’s motivation, they are using something like this perspective. As a form of criticism, this perspective deals with works of literature as expressions of the personality, state of mind, feelings, and desires of the author or of a character within the literary work. As readers, we investigate the psychology of a character or an author to figure out the meaning of a text (although sometimes an examination of the author’s psychology is considered biographical criticism, depending upon your point of view). (See Psychological/psychoanalytic criticism on the website.)
The Biographical Perspective Because authors typically write about things they care deeply about and know well, the events and circumstances of their lives are often reflected in the literary works they create. For this reason, some readers use biographical information about an author to gain insight into that author’s works. This perspective, called biographical criticism, can be both helpful and dangerous. It can provide insight into themes, historical references, social oppositions or movements, and the creation of fictional characters. At the same time, it is not safe to assume that biographical details from the author’s life can be transferred to a story or character that the author has created. For example, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos were both ambulance drivers during World War I and both wrote novels about the war. Their experiences gave them first-hand knowledge and created strong personal feelings about the war, but their stories are still works of fiction. Some biographical details, in fact, may be completely irrelevant to the interpretation of that writer’s work. (See Biographical criticism on the website.)
The Historical Perspective When applying this perspective you have to view a literary text within its historical or cultural contexts. Specific historical information will be of key interest: about the time during which an author wrote; about the time in which the text is set, about the ways in which people of the period saw and thought about the world in which they lived.
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History, in this case, refers to the social, political, economic, cultural, and/or intellectual climate of the time. For example, the literary works of William Faulkner frequently reflect the history of the American South, the Civil War and its aftermath, and the birth and death of a nation known as The Confederate States of America. (See New Historicism and Cultural studies/anthropological criticism on the website.)
The Social Class or Marxist Perspective Some critics believe that human history and institutions, even our ways of thinking, are determined by the ways in which our societies are organized. Two primary factors shape our schemes of organization: economic power and social class membership. First, the class to which we belong determines our degree of economic, political, and social advantage, and so social classes invariably find themselves in conflict with each other. Second, our membership in a social class has a profound impact on our beliefs, values, perceptions, and our ways of thinking and feeling. For these reasons, the social power perspective helps us understand how people from different social classes understand the same circumstances in very different ways. When we see members of different social classes thrown together in the same story, we are likely to think in terms of power and advantage as we attempt to explain what happens and why. (See Social class/Marxist criticism on the website.)
The Gender Perspective Because gender is a way of viewing the world, people of different genders see things differently. For example, a feminist critic might see cultural and economic disparities as the products of a “patriarchal” society, shaped and dominated by men, who tend to decide things by various means of competition. Because women are frequently brought up to be more cooperative than competitive, they may find that such competition has hindered or prevented from realizing their full potential, from turning their creative possibilities into action. In addition, societies often tend to see the male perspective as the default, that is, the one we choose automatically. As a result, women are identified as the “other”: the deviation or the contrasting type. When we use this lens, we examine patterns of thought, behavior, value, and power in relations between the sexes. (See Feminist criticism/Queer Theory on the website.)
The Deconstruction Perspective Deconstruction asks us to set aside ways of thinking that are quite natural and comfortable. For example, we frequently see the world as a set of opposing categories: male/female, rational/irrational, powerful and powerless. It also looks at the ways in which we assign value to one thing over another, such as life over death, presence over absence, and writing over speech. At its heart, deconstruction is a mode of analysis that asks us to question the very assumptions that we bring to that analysis. Gender, for example, is a “construct,” a set of beliefs and assumptions that we have built, or constructed, over time and experience. But if we “de-construct” gender, looking at it while holding aside our internalized beliefs and expectations, new understandings become possible. To practice this perspective, then, we must constantly ask ourselves why we believe what we do about the make-up of our world and the ways in which we know it. Then, we must try to explain that world in the absence of our old beliefs. (See Deconstruction, Poststructuralism, and Postmodernism, Semiotic criticism, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Dialogic/Bakhtin criticism on the website.)
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The Postcolonial Perspective Postcolonial literary theory attempts to isolate perspectives in literature that grow out of colonial rule and the mindset that it creates. On one hand, it can examine the ways in which a colonizing society imposes its worldview on the peoples that it subjugates, making them “objects” of observation and denying them the power to define themselves. The colonizers are the “subjects,” those who take action and create realities out of the beliefs that they hold to be important. On another hand, it can focus on the experiences of colonized peoples and disconnection they feel from their own identities. Postcolonialism also focuses on attempts of formerly colonized societies to reassert the identities that they wish to claim for themselves, including national identities and cultural identities. When this lens is used to examine the products of colonization, it focuses on reclamation of self-identity. One thing that postcolonial theory shares with deconstruction is the attempt to isolate “false binaries,” categories that function by including dominant perspectives and excluding the rest, relegating outsiders to the status of “other.” Colonized people are always seen as something that exists outside the prevailing system of beliefs or values. As the dominant ideology asserts itself, it creates a sense of normalcy among the ideas of the colonizers and a sense of the exotic, the inexplicable, and the strange among the customs and ideas of “the other.” (See Postcolonial criticism on the website.)
GETTING YOUR CLASS STARTED We recommend that you begin by emphasizing the idea of multiple perspectives or multiple ways of seeing rather than beginning with the heady and sometimes overly academic concept of literary theory. One way to begin is to ask students to consider family stories and how each family member may have a different perspective on the same event (see Figure 9.1). You can also stage an unusual event—a clown bursting into the classroom, a staged argument between two class members, an animal intrusion, a visit from the principal or a fellow teacher in costume. Then ask students to write down exactly what happened. Compare their versions, discuss the inevitable discrepancies and the documented fallibility of eye witnesses. Then talk about the kinds of things—beliefs, attitudes, prior experiences,
Most “postmodern” fiction violates traditional narrative expectations by telling the story from the perspective of a variety of characters, rather than from the perspective of a single protagonist. Let’s spend the remainder of the next hour exploring the notion of perspective. 1. Tell the story of “The Three Little Pigs”. 2. Now, listen to the children’s book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, As Told by A. Wolf. What differences does that switch in perspective make? 3. Think of a family story, preferably one that is retold often, a part of your family mythology. In a paragraph or so, tell that story from your own perspective. Write your version below. 4. Now, think of another family member, and retell the story from his/her perspective. Write that version down. Family Member: In groups of no more than four, share those stories and discuss the difference perspective makes. How can we know what is the “true” version of the story?
Figure 9.1 A Matter of Perspective
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and predispositions—that affect both our perceptions of contemporary events as well as our reading. At this point, students are ready to expand their experience with multiple perspectives into explicit knowledge of particular literary theories. After you’ve given students a general working understanding of the theories, you can apply them together to films that lend themselves to a spectrum of readings from archetypal to post-structural. I currently favor using Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (Lucas, 1999), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (Jackson, 2001), or Shrek (Adamson & Jenson, 2001). (See Activities on the website.)
LESSON PLANNING To give you a clear sense of how using critical perspectives or lenses might serve to help enrich your students’ literary experiences, we offer a lesson created by Tim, a 5th year English teacher. Tim teaches language arts electives in a suburban school in the Midwest. While his students seem, at first blush, to be less heterogeneous than schools in the neighboring urban center, they are quite diverse in ability, interests, socio-economic background, and reading interests. Like many teachers Tim felt that his male students were less engaged in reading literary texts than were his female students (Pirie, 2002; Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). He decided to combine two strands of current literacy research by trying to create lessons that would appeal to his male students and focusing on engaging all students through lessons that integrated the use of critical lenses (Appleman, 2009). Afraid that the typical canonical fare would turn off his students (see Chapter 4), Tim wanted to use a more contemporary novel, one that might have some inherent appeal to his male students. Tim followed some of the basic considerations of literature lesson planning that we outlined in Chapter 3: • • • •
Who are my students? What kind of literary experiences do they need? Given that, what kinds of texts should I choose? What approaches to those texts should I use?
Here’s how Tim answered these questions.
Who are my students? They are juniors and seniors (19 boys and 11 girls) in the second quarter of Contemporary Literature I. Though counselors won’t publicly admit this, it is considered the “easier” alternative to American Literature for juniors. Students must take two semesters of a literature course to graduate, and their choices are enriched or regular American Lit, regular or AP world lit, and contemporary lit. Many struggling readers and writers end up in contemporary lit because the other courses are perceived by counselors and others to be too difficult for them. Other students who might be looking for someplace to “hide” in a less rigorous lit class make up another section of the class. Still another section of the class is made up of perfectly capable and willing students who want an alternative to what they might consider the staid traditionalism of American Lit. The result is a hodgepodge of attitudes and literacy levels.
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What kind of literary experiences do they need? I decided that the entire class needed a literary experience in which both male and females students would be equally engaged. Somehow, I thought that that would be as important for the females, to see their classmates enthusiastic and engaged, as it would be for the males. I also wanted to engage students in active inquiry (Holden & Schmit, 2002; Smith & Wilhelm, 2002). Specifically, I wanted to use an inquiry approach to texts because, as Smith and Wilhelm write, Because students pursued their own arguments in their own ways, they had an element of control over their work that they didn’t get in much of their schoolwork. Because the texts were not read as artifacts or objects of study for some future or opaque purpose, but as conversants in the ongoing debates, the purpose for reading them was both clear and immediate. (p. 87)
Finally, I wanted my students to be able to use a variety a critical lenses to help give them authority, power and flexibility over their own reading. Literary theory allows students to focus on the immediate experience because it can relate directly to their own lives, forcing them into the realm of the present instead of thinking of it as preparation for the future.
Given that, what kinds of texts should I choose? I chose to use Montana 1948 by Larry Watson (1993). I thought that the genre of contemporary westerns would be especially appealing to the male students. I also thought that this class seemed to be more interested in encountering a relatively recent text rather than a canonical one.
What approaches to those texts should I use? Before we began reading the book, I used an idea by Pirie (2002). He notes the importance of allowing the students to make connections in their reading to TV or movies they’ve seen in order to give them the chance to show knowledge and competence about the issue in question (pp. 97–98). In a slight variation on this, I showed the film The Searchers (Ford, 1959) starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford so that the entire class had at least one common media connection to draw on when we started reading Montana 1948 (Watson, 1993). They would be able to activate prior knowledge about the film, or discussions about, as Ebert (2001) writes, “the dying days of the classic Western, which faltered when Indians ceased to be typecast as savages” (http://tinyurl.com/eab5m). The Searchers, says Ebert, is of two minds regarding treatment of Indians, which provides an excellent jumping off point for Montana 1948 and its views of Indians. “I think Ford was trying, imperfectly, even nervously, to depict racism that justified genocide.”
Historical/Biographical Lens This film, then, along with providing common knowledge, also worked to introduce the historical/biographical lens when I introduced it during the reading. We discussed how in the 1950s, before the civil rights movement, stereotypical treatment of Indians
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and other minorities wasn’t as frowned upon as it would be later. Nonetheless, Hollywood was beginning to come to terms with their harsh treatment of Indians in Westerns. Hence, the split personality of The Searchers. I also showed clips from other westerns, discussing for each the influence of the time period in which the film was made had on the content and themes. For data, groups of three students were asked to list three books or films they knew of that they believed were influenced by the specific historical context of the time in which they were made. They were also asked to expand on that historical information. We also discussed the activity as a class.
Reader-response Lens To introduce the reader-response lens, I used the Sylvia Plath poem “Mushrooms” (1959/2002) that Beach (1993) writes about (as cited in Appleman, 2009, p. 34), and discussed the transaction the reader has with the text. The data I collected was twofold: first, I collected their responses to what they thought the subject of the poem “Mushrooms” was (they didn’t know the title, of course), along with evidence from the text and their personal experience; secondly, I asked them to do the same thing for Montana 1948 on the same sheet of paper—a meaning they’ve gotten from the book due to textual evidence and their personal characteristics as readers. We also discussed the activity as a class.
Social Class Lens I introduced the social class lens with a worksheet that combined a few exercises from Appleman (2009, pp. 158–159, 161–162). After explaining the concept and definition, we narrowed to a key focus: Who has the power and money in the text, and what happens as a result of it? For data collection, students were asked to plot the characters on a social ladder according to their class, identify conflicts that pertained to class, plot themselves in a social structure diagram, examine whether or not they thought their own social class affected their reading of the text, and formulate questions they had about the world in general now that they’ve examined the text through the Marxist lens. We also discussed the activity as a class.
Gender Lens I started with a brief definition – that it was almost exactly the same as the social class lens, except you substitute gender for money and social status. In either case, it’s about power and who has it. Then I used the concrete poem by Pedro Xisto found in Appleman (2009, p. 167) to give them a quick experience in looking at a text through the gender lens. To tie the lens to the text and for important data collection, I asked students to reorganize their social ladders from the social class lens according to the gender lens. They also had to choose characters to write both a traditional statement and a feminist statement about, citing specific passages.
Final Project For a culminating assessment, students (working alone or with a partner) designed a visual presentation that asked them to present an argument about how they understood the Western through one critical lens of their choosing. The project also required them to do some outside research. For data collection, they summarized their findings in an approximately one-page paper that they handed in at the time of their presentation.
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Assessment In the unit outlined above, Tim’s students designed a presentation that applied one critical lens to a class text. He also required a one-page paper. In order to assess student engagement, Tim also gave his students a survey to determine the overall effectiveness of the unit and the responses that students had to each lens. You can employ a variety of assessment strategies to determine if your students are able to comprehend, apply, synthesize, and evaluate the use of critical lens as ways of reading literary texts. You can use several handouts and group activities for informal assessment to gauge students’ level of engagement. (See the example of theory stations under Activities on the website.) Note that students are asked to reflect on their relative ability to apply several critical lenses to a text. They are also asked to compare which of the lenses seem to work best for them. Several teachers who have incorporated critical lenses into their literature curriculum also like to use oral presentations as a form of assessment. They divide students into groups, making each group responsible for offering an interpretation of the classroom text they are reading through a particular perspective. Teachers then follow up with a written assessment where each individual student explicates the text through all the lenses that have been discussed through the group presentations. Many teachers have students keep reading journals or logs to keep track of their individual responses to texts in their growing interpretative abilities. Assessing through journals or activities provide a formative rather than summative approach to assessment of students’ interpretive abilities. As a summative response, teachers can offer written examinations or paper assignments that ask students to view a text from several critical lenses. This can be a culminating activity for a text that the entire class has read, or you can present students with a short text they have not previously read or discussed, such as a poem or a short story, and ask students to do a “cold” reading using at least two critical lenses. This is a particularly good way to assess whether students have internalized the basic premises of each lens and can offer autonomous and original interpretations, rather than interpretations that are reiterations of class discussions.
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Consider how Harry, in our opening vignette, used critical lenses to save a text, To Kill a Mockingbird that over time had become problematic. Reread both his story and the activities he created to help his students view the text from multiple lenses and to reframe the text to acknowledge the challenges it may present in a contemporary classroom context. Select a literary text that you might want to teach but is problematic or challenging for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it’s anachronistic like The Scarlet Letter or Catcher in the Rye. Perhaps it’s potentially politically tricky like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Perhaps voices or perspective of women or people of color are largely absent from the text, such as in A Separate Peace or The Great Gatsby. In your portfolio, describe the text, the challenges you might encounter in teaching it, and then design an approach to the text that incorporates at least two critical lenses. Include your handout in your portfolio.
CHAPTER 10
Using Drama Strategies to Foster Interpretation How Do I Get My Students to Participate in Textual Worlds? Case Narrative: How Enactment Teaches Reading Strategies Drama/Enactment Strategies and Transactional Reading The Power and Flexibility of Drama Drama, Values, Feelings, and Cultural Understanding Implementing Drama Activities Reflection on Participation in Drama Activities
HOW ENACTMENT TEACHES READING STRATEGIES Seth Mitchell, a preservice teaching student, was working with 11th grade literature students during his teaching experience. However, the students were having trouble with understanding inferences, particularly with seeing complex implied relationships and Seth was stumped as to how to help them. Inferences and implied relationships are difficult but necessary strategies to teach. Otherwise students cannot read and understand literature, since the power of literature resides in the fact that it doesn’t directly tell you what it means. Inference is essential to seeing relationships and patterns among textual details, figuring out thematic meanings, and justifying that meaning with evidence from the text. In other words, as Seth was quick to note, without making inferences they might be able to read the literal level of a text, but they wouldn’t really understand its meaning. And they wouldn’t be able to think about what they read, or think with it.
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
When asked what teaching strategies might assist his kids to see complex implied relationships in a text and help them to apply these relationships to an understanding of the text, Seth began by reflecting on what his students were already able to do. He also considered the tools that he had in his teaching repertoire. The answer to the problem, Jeffrey Wilhelm suggested, was to make these kinds of relationships more accessible, more concrete, closer to home, more visible and available to them. After thinking about the available strategies for a moment, Seth snapped his fingers and laughed. Drama would provide the key. (To see a lesson plan developed to help students make inferences, see the end of this chapter.)
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DRAMA/ENACTMENT STRATEGIES AND TRANSACTIONAL READING Expert readers use a common general repertoire of stances and strategies when they read and we can apprentice our students into the reading fraternity by sharing these expert stances with them. Likewise, very specific communities of practice use particular reading strategies when reading the texts required of them, e.g. lawyers when reading legal documents, historians reading artifacts, software designers reading code. (See Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001; and Wilhelm, 2001 for full discussions of task-specific reading strategies.) Furthermore, such experts bring specific content knowledge and content strategies to bear when dealing with the substance of such texts. In this book we’ve been exploring how to induct students into the community of reading practice by focusing on strategies not typically taught in schools. Louise Rosenblatt (1978), the most influential of reader response theorists, argues that reading is a transaction that requires a reader to converse with the meaning of a text. The result of this “transaction” is the “poem” which is the result of the meeting of personal meaning and purposes with the codes of a text. In The Reader, the Text, the Poem, she invokes the metaphor of enactment as she argues that “We accept the fact that the actor infuses his [sic] own voice, his own body, his own gestures—in short his own interpretation—into the words of the text. Is he not simply carrying to its ultimate manifestation what each of us as readers of the text must do?” (Rosenblatt, 1978, p. 13) Research conducted by Ross and Roe (1977) led them to maintain that enactment requires the exact same skills as those necessary to basic reading comprehension. They particularly cite how enactment develops the ability to identify key details, plot sequence, character and character motivation; various relationships of details, ideas, and events; and the ability to discern mood, tone, and other constructs. In You Gotta BE the Book (2007b), Jeffrey Wilhelm used a large, robust database to formulate a theory of reading engagement. He used data from that study to specifically argue that reading is more complex than has often been assumed, and that much more significant assistance is required by readers as they engage with more sophisticated texts. As an example, one feature of the texts older students are asked to read is its relatively high inference load and the requirement that students bring meaning to a text and construct meaning with a text that is not explicitly stated by the text. The reader’s first jobs are to articulate a purpose for reading and to build background that will create a context for meaning. After that the reader must be very active, inferring, elaborating, and reflecting as she constructs meaning with the text. To emphasize this point, the literary theorist Roland Barthes (1974) has argued that the reader does not decode but “overcodes.” He further argues that elaboration is the surest sign of engagement in reading. Further, the studies Wilhelm conducted for the writing of You Gotta BE the Book (2007b) and Imagining to Learn (1998) showed that enactment strategies are a particularly powerful way of assisting students to take on the “participant stance,” to participate in and visualize textual worlds, enlivening their engagement with text, and assisting them in creating meaning with text (see Figure 10.1). And that will be the emphasis here: on using enactment/drama strategies to support the readerly activity that is stimulated by the text, and how readers can subsequently use the created experience as an object and tool for thinking. Drama, or enactment, can occur in the following situations: • •
when people agree to “imagine to learn” when participants actively depict other people, forces, or ideas
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• •
when a tension is anticipated, or is “happening”, or “has happened” when actions or behaviors are presented AS IF they is happening in the present moment.
The context within which this dramatic action occurs also contains certain elements of literary art. The enfolding narrative is more than just events; it enables readers to create meaning through devices such as metaphor, characterization, setting, and dramatic motivation.
Criteria: Drama (and Visual) Response Activities When creating drama or visual response activities for students, consider how adolescent readers read and respond to literature, as described in You Gotta BE the Book, and how they “bring meaning forward” learning text by text and activity by activity. Keep in mind the following criteria for achieving meaning making through drama or visual response activities: 1. Each activity should require students to evoke the world of the text. 2. The activities should encourage students to elaborate on the story world, to fill in gaps, to make inferences and to extend their reading beyond the text. 3. The activities should encourage students to revisit textual facts and details and experiences, and to re-organize, bring forward and reflect upon what they learned. 4. The activities should encourage students to achieve a richer and more “valid” reading of the text. 5. The activities should ask students to hone other skills and develop knowledge outside the domain of the text, e.g. learn about interviewing skills, news show formats, review writing, etc. (Cf. Use of drama in Action Strategies, and visuals Reading IS Seeing as well as combination techniques.) 6 The activities should be fun for the kids, and should ask them to learn something they didn’t already know (instead of just revisiting what they already know) and to achieve or practice some new learning processes they do not already master. 7. The activities should do some real world work; pursuing and completing them should help to teach other kids in the class about each other, about the book or unit topic, about ways of reading, and may perhaps be part of a community service or partner school project, etc. In any case, the work should be authentic and have some real-world audiences. Parallels: Reader ————————— Poem ————————————Text Experience —————— Response —————————Text/New Ideas and Experience/challenge Self (bring experience and purpose ——- conversation with other perspective ————- other perspective Participant ——————— meaning —————————-spectator Brings meaning to bear —— elaborates/resists/agrees —— provides alternative perspectives to be respected, considered, lived through
Figure 10.1 Chart of Reading Transaction/Enactment Transaction
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8. These activities should display your knowledge of the text and of the ways in which art and drama work
Basic Drama Strategies In its simplest terms, drama is a way of bringing a story into action. It involves actors, a story told in real time, a setting, a sense of the actors’ motivations, and a means for bringing the story to life. Preparing actors, or students in this case, to bring a story to life requires significant preparation. Here, then, are a number of activities that students can engage in to ensure that they are prepared for a full-fledged dramatization.
Role-play Students assume the different perspectives of characters, objects, forces or ideas and interact with others, also assuming some kind of role. Students are provided with a dramatic situation and something to discuss, achieve, and be able to deliver or report on after the role-play. Role-plays are typically quite short (60–90 seconds) although they can be extended as students get more experience. They are important, though, because they give students the opportunity to inhabit a point of view and to enact that perspective. As a further role-playing activity, students can move around a “carousel,” inhabiting a series of roles, each in turn. They can also engage in a role-played question and answer session, answering questions as they believe their character would.
Hotseating Hotseating intensifies role-playing by putting students “on the spot” so they can be addressed, advised, interviewed, and questioned by a forum of students also in role, as journalists, other characters or interested parties, etc. This technique helps students improve their ability to analyze characters, infer, elaborate, and think on their feet. A “life line” group can assist the person or people on the hotseat, as needed. (Variations: Good Angel/Bad Angel, Inner Voice, panel discussion or press conference.)
Mantle of the Expert This strategy involves taking on the persona of a person who has a certain expertise, and to operate within a story world or imagined context with this expert person’s knowledge and power (for resources: http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com). This technique helps students learn the ways of thinking and knowing that experts use to understand, produce, represent, and use content knowledge. (Variations/Extensions: Creating imaginary and real social action artifacts.)
Discussion Dramas This technique supports student talk and conversation about issues that matter by putting them in role and in a group of other students. This frees students to explore issues and express opinions that they want to deal with, but without being personally responsible for these viewpoints since they are expressed “in role.” By using these enactments, students not only deepen their understanding through talk, but their participation increases and they are more willing to try out new points of view. Through these discussions they also enhance their thinking skills. (Variations: Forum, Radio Show.)
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Correspondence Dramas These enactments are any writing the student does while in role. They provide students with a purpose, meaningful information, a situation and an audience. Writing also helps deepen a student’s awareness of how different types of text are constructed. (Variations: Postcard exchange, Choral Montage.)
Re-enactments and Interventions These are two different families of enactment techniques that can be used before, during or after reading. The first family is re-enactments that prepare and assists students to figure out and represent the literal and implied meanings of text. The second family of enactments is strategies for intervening, reframing, recasting, changing, and probing texts. These strategies will help students figure out what texts are explicitly and implicitly saying, and are not saying, and how a different construction would change the text and the text’s meaning.
Tableaux Vivant The word tableau is derived from the French word for visual—and in this case living (in French, “vivant”)—presentation. Tableaux help students visualize and explore both the text and the subtext of a narrative, including setting, scenes, situations, characters, relationships, and meanings. Using this technique, students can ALSO represent vocabulary and create mental models of complex concepts and procedure. (Variations: Video Clip, Slide Show, Best/Worst Scenario.) (See General resources on teaching drama on the website.)
THE POWER AND FLEXIBILITY OF DRAMA Drama, also known as enactment or action strategies (see Wilhelm, 2003), helps students to evoke, experience, interpret, and reflect on all kinds of texts. Drama strategies are assistive in making sophisticated strategies of reading visible and available to students in powerful ways that help them to use, experiment with, and ultimately internalize these strategies. In addition to drama, you can also use a range of other tools to help bolster students’ confidence and engagement in their reading. The Chicago Teachers Center is an amazing group of educators who work in various ways to improve the learning environments and achievement of students throughout the Chicago Public School system. One of their missions, among many others, is to incorporate the arts as a learning tool across the curriculum. At several of the schools teachers are using various forms of enactment throughout readings as a strategy to support reading comprehension and engagement. They are also using enactment strategies after reading to create knowledge artifacts to reflect on and represent what had been learned through a unit of study. Through using these strategies, the schools that were on probation for low-test scores in reading achievement had been rapidly improving in their scores (as well as in several other ways cited by teachers, like sense of community, interest, attendance). Recently, several of the schools were engaged in a unit studying the rainforest. Several teachers from each school had gone on an expedition to the Amazon and had communicated with students back in Chicago through email and Internet postings. They brought back numerous artifacts and video footage for students to study. Later teachers and most of the students from the Audubon School near Wrigley Park dressed up as
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favorite literary characters in a special celebration during which all students would present to their classes in character as they provided a book report and made a case for reading their character’s books. The event culminated with a parade through the neighborhood. In the end, the students were able to use what they had learned from the artifacts and videos of the Amazon as they enacted their roles in this dramatized version of life in the Amazon basin.
Situating Role-Plays Start with a “close to home” role-playing activity. Select a character and have students brainstorm information that character would know and how they would feel. Try to connect the character’s life or problem to something in the student’s world. You could use the roleplay planning steps on p. 174 to help you get started.
As the school day began, 6th grade teacher Lara DiPardo was using enactment to review important rainforest concepts that they would now use as they engaged in a social action project. She first asked the students to use vocabulary tableaux, pictures created visually with their bodies, to represent concepts like “deforestation,” “global warming,” “ecosystems,” “symbiosis,” and other sophisticated ideas. Students from different groups then combined to perform short skits showing the relationship of these ideas. The teacher then asked students to do “character walks” showing the life experiences of indigenous people and various species of flora and fauna due to recent changes wrought in the rainforest environment. She then asked them to walk into the future to imagine what might happen next under various scenarios.
Freezing the Action/Creating a Tableaux Vivant Have students create a “living statue” of a vocabulary word or idea, the meaning of a story, or thought of a character, of a scene or a predicted event. Bring a STILL OR VIDEO camera into class so you can document your students’ use of the Tableaux strategy. Start a bulletin board displaying the Tableaux they create. Have students do an explanation of why they chose to do their Tableaux in a particular way and post those along with the pictures.
The students used these ideas and experiences as fodder for brainstorming social action projects that could affect the various outcomes they foresaw. A design workshop had been set up and students created woodcut cards of various scenes and animals from the rainforest. These were beautifully printed in organic black ink on recycled cream paper. The students planned to use these cards to write letters to the superintendent of schools and various political figures as they outlined environmental issues (implicating the schools and local community as they did so!) and proposed solutions to these problems. One group, for example, had found in their research that Boise Cascade, the prime supplier of paper products to the district, harvested old growth forests. The students recommended that a public statement be made, and that business instead be turned over to companies that harvested only new growth forests. Other students argued for the gradual elimination of paper from the school system as students could use electronic technologies notably absent in the school. Returning to a neighborhood school concept to eliminate busing and many other ideas of environmental import were offered. The energy was uncommonly high, and all the students that Jeffrey spoke with were entirely engaged with their work. Several asked him if he was going to stay for the
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character parade they would be marching in during that afternoon. The sense of school community was astonishing. Jeffrey traveled next to Otis School in an old building near the downtown area comprised entirely of Latino students, most of whom spoke English as a second language. The 5th grade class had taken on the “mantle of the expert” to design a museum, turning an entire classroom and hallway into a rainforest museum exhibit that represented what they had learned. Students played various roles in this museum. Jeffrey was escorted by two museum guides who took him first into the upper canopy, which had been created with great artistic dexterity. Both real and artificial exhibits of plants, insects, and animals were accompanied by informational placards and essays. Some students role-played the parts of particular flora and fauna with whom visitors could converse. Jeffrey not only elicited specific information from them, but their feelings about the changes in their environment. He then proceeded to the middle and lower canopy, and finally into the Amazon River itself where he met pink dolphins (paper-mâché) and piranhas (taxidermical) and a variety of other aquatic life (role-played by students). As Jeffrey continued back to shore he felt himself getting wet. As he looked up, he noticed students behind a facade misting the people in the forest! Talk about virtual reality.
Assuming the Mantle of the Expert Decide on a focus for trying the Mantle of the Expert technique. What is the next unit or text you are teaching? How can you use Mantle of the Expert to put your students in the position of exercising the authority and ideas of an expert, in ways that will help your students move from being more novice to more expert? What can they create, real or imagined, to demonstrate their expertise and ways of solving the kinds of problems that confront the expert they are role-playing?
As Jeffrey left this exhibit, he entered one about “indigenous people” (these were the words used by his 5th grade guide!). The students playing these parts were preparing food with malioc and nuts and other native staples. They carefully explained to Jeffrey how the malioc must be prepared to avoid poisoning oneself. Being a trusting kind, he accepted their explanation and ate a malioc pancake. Jeffrey spoke with the students, in their role as indigenous people, at length about their life, religion, beliefs, and lifestyle. From there he went to a storytelling center where he heard native stories, and then to the final exhibit which was staffed by students role-playing environmentalists. Jeffrey spoke to these students about ecosystems, symbiosis, chemical degradations, and deforestation and was astonished at their profound understandings. The tour guides informed him about some real world opportunities to sign petitions, to lend support to various environmental organizations to help purchase tracts of rainforest for a reserve, and gave him a check sheet of things he could do in his own home to protect the rainforests and the general environment. They said they hoped to add an exhibit about protecting the environment to their already impressive museum. They hoped to do so before the exhibit was opened to the general public and other schools. You see, the museum had been such a success that community members and other teachers in the network wanted their students to experience it too. Enactment strategies had been used to create a real living knowledge document that did the real work of representing what students had learned and helping others to learn it too. One of the teachers told Jeffrey, “This whole project has really helped the students to seize!”
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Jeffrey thought her comment odd and assumed she meant “engage” as in “seize the idea or seize the day.” Jeffrey agreed with her and readily offered that the students seemed very excited and deeply immersed in the subject. “Well, yes,” she agreed, “but that’s not what I meant.” “Oh,” Jeffrey replied, “you meant it helps them to SEE in a new way! I couldn’t agree more! They clearly have taken on the lens of other perspectives— the indigenous people, even the insects—and most profoundly they see from the future. It certainly has transformed their vision and their ability to see.” The teacher was patient as she explained that this too was true, but she had been using S.E.E.S as an acronym. She meant that the enactment work used to construct the museum had helped the students to Support each others’ learning and construct understandings together, to Experience the rainforest almost as if they had been there, to Embody new ways of knowing and being in the world, and to Share what they had learned with others. The drama work had helped them create knowledge and had made their knowledge visible and accountable to each other, their teachers, and now the community. Jeffrey was quite taken with the S.E.E.S. acronym and agreed once again wholeheartedly. Jeffrey’s research into drama and enactment, as well as engagement, reading and learning, has demonstrated that these are some of the central things dramatic enactments help students to do as readers and learners, though this is not the full extent of enactment’s potential by any means! As gratified and as impressed as Jeffrey was with the students’ work in these two schools, these were not singular experiences. We see this kind of excitement, devotion to reading for the purpose of making and sharing things together, and the satisfaction that comes from a significant achievement over and over again in all of our work with schools. These benefits accrue when using enactment for two minutes to explore a character’s decision making process or the meaning of vocabulary, and they accrue when students engage in more extended kinds of enactments like mantle of the expert dramas (Heathcote & Bolton, 1995), living history museums (Wilhelm & Edmiston, 1998; Wilhelm, 2003), or the rainforest exhibit described here. Enactment/drama strategies comprise a powerful repertoire of tools for both teaching and learning because students actively create meaning together, listen to each other, explore implications, and enjoy themselves. The drama context itself provides what can be called “environmental assistance” that encourages and co-produces meaning-making. Throughout the rest of this chapter, we’ll take a close look at a few particular kinds of strategies and the work they can do to assist readers. Though the focus here will be on supporting and assisting students to grow in their interpretive facility while reading literature, and on learning from reading, enactment has many other powerful benefits that relate to reading. It can help students to learn difficult concepts from a variety of subject areas; it can provide a situation and context for learning; it can support and guide the pursuit of various kinds of inquiry. Enactment supports students to ethically explore and engage with issues, and as we saw here, to work together in a democratic community. Jeffrey’s own research studies with colleague Brian Edmiston have demonstrated how all of these things can happen through the use of enactment strategies (Wilhelm & Edmiston, 1998). This research also demonstrates how enactment strategies work to help teachers integrate content area instruction, infuse all of the arts into their teaching, co-research both the process of learning and conceptual content topics with students and each other, and to generally revitalize and energize their teaching through the use of drama.
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Reenactment dramas, discussion dramas, and correspondence dramas allow the students to perform the same roles, but in different forms. By choosing differing forms of dramatization, teachers can accommodate differing learning styles, create variety in the role-plays, and build writing into the students’ dramatic repertoire.
DRAMA, VALUES, FEELINGS, AND CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING In interpreting literature, students are continually drawing on their values in explaining or judging characters’ actions, for example, whether Nora’s leaving her husband in A Doll’s House (Ibsen, 2005) is justified. Their ability to interpret and respond to texts therefore depends on their ability to define and draw on their values in interpreting texts when they are responding to play productions or writing their own plays. (See Plays/ playwriting/play production and Teaching Shakespeare on the website.) Similarly, in using drama or simulation activities, you are placing students in situations in which they say certain things or adopt certain actions that reflect certain moral or ethical stances in “safe” contexts. Then, in post-drama reflections, they are learning to reflect on the attitudes and values shaping decisions they make in portraying certain roles. As Peter Singer (1991) argues, “We cannot avoid involvement in ethics, for what we do—and what we don’t do—is always a possible subject of ethical evaluation. Anyone who thinks about what he or she ought to do is, consciously or unconsciously, involved in ethics” (p. v). Because drama activities often revolve around addressing issues, problems, or conflicts from the literature they are reading – or that are analogous to or extensions of ideas from their reading (for example, extending a reading of A Doll’s House (Ibsen, 2005) to consider how to create a new school policy on addressing issues of sexual harassment), students are learning to reflect on ethical and moral aspects of issues and then decide on how to act on the basis of those ethical or moral stances. In taking ethical or moral stances, students are learning how to connect their own identities to others through social relationships, connections defined through using language and discourse. As Bakhtin (1984) notes: “To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout this whole life . . . he invest his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into a dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium” (p. 293). In engaging in these dialogues with others in drama, students are confronted with other, alternative perspectives that serve to challenge their own perspectives. And, in committing themselves to act in a certain way, they must accept responsibility for the consequences of adopting certain actions or of not selecting other actions, choices involves constructing their identities based on confirming their ethical stances. As Bakhtin (1990) notes: “When my act is a specifically ethical act, then my reflection upon it and my account of it start determining me as well and involve my own determinateness” (p. 144). In participating in drama activities over time, students face the consequences of their actions and decisions, which challenges their status quo beliefs and attitudes. For example, a group of students are engaged in a Space Traders drama activity (Wilhelm & Edmiston, 1998) in which they are having to decide on whether to trade certain groups of people. In the beginning of the drama, one student, Anthony, explained his decision to “trade” people on welfare to the Aliens by stating that “It doesn’t matter if they die, they’re worthless anyway” (p. 92). During the drama, other students challenged Anthony’s belief that the people of welfare were “worthless.” And, after he lost his own job and
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had to go to the alien universe himself, he began to realize that he was actually passing judgment on people like himself. So, on the fifth day of the drama, he noted, “I’ve changed my mind. You can’t decide for other people. Even if we need the money we can’t make them go—they’re people too” (p. 94). And, through her experience of the drama, another student, Jenny, reflected on her initial decision to ban the welfare people from Earth: At first, I thought that the aliens could take our prisoners or the welfare people because we didn’t need them. Then after I thought about it I kind of changed my mind. You can’t put a price on a person’s life. It was very prejudiced for me to do that. Maybe it was a mistake and they regret it and then it would be too late for them. Maybe they couldn’t help not getting a job. We were all too selfish and to quick to judge and decide. (p. 99)
Drama and Prior Knowledge Students are also continually drawing on their prior knowledge to interpret literature. Rather than perceive “knowledge” simply as a set of facts or information, we define knowledge more broadly to include their ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and understandings about the world, which they are continually constructing through their life experiences. Through participating in drama activities, students are drawing on their ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and understandings to employ dialogue, define their roles, make decisions, adopt certain stances, or recognize the consequences of their actions. They need to activate relevant schema and relate their personal experiences to create and sustain a drama world. Here, for example, is Michelle, a 7th grade student, describing her experience in a drama about the Hoovervilles during the Depression: When we started I didn’t understand how all the people were so poor. I just thought they were lazy or something and that they should have tried harder to get a job, or should have moved where the jobs were. So then we tried it out in the drama and I couldn’t get a job. Then I got one and somebody accepted less pay, and then only meals, but I had a family so I couldn’t do that. And I moved, but I couldn’t find work there either and in the end I lived in a cardboard box and I was really frustrated and angry. Then the people [health inspectors] came and kicked us out . . . It really made me understand . . . I just didn’t get it when I read about it.
In engaging in drama, students are also learning to infuse their knowledge with feelings— that facts, ideas, beliefs, and understandings are shaped by the emotions of love, hate, envy, desire, anger, grief, resentment, sadness, loss, happiness, or jealousy shaping actions. As Mark, a 7th grader, notes: School is about facts—mostly boring facts—drama is about making facts exciting because you add the feelings . . . Drama takes facts and asks how they might have been different or how the facts might affect you or someone else and how all that would feel. That’s why I like drama.
Drama and Cultural Understanding In reading literature, students need to be able to interpret characters’ actions within their social and cultural contexts, for example, understanding the characters in Hawthorne
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within the world of the Puritan’s values. In participating in drama, students are transported into and experiencing different social and cultural worlds. For example, in creating a drama activity based on a Hawthorne short story, e.g. by having students create monologues in role as Goodman Brown and Faith, and then interviewing these students in role, participants are experiencing how Puritan characters based their decisions on religious beliefs about good and evil, and how this affected their attitudes and relationships. Drama is therefore a kind of ethnographic research tool for learning to observe and experience distant cultures and historical eras as distinct from our own cultural or historical context. Learning how to act and think and talk “like a Puritan” requires students to understand what the Puritans valued and how those values differ from their own values, for example, the fact that they assumed that people are easily susceptible to evil. It is also a phenomenological research tool. Phenomenology posits the value of learning to attend to one’s own and others’ experiences through bracketing out forces shaping perceptions of that experience. In drama, students are adopting the insider perspectives and thoughts of others, a means for understanding how others perceive and experience the world in ways that differ from their own ways of perceiving and experiencing. In learning to think “like a Puritan,” they are learning to perceive the world through a different, less familiar prism. And, drama is also an action-research tool in that inside their drama experience, students can take action, reflect and evaluate the effectiveness of the action and how it changed the context through their re-seeing that context. This likewise can inspire social action in the world. Drama, as reflected in the “theater of the oppressed” movement, can lead to social or community change related to a social justice agenda by having students address issues of homelessness, poverty, racial/ethic conflict, unemployment, inadequate health care, etc. (Boal, 1985; 2002; Rohd, 1998).
IMPLEMENTING DRAMA ACTIVITIES In implementing drama activities, it is often helpful to begin with activities that serve to help students become comfortable in participating in drama activities. These can be activities that don’t look like traditional role-play.
Vote With Your Feet/Four Corners The teacher reads a statement that pertains to the inquiry unit at hand or a text that students will read. A sign in each corner of the room can signify: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. Students walk to the corner that designates their thinking about the statement, e.g. before a story involving civil rights, statements like the following would work: • • •
Children need their rights protected more vigorously than those of any other group. You can trust authorities to work in your best interest. History shows that people continue to win more and more civil rights over time.
This activity works as a frontloading activity. When students congregate in the corner designating their answer, they can converse about why they are positioned there. They can send emissaries to other groups to convince them to change their mind. They can be interviewed by the teacher or a student about why they have responded to the statement in the way that they have.
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Role-play Activities Once students are comfortable with using nonverbal and verbal communication to express their roles, they can then begin to participate in role-play or skit activities. These roleplay activities could be based on a scene from a story or novel or a situation in their own life. In choosing scenes or situations, it is often helpful to focus on a key conflict, tension, or decision that is dividing characters/people, but is difficult to resolve. You may also provide students with specific descriptions of traits, attitudes, beliefs, agendas, or goals—on slips of paper so that they do not know the different roles or have them all know about the traits, attitudes, beliefs, agendas, or goals.
Considerations in Planning Role-play Typically, students role-play in pairs. We allow students to choose their own partners so they can work with someone with whom they are comfortable. The role-plays run simultaneously. They are short, unscripted, and simultaneous. To frame and plan the role-plays, use the following tips: Choose content: “What do I want my students to learn about?” This can be conceptual knowledge like learning about civil rights or harassment, or procedural knowledge like learning the reading strategy of inferring character. Choose context: “What set of circumstances from the story (stated or implied) will motivate and require learning?” Tensions and turning points provide rich places for role-play. Choose roles: “Who will the students be? What new perspectives or information will be opened up from these perspectives?” Choose your possible roles: “Who will I be (as the teacher-in-role) and how can I assist and complexify student learning from these positions? From what positions can I add knowledge to the enactment?” Choose a motivating purpose and action: “What will this role-play be about? What will students have to do? What clear achievable goal can students be given that will serve our larger purposes? How does this connect to student concerns?” Choose a deliverable: What will students report out on, or create during their role-play? How will they be accountable to do and produce something during their role-play?
Using Think-Alouds and Enactment To Teach Inferencing with “The Chaser” (See Related files on the website.) After Seth and Jeffrey had their discussion cited in the introduction to this chapter, they put together a lesson plan to teach inferencing using John Collier’s (1977) story “The Chaser” (see Figure 10.2). Seth also created several other lessons to reinforce the same strategies. Seth knew that enactments comprise a repertoire of strategies that are extremely powerful for all readers, learners, and teachers. They encourage and assist readers to do many things that they cannot do without support. The reading strategies that enactments provide the most support for are those that the National Assessment for Education Progress reading test results show what American students most lack: the ability to see complex implied relationships, make inferences, elaborate, see from multiple perspectives, discern subtexts, identify author’s generalizations, understand how text structure contributes to
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text meaning, express opinions and justify them with textual and life evidence. The repertoire of enactment strategies also helps learners in all knowledge domains, assisting them to use the language, strategies, stances, and concepts of experts as they are given practice and apprenticed into an expert community of practice (Wagner, 1999). In this section, we present a story drama that was used in a unit around the inquiry theme: “What makes and breaks relationships?” We consider the topic to be personally relevant and socially significant. Students are interested in it, but have a lot to learn. The unit can cut across many texts, both popular and canonical, and knowledge domains, as we look at the history of dating and courting rituals, the biochemistry and psychology of love and many other topics. We use a variety of enactment strategies in this story to help students see complex implied relationships, read the subtext, and arrive at the author’s implied meaning so that they can discuss this, consider it, reject, adapt or embrace it for us in their life. We use this story early in the unit and in many ways it prepares students for the final project which is to create a documentary about some aspect of love or relationships that has piqued their interest during the unit.
REFLECTION ON PARTICIPATION IN DRAMA ACTIVITIES One of the most important components of enactment/drama activity occurs after the completion of the activity when students step outside to reflect on their experience in their roles. Students can discuss the degree to which they felt comfortable or awkward, strong or weak, active or passive, or connected or alone and explore the reasons for this. They can consider how the enactment might provide an “imaginative rehearsal for living,” informing them in some way about what they could and should not do in future situations, about consequences and ramifications they may not have yet considered. Students can also explore what roles assumed the most versus least power and reasons for power differences. They can reflect on any decisions reached in the role-play in terms of whether such decisions would also occur in similar “real-world” contexts. For example, if the school board decided to censor a book in the censorship role-play, students could discuss whether such a decision would be made by their actual school board. Why or why not? How could what does not seem possible be brought into the realm of possibility? And, students could reflect on what they learned about the issue, conflict, problem, or phenomena addressed in the role-play and possible solutions they could develop in real-world contexts.
The Power of Enactment in Fostering Reading Improvement Think of all the things that were achieved to assist readers during the short set of story drama enactments with “The Chaser.” Before reading, enactments help students to: • • • • • •
activate their prior knowledge and relevant background experiences connect a text to related texts, either in terms of content, text structure, or both build the schematic knowledge/content background necessary to comprehend the text set purposes for reading build motivation to read prepare emotionally and cognitively for the reading experience.
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GOALS Personal: To help students bring their personal experience to a productive meaning-making experience with a complex text with a high inference load. Conceptual: To explore our unit theme of “What makes and breaks relationships?” Procedural: To help students see complex implied relationships in a story, and assist them to work on inferencing in service of making meaning with this story.
FRONTLOADING/MACRO-FRAME Mantle of the Expert Strategy Students count off to form groups of four or five. The teacher informs the students that each group is cast as crack teams of undercover CNN reporters. They are going to be going into schools and clubs to find out about the latest date drug, a kind of love potion that seems to have extraordinary powers. The teacher tells them that she will be the head of CNN and will brief them on their assignment. Then the teacher asks if they are ready to enter the enactment. As we enter the enactment the teacher in-role tells the students in-role as CNN reporters that she has very sketchy details about the story because it is not yet public. It is their job to get the scoop so we can break the story. All we know is that one male and one female are in hospital, stark raving mad with love for someone their friends have told police they have never even liked. The police suspect foul play in the form of a love drug. Both victims attend the same school and went to the same club over the weekend. The teacher asks if there are questions. There are usually a plethora of questions from the students, in role as CNN undercover reporters. Some things can be revealed because the teacher has read the story and responses can be kept consistent with the story. For instance, we tell students that the drug seems to be affordable to young people. Other things about their role of reporters (reporters are not in the story, just a role from which we want them to engage with the story, since reporters must consider multiple perspectives, judge narrator reliability, and connect various dots and make inferences to figure out the “real” story), we make up, as we tell them they will got combat pay since this assignment is so dangerous. We are sending them in teams because we don’t know if they are in danger of being affected. They will have high tech undercover cameras and recording gear, etc. If they refuse the assignment it will not be held against them, etc. Many other things we claim not to know, like is the drug natural or synthetic, where are the kids getting it, what are its exact effects, etc. We tell them that this is what they have to find out. We conclude by wishing them good luck and asking them “to be careful out there.”
Take Action/Discussion Drama Try a discussion drama technique instead of leading a typical classroom discussion. Remember, it might take some modeling and framing to help students get going. How did what eventually happened differ from a typical classroom discussion? After this initial Mantle of the Expert forum drama (because they are playing expert reporters in a group responding to a leader), we tell them that they will engage in a few other enactments playing other roles. But all of the subsequent enactments and our reading of the story will be data they can use at the end of the story when they prepare their final news report to break the story on CNN.
Figure 10.2 “The Chaser” Lesson Plan
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GETTING STARTED Group role-play/costs and benefits We then proceed to another pre-reading enactment activity. This time we tell the students they will be students in the school cafeteria. The teacher-in-role will run in and offer them some of this drug and they will have only a minute to ask questions before the monitor returns and the teacher-inrole must run out. Students are then to discuss at their tables about whether they should buy some of the drug. What are the potential costs and benefits of using the drug on someone they really like but who isn’t returning their affection? We ask if they are ready to enter the enactment. The teacher-in-role runs in and yells, “Hey, hey, the teacher is gone. I have some of that stuff. You know what I am talking about. And you know you could use it! We are selling 25 pops, first come first serve. 25 dollars. Cash on the barrelhead. Any questions?” We field a few questions and then run out as an imaginary teacher returns, yelling, “Decide whether you can afford to pass this opportunity up!” The first questions usually revolve around payment and whether we will take credit (no), will the drug work on males and females, or on a person of the same sex (yes, be careful how you use it), will it work on more than one person at a time (We don’t know), how many times can they use a pop (just once, we think), where did we get the stuff (none of their business, or from the local university’s pharmacology lab), have I tried it. (We don’t happen to need it—this usually gets a laugh.) They talk for a while and we stalk around the lunchroom in role, secretly mixing it up with different groups to stimulate or complicate their discussions. After a few minutes, or when we sense the topic has been covered, we yell out, “The teacher is gone again. And the bell is about to ring. Tommy and I will be selling the stuff at the car!” At this point we field a few more questions that may have come up and then leave the drama world. Outside of the drama, students list the attractions and worries they have about this drug that came up in this role-play. This will alert them to hints in the story about the implied consequences of using the drug. These ideas can be put on an anchor chart and added to throughout their reading and reflection on the story.
Teacher think-aloud of “The Chaser” Next we read the story aloud, completing a think-aloud that concentrates on seeing patterns, connecting the dots, reading subtexts, and seeing complex implied relationships between various story details. We take special care to go slowly at the beginning of the story, putting the students into the game. We point out the importance of the title and Alan’s name. We notice incongruities, wondering why the old man doesn’t have a name, why he seems so educated and polite yet lives in a rundown apartment. We particularly pay attention to how he seems to anticipate Alan’s every question, but won’t answer them. Instead he tells Alan about the poison he has. We make inferences about why Alan is here and what must have happened to him right before the story. We continue to wonder aloud why the old man goes on and on about the “spot remover.” We pay careful attention to the repetition in the description of the love potion and the poison. We cite “rules of notice”—cues that tell us the author wants the reader to notice something: titles, the first few lines, character introductions, repetitions, undue attention and description, weird behaviors, surprises, etc.
Frozen Moment We stop after the old man describes the obsession the young lady will feel for Alan after being subjected to the drug. Alan says, “That is love!” We tell the students that the meaning of this story
Figure 10.2 continued
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is subtextual and must be inferred by them as it is not directly stated. To help them, we are going to freeze this moment in the story and examine what might be going on in Alan’s mind so we can see the various ways this action he is taking might be thought about, and the different consequences to which it might lead.
Hotseating with Good Angel/Bad Angel We then assign each group of students to be a council of bad angels or good angels, with half the class playing each. We tell them that Alan is at a moment of crisis and the good angels from each group must send a representative to save him. They must use any argument that is justified by the story to convince him not to buy and use the love potion!
Take Action/Hotseat Plan a Hotseat activity with the whole class before you ask them to do it in groups. Select an article for the whole class to read. You can model by being the first to take the Hotseat, or you can be an inner voice revealing what the character is withholding or lying about, or you can be a good angel whispering consolation or advice to the character, etc. Think about a particular character or concept that is especially difficult to teach. What is it about that character or concept that makes it difficult? Use the Hotseat technique to help students understand this character or concept. We turn to the bad angels and say that the “goody two shoes” good angels are on the case. It is the bad angels’ job to get down to earth and convince Alan to go ahead with his plan. They can use any argument justified by the story—and allowed in school—to make their case. To do this, students must make inferences about Alan, why he is so desperate to get the love drug, and what kinds of interventions might work with him. Students have three minutes to brainstorm and choose a representative to visit Alan (in smaller classes we might allow two representatives or everyone to visit Alan in role). When this is done, we ask for a volunteer to play Alan. When the angels come up they are to line up on opposite sides of Alan. One good angel speaks to him and flies off, then a bad angel, and so on. If other students feel compelled to jump in and join the lines because they have something that needs to be said, they are free to do so (and this often happens!). We tell Alan that he is free to listen or to engage any angel he wishes in conversation. We typically limit each angel to 30 seconds. Then the enactment begins. This usually has hilarious results, with good angels making logical or ethical comments and inferences like “Do you really want her to love you because of a drug and not because of who you are?” “Alan, don’t do it. Why do you think it is so cheap? He is tricking you into having to buy the poison from him!” Occasionally a good angel comes up with something like “Did you ever see Fatal Attraction, Alan? Watch out, this is going to be bad news!” But generally the sneaky and emotional and immediate gratification arguments belong to the bad angels who say things like, “Alan, you are a loser. This is your only chance to have a great girlfriend. And you’’ll never have it again!” “Alan, everything you ever wanted. Go for it!” And so on. After the Good angel/Bad angel role-play, we keep Alan in the hotseat and ask him how it felt. Whereas kids find hearing only the Good Angel comforting, they sometimes find hearing both angels confusing and disconcerting. We always ask whose arguments were most convincing.
Figure 10.2 continued
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Interestingly, kids almost always find the bad angels most convincing (adults tend to go about 50–50). This gives us a chance to do some “imaginative rehearsal for living” to freeze time and examine what has happened. Why are the emotional, immediate arguments more convincing then the logical, far-sighted ones? What does this tell us about our immediate reactions to dilemmas and how we should deal with them? Not being totally naive, we know that our students are faced with drugs and many other temptations, and we know they are confronted with many confusing issues regarding relationships. We think it is very important to rehearse imaginatively what they might do in analogous real life situations and to examine their natural responses, their options and potential consequences closely. Many of the enactments we do with students revolve around edgy topics like child abuse, drugs, family problems and the like. We could never address these issues directly, though we know many of our students suffer from them or know people who do. But in an enactment it is safe to explore the issues, because it is not about you and your experience, it is imaginary. This is what drama theorists call the “liminality” of drama or literary worlds—they exist on the “limen” or “threshold” between what is real and imaginary, and therefore ideas and actions can be played with and tried out in ways that might not be possible in real life. When we deal with drugs (or any other dangerous or edgy issue) in a drama, we are sure to include what we know about the dangers of drug abuse and how to get help, and we will do so inside the drama. When we deal with child abuse we make sure, in role, that students know that it is the law that you must report even the slightest suspicion of child abuse to an authority, and we make sure through the drama that they know who these authorities are. Kids often ask questions in role that they would not ask as themselves, but they really are asking for themselves or someone they know. When people question this tactic, we tell them that just because I ignore a problem doesn’t mean it goes away. We want to help students deal with real issues, and we want them to see that literature and other texts are a powerful way to do so.
Group think-alouds Now that the subtext of the story has been articulated by the angels, and the various eventualities implied by the story facts have been highlighted, we ask students to read the rest of the story in their groups. We ask them to underline any textual cues that express implications about future action, or any clues that imply something about a character and what they are like or will become. Then on sticky notes, we ask them to explain what rules of notice cued them to notice this (was it a surprise, a repetition, did it get undue attention, was it the ending) and what they inferred. After everyone is done with the reading, we ask students to share what cues they underlined, why they knew to notice them, and what they inferred from them. Having practiced identifying cues for seeing complex implied relationships, and having reviewed in several ways what will probably happen after the story (an inference that is absolutely essential to understanding the author’s meaning), we return them to their roles as undercover reporters.
CNN Special Report Tableaux/Video Clips We then tell the students that we will return to the CNN enactment. We tell them that the story of Alan and Diana will be the centerpiece of our news story that is going to break tomorrow. And we have the scoop!
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One or two groups have footage of what happened to Alan before the story that caused him to go to the old man. They will show this is as a still or as a short video clip. Everyone must be involved, and they may include a voiceover or CNN reporter commenting on the action. Another group or two have video of what happened between Diana and Alan the night he received the potion. They will show a still or clip of that and do a CNN commentary. The next group/s will show Alan and Diana six weeks after the administration of the potion, and the final group/s will do the ultimate end of the story after the story—the reason we must break the story now. Depending on the number of groups, a final group could provide a thematic analysis and commentary on the story after the story. All of these tableaux presentations require students to use textual evidence to see and infer complex implied relationships, something that few American students have been shown to do. But the enactment strategies actively assist them to do it. After giving students a few minutes to prepare, we reenter the CNN Drama. I tell them we are about to break the story, but they now have the chance in the screening room to see what the other groups of reporters have got and how the whole story will come together. I ask the first group to cue up their video and we get going. We have done this drama many times and students have always achieved a justifiable reading of the story, i.e. that the chaser is the drink after the drink, the poison that must follow the potion because Diana will be driving Alan crazy. As one boy put it in his think-aloud, “It sounds like she’ll become another mom! Who needs another mom?” A couple of groups found ways to bring Alan down with Diana, by having her insist that they drink together to their love or some such thing. But if a group did come up with an inconsistent conclusion, the enactment allows us to explore what they missed, and how this could be corrected. And because enactments are always exploratory and can be revised, we can rewind the tape and try it again. I sometimes use interviews with the Old Man and his Alter Ego as a follow up to the story. What questions would reporters want to ask him? How would he answer? What would he really be thinking? What are such people really like and how can you tell who they are?
Radio Show Radio show is a kind of discussion drama during which students take on any role they want to comment on a particular issue by “calling in.” Students, in role, can stake their opinion on the radio show, and can also respond to each other, providing “uptake” as they create meaning together. To begin, tell the students that there is a big issue to discuss: in the case of “The Chaser”, students can be asked to call in about whether a powerful love potion should be made available under certain conditions, e.g. to marriage counselors. Clearly, this parallels many current cultural debates about legalizing marijuana or other drugs under certain circumstances. Give students 2–3 minutes to confer with a neighbor about identifying who might have strong opinions about this issue, and to brainstorm what that person might have to say about it. They can call in as themselves, as characters from the story, as literary characters studied like Odysseus and Penelope, Romeo or Juliet, or political figures like Obama, popular culture commentators like Dr. Phil or Dr. Laura, divorce lawyers, any one at all who might have something to say on the issue. Ask students to write down who they might be, where they are from, and a few notes about their feelings on the issue. We often have students rehearse what they will say on the radio show in pairs or small groups before we do the group radio show. Of course, they are free to change or make up new roles as they respond to each other. Discussion during a radio show or other discussion dramas is always energetic. The teacher can
Figure 10.2 continued
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play the talk show radio host and orchestrate and comment on contributions and highlight major ideas to provoke further response. Students enjoy the playfulness, and more points of views are solicited since students do not have to speak as themselves. They enjoy parodying popular culture figures and viewpoints. They are also safer in expressing provocative opinions because they are speaking in role, not as themselves.
Correspondence and choral montage Another technique we find successful and that we often use at the end of “The Chaser” is called correspondence and choral montage. Ask half of the class to become Diana (Alan’s beloved), and to write a diary entry six weeks after the end of the story. Tell them they can start the diary entry with “I don’t know what has happened to me . . .” The other half of the class becomes Alan, and I ask them to write a letter to the old man, that can start with “This isn’t what I expected . . .” These prompts insure that they cannot go wrong—they are being guided to justifiable inferences. The prompts also help them to get going with their writing. After they are done, students exchange the notes and circle a phrase that is especially poignant and powerful to them. Ask them to avoid phrases like “I love him” or that might be considered trite in favor of something more substantive. Once they have chosen the best lines, they now need to put them in the best order. As Coleridge once maintained: poetry is the best words in the best order.
Take Action/Correspondence Drama Choose a text you will read soon with students, or revisit a text or story that you have used for other enactment techniques. Use that text to start students with a correspondence enactment. Begin this technique by having the class select one character from the text, then, as a group, select one type of writing to do in role (note, letter, formal letter, complaint, public service announcement, news release, etc.). Plan and do the writing with the entire class. Remember that you may need to teach them the genre features of the text type you use, whether a public-service announcement, formal letter, news article, etc. Discuss what they learned about the character by doing this correspondence. Have students create a yearbook for the characters in a favorite story. In addition to writing captions about each character, have them decide on which clubs, sports, and other extra curricula activities in which the characters would engage.
Group poem or choral montage Groups of students use their circled phrases to create a group poem, or choral montage. Students put themselves in a physical row, placing themselves where their phrase should go in the poem. Lines may be revised or tweaked. Some may be deleted and another line added. Sometimes a line might work well as a choral echo or ostinato that is repeated throughout the poem. Students can try their poem several ways, moving themselves and their lines to different places so they can see the effect of different orders and structures. This activity is a physical version of mystery pot, a technique in which a short poem or text is cut up into separate sentences and phrases. Students then reorder the text in various ways to see the different ways in which a text could be structured and the different effects. It is the revision process made visible and physical. Such montages not only get at character feelings and attitudes, but typically express the deeper thematic meaning of the story.
Figure 10.2 continued
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During reading, enactments help students to: • • • • • • • • • •
evoke the textual world build and sustain their belief in the textual world use appropriate reading strategies enliven their reading; be motivated to continue reading intensely visualize places, situations, actions and people enter into varying perspectives; help students “become” characters, ideas, forces acting upon the characters infer—to see and make meaning of simple and complex implied relationships connect the text to their lives and/or larger issues of social significance; to elaborate on the textual world engage their ethical imagination, helping them to ask “What if?” “What do we believe?” “What should we do as a result?” assist other’s reading performance through modeling, sharing, collaborative work.
After reading, enactments help students to: • • • • • •
negotiate and reflect on meaning discern, discuss and evaluate author’s vision, i.e. an author’s generalizations, themes, and main ideas reflect on text structure and how this affects meaning consider alternatives and elaborations, going beyond what is directly stated to other possibilities pursue inquiry into questions raised by the text consider how to apply what has been learned from the text to their lives (from Wilhelm, 2003).
Enactments help students to know and do things that they cannot yet do on their own, because they provide teacher, peer and environmental assistance that allows us to deal with strategies and concepts in human contexts and in concrete forms. We physicalize our reading and use the body, our voices, our feelings and our whole being as an instrument of communication and understanding. Enactment allows us to deal with complexity starting with concrete particulars and then to elaborate upon this. Enactments also allow us to bridge from students’ funds of knowledge and the literacies they bring to school. They work by connecting intimately with the identity, family and human connections to more distant concerns and more formal and conventional forms of literacy. Drama bridges from the students’ experiences and concerns, the “close to home”, to what is more distant and “further from home” and yet connected to what is close. Enactments allow us to teach at the point of need, to respond to opportunity, to provide kids a chance to actively construct and play with meanings, to experiment with their own voice, to co-construct curriculum and meaning instead of being the bored recipients of pre-planned lessons unconnected to their current needs and concerns. It is no wonder that enactments are so powerful for teaching given the immediacy, the use of all learning modalities and all the language arts that allow us to address individual differences in a group project and to transform the way students learn and read, the connection of thought and feeling, the rooting of textual reading in a human context that allows us to imaginatively rehearse for real living. Enactments provide us with a
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way to share expertise, and achieve action, agency, and choice that can be exported to the world. Perhaps most importantly, drama/enactment, especially when coupled with literature, can foster and develop the imagination. Imagination is an underemphasized capacity in many schools, and yet it is imagination that we need to perceive possibilities and solve problems, to outgrow our current selves and find new ways of being. Imagination is the springboard that translates ideas into action. Drama, as Jonathan Neelands eloquently tells us (2000), is “a space of possibles”, in which we can work for personal and social transformation, as readers, learners and people. Enactments help us to overcome “habitus,” the accepted way of looking at the world that we see as natural, and to see in new ways – to see that the world is changeable and so are we. To explore these possibilities of what we may become as readers, learners and people, we need a space to imagine “what if,” and that space is provided by enactment.
Conclusion Jeffrey recently returned from a sabbatical in Australia. His daughter Fiona hugely enjoyed school there. This was a great relief as she had been so miserable in her American school, and seemed to be learning so little, that the family had pulled her out and home schooled her for the prior school year. In one heartrending conversation Jeffrey told her, “Honey, you should excel in school. You are smart. You work hard. You are creative, you try things and you can make and perform things.” Her reply, “You don’t get it, Pappy. I don’t go to a school for creative people who make and perform things.” Jeffrey was stunned. Everything that he thought would make her a model student, a dream for a teacher, had been ignored or even discounted by school. Why the sudden change in her attitude, enjoyment and engagement, while in Australia? It is largely due to the fact that her Australian teachers valued the ways in which Fiona learns, and celebrate those things. One way in which Fiona learns is by being active, and her favorite class each day was drama and movement, a class that is required through many Australian schools. Her Australian school privileged multiple ways of knowing and this allows her to be successful and to be assisted into new ways of knowing in which she is less expert. When we use multi-faceted teaching techniques such as drama, we will support new ways of knowing, we will discover hidden student talents, and we will privilege an active culture of joy and learning in our classroom. All of this will foster a love of literature and a greater facility in reading it. (See Sample drama units, lesson plans, and activities on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Describe some drama activities you have participated in and/or have conducted with students. Reflect on differences in your and/or students’ level of engagement in these activities and reasons for variation in level of engagement. Describe what you and/or your students learned from engaging in these activities in terms of specific types of interpretative strategies, for example, perspective-taking or mind-reading.
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CHAPTER 11
Leading Discussions of Literature How Do I Get Students to Talk About Literature?
CASE NARRATIVE
JESSICA’S REFLECTION ON HER STUDENTS’ DISCUSSION OF “THE BEAR” In teaching literature, the ability to effectively lead discussion through use of engaging, open-ended questions is an essential teaching strategy. Learning to facilitate discussions requires extensive practice along with reflection about how one‘s questions are effectively eliciting certain responses or levels of student engagement. In this chapter, we describe teaching strategies for leading discussions, which could serve as the basis of reflection on the uses of those strategies. To illustrate one student teacher’s reflection, the following is Jessica Brend’s reflection on leading a discussion of the William Faulkner (1991) short story, “The Bear,” in her student teaching with an 12th grade literature class. Jessica recognized that “The Bear” has a complex storyline so she knew that she would need to help students understand the story, while at the same time fostering their responses to the story. She therefore used her written reflection to consider how her discussion strategies fostered certain kinds of responses: I had them do a guided reading on their own; they were answering questions while they were reading it. It was all homework. And so the questions they answered were pretty much following the plot line. Who is the main character? What is Ian concerned about, just so that they could read for detail and get the basic story out of it and then ending with a more thoughtful question like, “Do you agree with
Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Jessica’s Reflection on Her Students’ Discussion of “The Bear” Leading Large-Group Discussions Leading Small Group and Book Club Discussions Leading Online Discussions
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the father’s reaction to this, and why or why not.” So you’re taking a position trying to figure out what the philosophies behind the literature were. Then when we came to class we went through the questions, and tried to flesh out what the story was all about and talked in a little more detail about symbolism. In particular there was a small mongrel dog that has an important part of the story. And we talked about what that might symbolize and why it’s mongrel and why that was important to the story and why it’s important that it’s small. We read passages aloud and we talked about just bears in general and why was the bear such an important focus in this story and I showed a clip from a documentary. In the beginning, it shows this guy who’s building this suit so that he can face a grizzly bear and his recollection of meeting a grizzly and the awe and respect he feels, and you know that the bear can kill you at any moment, that hunting feeling. We talked about how it’s similar to the story and how it’s different, and went from there, and then finally I had them do a little piece of writing saying if you were going to tell this story again, how would you tell it? The purpose behind that on my part was to figure out what the tone of the story was. There were definitely rough parts. It was one of the first texts I taught, so a lot of my questions were very pointed, and I had particular answers in mind, and it was a very much a teacher-led discussion, which I wasn’t comfortable doing at first, you know, letting students just discuss the story themselves. But I think it would have been more interesting and more productive for them than if I’d let them go a little bit more on their own way, rather than doing it so formally, you know, question by question. Some people really liked the story and some people didn’t like the story at all. That got me more interested in what is it in the story that makes people react in these strong ways? I was just getting them to go back to the text to find reasons to justify their positions, to figure out whether or not they agreed or disagreed with this character, whether or not you understood why you know this boy acted the way he did, and then trying to find textural support for that. So that was the aim of the discussion. In terms of the handout, there were definitely very identifiable answers and a couple of them were more open-ended, but it was very easy to score because it was more objective, factually based, but at the same time it didn’t get people to really analyze the text. And then the final one, I was just looking for a thoughtful response to how they would use it and what kind of tone they think the text has. How they might adapt that tone for their own use if they were to retell the story. Um, I think it was difficult because I didn’t model it, so some people weren’t exactly sure what to do with it. But over all I was really impressed with the range of answers that I got, and just the amount of time I saw people reflecting on it and writing about it. In response to Jessica’s reflection on this discussion, what do you think that she did effectively in the discussion and what do you think was problematic? What may have been some things that you would have done in this situation to enhance the discussion? To consider what constitutes effective use of talk, recall a time when you had a really good conversation or talk with one or more people. What were the ingredients that contributed to making this a thoughtful or meaningful conversation? What does it mean to be “caught up” in an absorbing conversation? What are some things that happened in this conversation or talk that you could draw on in leading discussions in a classroom.
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LEADING LARGE-GROUP DISCUSSIONS Much of what teachers do in the literature classroom revolves around leading large-group student discussions of literary texts. The aim is to provide students practice in learning to formulate, develop, extend their responses and to help them learn how to interact with their peers in a collaborative manner so that they are learning to mutually develop their responses through their interaction. When students share their individual private responses, they learn to build on each other’s responses to move towards formulating new, composite responses that transcend each of their own individual responses. In facilitating discussions, you will encounter a number of different challenges.
Closed versus Open-ended Questions Unfortunately, teachers often limit the extent to which students can develop their responses. They control discussions in a ritual-like manner through the use of the IRE genre (Mehan, 1979): the teacher initiates (“Mark, what’s the setting of the story?”), the student responds (“Paris”), and the teacher evaluates (“Very good, Mark”). Burbules and Bruce (2001) describe this model of classroom interaction as the “T/S” model in which the teacher controls or dictates classroom interaction and students are simply answering teacher questions with brief, unelaborated answers. As a result, there is no real discussion between students. Much of literature discussion is characterized by the use of closed “fact-check” questions in a ritual-like, IRE (“initiate,” “react,” “evaluate”) manner to determine if students have read a book—asking students to name characters, settings, events, etc. For example, Teacher: “Who’s the main character?” Sue: “Elizabeth Bennet.” Teacher: “Very good, Sue.” These questions are typically designed to determine if students have read the text. They are often also used as a disciplinary tool—to call on students to determine if they are paying attention in the discussion. Continually having to evaluate or reward students with comments such as “good answer,” “that’s correct,” “nice job,” etc., you are also reifying your control over the discussion so that the floor returns back to your evaluation comments after each student response. One alternative is to employ follow-up questions that ask students to elaborate on their responses—“what are some reasons you say that,” or ask for other students to agree or disagree with the original student’s response. These “fact-check” questions are also not authentic, genuine questions in that there’s a correct, predetermined answer—so that students are simply attempting to read a teacher’s mind to determine “what the teacher wants.” The result is a series of teacher-student/ teacher-student interactions with little or no interactions between students central to having a productive discussion. Analysis of average-length classroom literature discussions found that out of every 60 minutes of discussion, only 1.7 minutes were devoted to “open-discussion” in which students expressed their own responses (Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran, 2003). One reason for the lack of open discussion is that most of the questions posed by teachers consisted of closed questions; only 19% of their questions were authentic questions. And, only 31% of the questions involved followup questions in which teachers asked students to elaborate on or extend their responses. The use of these closed questions was also more prevalent in remedial or “low-ability” than honors or “high ability” classes. In contrast to these “fact-check” questions are more genuine, open-ended questions with no pre-determined answers or that involve some follow-up to the student’s answers. It is therefore useful that you generate open-ended questions that involve students in
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higher-level thinking and that are more likely to generate divergent responses leading to interactions between students. In doing so, you also want to promote alternative, divergent perspectives to avoid a propensity to marginalize students with interpretations that deviate from emerging consensus opinions. While students may initially voice deviant interpretations, they may be encouraged to shift or drop those interpretations to adopt the group’s shared stance, a normalizing effect that can stifle expressing of alternative, deviant perspectives (Pace, 2006).
Prematurely interpreting questions Avoid starting a discussion with higher-level, interpretation questions such as “what is the theme of this story” without having students first describe their engagement responses, perceptions of events in a text, or clarification of misunderstandings about a text: responses that can lead to more fruitful discussions. Because teachers may have previously read and discussed a text numerous times, they may not appreciate the need to work through these initial responses for students who are reading the text for the first time. One study found that when a teacher discusses a poem which the teacher read for the first time, there was more student involvement than when the teacher used a poem he had previously taught (Smith & Connolly, 2005). Starting out with engagement, description, or clarification responses builds material that can serve as the basis for later, higher-order interpretive responses. One framework for defining the phases of a discussion is Judith Langer’s (1995) four different types of “envisionments”: • •
• •
“being out and stepping into an envisionment” in which readers “make initial contacts with the genre, content, structure, and language of the text” (p. 7) “being in and moving through an envisionment” in which readers are “immersed in their understandings, using their previously constructed envisionment, prior knowledge and the text itself to further their creation of meaning” (p. 7) “stepping back and rethinking what one knows” in which readers “used their envisionments to reflect on their own previous knowledge or understanding” (p. 7) “stepping out and objectifying the experience” in which readers “distanced themselves from their envisionments, reflecting on and reacting to the content, to the text, or to the reading experience itself” (p. 7).
Recognizing Cultural Differences in Participation Styles Teachers may also not appreciate students’ background cultural experiences in relation to how they participate in class discussions. For example, African-American students will often employ discourses and genres associated with uses of African-American vernacular English— figurative/exaggerated language, word play, signifying, repetition, loud talk, gestures, call-and-response, aphorisms, and overlapping talk (Lee, 2007; Richardson, 2002; Smitherman, 1977; 2000)—features that White, middle-class teachers may perceive as deviations from their own cultural assumptions about appropriate classroom talk or use of IRE patterns. Discouraging the use of these features then serves to alienate or silence African-American students, as opposed to, from a cultural-modeling perspective, drawing on these features to encourage active participation in a discussion and understanding the language use in literature, particularly literature by AfricanAmerican writers (Lee, 2007). You also need to be open to students engaging in highly
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active discussions that differ from what could be characterized as a more teacher-centered, controlled discussion evident in the use of call and response, overlapping talk, and use of narratives (Lee, 2007).
Strategies for Facilitating Discussions Learning to facilitate discussions involves a lot of practice, particularly in becoming comfortable in serving as a facilitator continually attending to what is happening in the discussion. There are also no set of magic “do’s” and “don’t’s” for how to facilitate a discussion—much of your success will depend on your own personality, interest, energy, and stance. However, there are a number of strategies that we recommend that can be used to facilitate discussions. We’ll describe some of these strategies, along with examples from two teachers using these strategies, Sharon Eddleston, a former teacher at a suburban school, Armstrong High School, New Hope, Minnesota (Beach, Eddleston, & Philippot, 2004; Eddleston & Philippot, 2002) and Daryl Parks, a former teacher at an urban school, Johnson High School, St. Paul, Minnesota (Beach, Haertling-Thein, & Parks, 2008). (See Strategies for facilitating or leading discussions on the website.)
Beginning with Students’ Engagement Responses To establish the idea that discussions should focus on differences in students’ responses, it’s useful to have students initially share their engagement responses describing their experiences with a text—their emotional experiences, as well as issues in terms of their being puzzled, intrigued, confused, mystified, etc., by certain aspects of a text. Because it is likely that these engagement responses will be quite different, this will therefore set the stage to honor differences in students’ responses.
Fostering Autobiographical or Intertextual Connections In addition to eliciting engagement responses, it is also useful to ask students to share their autobiographical and intertextual responses. Daryl provided his students with three categories: “text to text,” “text to life,” and “text to world” for reflecting on these connections. By citing related autobiographical events, students are using narratives to infer points or themes about their own experiences that they can then cycle back into understanding similar events in texts, narratives that serve to enhance the quality of their interpretations (Juzwik, Nystrand, Kelly, & Sherry, 2008). In asking her students to describe related events, Sharon pushed students to elaborate on their descriptions so that they developed related events in some detail. By doing so, students can then infer the point or idea of their related event and then use that point or idea to interpret the text. For example, in responding to Gatsby’s infatuation with Daisy, students cited their own experiences of being infatuated by a member of the opposite sex. Rather than simply indicating that they were infatuated, by elaborating on that experience students then inferred that such an infatuation can limit or bias their perceptions of the other person, leading them to recognize that Gatsby’s own perceptions may be problematic.
Using Freewrites to Formulate Responses One strategy to foster more involvement in discussion is to have students engage in quick freewrites either before or during the discussion. While some students can readily
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express their ideas verbally, other students, particularly reticent students, may be reluctant to share their responses. The fact that students have generated written responses means that you can then have them share those responses. Sharon also used informal writing as discussion starters in which students would volunteer to read aloud their writing to the group. For example, prior to a discussion of the last act of The Crucible (Miller, 2003) students were asked to “explain the difficult decision John Proctor makes at the end of this play. Explain why he makes this decision and if you think he made the right decision.” The students then shared quite different opinions about Proctor’s decision to die at the end of the play, leading to a lively debate about the value of standing up for one’s principles. Students also wrote “inquiry papers” in which they formulated questions or hypotheses about a particular text and then addressed those questions and hypotheses. Sharon would then write these questions on the board which then served as the basis for discussion. For example, in discussing Frank Chin’s (1991) Donald Duk, students asked questions such as why does Donald burn his model plane early in the story; why is he able to dream historical dreams about events he knows nothing about; why the author includes so many references to food in the story; and why the book ends so abruptly. Students also composed “oral essays” in which groups of students led by a student moderator made presentations to the class based on topics selected from a fish bowl the day prior to the discussion. For example, in discussing two August Wilson plays, group members discussed topics of the characters’ development, racism, music, the use of the supernatural, symbols, and gender issues. Daryl, like Sharon, frequently employed writing to prepare students for discussions. Daryl would shift through journal entries and provide students with a list of quoted statements as a means of sparking discussions. For example, in discussing the film Smoke Signals (Eyre, 1998), he asked students to circle the three quotes they perceived to be the most controversial, for example “White people as a group enjoy an easier life than anybody else in the country.” Starting with these controversial quotes fostered a debate between students about the moral responsibility for White Americans’ treatment of Native Americans. He also employed a “round robin” technique of going around the discussion circle and each student sharing some initial response to a text, for example, a one-word description of the previous night’s reading with no explication. He would also have students pass their journal entries around the circle so that they could read each other’s journal reactions as a means of starting a discussion.
Concern with Low-level Participants Sharon was also concerned about the need to engage low-level participants who were reluctant to express their own opinions. These students may assume that unless they can share definitive interpretations, they should not contribute to the discussion, or that unless their responses are highly original, they will be perceived as redundant to those of other students (Beach, Eddleston, & Philippot, 2003). Or, they may simply prefer to remain on the sidelines as observers, particularly when they feel excluded by what they perceive as a few students dominating the discussion. To encourage low-level participants to become more engaged in discussions, Sharon worked with low-level participants on an individual basis regarding their perceptions of their roles in discussions, particularly in terms of their assumptions about the value and perceived redundancy of their responses. She assured these students that their
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contributions are of value, attempting to enhance their self-confidence. She also asked them to share their initial freewrites or to respond to peers’ interpretations. And, she would begin with or interrupt the discussion with some paired or small-group discussions in which low-level participants may feel more comfortable participating. In his student teaching, Michael Hasapopoulis describes how he encouraged one of his students to share her responses: We did one book, Black Elk Speaks, and for one student, who, she has a very, she’s very shy, very nervous, she can’t present anything, but then she did very well on this because she loved the book so much, she personally connected to it. Now, I don’t know if she had any Native American ancestry or anything like that however, I could tell that that was her way for her to get to the book and understand it. So I nurtured that. That’s not my personal philosophical bent toward literature, but I recognized that in her, so she taught me something.
Another approach to helping low-level participants and build student confidence is the use of paired think-alouds, referred to in Chapter 4. In doing think-alouds, working in pairs, one member of the pair makes explicit their thoughts as they are reading a short text or text excerpt on a line-by-line basis. The other member simply encourages the student doing the thinkaloud with verbal (“that’s interesting,” “uh yuh,” “tell me more,” “any further thoughts”) and nonverbal encouragement (nodding, positive eye contact). You may also provide students with think-aloud prompts (Langer, 1995) such as the following, particularly if they have not done think-alouds or need more structure: I am thinking that . . . I don’t understand . . . This word means . . . This reminds me of . . .
Modeling Question-asking Strategies One basic purpose for engaging students in discussions is for you and other students to model question-asking strategies that students internalize in order to engage in their own self-questions as they are reading or writing texts. Research indicates that this selfquestioning, in which students are posing questions that expand their interpretation, serve to improve the quality of students’ interpretation (Janssen, Braaksma, & Couzijn, 2009). One approach to modeling question-asking strategies is to employ the Critical Response Protocol (CRP) (Lerman & Borstel, 2007) which is based on the following questions: • • • •
“What are you noticing?” “What did you see that makes you say that?” “What does it remind you of?” “How do you feel?” “What questions does the ‘text’ raise for you? What did you learn?”
By consistently posing these questions about a text, you help students learn to automatically apply these questions to focus on specific aspects of a text, draw connections to their own related experiences or other texts, describe their engagement responses, and pose further questions. For example, in discussing Zora Neale Hurston’s (1998) Their Eyes Were Watching God, students in Melissa Borgmann’s literature class focused on the main
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character, Janie, as a person who is attempting to define her identity through a series of relationships (Beach, Campano, Edmiston, & Borgmann, 2010). They posed questions based on their use of the CRP questions: “Who is Janie? Who are we? How do we understand her? How are we connected?” Another question-asking heuristic is Kenneth Burke’s (1969) “pentad” involving questions about the five dimensions of an event: 1) act: what happens; 2) agent: who performs the act; 3) scene: where the act occurs, the context or setting; 4) agency: the means or tools employed; and 5) purpose: the motivation, reasons, or explanations for the action, questions similar to a reporter’s what, who, where, how, and why. Each of these questions provides a different perspective for explaining an event—for example, why George kills Lenny at the end of Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck, 1993). Focusing on the agent considers how the traits or beliefs of a character shaped an event, the fact that George is someone who was continually taking care of Lenny. Focusing on the act identifies specific aspects of the act as shaped by the other aspects of the pentad—how an act may be named or framed. Framing George’s act as “mercy-killing” provides one rationale for his action. Focusing on the scene considers how contextual factors influence an event—in this case, a context in which Lenny was in danger of going to jail. Focusing on the agency examines the choice of certain tools—the idea that “mercy-killing” is itself a means by which George deals with the situation. And, focusing on purpose highlights reasons for the action—that George did not want to see Lenny suffer from further harm.
Sharing Alternative Perspectives In leading discussions, it is also important to foster a range of different perspectives, resulting in disagreements creating a more lively exchange of ideas than if they all shared the same perspectives. To do so, you need to make it clear that you value expressions of different opinions as well as not allowing expression of your own opinions to discourage students from expressing opinions that challenge your opinions (Davis, 1993). As discussion facilitator, Sharon was continually inviting students to participate by encouraging non-participants to join the conversation. She also pushed students to further elaborate on their responses with prompts such as: “Tell me more about that” or “What are some reasons that you think that?” She avoided praising or evaluating students’ responses, moves that only serve to reify the teacher’s role as dictating the direction of the discussion. And, she reminded students about discussion norms regarding monopolizing the discussion, put downs, and interrupting. Sharon believed that students are more likely to extend or develop discussions when they disagreed with each other or expressed divergent, alternative perspectives. She therefore perceived her role as promoting diverse perspectives through encouraging a range of different interpretations. For example, in responding to August Wilson’s (1985) play Fences, students were asked to place the main character, Troy, on a scale from one to ten representing their approval or disapproval of the character’s actions as a relatively controlling father and husband. Some students were sympathetic toward Troy given his previous experience with racism in his work and on the baseball field, his support for his family, and the fact that he overcame an abusive childhood. Other students judged him in a more negative light, objecting to his drinking, his jail sentence for manslaughter, his treatment of his wife, and his affair with another woman. In sharing these alternative perspectives of Troy, the students challenged each other’s beliefs, requiring them to further explore their interpretations of his actions.
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Sharon also developed a few provocative questions designed to trigger a lot of different, alternative opinions about an issue, which themselves lead to further discussion, questions such as “Who is the most powerful or most important character in a text?” Rather the relying on long lists of questions about specific information, it is often useful to craft a few key questions that focus on key themes or ideas. To foster debate between students, Sharon encouraged students to frame the discussion in terms of tentative hypotheses, hunches, or “passing theories” (Kent, 1993) about characters’ actions or perspectives. Rather than boldly state a definitive explanation for characters’ actions or perspectives, students adopted a more tentative, “I’m-not-sosure-about-this” stance. Adopting this tentative stance invited others to test out the interpretations, leading to agreements or disagreements from their peers based on analysis of texts. In discussing The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991) in Sharon’s class, one student, Berke, framed the discussion by reading aloud a freewrite about the narrator, Nick: Berke: I think that this Nick guy is the most perfect guy in this book because he has no, I don’t know, he respects everybody to a certain extent. I thought, in this chapter, to describe what kind of guy he is, like in the end, he goes home. He supposedly sees Gatsby like fifty yards in his yard, away. And he’s like, should I go talk to him? He’s like, no, no. He just lets the guy be alone with his thoughts, you know. He doesn’t want to bother him. I mean, that’s just a respectable gentleman. I know if I see somebody, and nobody lives around me really, you know, and there’s somebody in my yard, I’m going to approach him late at night, you know, what are you doing? This guy, I don’t know, he’s just . . . yeah, he’s just the kind of guy anybody could talk to and he keeps his own opinions in his head and his actions so far haven’t shown much to what he really is. I think he’s just a perfect gentleman. That’s what I feel. (Beach, Eddleston, & Philippot, 2004, p. 134).
In initiating this topic, Berke adopts a somewhat tentative, exploratory stance as evident by the repetition of “I don’t know.” He also seeks to verify his belief about Nick as “perfect” by citing an example of his actions of not intruding on Gatsby. He assumes a “dialogic,” “double-voiced” (Bakhtin, 1981) stance by mimicking his version of Nick’s own voice: “Should I go talk to him? He’s like, no, no.” Framing the topic in a tentative, exploratory manner invites other students to respond with disagreements to Berke’s contention that Nick is a “perfect gentleman” because “he keeps his own opinions in his head” (p. 135). Tom counters with the position, “I don’t think keeping your opinions to yourself is a good quality at all” (p. 135). And then Sarah argues that, “It’s not necessarily a good quality . . . it’s true to Nick’s character, though” (p 135). Matt then supports Berke’s original contention, noting, “I think that being able to keep things to yourself is a virtue . . . it’s something very few people can do. People who tend not to keep finding themselves in situations that they shouldn’t be in; I mean when someone opens their mouth at the wrong time in the wrong place” (p. 135). Tom counters with, “Yeah, but see, if people who didn’t state their opinions are going to stay in the position that they are in, I mean, if no one were ever to state their opinion about slavery, there would still be slavery” (p. 135). Kyle then evokes further discussion by asking, “Do you agree with what he says that life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all? Instead of like trying to achieve some well-rounded objective? What do you guys think?” (p. 135). When asked to answer his own question, Kyle notes that “I’ve met like a lot of extraordinary people in the last year that tend to be less well-rounded but more, I guess, you could say, closed-minded, but I don’t know
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if that’s the right word. They’re specialists, I guess you could say that, and I think I’ve learned a lot from those people and that obviously has some negative connotations, I mean because you’re blind to a lot of stuff. But it might be a better way to live” (p. 135). In this exchange, the students disagree about the value of asserting opinions, as well as the fact that issues are often framed by “closed-minded” “specialists” who may not perceive larger moral implications of their acts. What kept this discussion going was the students’ willingness to disagree with each other in a productive, exploratory manner. Some students argue that asserting opinions has negative social consequences while others argue that people have moral obligations to assert their own beliefs. These disagreements lead to a larger, composite interpretation of Nick’s role as narrator based on the shared interpretations that unfolded in the discussion.
Fostering Self-assessment of Discussion Participation Another strategy involves having students self-assess their discussion participation. For six discussions during a semester course, Sharon asked her students to complete a selfassessment rubric based on the degree of student participation, formulation, and development of response, attention to other students’ responses, facilitation of mutual exploration of responses with other students, and nonverbal aspects of participation. On the rubric form, students highlighted those statements that reflected their own roles in discussions. They then commented on their discussion abilities and noted those discussion skills in which they needed more work. Prior to the next discussion, Sharon displayed transparencies of frequent students’ comments, and the students discussed approaches to improving their discussions. The information on the transparencies provided students with feedback on changes in their individual and group participation.
LEADING SMALL GROUP AND BOOK CLUB DISCUSSIONS Students rarely have an opportunity to practice and develop communication strategies in a thirty-minute discussion with thirty students in a class. Small groups or “literature circles” (Daniels, 2002; Daniels & Steineke, 2004; Moeller & Moeller, 2007) provide students with intimate settings in which they have more opportunity to participate than in large-group discussions (Almasi, 1995). By working in small groups of three to five, students have much more time to talk than in large groups. In setting up groups, you may want to: •
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assign students to groups in order to insure that there is a range of different talents or ability levels represented in your different groups, as well as a mixture of gender and race avoid having all of the students of a certain type in their own segregated groups ask students to assume different roles (Daniels, 2002): – facilitator, who poses questions, asks for reactions to members’ statements, summarizes members’ positions, encourages all members to participate, and restates others’ perspectives – leader, who initiates and concludes discussions – scribe, who takes notes to report on the group’s discussion to the large group – devil’s advocate, who challenges the group with alternative perspectives or positions – connector, who makes connections to other texts or experiences – summarizer, who provides summaries of the discussion.
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Groups can also frame their discussions around inquiry questions generated by the group (Harvey & Daniels, 2009; Wilhelm, 2007a). For example, in reading mystery novels, students may pose the question—how do we determine who is the real criminal? Having inquiry questions provides the group with some focus for developing their responses. In classrooms or after-school book clubs, students choose the texts they will read, set their reading agenda, and prepare their own topics for discussion. They then meet regularly with a small group of their peers several times to discuss (Appleman, 2006; Gelman & Krupp, 2007; Kunzel & Hardesty, 2006; O’Donnell-Allen, 2006). In giving students autonomy to engage in discussions, you also need to recognize that students may have little understanding of how to engage in a thoughtful discussion. They may therefore fall back on familiar notions of their teachers’ IRE/ “T/S” models in which they themselves then dominate discussions or exclude students (McMahon, Raphael, Goatley, & Pardo, 1997). One advantage of student-driven book clubs, particularly those that occur outside of class (Appleman, 2006) or online (Scharber, 2009) is that students can set the agenda. Moreover, comparisons of classroom versus adult book club discussions finds that adults are more likely to react to each other, particularly in terms of positive feelings or evaluations about the content of responses than did students in classrooms (M. Smith, 1996). By replicating this interaction, students in book clubs build on each other’s responses to move towards formulating composite responses that move beyond their own individual responses. Students in each literature circle added their own analysis of the novel they were reading so that students were sharing responses both in face-to-face discussions and online (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009). (See Smallgroup or literature circles on the website.)
Rachel’s Use of Book Clubs In her 12th grade literature class at a suburban high school outside a Midwestern city, Rachel Malchow (2004) used book clubs to foster discussion. She describes the ways in which she set up the book clubs for her class of 27 students. See Setting up book club discussions and Book club discussion guide sheets on the website.) She first administered an inventory to determine her students’ reading habits and interests. The 9 boys in the class reported reading for personal pleasure for about 15.0 minutes per day, largely newspapers or magazines, with only one boy reported being a “frequent” reader of novels. In contrast, the boys reported an average of 265.0 minutes per day engaged with some form of media (film, television, music, computers, or gaming). The 17 girls in the class averaged 18.8 minutes per day of reading for pleasure and 184 minutes per day devoted to media texts with only one girl reported being a “frequent” reader of novels. A key element of the book club format is that students are given choice over what they read in their groups. Predictably, that choice carries certain limitations, particularly the titles and numbers of books available to her 12th grade team. Given that the standard 12th grade English course had contained a choice component in its curriculum for years, there were a reasonable variety of books from which to choose. The team decided to offer 10 choices each term, and tried to balance the list with a mixture of authors by gender and ethnicity each term. Most of the books were modern or contemporary geared for the college-bound or adult reader.
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Approximately two weeks before the first book club meeting each term, Rachel provides students with a choice of ten books. Students then list their top three choices in order, and turn in their selections. She then creates assigned groups of three to five students based on student book requests and gender balance. (She finds that students often select books with protagonists that closely resemble themselves in terms of both gender and ethnicity, although while males are less willing to read about female protagonists, girls are more willing to read about male protagonists.) Over the course of four weeks, the groups meet once a week for a duration of approximately 30 minutes to discuss their reading, and then meet twice to complete their final project, an introduction to the book for future students. Rachel modifies Daniels’ (2002) literature circle roles to add three key roles: discussion-director, cool-quote finder, and multiple-perspective-taker for each meeting. She also monitors the group discussions to identify instances in which students are having difficulty assuming different roles. For example, she found that students who took on the summarizing role were waiting until late in the discussion to summarize the text. In analyzing transcripts of some of the book club discussions, Rachel found that some groups were more engaged in discussions than others. A key factor was selecting a text that evoked discussions about issues that were relevant to their own lives. A group that selected The Bean Trees (Kingsolver, 1998) and The Secret Life of Bees (Kidd, 2001) became engaged in a discussion of the tension between independence and motherhood. Another group that selected The Things They Carried (O’Brien, 1999) focused on the harsh realities of becoming a soldier. She also found that students had difficulty adopting their roles in ways that limited discussions. For example, while the discussion director’s role involves asking questions, it may be more useful to have all students posing questions. And, she found that in some groups, certain students assumed dominate positions of power in ways that excluded other students’ participation, often in terms of differences in gender or race. In a group of three White females and one AfricanAmerican male, the male was largely excluded from the discussion.
LEADING ONLINE DISCUSSIONS One of the important recent developments in classroom discussions has been the use of online discussions, either during class, or, more frequently, as part of homework. They can also be used for peer feedback sessions, online conferencing, or advising with students, or discussions with guest speakers or outside experts with whom students could chat online. With the increased use of web-cameras, these online discussions are moving towards replicating face-to-face interactions. Use of online discussions in the classroom has also increased due to the growth in online or “hybrid” courses, as well as students’ use of social networking sites (Lancashire, 2009; Warnock, 2009). Students engaged in social networking are also more likely to create online content: posting or remixing images or video, creating or commenting on blogs, or maintaining a website (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). School administrators perceive participation in social networking as helping students improve their writing skills and their ability to express themselves through online communication (National School Boards Association, 2007). There are several advantages of online discussions. Students who may not participate in face-to-face classroom discussions for various reasons, particularly nonverbal intimidation, may feel more comfortable participating online. In some cases, in having
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to write out their thoughts, students may formulate more thoughtful comments than if they were contributing verbal comments in a discussion. And, students can participate in discussions at any time of the day or night—organizing, for example, a discussion during the evening hours. Students can also interact with students from different classes, schools, and countries on sites such as ePals (http://www.epals.com), Youth Voices (http://youthvoices.net), TakingitGlobal (http://www.tigweb.org). For example, the PiccleForum (Pedagogy for Inter-Cultural Critical Literacy Education) (http://piccle.edu.psu.edu) includes courses from all over the world related to how students’ different cultural perspectives shape their responses to texts and the media. You can create your own course on this site as well as view discussions and access resources from other teachers’ courses. In using online discussions, it’s important to define specific goals or purposes for having a discussion so that students know how they should be responding. You can also provide students with specific open-ended questions, guidelines, and criteria for desired responses, for example, asking that they make specific connections to their reading, as well as summary reflections on their interpretations and interactions (Black, 2005). You can also have students assume different roles previously mentioned for small-group discussions (Daniels, 2002). (See Online discussions on the website.)
Synchronous Discussions Synchronous online discussions occur as “real-time” chat interactions on classroom management platforms such as Blackboard, WebCT/Vista, Desire2Learn, Moodle, Tappedin.org, or on a social networking platform such as Ning. One advantage of using the chat on Tappedin.org is that you can receive transcripts of student discussions sent via email. And, students often enjoy engaging in videoconferencing using tools such as iChat or Skype video so that students can perceive each other physically simultaneously on a screen, something that enhances their engagement (Aukeman & Walsh, 2009). In the following discussion, students from Sara Williamson’s literature class at Westonka High School, Mound, Minnesota, engaged in an evening chat on Tappedin.org in response to Jon Krakauer’s (2007) Into the Wild, a story that recounts the experiences of Christopher McCandless, a college graduate, who attempted to survive on his own in the Alaska wilds, only to starve to death (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009). Sara begins the discussion with an open-ended question about McCandless’s motives: SaraWi: Why would anyone be so extreme in throwing off society and the material world? Oklahoma: in life people need to make there own decisions, or their life wont be fully complete he wouldn’t have been able to feel complete without this journey, it was a life journey, he was finding himself, how can you live life not knowing who you are, he needed this trip Ohio: i think that if you really want something your not going to look at all the consequences your gunna just do it Oklahoma: because the material world is fake Oklahoma: he hated that Wyoming: Maybe they werent happy with their life so they decided to go and try something new. Kansas: thats a good? I dont get it
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Montana: but was it worth dying over? Pennsylvania: because he probably wants to adventure a new life that’s extreme Wyoming: He didnt mean to die Montana: i understand, but he DID (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009, p. 74).
Susan Borgen has been using tappedin.org for several years to have her high school students engage in literature discussions in real time. Based on her experience, she makes the following suggestions: •
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Prior to online discussion, students should receive instruction on discussion skills in order to enhance their understanding and response to the literature being studied and how to conduct synchronous online discussion. It is imperative that students be given clear purposes for the discussions and a list of characteristics of effective, small group discussions. They need to be taught how to be effective participants, how to handle conflicts that might arise, and how they can self-evaluate their participation. They should also be instructed as to how they will be scored or graded for their discussion participation. Students and instructors should be aware that the type of language expressed at the beginning of the project will differ from that of the end; i.e., their writing at the beginning of discussions will sound more conversational while their writing at the end of the unit will be more academic. The possible roles of discussion participants should be introduced: the facilitator who keeps the group on task; the recorder who takes notes and writes down important points; the encourager who gives the group feedback and ensures that all participants are heard; and the reflector who keeps track of group process and makes comments about the group’s success/failure and progress. To keep students informed, it is advisable to provide them with a schedule of expected topics of discussion. For example, if a short story unit is planned, students can be given the schedule of stories, the expected date of online discussion, and the journal questions they will be asked to consider while reading and during discussion. Students, assigned by the instructor, should be divided into groups of four or five. Assignments to groups may be based on several factors: cognitive ability, verbal skills, personality, gender, and previously documented effort. An attempt should be made to make the groups as heterogeneous as possible. Students should alternate roles within the group as well as move from different groups as the unit progresses. After synchronous online discussions, transcripts are emailed to the instructor’s address. They may be accessed by the instructor, read, and scored. The first attempts at online discussion need not be scored until the instructor feels students have had adequate experience. At some point, the most important concepts of the discussion should be summarized, clarified and presented to the class. Problems that arose during the online discussions or particularly insightful responses can be shared in the large face-to-face forum of the regular classroom. Students may add further reflections during that time. Occasionally, it is helpful to provide students with copies of some pages of the transcripts to highlight the most positive aspects of the discussion, and to reinforce those occurrences that are part of effective group discussion. Goals for the next synchronous discussion should be made during these times as well.
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An analysis of earlier transcripts recorded at the beginning of the synchronous online discussions should reveal the ability of students to carry on a discussion that sounds like true conversation. There should be a positive exchange among group members; students should comment on another student’s opinion, elaborate on another student’s answer, or ask a clarifying question to get to the bottom of an issue. One of the goals of the project is to move from more conversational writing to that which is more academic and in-depth. Students earn points for discussion as follows: 1 point for a comment which answers the question at hand; 1 point for a comment that elaborates on someone else’s answer; 1 point that asks a question about the item being discussed; and 2 points for comments that show true insight into the material being discussed. Grades can be determined by adding the points and making appropriate cutoffs according to teacher preference. Upon further analysis of the scoring of the discussions, hopefully, those students who had been identified as reticent during in-class face-to-face discussions prove to be more willing to participate in the discussion. In one study, for example, Jennifer, who had previously refused to speak at all during face-to-face discussions even when asked specifically to answer, usually responding with “I don’t know,” was willing to answer questions, elaborate on others, and analyze key points. Her 0 score in face-to-face discussions grew to 23 comments made in one online discussion. Without exception, every student who had been disinclined toward participating in previous face-to-face discussion consistently scored well during the online discussions. And, while the more vocal students consistently scored the most points during online discussion just as they had in face-to-face discussions, they did not and could not dominate the debate. Scores were more equally distributed among the group members, although the most reticent members continued to score the lowest points.
Asynchronous Online Discussions Asynchronous online discussions can be best described as “delayed time” discussions, in which participants write separate messages at different times. Students can engage in asynchronous discussions on Blackboard, WebCT/Vista, Desire2Learn, Moodle, Ning, and other classroom management platforms. One advantage of asynchronous over synchronous online discussions is that students can participate at any time and at their own pace as opposed to being limited to classroom time. They may also be less distracted having to continue to keep up with the fast pace of synchronous discussions, allowing them to reflect more on their responses. And, because asynchronous discussions are organized by topic threads, students can select which topics to comment on. They can also include links or images in their posts. In organizing asynchronous discussions, you can provide students with specific openended questions or you can have students generate their own questions. It is also important to specify the number of and deadlines for completing posts and/or replies to posts. You can also assign students to be “partners” who will respond to their peer’s posts. And, you need to provide some “netiquette” guidelines related to appropriate use of language or avoiding domination of the discussion. Because students may have difficulty accessing computers from their home, you need to provide them with information about use of computers in their local public libraries.
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In her 10th-grade English class at Cretin-Durham Hall High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, Theresa Haider uses Moodle forums for discussing literature (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009). She encourages her students to build on each other’s ideas and to develop some consensus within their group, enhancing their sense of the validity of their claims. She describes the directions she gives to her students: Along with a one-two paragraph response to specific questions, I ask each student to respond to another classmate’s response in 3–4 sentences. This takes some coordination because the students need to understand that they may need to go to Moodle a second or third time if their classmates are slow in putting up their initial answers to the question(s). It also promotes community in that each student is relying on all other students to help them complete the assignment. In the response to classmate(s), they need to refer to the person specifically, and they must refer to the content he or she wrote about. They can agree, disagree, or challenge what their classmates write; however, most choose to agree with each other (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009, p. 76).
Virtual Reality Sites Another option for online discussion involves the use of virtual reality sites in which students assume avatar roles in a virtual world. These virtual reality sites are familiar to students accustomed to playing video games in which they are learning to engage in identity construction and problem-solving in virtual spaces (Gee, 2007). (See Using games to create literature activities on the website.) One such site is the Literary Worlds site housed at the University of Western Michigan (http://brn227.brown.wmich.edu/literaryworlds/index.html) that was built using the open source software package, EnCore 4. On this site, students enter into virtual worlds (browsers need to be set to “accept popups”) based on different literary texts. They then assume the roles of characters coping with the ethical dilemmas portrayed in these novels and interacting with other characters in spaces or rooms drawn from the novel. Because students are engaged in these virtual spaces, students become literally involved in the worlds of these novels, enhancing their understanding of the novels. For example, in participating in the Things Fall Apart (Achebe, 1996) literary world, students enter into the late 19th century in Nigeria, Africa under British colonialist rule and assume the roles of Igbo villagers, British missionaries, and colonial administrators. Students perceive black-and-white photos, videos, or music constituting these worlds on the right side of the screen while they participate in a chat on the left side. In the role-play, students share their chat responses when they are prompted by various “events” announced by the teacher, events that build on their reading of the novel, in which students enter into one of 13 different “rooms” in the village. In other worlds on this site, students can participate in a “Thoughtcrime” role-play based on reading of 1984 (Orwell, 1984) in which they assume the roles of Thought Police, Brotherhood, and Party Members who are all competing with each other. Or, in the Brave New World (Huxley, 2006) site, students assume roles in a futuristic World State and can even create their own rooms and buildings based on the novel. Students drew on their reading of Brave New World to create rooms that: illustrate some of the novel’s key ideas: class distinction, consumerism, biological and psychological conditioning, and state-sponsored religion. In the Social Gathering Room, for
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example, students took the idea of promiscuous socialization—a major virtue in the World State—and developed a setting where such socialization would be encouraged. (Rozema & Webb, 2008, p. 91)
Online Role-plays Online role-plays can also be conducted using blogs or online discussion sites for debating issues portrayed in texts (Beach & Doerr-Stevens, 2009). For example, students in Elizabeth Boeser’s classes at Jefferson High School, Bloomington, Minnesota, engaged in an online role-play about the issue of racism towards Native Americans portrayed in the novel, Montana 1948 (Watson, 1993) (http://roleplaymascots.blogspot.com). Students debated the issue of use of the “Fighting Sioux” mascot at the University of North Dakota, assuming the roles of the UND President, members of the Sioux tribe, characters from the novel, students on the UND hockey team, the owner of the Washington Redskins, etc. They responded to each other’s arguments, and then used this material to write essays about the novel. In another role-play related to reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, 1999) students addressed a parent complaint about the book, leading the school librarian to elicit opinions about whether this book, which deals realistically with issues of sexuality and drugs, as well as other books such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest should be censored (http://schooledthewriteway.blogspot.com). In reading Little Brother (Doctorow, 2008) (free download: http://craphound.com/ littlebrother/download), which portrays attempts by a young computer hacker, Charlie, to thwart attempts by the government to monitor citizens’ lives, students debated the issue of school Internet policies on access to blocked sites and administrators’ right to acquire information posted on students’ Facebook pages. After this role-play, students developed a set of proposals for changing the school’s Internet policies, which were changed based on the students’ input. (See Using online role-play to foster response to literature on the website.)
FanFiction Sites Students can also participate in sites such as FanFiction.net (http://www.fanfiction.net) in which writers create spin-off stories of well-known TV shows or movies. Writers post their stories, much like a blog entry, and anyone logged onto the site can post comments and critiques of their stories. FanFiction provides a tangible readership and social supportive network for aspiring writers. Rebecca Black (2008) comments on the power of sites such as FanFiction.net as spaces for discussion: Many fan fiction and help sites also feature a range of meta-discussion on elements of fan fiction—related topics that are relevant to and in many ways mirror school-based composition topics and practices, such as peer review, giving constructive feedback, editing, proofreading, effective plot development, robust characterization, and constructing effective rhetorical structures, to name just a few. (p. 42)
LEADING DISCUSSIONS OF LITERATURE
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Record a face-to-face or online discussion of a text that you lead or in which you’re a participant. Then, transcribe that discussion or use the online discussion transcript. Analyze the transcript in terms of the types of questions employed (open-ended versus closed), types of responses (engagement, summary/description, autobiographical/intertextual connections, analysis, judgments, hypothesizing, metacognitive reflection on processes), student participation/interaction (percentages of students participating/number of student-tostudent turns), and/or sustained topic focus (number of turns on certain topic). Reflect on the results in terms of the quality of the discussion and those factors influencing discussion quality—the leader’s facilitation, interest in/knowledge of the text, and participants’ sense of purpose/quality of interaction. Draw some implications for leading your own classroom discussions. (See Lesson plans for fostering discussions and Activities on the website.)
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CHAPTER 12
Writing About Literature How Do I Get Students to Write About Literature?
DIFFERENCES IN KINDS OF WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
CASE NARRATIVE
During her preservice English education program at the University of Minnesota, Heidi Murphy contrasted her experiences between high school and college writing: In high school, I’m really remembering a lot of more formal writing, not freewriting, or informal kind of rough writing. Usually the writing that I was taught in high school needed to be polished; it was always grammar and usage and all that kind of stuff was always graded. College was much more, I want to say relaxed, but varied. There was no work sheet writing. We didn’t talk about plot, characterization, or setting so much, but we might spend an hour and a half talking about why a certain character made the decision that he did, or you know. Recall your own experiences with writing about literature in your previous high school and college literature courses. What kinds of writing were typically assigned? What were the different purposes for this writing? What were some assignments that you found to be valuable and why?
Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Differences in Kinds of Writing about Literature Limitations of “List and Gist” Writing about Literature Informal Writing Tools Collaboratively Sharing Knowledge about Texts Formal Writing about Literature Understanding Texts through Writing Texts
WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
LIMITATIONS OF “LIST AND GIST” WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE Much writing about literature occurs solely as worksheets consisting of identification of information about a text, book reports that simply summarize a story, or five-paragraph essays focused on “proving” a single point with little development of thinking. This writing functions in an information-transmission classroom to simply inform the teacher that the student knows the “right answers,” retells a story, or “proves” their point. From a constructivist learning perspective, there are several limitations to this “list and gist” writing as a learning tool. These limitations point to the need for the use of extended writing activities that foster constructivist thinking.
The Lack of Argument for an Interpretation In an information-transmission classroom, students use their writing to display “right answers.” In constructivist classroom discussions, students are continually formulating arguments for certain interpretations or applications of critical lenses, often taking into account other students’ counter-positions. They can then use their writing to extend their arguments in a more systematic, formal manner in which they formulate their claims and explore counter-claims. For example, in a classroom discussion about The Crucible (Miller, 2003), Jill is arguing that the hysteria in the town about witchcraft parallels similar moments in history in which politicians stir up fear to serve their own political agendas, as was the case of a fear of anti-Communism during the McCarthy era. Other students challenge this idea by noting that these fears of potential danger cannot be dismissed as simply serving political agendas. With this debate in mind, Jill writes an essay in which she explores the difference, drawing on examples from the play, of concocted fears that are designed to serve certain agendas versus authentic fears that are based on actual fears. Through her writing, Jill can explore her ideas and examine alternative claims related to the differences between concocted and authentic fears.
The Lack of Tentative, Exploratory Thinking about a Text Another limitation of “list and gist” writing is that it does not foster exploratory thinking about a text reflecting a “failure to be tentative” (McCormick, 1999, p. 203). If students are concerned about “getting the right answer” or “making the correct interpretation,” they are reluctant to explore different aspects or complexities of their experience with a text. They assume that they need to be definitive and authoritative versus exploratory and tentative.
The Lack of Purpose for Writing Another limitation of a lot of writing about literature is that the students perceive little purpose or value in writing about literature, other than to complete an assignment for a grade. Even if you use various informal writing tools to prepare students to writing, the result is writing that is often uninspired, pedantic, artificial, or, in some cases, contains borrowed material from the Internet. You may then be left with 80 essays to read that you have little interest in reading, just as students have little interest in writing. In an inquiry-based, constructivist classroom, students select specific issues, concerns, or questions related to their reading about which they are engaged. For example, as
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someone who was interested in local politics, Jill was highly concerned about the ways in some politicians were using fear of increased diversity as a “wedge” issue in a local campaign. She was able to draw on examples from this campaign to define parallel connections with The Crucible (Miller, 2003).
The Lack of Alternative Audiences Another limitation of many literature-writing assignments is that students are writing simply for the teacher for the purpose of being evaluated. If students are writing for their peers, parents, or other audiences outside of the school through dialogue-journals, class websites/newsletters, or published essays, they then have some social purpose for wanting to write and write well. One advantage of having students write on a classroom blog or discussion forum is that they are writing for and to each other, fostering exchanges between students about their interpretations, Students can also create study guides or book talks promoting a book for their peers, writing designed specifically for an audience. In her student teaching, Heidi created an extra-credit brochure-writing assignment: “They had to write a brochure for next year’s sophomores telling what skills they’d need to survive and letting them know that what they’ll read and what they’ll be doing in class: I got quite a few brochures.” In a college drama course, Russell Hunt (2002) had students create programs of “playgoers’ guides” that were actually distributed to audiences in local theaters. In the syllabus, Hunt formulates the value of these writing activities for students: First, I believe that people learn far more effectively when they’re actively trying to find things out and explain and demonstrate them to others than when they sit and listen to them. Second, I believe that there is no one authority on interpretations of a play—certainly neither me nor any textbook has the final word. In fact, there is no final word—as you’ll have a chance to discover, people are continuously coming to new understandings and discovering new things about these matters. Thus it’s at least as important to know how to learn about such a subject as it is to be aware of what others think they already know. This course, then, is organized to promote (indeed, to require) the active and continuing engagement of each member of the class in the process of investigation.
(See Russell Hunt’s playbill writing assignment on the website.) By sharing their written responses in dialogue journals or online discussion sites with others, as in discussions, students are continually thinking about how others may react to their interpretations, what Bakhtin (1981) described as “answerability”—how an audience’s potential reaction or “uptake” influences one’s ideas or positions. Anticipating that others may respond influences students’ thinking. Knowing that their audiences may react in certain ways, students rehearse others’ reactions and then use those reactions to expand on or revise their thinking. For example, Molly is writing in her dialogue journal about what she perceives to be the sexist attitudes in some of Hemingway’s short stories. In thinking about how her male journal partner, Sam, may react to her entry based on his previous reactions, she anticipates that he may adopt a defensive stance and argue that Hemingway was just portraying the cultural attitudes of the time. This leads Molly to add some material on the cultural time period of the story as also shaping both Hemingway and his portrayals of characters. Thinking about Sam’s potential reactions led her to elaborate on her interpretations.
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All of this suggests the need to build in audiences other than yourself—actual and fictional—into your writing assignments. You can have students adopt certain roles as audiences who would respond in dialogue journal exchanges, letter-writing, essay drafts, or online chat based on those roles.
Using a Reading/Writing-Workshop Approach To further foster writing for audiences, you can employ a reading/writing workshop approach in which students write for and to each other about texts (Atwell, 1987/1998; 2007; Blau, 2003; Hicks, 2009; Wilhelm, 2007a). In the reading/writing workshop, students are given a high degree of ownership in terms of their choices for selecting certain texts from a well-stocked classroom library or writing activities. Students are continually collaborating with each other on their work and reacting to each other’s work, as is often the case in an art classroom. There is a lot of reading aloud by teachers and students from texts, use of drama activities, display of work, and small-group projects. And, students continually collect their work for inclusion in a portfolio. While this may imply a lack of structure, there is still a considerable degree of teacher structuring of expectations, rules, deadlines, and criteria for evaluating work, particularly in terms of creating a safe, supportive environment. Teachers give mini-lessons in which they demonstrate the use of specific interpretive or inquiry strategies, as well as modeling their own work. They also carefully structure activities according to variations in students’ ZPDs by continually interacting with students to monitor their work. To encourage students to express alternative, deviant voices, you can share some of your own writing in which you entertain a range of alternative perspectives and voices. In this chapter, we discuss the use of various tools and strategies for devising assignments for writing about literature. In thinking about creating these assignments, it is important that you build your assignments based on the unique aspects of your particular classroom. (See General resources about writing instruction and Strategies for writing about literature on the website.)
INFORMAL WRITING TOOLS Informal writing differs from more formal essay writing in that it is spontaneous, exploratory, tentative, subjective, expressive, and even contradictory. In writing informally about a text, students are using writing to create a record of their thoughts as they are responding to the text through freewriting, notes, lists, journal entries, maps, or diagrams. And, informal writing is spontaneous and tentative, as opposed to predetermined and definitive. The following are some specific types of informal writing tools. In modeling the uses of these different tools, it is important that you make explicit reasons for use of these tools related to uses of interpretive strategies and critical approaches. As informal writing, you want to avoid evaluating this writing in ways that undermine student spontaneity and lack of concern about audience, while at the same time, prompting them to use these tools in specific ways, for example, by telling them to “try to list as many items as possible.” (See Informal writing tools on the website.)
Freewriting In using freewriting, students write in a nonstop, spontaneous manner for five or ten minutes without premature concern for editing. Essential to freewriting is avoiding the
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propensity to edit, censor, block, or revise initial reactions to texts. Students can be asked to simply freewrite about a text or specific part of a text. Or, in a “focused” freewrite, they can be asked to freewrite about a specific topic, theme, issue, or question related to a text or unit, for example, “gender and power.” Or, in what Peter Elbow (1973; 1998) describes as a “looping” freewrite, students freewrite for five minutes. They then pick out one or two key terms or ideas, and freewrite for five more minutes about those one or two key terms or ideas, using the freewriting itself to generate and focus in on further specific topics by looping back through previous freewrites. Students may also dictate their thoughts to a peer, into a tape recorder, or to a computer using voice-recognition software. For students with learning disabilities who may have difficulty with writing, this use of dictating or oral sharing can serve as a useful, alternative accommodation for writing; these students could even pull together their oral materials to create final oral essays. Freewrites can also be used to help focus students’ thinking on a specific topic or idea in the beginning of class as well as to prepare them into verbally sharing their responses. For example, to foster her 9th grade students’ responses to Breathing Underwater (Flinn, 2001), which portrays a male high school student’s physical abuse of his girlfriend, Anete Vásquez (2009) gave students the following freewrite prompt: “If you were dating someone and that person hit you—just once—would you stay with him or her, or would you end the relationship?” (p. 19). For students who are reluctant to verbally share their responses, having something to read can bolster their confidence. As a discussion unfolds, students could take timeout to write their thoughts about or reflections on the discussion topic(s). By writing during the discussion, students can recharge their thinking in order to interject some new ideas into the discussion or push the discussion in new directions. Then, at the end of the discussion, students could write about what they learned from the discussion by synthesizing their perceptions of the discussion. By studying these reflective “learning entries,” teachers may determine differences in how students are perceiving their classroom experience.
Note-taking Students can use digital note-taking tools such as Zoho Notebook, Evernote, Notetaker, FreeMind, KeyNote, Webnotes, or Journler to copy and paste those notes into their drafts. Central to effective note-taking is the ability to summarize one’s perceptions of a text or lecture in one’s own words, as well as adding one’s reflective interpretations. Some students may need instruction on writing summaries that go beyond simply quoting verbatim from the original texts to formulating your interpretations of texts. You could model this process by sharing your own notes about a text on the whiteboard, overhead, or computer. You can initially simply restate or summarize the characters’ actions or story events, asking students to add their own restatement and summaries. You can then ask students to reflect on certain ways of organizing the notes in terms of categories or patterns. You then show how you use these categories or patterns to formulate new summaries or interpretations. In teaching The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991) during his student teaching, Dan Gough began by asking students to write in their journals in response to the following prompts. (In reality this sheet would be spaced out over two or three pages to allow room for notes.)
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Characters in The Great Gatsby This sheet is designed as a place for you to keep notes regarding the characters from the novel as you meet them and as they evolve through the story. Beneath each character you should keep track of events, things they say and things that are said about them as the novel progresses. Make sure to use direct quotes from the novel, referenced with page numbers. It may also be a good idea to differentiate between traits that you feel are positive or negative within a character (+/-) Gatsby Nick Tom Daisy Minor Characters (Myrtle, Wilson, Jordan, Owl Eyes, etc.)
Listing Students can list different aspects or elements of a character, setting, or story event. For example, you might ask students to list a character’s attributes, a set of questions they have about a topic, some problems they wish to investigate, or people they can contact to discuss an issue or topic. In asking students to list, you want them to go beyond just one or two items and to list as many items as possible. To encourage students to think further about the idea of the American dream in his Gatsby unit, Dan asked his students to respond to the following Langston Hughes poem “I, Too sing America” and list answers to the following questions: • • •
What is the poem saying? (Write at least three different answers.) What emotions are expressed in the poem? (Write at least three answers.) What are the three key words in the poem? (Come up with ten words and narrow your list down as a group. Each member must be able to justify the final selection.)
You can also ask students to list questions based on the text, questions you could then list on the whiteboard. You could then collapse, combine, or reorganize the questions and use them as the basis for a discussion.
Mapping Students can use digital concept/mind-maps such as Inspiration or Bubbl.us.com to portray different characters as the central circles, with spokes to other circles in which they insert descriptions of characters’ traits, feelings, beliefs, and goals (Lastiri, 2007). They can then draw lines between these circles to add descriptions of how characters share or differ in terms of their traits, feelings, beliefs, and goals. They can also use circle maps to define the different sub-worlds in a text and how characters’ practices may vary across those sub-worlds. To help his students define the different sub-worlds of The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991), Dan had his students create maps representing the novel’s different settings. Mapping the settings in The Great Gatsby Movement and location are very important in The Great Gatsby. The characters and action move around from place to place and locations themselves can tell us a story. For extra
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credit you are invited to create a map of the novel. To get full credit your map should be accurately based on the novel, contain all the important areas and landmarks mentioned in the novel and be imaginatively and artistically created. The map should document what happens in the various locations. Some of the locations that your map must contain are: East Egg, Buchanan’s house, West Egg, Gatsby’s house, Nick’s house, Valley of Ashes, T. J. Eckleberg billboard, railroad tracks and motor road, Wilson’s garage/house, New York.
Students could also draw maps that represent how they believe characters conceptualize or define their worlds—creating a graphic version of characters’ cultural models of the world. For example, they could put some characters’ practices and beliefs on the top of the map that characters perceive as having higher value than other practices or beliefs as having less value, practices and beliefs that they could put on the bottom of the map. For example, they may create a map for Holden Caulfield in which certain experiences in his life—his relationships with other characters—are more important to him than his schooling or certain status markers.
Artwork Students can also create artwork that reflects their experiences with texts. In response to young adult novels, Linda Reif’s (1992) 8th grade students, working in teams, created their own paintings and wall murals containing images that represented their experience with these novels. As they worked on the paintings, they discussed their responses, often revising their perceptions through the process of having to visually convey their experience. The result was three large abstract paintings that were placed on a hallway wall of Reif’s middle school. Students may also create book covers that include summary images portraying their interpretations of a text. Or, for anthologies, they can create their own collections of poetry that include a preface and discussion of the poems included (Scimone, 1999). Students can also create body biographies, life-size drawings of characters with descriptions of different aspects of that character (Smagorinsky & O’Donnell-Allen, 1998). For his student teaching unit on Holes (Sachar, 2000), Bryan Legrand had students create criminal “rap sheets” based on characters they create who might be sent to a camp such as the one in the novel. The students give themselves new names (their real first name, with a last name that is simply their first name spelled backwards (like Stanley Yelnats, the protagonist of Holes), the crime of which they are accused (it will be humorous, like feeding Ex-Lax to their neighbor’s dog, who then proceeded to ruin their neighbor’s carpet). Students had to reflect on whether they were guilty or innocent, what happened in their “crime,” and if they were caught. Students then draw a picture of their character or find a photo that looks like their character and paste it on the back of their sheet. Also on the back, they write answers to the following prompts: Describe what your character looks like. Where does your character live? Who does your character live with? What does your character like to do? If your character had another chance to speak with the judge before being sent to Camp Cooper, what would your character say?
Dialogue-journal or blog writing Students may also use dialogue-journals or blogs in which they share their spontaneous, open-ended, exploratory, subjective responses to texts with peers (Anson & Beach, 1997;
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Atwell, 1987/1998; Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009). Students can create blogs using any number of different blog platforms: Blogger, LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad, WordPress, Movable Type, Edublog, or Tumblr. In setting up their blogs, students can subscribe to each other’s blogs’s RSS feed using Bloglines or Google Reader to automatically receive new posts for their subscribed blogs. In using blogs, students can present their writing in a physically appealing manner and layout, drawing on templates and other design features to readily create attractive, polished layouts; embed images or YouTube video clips into their posts to illustrate their ideas; and provide and receive comments to blog posts that serve to bolster students’ confidence in writing and foster further dialogue about texts. They can also adopt the perspective of a character or author in formulating their posts (Potash & Bulgaria, 2008). In using journals or blogs, it is important to require specific numbers of entries or posts, as well as to share your own and react to students’ entries or posts, posing questions that model certain interpretive strategies/critical approaches to help students extend or elaborate on their thinking (Atwell, 2007). For example, Paul Allison (2009) notes how his students formulate critical inquiry questions for sharing with others on Youth Voices: I ask my students to find a question or a set of questions that they develop in their own speculative writing, and eventually they do online research about their questions, connecting with others who have published on the Internet, and critically interpreting the welter of information available to them there. Students grow their blogs over a semester of working with other students and teachers who share their social network, Youth Voices. (p. 98)
He also poses questions for his students to consider in their blogging: • • •
What are you passionate about and how do these interests fit with other students’ big questions? What voices or sources of information do you think are important to include in your search for answers? How do you become an effective online networker and get people with shared interests to value your voice online?
Students can also create posts that mimic the style of the text they are reading. In teaching The Diary of Anne Frank/The Play, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (1998), to her 8th grade students, Naomi Remple had students keep a diary in a manner that paralleled Anne Frank’s own process of keeping a diary. To prepare students for diary writing, Naomi asked them to write down personal details that Anne included in her initial diary entry. To emphasize the value of details in diary writing, she asked them to discuss the importance of details, how those details help the reader, and what those details reveal about Anne. She then provided each student with blank journals whose covers included the quote taken from Anne’s diary, “I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.” Students may also use “dual-entry” journals in which they write down their perceptions or reactions on one side of a page and then reflect on these perceptions or reactions on the other side of the page. The perceptions on one side of the page trigger reflections on the other side, which, in turn, trigger further perceptions. Ideally, in moving back and forth between the two sides of the page, students enter into a dialectical inner dialogue. In a similar activity, to encourage students to expand or elaborate on their
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diary entries, Naomi asked them to create two columns on a sheet of paper, the first column titled, “Statement,” and the second, “Prompt.” In the statement column, students wrote various statements such as “I like cheese. I went to the mall yesterday. I want to go to Africa.” The students then drew an arrow to the right column and write a question or a prompt to find out more about that first statement: “Why? What do you mean by that? What else?” After they wrote the prompt, they the drew an arrow back to the other side and wrote a new statement answering the prompt until they wrote at least 6 links to their “chain” of statement/prompt connections. For writing in their diaries, she provided the following prompts: • • • • •
“I dream that one day . . .” “If I had to hide in an attic like Anne did I would . . .” “What would be your first wish, if you were free from hiding?” “Write about a memory or person that made you angry or hurt. Have you forgiven this person?” “Choose one of the characters in Scene II to write an interior monologue or diary entry for that character, Peter, Dussel, Margot, or Anne.”
Students can also share weekly “literacy letters” that build on each other based on a series of prompts (Frey, Fisher, & Mooer, 2009): •
• • • •
In your letter this week, write about the book’s genre and any connections you may have with the book. Can you connect and identify with the characters? Does the book remind you of any other book you have read? In your letter this week start with “I didn’t agree with . . .” or “I don’t understand . . .” Explain why you fee this way or what you didn’t understand. This week start your letter by writing “If I were the author . . .” In this week’s literacy letter, please write about the theme of your book. What is the dominant idea the author is trying to convey? In your letter this week please write about the author’s purpose. Why do you think the author wrote this book? (p. 31)
COLLABORATIVELY SHARING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT TEXTS Students need to learn how to collaboratively share and construct knowledge as an essential literacy skill involved in working with others (Gaughan & Khost, 2007). This includes learning to use social-bookmarking/tagging, annotations, wikis, or social-networking sites for collaboratively sharing their responses to and knowledge about texts (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009; Lancashire, 2009; Richardson, 2009).
Social-Bookmarking/Tagging Students can use social-bookmarking/tagging tools such as Diigo.com or delicious to share links to websites about topics related to a text. To bookmark a site, students open up Diigo or Delicious (housed on their browser) and then add keyword tags summarizing the content of a site. To foster this sharing within a specific class, you can create a class Diigo group, for example, American Literature 10, so that when students want to share their bookmarks, they simply select the name of that class and everyone in the class receives those bookmarks in their email.
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In teaching In the Time of the Butterflies (Alverez, 1994), portraying a revolt against the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, Anne Tholen and Kathleen West of Edina High School, Edina, MN, employ tagging using Delicious: Using their tags, students would be able to not only review the sites they themselves found, but also access lists created by class members and other delicious users who used the same tags. We explained tags briefly, and had students conduct web searches on terms related to the novel, which we brainstormed as a class: dictatorship, Trujillo, Mirabal, sisters, revolutionaries, underground movements, Dominican Republic, etc. . . . Students had a largely positive response to the use of tags and the tagging process when conducting research. They commented on the ease of tagging, how it helped them organize websites in a thoughtful way that made their sources more organized, and noted a sense of enjoyment, engagement, and play while tagging during the research process. (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009, p. 36)
In addition to tagging sites, students can also annotate highlighted sections of a website or online literary text, for example, a section of an online text on Google Books. In using Diigo, students can share “sticky note” annotations to the highlighted words or lines of an online poem, leading to comparisons on differences in their responses.
Use of Wikis You can also create wikis using free wiki platforms such as PBWorks (http://pbworks. com), Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com), or Wetpaint (http://www.wetpaint. com). Wikis function as repositories or study guides for students to collaboratively add information about a particular text, author, or topic based on separate pages within the wiki organized by categories such as characters, setting, key events, themes, information about the author, reviews/critical analysis, etc. Future classes can then add further information to the wiki so that, over time, students are adding extensive information about a text, author, or topic. For example, in her student teaching, Karena Hunt developed a wiki for teaching the novel, The House of the Scorpion (Farmer, 2004) (http://thehouseofthescorpion.pbworks.com). In the wiki sidebar, she created separate pages for chapter summaries, characters, character monologue podcasts (for students to link podcasts about characters), links related to the novel and author, a reader’s guide based on student-generated questions, and issues addressed in the novel (immigration, human-rights, bio-ethics, drugs/government/power). Students can also use wikis (as well as Google Docs) for collaborative writing about texts in which they work together on writing about a text. For example, Theresa Haider employed a wiki for her students to write about various issues portrayed in The Kite Runner (Hosseini, 2004) (http://digitalwriting.pbworks.com/Theresa+Haider%27s+ Wiki+Writing+Project+on+The+Kite+Runner). She describes her assignment for student groups of no more than four people to write about topics related to the book: I created an assignment that asked students to include eight aspects on their wikis: the title of their topic, names of group members, a thesis statement, a four-five paragraph summary of their topic with links to outside sources which they have determined to be reliable, a paragraph explaining the connection between the topic and the book, images related to the topic, three higher-order-thinking questions that could be used on a quiz, and a list of references. (Beach, Anson, Kastman-Breuch, & Swiss, 2009, p. 84).
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(For more on the use of blogs and wikis for writing about literature, see Technology and writing on the website.)
FORMAL WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE In contrast to more informal writing, students also write more formal essays about literature in which they are pulling together material developed from informal writing to formulate an essay that reflects sustained, systematic analysis or interpretation (Jago, Shea, Aufses, & Scanlon, 2010). In engaging in formal writing, students can move beyond simply summarizing a text to formulating a position about that text by modeling differences between summary, formulating positions, and providing supporting evidence for those positions, for example: • • •
Summary: In “The Lottery,” (Jackson, 1988), the townspeople conduct an annual lottery in a ritual-like manner. Formulating a position: People participate in group rituals without thinking about what they are doing because these rituals give them a sense of reassurance. Supporting evidence: The townspeople engage in this ritual because they do not stop to reflect on what they are doing or the consequences of their actions.
Students could also read sample essays written by previous students and color-code examples of summary, supporting evidence, and analysis using yellow for summary, blue for supporting evidence, and green for analysis (Olson, 2003). To help her first-year college students in an introductory theater course move beyond summary writing of the play, Madame Butterfly (Puccini, 1985), Lisa Peschel of the University of Minnesota employed the following activities: In past years, some students have summarized the plot instead of analyzing the play. A few weeks before the text analysis paper was due, I give them a short take-home writing assignment: bring in a summary of the plot. This assignment serves as a springboard for discussion during the next session, and it also gets the “plot summary” out of their system so that they can then turn to analysis. A few weeks before they start the M. Butterfly paper, I ask students to write one page about any performance they have seen, including performative events that are not normally considered “theatrical” (weddings, lectures, concerts, etc.). I make extensive comments on these assignments, then meet with the students individually to discuss the comments and how they might apply them to the M. Butterfly paper. To prepare for the text analysis, I have my students write a practice paper based on model thesis statements I provide. Their assignment is to choose one of these statements and take a position agreeing with it, disagreeing with it, or complicating it, then to write a 1.5–2 page paper defining their position and supporting it with two passages from the play. In past sections, students have indicated that the biggest challenge was formulating the thesis statement itself. By giving them thesis statements to choose from, I moved the focus of the assignment to the process of taking a stand and defending it. This assignment gives them confidence in their ability to do that, and thus helps prepare them to formulate and defending their own thesis statements for the M. Butterfly paper.
Lisa was therefore demonstrating ways of shifting from a summary retelling to an argument structure in which they had to develop that argument.
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Formulating Writing Assignments Central to the success of formal writing about literature is a well-formulated assignment. One limitation of many assignments is that students are simply provided with a topic— “Is Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman a tragic hero? 500 words” —without providing students with any sense of purpose, interpretive strategies, audience, and criteria for success. Students need to understand your expectations related to the purpose for writing an essay, the interpretive strategies involved in writing the essay, and criteria for how you will be evaluating their writing.
Anticipating and Making Explicit Difficulties in Writing. In formulating your writing assignments, you may also reflect on or anticipate the difficulties students may encounter in completing an assignment. In doing so, you can explicitly discuss these difficulties with students by sharing your own difficulties, for example, the fact that you may be writing in an unfamiliar form or genre (Fleisher & Andrew-Vaughan, 2009), are not sure about your relationship with your audience, or that you lacked knowledge of a topic (Reid, 2010). By sharing your own difficulties in writing, as well as how you address these difficulties, you are providing your students with ways to identify and cope with their own difficulties in writing.
Stating the Purpose for Writing It is useful to state the purposes for writing in order to convey to students the reasons they are writing their essays. For example, in teaching a unit on the portrayal of smalltown worlds in short stories, the final essay for the unit is “describe the ways in which the small town is represented in one of the short stories.” However, in order to write that essay, students need some sense of the purpose for writing the essay—how it fits into the larger unit. The purpose for the essay is to “demonstrate what you learned in this unit about characters’ relationships with small-town life by showing how a short story portrays characters’ feelings of attachment with or detachment from their smalltown community as statements about the value or limitations of small-town life.”
Specifying Interpretive Strategies It is also useful to specify the kinds of interpretative strategies students will use to fulfill the purpose of the assignment—in this case, how the short story characters’ positive or negative relationship with small towns reflects the positive or negative aspects of smalltown life. These strategies could include the following: • • • • • •
Identify several characters’ thoughts or statements about their small town in the story that reflect their feelings towards or attitudes about their small town. Interpret the types of feelings or attitudes in characters’ thoughts or statements as positive or negative. Provide reasons for why these feelings or attitudes are positive or negative. Compare/contrast the different characters’ feelings or attitudes. Interpret what you believe to be the story’s stance towards the value or limitation of small-town life. Identify difficulties in interpreting texts followed by a metacognitive description of strategies employed to address these difficulties (Blau, 2003).
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Identify characters’ adoption of different voices operating in a text that reflects different beliefs or perspectives, for example, how Maxine Hong Kingston adopts different voices in The Woman Warrior given her competing allegiances to operating in Chinese, American, Chinese-American worlds (Rose, 2007). Apply different competing interpretations or critical approaches and then reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of these competing interpretations/approaches. Read another related text and then revise interpretations of a previously read text (Bartholomae and Petrosky (2008), for example, after reading the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Douglass, 2005) students then read Harriet Jacobs’ (2006) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and consider differences in these characters’ experiences in terms of gendered perspectives (Berg, 2007).
Defining Criteria for Evaluation It is also useful to provide students with specific criteria by which their writing will be judged. Students will then have a clearer idea as to how their writing will be judged, using those criteria to assess and revise their drafts. (In Chapter 13, on evaluating students, we discuss criteria for evaluating students’ interpretations in more detail.) In formulating criteria, it is important that they are consistent with descriptions of the purpose and strategies. For this assignment, students are expected to provide a clear formulation of the characters’ feelings or attitudes as positive or negative about their town, supported by examples of characters’ thoughts and feelings, differences between the characters’ feelings or attitudes that are clearly stated, or the story’s stance towards the value or limitation of small-town life.
Testing the Validity of Supporting Reasons or Evidence In supporting their thesis with reasons or evidence, students need to test the validity of those reasons or evidence by making explicit the warrants or assumptions linking their thesis and their reasons/evidence (Johannessen, Kahn, & Walter, 2009). For example, to support the thesis that Elizabeth Bennet is a strong female character, a student may cite the evidence that she is consistently critical of her sisters marrying males primarily to be married. Students define these warrants or assumptions by drawing on their lived-world and literary knowledge. In doing so, they need to recognize differences between the norms operating in their own lived-world contexts and the norms operating in a text world. To appreciate Elizabeth’s strengths, they need to recognize that, in contrast to their own contemporary world, in the world of Pride and Prejudice (Austen, 2009), women had limited status in terms of selecting martial partners and were totally dependent on their husbands for financial support. Students can use diagrams to visually portray the relationship between their claim and evidence and how their warrants or assumptions link that claim and evidence. Here are some examples: • • •
Claim: Elizabeth Bennet is a strong, independent female character. Evidence: Elizabeth rejects the idea that she needs to marry any male who wants to marry her. Warrant: In the early 19th century, women expressed their independence by not having to marry any male who wanted to marry them.
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Imposing Lived-world Assumptions onto Text Worlds In inferring warrants or assumptions, students need to avoid imposing their own livedworld assumptions onto text worlds by defining the norms operating in those text worlds as distinct from those operating in their own lived-worlds. For example, in writing about Octavio Butler’s (1979/2008) time-travel novel, Kindred, 12th grade students in Daryl Parks’s literature class were analyzing the actions of the main character, Dana, an African-American women, who moves between the contemporary world of Los Angeles in the 1970s and the plantation world of Maryland in the 1820s (Beach, HaertlingThein, & Parks, 2008). In the plantation world, Dana and her great-grandmother, Alice, are slaves controlled and harassed by the plantation owner, Tom Rufus, who has raped Alice. At the same time, in her contemporary world of Los Angeles, she is also struggling with being in an inter-racial marriage to a White male. In analyzing Dana’s actions, students based their evidence for claims about her actions based on the assumption that they need to consider the historical context of the novel’s world of the 1820s. As one student, Mitch, noted: Rufus rapes Alice and sells slaves, but who is responsible depends on your definition of self. If you think that a person is only a product of their history and environment, then “his” actions were beyond “his” control. This idea about the relationship between a person and their culture is one of the main points Octavio Butler is trying to make. Dana is given a unique non-objective perspective that causes the reader to see the invisible cultural forces that shape everyone. (p. 74)
Mitch also recognizes that in returning to the past, Dana herself is applying certain contemporary assumptions to judging people in the past: Dana is a product of her environment in the future, but when she’s taken back in time, people like her do not exist. Civil rights and feminist ideas were not heard of, so it would not be reasonable to expect people to understand why she “acts white” and “dresses like a man”. (p. 75)
By distinguishing between the norms operating in his own lived-world and the plantation world, Mitch is analyzing the characters’ actions based on assumptions operating in the text world. He is therefore aware of the need, in providing evidence for his claims, to avoid imposing his lived-world assumptions onto a text world, leading him to derive evidence from inferences about the cultural and historical context of the text world. Interrogating assumptions leads to recognition of how certain beliefs and cultural models serve to limit characters and people. For example, in responding to The Bluest Eye (Morrison, 2000), portraying ways in which African-American female characters perceive themselves relative to White movie stars, students recognize how cultural models of physical beauty based on whiteness as the norm itself limit characters in the novel, as well as themselves (Beach, Haertling-Thein, & Parks, 2008).
Citations You may also stress the need for students to provide appropriate citations when they refer to or quote from texts, as well as the use of certain reference styles such as MLA or APA. (See Citation and reference style resources on the website.)
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UNDERSTANDING TEXTS THROUGH WRITING TEXTS Teaching literature also involves students creating their own literary texts. In doing so, they are learning to employ various literary conventions that enhance their interpretation of texts (Anderson & Farris, 2007). In revising their stories, they adopt the role of what Don Murray describes as their “own best reader” to reflect on whether their use of techniques achieves their intended effects on an audience, for example, whether their use of dialogue serves to portray conflict between two characters. And, learning critical ways of reading and re-reading texts from rhetorical and social perspectives enhances their ability to read and assess their own writing (Bartholomae & Petrosky, 2008). Students could also write stories based on formulaic genre fiction—mystery, romance, or adventure, drawing on knowledge of familiar storylines and characters (Hubert, 2000). (See Writing fiction, narratives, and drama on the website.)
Creating Characters In creating characters for their stories, students need to know how to portray characters through their actions or dialogue, as opposed to providing abstract descriptions about a character. To help them define specific actions or dialogue, students could list the various traits they want to portray about a character—the fact that a character is angry, defiant, and moody. For each of these traits, they could then list specific behaviors or bits of dialogue that would serve to convey these traits.
Creating Problems and Conflicts Students could create problems and conflicts facing characters by posing questions about characters’ actions and motives in ways that lead writers to further develop story events. If characters are not getting along and experience a conflict, the question arises as to why they are having a conflict, or if they are failing to fulfill certain goals or expectations, why are they not fulfilling their goals or expectations.
Developing Dialogue Dialogue functions to not only forward the story events, but to also portray character traits and relationships. It is often difficult to write dialogue that rings true—that captures people’s talk as they actually talk. This requires attention to use of specific dialect features, current lingo, pauses, interaction styles (interruptions, talking-over), inflections, emphasis, etc. Students may analyze examples of dialogue in literature, particularly drama texts, to note how dialogue is used to develop character and storylines, for example, how uses of certain speech acts described in Chapter 8 represent certain traits, beliefs, or goals. They may also listen to or overhear people calling on cell phones or engaging in conversations in restaurants or shopping malls, attending to the particular aspects of their conversations. Or, they could use role-play to improvise dialogue appropriate for these situations.
Creating Settings In creating settings, students create a context that evokes a reader spatial/temporal schema as to the physical layout of the setting and what characters are sitting or standing in what
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location. This may include providing readers with a “grand tour” sequence of, for example, a house in which the reader is led by the hand through the living room into the kitchen and then out onto a deck where the protagonists are conversing. However, students also need to go beyond these physical aspects to portray the social, cultural, and historical aspects of setting. This involves creating a social world that provides readers with details about the historical period through descriptions of dress, language use, architecture, leisure time activities, music, or art unique to that period. And, students also may portray the social and cultural attitudes prevalent during a certain period. For example, in setting a story in the late 1960s, students may use descriptions of the “hippie” dress, talk, and social practices to portray the “anti-establishment/anti-Vietnam War” attitudes prevalent during that time.
Writing Poetry Students learn to understand the techniques and conventions of a particular genre through writing texts within that genre, in this case, poetry. As students are reading and performing poetry, that experience may transfer over to writing poetry. And, as students are writing poetry, they adopt the perspective of a writer who begins to notice the use of certain techniques, word choices, use of white space, and use of meter/rhythm patterns. Students are often initially intimidated by the idea of being able to write out a poem in one sitting. This suggests the need to brainstorm and freewrite or use some kind of scaffolding device such as those explored below. For example, Linda Christensen (2000) has students write “Where I’m from” poems by first listing of items associated with their home, yard, family, foods, places, neighborhood, or town/region. Students then read aloud their lists, adopting the language or dialect of the students’ homes, families, or neighborhoods. They then use their lists to link to the idea of how these specific items reflect their home, family, or neighborhood cultures based on the idea of “Where I’m from.” Students then read aloud these poems and receive feedback from peers that leads to revision. Here are some lines from some of the poems students wrote: “I’m from clothespins, / from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride, / I’m from the dirt under the back porch” (p. 18). “I am from get-togethers / and Bar-B-ques / K-Mart special with matching shoes.” (p. 19). “I am from poke, brie cheese, mango, / and raspberries, / from Marguritte / and Aunty Nani” (p. 21). There are many such framing devices to help students write poetry, ranging from “I am” poems to “Bio-Poems” to many others. Another basic approach is to use ideas or material from other poems or texts as “poetry ideas” (Koch, 1973; 1980) to stimulate ideas or materials for a student’s own poem. For example, students may develop “found poems” or “clippings poems” based on combinations of words or texts from ads, newspaper stories, flyers, letters, or websites (Somers, 1999). Or, they can create “clippings poems” by taking clips of words from ads, websites or short poems and combine those clips in creative ways to create new poems. Students can also employ different forms of writing poems: haiku (traditional Japanese three-line poems) (Higginson, 1992), ballads, lyric, or raps. As noted in Chapter 8, students can write rap lyrics to be performed in classroom or community poetry slams. And, students can write poems based on different visual shapes in which the appearance of lines on the page reflects the subject of the poem—for example, a poem about loss shaped like a tear.
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As with digital storytelling, students can also create digital poems using PowerPoint, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or Voicethread to combine audio, music, or sound effects, with words of a poem (for examples of digital poems, see the Electronic Literature Organization’s collection of poems: http://eliterature.org). In writing a poem, “14 Reasons Why,” a tribute to the novelist June Jordan, Korina Jocson (2005) created a digital video consisting of images she associated with June Jordon’s writing, including images of leaders such as Angela Davis and Che Guevara who, like Jordon, challenged the status quo (http://cie.asu.edu/volume8/number5/index.html). Digital poems may also include hypertext links to other related texts, images, or annotations, as reflected in the hypertext version of T.S. Eliot’s (2000) “The Wasteland” (http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com), poems that can be created using blogs, wikis, or Storyspace (http://www.eastgate.com). One challenge to interpreting hypertext literature is that students may have difficulty navigating through links without a clear sense of direction so that they lose track of where they are going, suggesting the need to provide cues for selecting optional links To provide audiences for their work, students can create online literary magazines including submissions from both their own school, and elsewhere such as Space (http://2008space.googlepages.com) that contains poems, stories, essays, videos, artwork, and photography. (See Writing poetry on the website.)
Writing Non-fiction Essays You can also integrate reading and writing of non-fiction/essays by having high school students reading engaging literary non-fiction/essays by authors such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Dee Brown, Truman Capote, Eldridge Cleaver, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Frederick Douglass, Emmet Fox, Kahlil Gibran, Alex Haley, James Herriot, Martin Luther King, Jr., Peter Matthiessen, David McCullough, Thomas Merton, Thomas Moore, Henry David Thoreau, Susan Sontag, and Thomas Wolfe. Essay writers who would appeal to middle school students include Mark Aronson, Russell Freeman, James Cross Giblin, James Haskins, Albert Marrin, Milton Meltzer, Jim Murphy, Laurence Pringle, and Catherine Reef (Nilsen & Donelson, 2009, pp. 304–309). Students could then select certain issues or topics that interest or concern them, pose specific inquiry questions and conduct research about those issues or topics, and then write essays on those issues or topics, employing some of the strategies used by essay writers. Students could also write autobiographical narratives to portray past events that reflected their identities in a certain developmental phase or turning point in their lives. They could conduct research about their family history or past historical events related to their lives or interview people who knew them in their past. In interviewing people, they can ask them to reflect on their perceptions of their past selves in certain cultural contexts (for examples of interviews with 1,750 African-Americans: StoryCorps Griot http://www.storycorps.net/initiatives/griot). In writing autobiographical narratives, it is important that students flesh out specific past events through use of descriptive details and dialogue. In doing so, they can then describe events through eyes of their past point of view, a perspective that represents their particular past identity. For example, in recounting her “turning point” experiences in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou (2009) assumes the perspective of a young African-American girl witnessing her grandmother being harassed by White racists. (See Writing autobiography/family histories on the website.)
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Publishing Writing Online Students can publish examples of their own fiction or non-fiction writing on various online writing sites. On these sites, they can view other students’ writing, receive feedback on their writing, or find criteria for self-assessing their writing, something we discuss in more detail in Chapter 13. (See Online writing resources/writing centers/feedback on the website.)
Rewriting Texts Students can also engage in rewriting texts as a means of exploring alternative, what-if perspectives by discussing how revised texts reflect different meanings (Pope, 1994). For example, students may initially respond to how a text positions them to respond, for example, that in responding to the Cinderella story, they may have been pleased that everything works out for Cinderella at the end of the story because she has “found her man,” an interpretation reflecting traditional gender attitudes. By rewriting the Cinderella story, students could portray Cinderella as a more complex character who is interested in a career, her education, political matters, etc., rewriting that challenges dominant cultural readings of the story. Rewriting texts can include the following: • •
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Translating the text into simpler or different language, for example, rewriting a section of a Shakespeare play or sonnet into contemporary English, Spanish, or French. Parodying the text, in which students mimic or alter the text to ridicule the style or themes. Students could study contemporary examples of parody, for example The Onion, a newspaper parody of current news events. Rewriting the text or a section of a text in a different genre—a diary entry, letter, memo, email message, poem, memoir, newspaper report, etc., for example, creating a story or play out of a newspaper report, or having a character write diary entries or letters to other characters. Creating a multi-genre text, in which students write other short texts that are linked to certain aspects of the text; they then insert these linked texts into the text (Romano, 2000). Creating a hypertext version of the text, in which students use an electronic version of a text to insert links to related websites (by inserting URLs); background historical information about settings, characters, authors, events; links to other related texts (using the multi-genre material). Students could use computer software such as HyperstudioTM to create their own hypertext versions of texts. Inserting dialogue into texts, in which students add dialogue as interior monologues to show what characters are really thinking about each other or their reflections about events in the story. Switch the point of view or perspective, for example, telling the story from a different or another character’s perspective or switching a third person omniscient narrator point of view to a first person point of view to illuminate a main character’s own perspectives on events. In shifting the perspective, minor characters, as in Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Stoppard, 1994), may assume a major role in providing their own versions of events. Switching the character or reader audience, in which a character(s) may address an alternative character in a different way or the text itself may adopt a different stance
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towards the audience. Students could consider which audiences an author is not addressing and then address an alternative version of the text to those audiences (Pope, 1994, p. 22). Adding characters or expanding minor characters, in which students insert characters— characters from other texts, historical figures, celebrities, ghosts of deceased characters, narrators, authors, etc., who assume a role in the story. Students could read novels such as Ragtime (Doctorow, 2007) that include historical figures from the same historical period. Students could discuss other historical events or famous people of the same time period that are excluded from the text, and include those events or people in the text (Pope, 1994, p. 22). Inserting alternative events or storylines. Based on the “Choose Your Adventure” genre and the more current hypertext fiction or computer games, students could insert alternative events or storyline pathways or endings. Creating a different setting, period, culture, or time for a text, in which the characters are transported into a different setting, historical period, or culture. Students could read Kindred (Butler, 1979/2008) in which contemporary African-American characters are transported back in time to the period of slavery. (See Rewriting literature and Multi-genre writing about literature on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Collect some examples of other teachers’ or your own writing assignments and reflect on the quality of those writing assignments in terms of their descriptions of potential student engagement, purpose, audience, use of informal writing tools, specificity and logical sequence of tasks, and relevant evaluation criteria. If you have sample student writings in response to these assignments, note the ways in which the assignments served to foster certain uses of interpretive strategies or critical approaches in the students’ writing. Collect some samples of students’ writing about literature and/or narrative or poetry writing. Reflect on the interpretive strategies employed in this writing and differences in the quality of the writing, for example, differences in the use of summary versus analysis. Reflect on reasons for these differences in terms of students’ engagement, knowledge, interest, reading ability, etc., as well as the quality of an assignment and/or instruction associated with that assignment.
PART IV
Where Do I Go From Here?
CHAPTER 13
Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning How Do You Know What They Have Learned? Case Narrative: Coping with Issues of Assessment Defining What You Value in Literature Instruction Alternatives to “Correct Answer” Tests Using Feedback to Foster Students’ Revision and Perspective-taking Providing Students with Criteria in Writing Assignments Determining Student Learning in your Classroom Devising Literature Tests and Assessments Using Portfolios to Evaluate Growth and Reflection
COPING WITH ISSUES OF ASSESSMENT In sharing her experience with student teaching, Heidi Murphy notes that her cooperating teacher typically gives objective tests at the end of each unit: One hundred questions or whatever it is where they really have to know the text, and walking into that situation in the student teaching, I thought, “Oh my gosh.” You know, because when I was a student, we never took tests on literature. It was always writing papers so my philosophy before going into this atmosphere was that I’d rather give students some more varied assessment and evaluation strategies. Maybe have them write a paper about one novel, and then you take maybe just a straight essay test on another novel, um, and then maybe an objective test with another novel. So that there will still be an assessment but maybe not objective testing. Um, but I found actually that the students are used to objective testing and they like that. They don’t like the word “essay.” I’ve talked with my cooperating teacher about this as well and she says that students remember things better and they learn more when they are tested on the detail of the novel. And that that really benefits them more than maybe writing a paper and as far as teaching to the thirty students, that’s the best strategy. You know there might be four or five students in there that would rather write papers while the majority of them would not be successful in that atmosphere. But on the other hand, I know that
CASE NARRATIVE
Chapter Overview
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I have at least four or five students that are really comfortable taking objective tests as well, so I guess what might be shaping some of these behaviors is that the way they’ve done things in the past. If you were in Heidi’s shoes, what would you do in this situation? If you wanted to employ alternative assessments other than objective testing, what justifications would you make for these alternatives in terms of fostering learning of literature? In your student teaching, you devote a lot of time to preparing and then implementing your teaching activities. However, once you’ve taught those activities, how do you know if your students have really learned anything from what you’ve taught them? How do you know if you’ve made a difference in what they learn? And, how will you evaluate students on what they have learned? In this chapter, we discuss ways to determine what students have learned in your literature classes and how you can evaluate their learning. We will be using some key terms associated with assessing and evaluating learning. For the purposes of this chapter, when we use the term assessing, we mean the use of various tools for collecting data on students’ learning—quizzes, journals, discussions, portfolios, etc. When we use the term evaluating, we mean making judgments about the degree and level of student learning based on your assessing.
DEFINING WHAT YOU VALUE IN LITERATURE INSTRUCTION In evaluating students, you are judging their performance based on what you value in their ability to understand and produce literature and media texts. If you value knowledge of factual information about literature, you will evaluate students very differently than if you value their ability to critically analyze texts. As described in Chapter 3 on planning instruction, you are also evaluating them based on your goals and learning objectives. As we argued, “backwards” planning is used to define your goals and objectives in terms of the specific types of learning that you will be assessing. Because she believed in the value of writing as a learning tool, one of Heidi’s goals was to help her students learn to use freewriting and journaling as a means of engaging with texts and grappling with characters’ motivations: I want them to understand that reading and writing can be fun, um when its approached the right way and when you’re involved in some activities through free writing that we do nearly every day and journaling activities and then some form of writing project that can make it relevant to them. If I can make the topic relevant to them, then they seem to be more interested and engaged as well. For example when we worked on the short story, On The Rainey River by Tim O’Brien, where the journal question was, you know, if you were in Tim O’Brien’s position trying to decide whether to fight in the Vietnam War or flee to Canada. What would you do if you were in that position? And what factors would influence your decision? And if you left, who would you want to say goodbye too or what would you say to your friends and your family if you chose to flee or if you chose to fight?
Then, she would evaluate their writing in terms of the degree to which they were engaged with the text and were able to explain characters’ actions. In specifying your goals and
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criteria consistent with those goals, you are attempting to demystify the evaluation process by making explicit your expectations or ground rules. Making explicit your criteria with students provides them with an understanding of “what counts” in your classroom. For example, for her journal entries, Heidi told her students that she was not evaluating them on organization, spelling, or mechanics because she wanted them to understand that they were doing informal writing.
Different Notions of Learning Literature In evaluating students’ learning of literature, one of the key questions that you need to continually address is what does it mean to learn literature. Your definition of what it means to learn literature will influence the kinds of assessment tools you will use to evaluate student learning. For example, you may define learning literature to mean acquiring facts and knowledge about literature—the characteristics of the short story or Romantic poetry—or critical concepts used to analyze literary text—the difference between metaphor and simile. If this is your conception of learning literature, as it was for Heidi’s cooperating teacher, you may then turn to quizzes, worksheets, or tests to assess student knowledge about literature or critical concepts. You may ask students to identify the names of certain characters or authors, settings for texts, or definitions for certain concepts—point of view, setting, symbol, theme, etc. One limitation of this conception of learning literature is that it focuses simply on a “knowing that” aspect of learning literature—whether students know that there is a difference between a first person and a third person point of view. While students need to have certain knowledge about the texts they are reading and critical conceptions, what is more important is their ability to apply that knowledge to texts—the “knowinghow” aspect of learning literature. While a student can demonstrate that she can define the difference between a metaphor and a simile doesn’t necessarily mean that she knows how to apply that knowledge to texts. Moreover, if you employ assessment tools that focus primarily on recall of knowledge about literature, then you may end up focusing your instruction on covering information or concepts. Furthermore, “correct answer” quizzes, tests, or worksheets provide little or no opportunity for the expression of individual open-ended responses. Because students know that they will be tested for “correct” and “incorrect” answers to questions such as “who are the main characters” and “what is the setting,” they respond to texts by attending primarily to facts. By focusing their attention on trying to retain the “facts,” students perceive their own unique responses as irrelevant to “getting a good grade” and becoming more dependent on you for the “right answer,” positioning you as the knowledge dispenser. It is often the case that tests are typically graded according to a group norm. This means that half of the students, unlike Lake Wobegon, in which all of the students are “above average,” presumably score “below average.” As a result, the less-able students remain at the bottom relative to the “top” students. They may then adopt negative selfimages as students, believing that they are “poor readers” or “poor writers”—negative self-images that undermine their confidence in their ability to respond. Evaluating students according to “correct-answers” on a bell-curve system based on group norms may undermine your attempts to engage students who assume that they are not “good students” or “good readers.” In contrast to norm-based evaluation in which students’ are evaluated as “below average,” “average,” or “above average” in their peer group, you may employ criterion-
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based evaluation in which students are evaluated against themselves over time based on specific criteria. For example, if a student who is not all that motivated or engaged with literature knows that they will be evaluated in terms of the improvements they make over time based, for example, on the amount they write in their journal, they may want to write more in their journal to show improvement. What, then, should be the purpose of evaluation? We believe that evaluation should provide students with: • • •
a description of what they are doing and how well they are doing when they respond to literature a blueprint for potential improvement in their responses over time ways of self-assessing so that they determine what they need to do to improve.
ALTERNATIVES TO “CORRECT ANSWER” TESTS One important purpose for evaluating literature is to determine students’ ability to formulate and develop their own interpretations. There are several assessment tools you can use to evaluate students’ formulation and development of their interpretations as alternatives to “correct answer” tests.
Evaluating Journal/Blog responses You can evaluate students based on informal journal or blog responses to texts. In evaluating their entries, you need to stress the disparity between informal and formal writing, focusing on characteristics fostered by informal writing. If you are simply using journals to foster fluency or expression of ideas, you may not want to evaluate students’ journals because to do so may undermine their willingness to express themselves if they are concerned about being evaluated. If you are going to evaluate journals or blogs, you need to make it clear to students that you are using journals or blogs for the purposes of evaluation. As we discuss later in this chapter, you then need to specify the criteria you are using to evaluate their responses. With younger students, you may simply want to focus on entry length, while with older students, you may emphasize their development or elaboration of their entries, as well as the originality or insightfulness of their interpretations and their ability to define connections between texts or apply certain critical lenses. If you give students specific journal or blog prompts, you can base your criteria to that prompt. For example, if students are responding to a short story, you may ask students to describe the characters’ motives or reasons for their actions in the story and what those motives or reasons suggest about their larger agendas or plans. You could then evaluate students’ entries in terms of the number and specificity of their descriptions of characters’ motives or reasons and their ability to use those descriptions to define characters’ agendas or plans. If students are engaged in dialogue-journal exchanges or commenting on each other’s posts as “blog partners,” you may evaluate the amount and quality of their partner’s responses.
Evaluating Formal Essay Writing You may also evaluate students using essay tests or interpretive essays that determine their ability to employ certain types of interpretive strategies or critical lenses. For example, if asked to infer a story’s thematic meaning, students would then be evaluated on whether
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they actually infer a theme or hypothesis, as opposed to simply summarizing the story, and then develop that theme or hypothesis in terms of material from the text as well as other related ideas, perspectives, and texts. As we noted in Chapter 12, your prompts for such essays should clearly specify the interpretive strategy you want students to employ so that you can also identify the criteria associated with effective use of that strategy. For example, if you want students to infer the theme of a story, you may word your prompt as “Formulate what you perceive to be the thematic meaning of this story,” as opposed to “Interpret the story.” You could provide students with the criteria by which you would evaluate their answers, for example, telling that, “I will be evaluating you on your ability to go beyond simply retelling the story to infer the story’s theme.” The following are some suggested criteria for evaluating use of some interpretive strategies we’ve discussed in this book. •
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Elaboration of retelling story events. In recounting or retelling narrative events, the more students elaborate on the details of these events, the more likely they are to interpret characters’ beliefs and attitudes about these events. For example, in recounting the details of Juliet’s “Wherefore art thou” balcony speech to Romeo, a student can infer how Juliet feels about Romeo. Criteria: Students employ detailed retelling of events so that they can infer characters’ beliefs and attitudes. Explaining characters’ actions. Students explain characters’ actions in terms of a range of different characteristics—characters’ traits, knowledge, beliefs, plans, and goals, as well as cite specific evidence for how these factors shape characters’ actions. The more different characteristics students employ in their explanations and the more specific the evidence employed, the more likely they are to formulate a relatively valid explanation. Criteria: Students formulate a number of different reasons to explain characters’ actions based on specific evidence from a text about characters’ traits, knowledge, beliefs, plans, and goals. Perspective-taking. In constructing text worlds, students are adopting a range of different characters’ perspectives reflecting different beliefs and attitudes about events related to tensions or conflicts between characters, for example, how, in The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1991), Nick’s perceptions were ultimately less deluded than Gatsby’s perceptions. Criteria: Students compare and contrast characters’ perspectives to infer tensions or conflicts between characters. Uses of intertextual links. Students link current texts to other related texts in terms of similar genres, settings, character types, narrative patterns, or themes. For example, in responding to Things Fall Apart (Achebe, 1996) which portrays tensions between African and European perspectives, students may contrast that novel with Conrad’s (2000) Heart of Darkness as representing a more European perspective of Africa and its people. Criteria: Students employ links between texts to compare and contrast texts in ways that serve to illuminate the meaning of the current text. Constructing text worlds. Students construct text worlds in terms of the particular cultural or historical norms operating in a text world, as opposed to simply imposing their own lived-world assumptions onto the story world. In doing so, they need to infer consistent norms constituting characters’ appropriate practices so that they can then judge characters’ actions as violating those norms operating in a texts, leading to conflicts between characters who subscribe versus violate those norms. Criteria: Students use inferences about text-world norms to determine characters’ adherence to or violation of those norms.
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Evaluating classroom discussions You may also evaluate students’ classroom discussions in terms of students’ use of certain discussion skills—their frequency of participation, their ability to formulate an interpretation, provide support for their interpretation, restate others’ interpretations, pose counter-interpretations to these others’ interpretations, ask questions to the group, define an emerging consensus, define links to other texts or resources, and adopt certain critical lenses. You can also evaluate their ability to function in different discussion/ literature circle roles—as facilitator, leader, critic, etc., as well as the frequency, originality, and insightfulness of their contributions. To evaluate her students’ use of inquiry strategies in large-group literature discussions, Sharon Eddleston of Armstrong High School, New Hope, Minnesota, employed the following rubric (Beach, Eddleston, & Philippot, 2004): 5: This discussant accepts responsibility for making meaning out of literature. He/she consistently demonstrates a careful reading of the text and makes insightful comments that significantly contribute to our understanding of a reading. The discussant refers to specifics from the class text and compares and contrasts that text to related texts, personal experiences, and social and cultural issues. A respectful listener who avoids monopolizing the conversation, he/she sometimes pulls together and reflects on ideas that have surfaced in the inquiry discussions and may also ask relevant follow up questions, thereby pulling other students into the discussion. 4: Although speaking less frequently than the discussant described above, this discussant shows growth in the willingness to express responses. He/she has the ability to explain ideas clearly and to connect those ideas to others being discussed. This discussant may clarify a specific point being discussed or elaborate on specific examples from the text. Body language and eye contact also indicate a substantial involvement in the discussion. 3: Speaking occasionally, this discussant may primarily respond on a personal level to the text (“I liked it,” “I didn’t . . .”), perhaps supplying some textual evidence for this point of view. The discussant’s remarks may be insightful but they tend to be brief. Or, the discussant may speak often but say little that adds significantly to our understanding of a text, and may, in fact, primarily repeat what others have already said or be difficult to follow. 2: This class member says little. This discussant’s few remarks may be inaccurate, unclear, or too brief to be helpful. Little textual support is offered; there is little evidence that the student has read the text carefully or at all. Or, the student may belittle other speakers’ remarks, monopolize the conversation, interrupt other speakers, ignore their remarks when speaking, or talk to those seated nearby rather than to the whole group. 1: The student says nothing and appears uninterested in the class discussions, according to his/her body language. Or, the students may appear interested in the discussion, but, for whatever reason, does not join in it.
USING FEEDBACK TO FOSTER STUDENTS’ REVISION AND PERSPECTIVE-TAKING One basic goal of evaluation is to foster student learning of literature defined as acquiring new ways of knowing and thinking through the kinds of perspective-taking involved in responding to literature, drama, talk, artwork, or writing. In giving feedback to students’ written drafts, you are encouraging them to explore alternative perspectives so that they are continually rethinking, elaborating, reformulating, revising, or interrogating their
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own interpretations. All of this involves assessment as a form of inquiry in which your feedback serves to further engage students in inquiry about their beliefs, ideas, concepts, and strategies
Providing “Reader-based,” Descriptive Responses In responding to drafts of students’ writing through written, digitally recorded, or conference feedback, it is important to provide specific “reader-based” feedback during the drafting process (as opposed to after the writing is complete) that describes how you are processing and engaged with the students’ writing (Elbow, 1998). In providing “readerbased” feedback, you describe the experience of being: • •
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engaged, entranced, moved, involved, disturbed, struck by, intrigued, puzzled, etc.: “When I read the description of the . . .” provided with too much information, description, or different ideas/points associated with being overwhelmed, lost, besieged with, drowning in, swimming upstream, etc. not having enough information or description associated with being overwhelmed, missing something, wanting more predicting or expecting subsequent text development associated with being caughtup-in, anticipating events, expecting support or evidence, etc.
Based on your reactions, the student then uses your or a peer’s perceptions to identify problems in their drafts and formulate possible revisions that address these problems. This means that rather than you initially judging the student’s writing, as in, “this part isn’t well organized—it lacks coherence,” you are letting the students make that judgment through reader-based feedback like, “I’m confused here—are you saying that Odysseus was not a true hero?” However, if students have difficulty making that judgment, you may then need to step in and identify what you perceive to be the problem, for example, noting that they haven’t clearly defined their overall interpretive thesis. You also need to prioritize your feedback, selecting those aspects of the student’s draft that need the most work as opposed to overwhelming students with a lot of feedback about a lot of different aspects. And, you need to frame your feedback by considering a student’s Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978) so that you are not overwhelming students with overly sophisticated responses, but, at the same time, you are challenging them in ways that leads to seminal changes. And, in giving feedback, you are providing students with a metacognitive vocabulary for students to reflect on what they are doing in their writing by using certain concepts or descriptions of interpretive strategies that they use to self-evaluate their responses. For example, when you note “I really liked the way you make a connection between the world of 1984 and the world of Brave New World to develop the theme of how people can be easily controlled by propaganda,” you are providing students with a vocabulary such as “make a connection” or “develop the theme” that they may use in self-evaluating their responses.
Teaching Peers to Give Feedback Because you may not have the time to provide students with conference feedback, one alternative is to train peers to provide reader-based feedback in peer-conferences. You can model feedback strategies so that students learn to:
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• • • • •
begin the conference so that the writer discusses their concerns responding to the questions, “what works?”/“what needs work?” make positive comments about some specific aspect of the writing; all writers need praise foster discussion of the text provide “reader-based,” descriptive comments so that the writer make the judgments foster self-assessing and discussion of the topic so that the students formulate and develop ideas for revision.
Responding to Response Journals, Blogs, or Online Chat In responding to students’ journals, blogs, or their online chat, you may formulate reactions to create an on-going dialogue with the student, reactions that can also serve to model the dialogue-journal or chat-room sharing between students. In responding to her 8th-grade students’ letters to her, Nancie Atwell (1987/1998), for instance, reacts with her own return letters. She notes that in her letters, she responds “specifically and personally by focusing on academic subjects under consideration in my course: books, authors, reading, and writing.” She often poses “one good, thoughtful question” in order to foster a dialogue between herself and the students (p. 178). In posing these questions, you are also modeling question-asking strategies for students, which, as they internalize over time, lead them to pose questions about their writing on their own, leading to elaboration of their writing. One option to giving written comments on students’ journals or blogs is to respond using digital audio comments using a digital recorder or recording on your computer with Garageband or Audacity to provide students with mp3 files or podcast links. Using audio feedback encourages you to adopt a more conversational feedback mode in which you pose questions or provide your own insights about a text in your responding to students’ interpretations. (See Synchronous conference chat, Peer-group instructor feedback, and Online writing labs on the website.)
Providing Written Feedback You and/or peers can use “track changes” in word processing programs to make specific written comments on students’ writing. Or, you and/or peers can add annotation comments to students’ online writing using programs such as Diigo described in Chapter 12 in which you highlight writing and add “sticky-note” annotations. You can also share examples of annotated papers to show students examples of effective annotations. (See Annotated sample papers on the website.)
PROVIDING STUDENTS WITH CRITERIA IN WRITING ASSIGNMENTS In formulating your literature writing assignments, you can include those criteria you’ll use to assess students’ writing. In giving assignments to his high school students at Hopkins High School, Hopkins, Minnesota, David Williams employs what he describes as template writing assignments that specify criteria unique to writing in a particular form or genre. David argues that providing students with a template actually fosters students’ exploration:
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A template writing assignment is a stylized writing task that dictates form. The assignment handout gives students itemized expectations, which will also be used as the grading criteria, clearly articulating the writing task through narrative expectations that may include an outline or prompts for specific paragraphs or sections. Because the form is dictated, the teacher is able to focus responses to the students’ writing on their content—summary, analysis, interpretations and insights, using margin notes to credit insightful interpretations and pose questions which may urge new ways of thinking or perspectives on their thesis.
Figure 13.1 shows one of his assignments which includes the criteria used to evaluate student work on that assignment. Template writing assignments tend to focus on content rather than on process or form, although these aspects of writing may be valued in some way through the grading criteria. Well-designed template writing assignments should clearly articulate to students Determine whether you interpret Macbeth as a victim or a villain. VICTIM: A predetermined fate or destiny exists in the world of the play. Macbeth only fulfils his predetermined destiny. He has no free will or choice. The control which he appears to have over his own future is an illusion. VILLAIN: No predetermined fate or destiny exists in the world of the play. Macbeth is in total control of his own future. He has and exercises free will, which affects what happens in his future. In an essay, present your position, then support your position with references to, quotes from, and interpretations of the text. You may use and refer to other sources to support your thesis and comments. Include a refutation of the opposing position. In an addendum to your essay, determine and explain your personal views on fate and destiny vs. free will in our real lives. Content Summary of Passage – establish the immediate circumstances of the situation, including the setting, the character, who is speaking, the character(s) to whom the passage is spoken (another character or self, never the audience) – focus only on the content of the passage – restate or rephrase the content of the passage using parallel or synonymous vocabulary; as though you were translating from a foreign language into contemporary English – be specific: line by line, idea by idea, sentence by sentence – cover the entire passage – explain metaphors Thematic Context – introduce and briefly explain a theme that ties this passage to other relevant passages or events in the text – present at least 4 thematically relative passages or events from the entire text that logically lead to and follow from this passage and which track the theme throughout the text – be specific regarding the passages and events to which you refer; use textual references (act-scene-line) and short quotations – interpret how each passage or event is relevant – clearly tie passages and events mentioned to the articulated theme Extrapolation and Transfer – choose and name a specific aspect of the human condition which can be distilled from the passage – describe, explain, and explore in detail a specific parallel situation from personal experience, current events, historic events, or another text (not from Shakespeare) in which this same aspect of the human condition can be found – tie the parallel example back to the passage from the text; clearly show the connections of your parallel situation to the characters, events, and aspect of the human condition of the Shakespearian passage
Figure 13.1 Macbeth Victim/Villain Essay
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what is expected and how it will be evaluated. By itemizing content grading criteria, and the possible points assigned to each, students can see what aspects of the writing task are most important. The grading criteria for a writing task and the rubric for the task should be essentially identical, using the same narrative language; by clearly articulating each criteria, and by using the same language on the grading rubric the teacher can align the assignment with the evaluation. A prescribed template for written responses to literature can minimize the students’ anxiety of using form and can free the student to express ideas within the template; the student is no longer trying to demonstrate mastery of forms but instead is able to express ideas more freely. Using template writing assignments frees students to engage in critical thinking, constructing their own meaning from their interaction with the text, and considering the relationship and connections between their personal stories and experiences and the external stories of literature or history. This shifts the focus of the writing task to one of exploration and self-expression rather than on adherence to form.
Devising Scoring Rubrics Based on your criteria, you may also develop scoring rubrics that specify particular aspects or dimensions of responses associated with an assignment. There are advantages and disadvantages to using rubrics. One advantage is that specifying the level of interpretation representing high versus low adherence to certain criteria means that students can selfassess their writing against these levels as well as the fact that your own assessments may be more consistent, accurate, and fair (Wolf & Stevens, 2007). At the same time, poorly designed, vague, or restrictive rubrics may undermine thoughtful self-assessment or your assessment (Broad, 2003). For example, prepackaged, generic criteria available on the web (Rubicon.com) may not be relevant to your specific assignment expectations. In creating rubrics, you usually set up as a hierarchy of three or four performance levels based on a continuum with descriptors such as 3) exemplary/distinguished/exceeds expectations, 2) meets expectations/proficient/competent, 1) novice/emerging/need more work. To ensure that students understand these descriptors, it is important to specify attributes in the work that represent these different levels of performance related to a specific assignment. In assessing his students’ writing of a short story, David Williams developed the following rubric: 4—exceeds expectations: demonstrates ingenuity; internalization of concepts; usage of story aspects is strong, accurate, original, detailed, clear, logical, and explored; understanding of nuances. 3—fulfills all expectations: demonstrates thorough knowledge of concepts; usage of story aspects is accurate, studied, clear, and logical. 2—falls short of expectations: demonstrates competent knowledge of broad concepts; usage of story aspects is accurate, general, implied, and obvious. 1—meets minimal standards: demonstrates awareness of broad concepts; usage of story aspects is absent, unclear, misused.
To formulate rubric dimensions for a particular assignment, you define what represents a superlative performance on that assignment, and then what would represent the poorest performance on that assignment. These can serve as your 4- (or 3- with 3 levels), and 1-level dimensions. Then, you define what represents one step down from superlative,
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but still meets your expectations—this serves as your 3- (or 2-) dimension. Finally, consider what represents one step up from a 1 level—a reflection that a student is going beyond a poor performance, but still has not met your expectations or needs more work on the assignment.
Developing Criteria and Rubrics for Interpretive Strategies The following criteria and rubrics enable students to self-assess their ability to define patterns in characters’ actions, contextualize characters’ actions, interpret thematic meanings, clearly formulate their thesis, and employ relevant supporting evidence and reasons for their thesis.
Defining Consistent Patterns in Characters’ Actions Interpret certain consistent patterns in characters’ actions implying those characters’ beliefs, traits, and goals. For example, in responding to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing (Angelou, 2009) students learn to infer Maya’s beliefs, traits, and goals, for example, her belief that she has a certain sense of agency, that she is highly persistent and determined, and that she wants to achieve success against all odds. Criteria: Students are able to define patterns in characters’ actions and infer related beliefs, traits, and goals. 3: Exemplary: Notes consistent patterns in actions; infers detailed descriptions of beliefs, traits, and goals based on those patterns. 2: Proficient: Notes some patterns; infers some beliefs, traits, and/or goals based on those patterns. 1: Needs work: Infers actions, but few patterns; does not infer beliefs, traits, or goals.
Contextualizing Characters’ Actions Interpret the meaning of characters’ actions within larger historical and cultural contexts. Interpreting these contexts requires the ability to define certain norms or expectations operating in text worlds that suggest the influence of certain historical or cultural forces. Students learn to infer Maya’s actions within the larger context of a segregated, racist culture by noting how, for example, the segregated school system, employment, and housing discriminate and marginalize African-Americans resulting in inferior schooling, poverty, and substandard/segregated housing. They infer norms reflecting these historical and cultural forces by noting characters’ adherence to or resistance of these norms, for example, her experiences in a substandard school, her parents/grandmother’s economic status, and her housing situation, as well as the ways in which White male adolescents taunt her grandmother and how her grandmother defies the males’ attempts to position her as inferior. Criteria: Students are able to contextualize actions within larger historical and cultural contexts based on inferences about characters’ reactions to norms operating in those contexts. Exemplary: Defines the norms operating in the historical/cultural contexts of the texts based on detailed descriptions of characters’ adherence to or resistance of these norms; clearly explains characters’ actions in terms of these historical/cultural contexts.
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Proficient: Defines the norms operating in the historical/cultural contexts of the texts based on some descriptions of characters’ adherence to or resistance of these norms; explains characters’ actions in terms of these historical/cultural contexts. Needs work: Does not infer norms operating in historical/cultural contexts; explains characters actions only in terms of traits, beliefs, and/or goals without references to contexts.
Interpreting Thematic Meanings Interpret thematic meanings based on the value assumptions underlying the story development related to the norms operating in the text world, for example, that Maya’s grandmother challenging the racist system represents the ways in which acts of defiance result in historical changes—that change in systems occurs through challenging those systems. Criteria: Students are able to interpret larger themes by inferring the underlying value assumptions inherent in characters’ actions related to the norms operating in the text world. Exemplary: Interprets a theme(s) by clearly defining the value assumptions inherent in detailed descriptions of characters’ actions related to the norms operating in the text world. Proficient: Interprets a theme(s) by defining a value assumption inherent in characters’ actions related to the norms operating in the text world. Needs work: Infers characters’ actions, but does not define a value assumption inherent in those characters’ actions.
Clarity of an Interpretive Thesis In formulating their interpretations, students need to clearly state an interpretive thesis or position. Students may simply state an opinion about a text without framing that opinion in the form of a hypothesis or position statement that that will serve as the basis for their essay. Formulating an interpretive thesis serves as the blueprint for organizing the essay. For example, in writing about the play Death of a Salesman (Miller, 1996), a student goes beyond his opinion that Willy Loman is deluded about the reality of his status as a salesperson to formulate a thesis that Willy Loman is deluded by the myth that individual effort and hard work brings success in American society. Criteria: Students can clearly formulate an interpretive thesis as a hypothesis or position that serves as the basis for developing arguments in their essays. Exemplary: Formulates a clearly defined, original interpretive thesis that serves as a hypothesis or position for developing arguments in their essays. Proficient: Formulates an interpretive thesis that serves as a hypothesis or position for developing arguments in their essay. Needs work: Formulates an interpretive thesis that is not clearly defined enough to serve as a hypothesis or position for developing arguments in their essay.
Relevancy of Supporting Evidence, Knowledge, and Experience Another previously referred-to criterion has to do with the extent to which the evidence, knowledge, or experience cited is relevant to building their argument. Students need to
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consider the degree to which their evidence, knowledge, or experience is relevant to formulating their case—what counts as relevant evidence in terms of their ability to select relevant evidence, knowledge, and experience and then connect it to their claim. For example, a student is arguing that Taylor Greer, the main character in Barbara Kingsolver’s (1998) The Bean Trees, is seeking a sense of stability in her life that was lacking in her youth through creating bonds with friends as part of an extended family network. To bolster her argument about Taylor’s need for an extended family, the student draws her own experience about the need for a supportive family relationship to bolster her case for Taylor’s need for an extended family. You then would determine whether that related experience is relevant to the student’s building their case. Criteria: Students provide supporting evidence, knowledge, or experience that is relevant to and clearly connects to their claims. Exemplary: Provides ample supporting evidence, knowledge, or experience that is highly relevant to and explicitly connected to making their claims. Proficient: Provides supporting evidence, knowledge, or experience that is relevant to and is connected to making their claims. Needs work: Provides supporting evidence, knowledge, or experience that is often not relevant to or not connected to making their claims. (For other examples of criteria and rubrics see Summative evaluation on the website.)
DETERMINING STUDENT LEARNING IN YOUR CLASSROOM In engaging in assessment as inquiry, you are continually reflecting on what you hoped your students would learn from participating in your class activities, and, if not, what things might have been done differently to improve or change those activities. One technique for determining what they actually did learn is to ask them to write “exit memos” in which they freewrite for five minutes at the end of your class—”what did you learn today in class.” Or, in their journal entries, you could ask students to reflect on what they learned on a daily or weekly basis. You could have students write “learning stories” (Swaffield, 2008) as narrative descriptions of their literary responses or writing. For example, a 9th grade student at Jefferson High School, Bloomington, Minnesota, Abby Trevor, reflected on writing a fantasy short story: I almost always write medieval fantasy stories. This story seemed like a good chance to vary from that a little bit, so I wrote a modern fantasy instead. It might not seem like that much of a change, but the style is different nonetheless, especially as this story was set on our Earth while most of my other stories are not. My goal was to gain more experience with a different kind of writing and improve my style in general. It soon became clear, however, that I couldn’t fit [my original ideas] in with the limits on the story’s length . . . I actually think that that was somewhat lucky. Hopefully this way, the reader can use their imagination to come up with some of the [characters’] previous adventures, but there’s enough in the story so that they’re not totally bewildered. My options are also open if I ever want to write a prequel or a sequel. Overall, I ended up getting rid of my broader ideas and focusing more on a few key scenes. This naturally changed my perspective as well. I realized that I had to focus my attention and writing on the scenes that were absolutely necessary to the story. (Beach, Campano, Edmiston, & Borgman, 2010, p. 153)
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Abby uses this narrative to reflect on the challenge of providing her reader with relevant background information but at the same time, not providing too much information so that she lets her reader make their own inferences about the characters. You can also have students write about their learning goals. In her reading workshop approach, Nancie Atwell (2007) asks students to set goals for their reading each term. At the end of the term, students complete a self-evaluation responding to questions about those goals and students’ breadth of reading as well as questions about the specific literature activities they did. For example, “What will you take away from our study of Shakespeare’s life and times, from the plays and sonnets?” (p. 308). Students also set goals for the new term at this time, which may include reading more often independently, expanding the list of favorite authors or genres, understanding more about a particular literary element, or many others.
DEVISING LITERATURE TESTS AND ASSESSMENTS Beginning in the mid-1990s, the development of the need for “standards” and “accountability” evident in the No Child Left Behind act, there has been an increased emphasis on the use of standardized reading test scores as a means of demonstrating student learning and the effectiveness of teachers and schools. Many teachers have found that increased large-scale assessment has had a negative effect on their day-to-day classroom life, particularly when they believe that they have to “teach to the test” in ways that limits exploration of alternative meanings and critical analysis of texts (Au, 2008; Kohn, 2000; Meier & Wood, 2004). This focus on “teaching to the test” given the emphasis on standardized reading test scores as a primary measure of learning runs contrary to the goals for teaching literature advocated in this book. It is therefore important that you have a solid understanding of testing so that you understand issues of validity and reliability in tests and assessments. While devising tests and assessments involves similar concerns, it is important to distinguish between the two. For the purpose of this chapter, we are defining tests (or exams) as measures of students’ individual performances. In contrast, assessments attempt to measure the performance of groups of students within a school, district, or state without reference to the identity of individual students. Knowing how well students perform as a school, district, or state provides some indication of how well schools are teaching.
Classroom Testing In devising a test for use in your classroom, you need take into account what you have taught the students and develop a test based on what you hope they have learned. In evaluating tests like this, you may compare students’ individual performances with their previous performances in order to note changes. In an assessment, comparisons with previous performances are generally based on combined group scores. Many classroom literature tests consist of factual-recall, multiple-choice, or shortanswer questions. Students are asked to identify the “main character,” “setting,” or “theme.” The purpose for these tests is often to determine whether or not a student has read a text. As we previously argued, these tests undercut a response-centered orientation. They encourage students to adopt an “information driven” orientation in which they read primarily to extract information rather than for enjoyment or for formulating their own responses. And, having to answer a series of short-answer questions may actually
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fragment students’ attention rather than encourage them to formulate global hypotheses (Marshall, 1987). We therefore recommend that tests be used sparingly. When they are used, such tests should encourage students to formulate their own responses, rather than recalling “correct answers.” Tests should also, as often as possible, be open-book in format. These shift the focus from memorization to formulation of response. In developing open-ended test questions, consider employing “essential questions” that focus on basic aspects of learning literature such as “What makes a great book?” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). These essential questions can lead to what Wiggins and McTighe (2005) describe as “unit questions” such as “is science fiction great literature?”
Assessments Related to Literature Instruction In contrast to classroom tests, school, district, or state assessments are designed more to determine if students are learning in ways that are consistent with school, district, or state standards; assessments are often in the form of standardized, multiple choice reading tests, or, in some cases, writing assessments. One rationale for conducting these assessments is the need to determine if students in a particular school are learning so that decisions about needed curriculum and instruction can be based on some relatively “objective” information. If an assessment indicates that students are having difficulty comprehending texts or writing an essay, teachers can presumably focus more attention on reading or writing instruction. Determining the validity of these assessments involves asking as to whether a particular test measures “reading comprehension” or “writing ability.” One major limitation of multiple-choice items on reading tests as a measure of “comprehension” is that they are based on a simplistic model of understanding texts that ignores the complexities of a reader’s purposeful transaction with a text (Alvermann, 2006). A reading test may involve an artificial, invalid version of the complexities of real-world reading, serving more as a measure of their test-taking skills or their prior knowledge about the topic in a passage, than something called “reading ability.” It is often the case that students can apply their prior knowledge to select the “correct answer” without even attending to the test item passage. A joint report by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English (2009), Standards for the Assessment of Reading and Writing, noted that: Instructional outcomes in the language arts and assessment policies and practices should reflect what we know about language and its acquisition. For example, to base a test on the assumption that there is a single correct way to write a persuasive essay is a dubious practice. Persuading someone to buy a house is not the same as persuading someone to go on a date. Persuading someone in a less powerful position is not the same as persuading someone in a more powerful position—which is to say that persuasive practices differ across situations, purposes, and cultural groups. Similarly, that texts can (and should) be read from different perspectives must be taken as a certainty—a goal of schooling not to be disrupted by assessment practices that pretend otherwise. To assert through a multiple-choice test that a piece of text has only one meaning is unacceptable, given what we know of language.
Another limitation of these assessments is that as they are developed to determine norms for what constitutes high versus low scores, the student population used to norm the
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test may not represent the particular balance of students in many schools and districts taking these assessments. As a result, a much larger group of students could be scored as “failures” because they are compared with the much smaller, limited, initial sample group used for the development of norms (Farr & Beck, 2003). This then leads to making faulty generalizations about students and/or labeling students based on single test scores involving reading or writing certain types of texts as “low-level-” or “struggling readers” or “poor writers,” labels that are actually “cultural constructions” that can adversely affect their self-image as readers or writers (Alvermann, 2006). While students may have difficulty reading or writing that kind of text in a testing context, when they are reading the sports page or instructions for a computer game, they may not be “struggling.” Or, when they may not be effective in writing a five-paragraph essay, they may be highly effective in writing a rap lyric. In focus-group discussions with teachers in an urban and a suburban high school in Massachusetts, Catherine Luna and Cara Turner (2001) asked teachers to reflect on the influence of the 10th grade Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) English test on their teaching. One teacher, Jane notes that the test “doesn’t reward students for creativity. It does for prescription and formula in their answers . . . I know the rubric they use for grading is in some ways skewed toward formulaic writing rather than creative writing” (p. 84). Another teacher, Stanley, argued that doing poorly on the test has a negative influence on students’ self-concept: “I don’t think it’s a good thing to tell students that because there are some things you can’t do that; you can’t have a diploma, that your sole value is wrapped up in succeeding on a test that says you can basically do college work . . . These students will be dropping out” (p. 84). Ronald noted that the test “has become a monster already, an absolute monster in the minds of students” (p. 84). While the teachers noted that the tests did not necessarily change the way they teach, they noted that they had to give up important material in order to make time for content that would be on the test. For example, Sarah noted that she focused more on literary definitions: “I’m taking the work that’s being done around literary terms much more seriously in my reading classes, and I’m not spending the same amount of time to help kids get an understanding of what they’re reading” (p. 84). They were also concerned that the teachers or their schools were being blamed for low test scores, scores that could result from factors beyond their control. One of the basic assumptions behind the uses of high-stakes tests is the need to enforce sanctions on “failing schools” and to no longer let students fall through the cracks. The further assumption is that by adopting high-stakes testing, that schools will improve, i.e., that more learning will occur. If states’ high-stakes testing actually improves student learning, then one would expect that test scores on other national tests would also be increasing. However, a study of the impact of high-stakes testing in 18 states found no increase in SAT, ACT, NAEP, or AP test scores over a four-year period (Amrein & Berliner, 2002).
The Relationship between Assessment and Instruction All of this points to the importance of relating assessment and instruction in a positive, productive manner, so that assessment is “authentic” to the kinds of learning occurring in classrooms (Bauer & Garcia, 2002; Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) and is consistent with current knowledge of students’ literacy learning. As the joint IRA/NCTE (2009) report notes, “assessment must recognize and reflect the intellectually and socially complex nature of reading and writing and the important roles of school, home, and society in literacy
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development.” This leads to the idea of “performance assessment” (Benjamin, 2008; Gallavan, 2008). The National Council of Teachers of English (1996) posited that “authentic assessment is derived from what students are doing daily in the classroom. At a minimum, it includes samples of students’ work, recorded observations of their learning processes, and students’ evaluation of their own processes and products, along with teacher evaluation.” (p. 6). It should also provide information about “student strengths and weaknesses, regardless of performance level, in contrast to standardized tests, which typically highlight the strengths of high performers and the weaknesses of low-performers” (Bauer & Garcia, 2002, p. 464). Some states such as Kentucky, Nebraska, and Vermont have successfully demonstrated that performance assessment and portfolios of student classroom work can be used to provide teachers and parents with valid profiles of student progress. One advantage of the Kentucky portfolio-assessment model is that the teachers’ instruction is directly aligned with how students are assessed. George Hillocks’s (2002) research on the impact of states’ writing tests on writing instruction in those states indicates that the type of assessment determines the focus and type of instruction employed. He found that in the four states (New York, Texas, Illinois, and California) that were employing a traditional writing assessment, teachers were teaching the five-paragraph format, with little attention to the composing/thinking processes, audience analysis, inquiry-strategies, or writing across the curriculum. In contrast, in Kentucky, which employs a portfolio writing assessment, teachers were focusing more on teaching process writing, rhetorical strategies, revision skills, and writing in different contexts.
Reliability Another consideration in examining assessment is that of reliability—does the same assessment generate the same results for the same students across time? If students take an assessment at time A and then again at time B, do they yield the same results? If, not then, serious questions could be raised about validity, whether the assessment provides a valid measure of students’ performance if the results vary markedly across time. Related to scoring of writing, reliability also refers to whether judges agree on their scores, agreement generally set at 75%. Without agreement, the final scores may not be considered as being reliable. Performance assessments that include open-ended writing tasks or portfolio assessment are typically questioned as lacking reliability—both in terms of reliability across time and being generalizable and are therefore perceived as not useful for determining accountability. Reliability in classroom assessments can be increased if teachers ask other teachers to score several random assessments from a batch. Furthermore, results of the Vermont and Kentucky portfolio scoring reliability indicate that decent reliabilities can be achieved. The limitations of performance assessment need to weighed against the positive influences of assessments that are consistent with the kinds of instruction promoted in this book. (See Issues of assessing and testing literature on the website.)
USING PORTFOLIOS TO EVALUATE GROWTH AND REFLECTION One example of a performance-assessment tool for evaluating student growth is the portfolio (Johnson, Mims-Cox, & Doyle-Nichols, 2009; Sunstein & Lovell, 2000). While students could employ commercial and open-source e-portfolio platforms to create
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showcase portfolios, they could also use their blog or a wiki that already includes their work to then add reflections about their learning over time with links to specific responses in their blog or wiki, that, for example, represents their best work or that may need more development (Barrett, 2006; Hicks, 2009; Johnson, Mims-Cox & Doyle-Nichols, 2009). In assembling their e-portfolios, students can create a table of contents describing their samples of their work. They can also use hyperlinks to connect these samples, reflecting on the relationships between their work. You can also provide inquiry questions asking them to reflect on their strengths, changes in their responses, themes they focused on, and areas in which they need to improve. Because students may have difficulty reflecting on their learning, you need to model that process for them using your own professional portfolio reflections. You also need to recognize that students may not reflect in a genuine, authentic manner, but rather simply go through the motions of reflecting simply to complete an assignment (Sunstein, 2000). You also need to tell students how and why you are evaluating their portfolios as a record of their abilities and development. As with individual essays, you therefore need to provide them with a set of criteria such as the following for how you are evaluating their work: • • • •
•
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Amount of oral and written response: as represented by the degree of participation in group discussions or the length of journal entries (none, little, some, extensive). Attitude towards expressing response: as represented by the degree of students’ perceived enthusiasm about or interest in expressing responses (little, some, high). Ability to use talk/write tools: mapping, listing, freewriting, role-playing, and so on, to express their responses (ineffective, effective, highly effective). Ability to employ interpretive strategies and critical lenses: as represented by students’ ability to formulate insightful interpretations or apply critical lenses to texts (ineffective, effective, highly effective). Level or depth of response: as represented by the degree to which students explore or elaborate on their responses or adopt a “point-driven” interpretative orientation (little, some, extensive). Amount of voluntary reading: as represented by the number of books or pages recorded in an individualized reading program (little, some, extensive). Attitude towards voluntary reading: as represented by students’ willingness to and expressed enthusiasm about actively seeking out books (unenthusiastic, positive, highly enthusiastic). Degree of defined reading interests: as represented by students’ ability to define the nature of their reading interests and their willingness to seek out books consistent with those interests (vague, somewhat defined, clearly defined).
It is also important that students include writings and artifacts in their portfolios that grow out of what happens in the classroom—for example, photos of a drama activity with written captions that describe what they were doing or thinking for each of the photos. By comparing students’ performances over time, you could then determine the degree to which students were changing. In doing so, you are helping them reflect on not only their growth up to the present, but also their future potential direction—how they could continue to improve. Having students set learning goals for their future improvement gives them some direction for improving their work. (See Assessment and portfolios on the website.)
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PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Based on your experiences in being evaluated for your own work and evaluating students in your micro-teaching or practicum work, list some assessment tools and some criteria and/or rubrics for evaluating students’ written and oral responses to literature. For example, for giving reader-based feedback to students’ writing, include a writing assignment and the criteria for evaluating that assignment, a student’s draft, your reader-based comments on the draft, and, if possible, the revised draft. Reflect on how your feedback resulted in certain types of revision of the draft.
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CHAPTER 14
Reflecting and Developing as a Literature Teacher: How Do I Grow as a Teacher?
CHRIS JOHNSON’S REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING CATCHER IN THE RYE
CASE NARRATIVE
Chris Johnson is reflecting on his student teaching experience of teaching Catcher in the Rye (Salinger, 1991) to a group of 10th grade students in an urban, working-class high school: Who’s read a novel? Not many hands went up and they, I guess most of them had read one or one of those adolescent novels, but I don’t think any of them, well some of them, I’m sure had read, in fact I know one in particular that is a reader of paperbacks, and she read quite a few but a lot of them hadn’t really read any “adult” novels before, and only a few adolescent or teen novels. I tried to make it a mix of mostly just basic questions and a few deeper questions, I guess what I mean by that is questions where they have to um, do some interpretation of the text. On the surface we’ve got Holden and he’s going through New York City and avoiding going home and he’s coming up with all these fantasies of running away and doing these different things, and then he’s got this fantasy of being the catcher in the rye and catching kids before they fall off the cliff. So on a deeper level, what does this mean, what is Holden so afraid of? What is Holden struggling with? And so finally to get down to come around to the idea that well he’s afraid to grow up and he’s afraid of facing sexuality and he’s afraid of facing change in his life Well, after we had finished reading the book, well first of all, I had been discussing things I noticed throughout the whole book in the way I interpret the book basically. So I wanted them to focus on
Chapter Overview Case Narrative: Chris Johnson’s Reflections on Teaching Catcher in the Rye Teacher Reflection and Action Research Tools for Reflection Engaging in Professional Development
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Holden and his struggle of growing up and struggles with saving sexuality, struggles with the death of his brother, basically all the issues he had gone through, but I had a lot of discussions in class about that and as we finished the book, I did a group activity where I gave them a list of five essay questions and they had to pick one of them to put on the test, and I broke them up into groups of about four or five kids in each group, and each group had to take an essay question, and had to discuss it and they each had a role. One person was the recorder, one person was the leader and so each group had to discuss the essay questions and come up with a way that they would answer the question on a test and to present their findings to the class. I was a little nervous about it, because they were in-depth questions. I mean, they were college-level questions. And I thought, oh boy they’re really going to bang their heads against these ones, but I was really pleasantly surprised that they all, all the groups came up with real solid answers and I was going around as they were working on them and helping out here and there, but I really didn’t have to do as much as I thought I would do, I just had to nudge them along. That really showed me that they had been listening and paying attention and it wasn’t just two or three kids that did a lot of participation in the discussions who understood what was going on but they really most of them you know had been listening to what we’re talking about. I was real happy with that. Chris uses his narrative recollections to reflect on his strategies and beliefs about teaching—that he wasn’t prepared for the fact that his students had read so few novels, leading him to “go slow. And, he reflects on the value of using a range of different kinds of questions and small-group work in which students had a choice of essay questions. He also uses the narrative to reflect on his beliefs and role as a teacher who wants to encourage students to learn to interpret texts: I guess I try to get the students to be interested in something that goes beyond what happens next in the plot, and try to get them to see that there’s a little bit more going on and what I’ve found is that if you take the time, if you have the patience to sort of almost harass them into looking deeper into the text, to keep asking the same questions over and over again until somebody gives you an answer, and then you challenge that answer and just dig deeper and deeper, they actually do get interested and they are really surprised to find out that there are more levels to the text than they thought there would be and then they get curious about it. I’ve had students ask me, how do you learn to read like that? How did you figure out how to do that? So that was good to hear. If they have to make an imaginative world that’s different from their own, I think I’d just try to help them do that and not worry too much about making everything a direct hit. Chris’s reflections demonstrate that narrative recollection can serve to foster reflection about teaching (Lyons & Laboskey, 2002). What are some things that he learns about his teaching through the use of narrative? Reflect on a recent event in your own work with students. What did you learn about yourself and your teaching? How did creating a narrative help you learn these things? Your success in student teaching and in your first years of teaching depends on your ability to reflect on your teaching in ways that lead to improvement in your teaching, as well as engage in ongoing professional development. In this final chapter, we describe ways of reflecting and developing as a literature teacher.
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TEACHER REFLECTION AND ACTION RESEARCH Teacher reflection has been shown to be an essential factor of teacher growth, professionalism and satisfaction (Sherin and Van Es, 2005; Taggert & Wilson, 2005). Teacher action research is a formalized approach to reflecting on learning in your classroom and from your students on how to improve your teaching. It is consistent with socio-cultural approaches to teaching, because teacher research recognizes that we teach something to somebody in a situation. While many theories and approaches concentrate on the content (the something) to be taught, only the socio-cultural theory looks at all three facets and how they are related. Teacher research also recognizes that teaching is relational and that we need feedback from our students about how to teach them as individuals and in groups. Teaching and learning can’t be done through cookie cutter approaches because students, their backgrounds and needs, and the situations in which they learn and are being prepared to participate are constantly evolving. Therefore, so must your teaching. Teacher reflectivity really depends on your “learning to notice” by consciously observing students’ learning in your classrooms. In addition, many teachers choose to research classroom interactions and teaching techniques by collecting data on a systematic basis to address questions such as these: 1. What is important about what is going on here? 2. How can I come to understand what is happening here? 3. What is this a case of? (Sherin and Van Es, 2005, p. 54). Action research is inquiry-based; by posing specific questions about your teaching, for example, what issues most engage my students, you can then pay attention to particular aspects of students’ interpretations, writing, talk, drama, or media productions. Or, you can attend to certain “critical incidents” when something works well that you want to be able to repeat, or when something does not work, and you need to make changes in your teaching.
Teacher Research and Learning to Notice The first, and often most neglected aspect of a classroom to be observed and understood is the students. One of the most compelling findings to come out of the Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys study (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002) was the implicit social contract that boys held with teachers. They wanted teachers to make the attempt to get to know them, to care about them and express this care, to address their interests in some way (either through class work or through conversation or attention given outside of class), to actively assist them and make sure they have learned, and to demonstrate passion for the subject and activity in the classroom (“bring your game to school”). Students felt that teachers largely reneged on this contract, and this, in turn, kept them from engaging, enjoying and working to the degree that they were capable. This means that we need to work to get to know our students, their interests, goals, strengths and the like, and we need to work to let them know us. We suggest beginning each school year with activities that will help you get to know your students as people, and as learners, readers and writers. For example, have students write you an introductory letter or fill out a survey that you can staple into their portfolio and refer to throughout the year. Or you might even begin the year with students doing introductory speeches or digital video monologues for each other.
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Continuing to pay attention to kids and conversing with them inside and outside of class is also important. Noticing a new haircut and celebrating birthdays (even at the high school level) makes kids feel like they are known and cared about. Asking about kids’ hobbies, their performances in athletic, musical, or drama events, or better yet – helping out or attending some of these events – can also be powerful. As a teacher-researcher, your students are your research informants. This is a role our own students almost universally embrace with enthusiasm. They love saving work for us and providing insights about their learning. They love the attention paid to them when we are teacher-researchers. If you choose to pursue a particular question about student learning, or the effect of a particular teaching strategy, then you might use techniques like the following.
Student Interviews, Surveys, or Narratives You can also learn about your students from interviewing them, as well as having them complete surveys or share narratives about their lives. For example, after every major assignment, Jeff asks his students to write him a letter in which they describe what went well, what questions and obstacles they faced, and what suggestions they would have for when Jeff teaches the assignment again. You can then interview students about these kinds of documents, or just informally converse with them about your research wonderings. From conducting teacher action research as formalized, systematic reflection, you step back to learn about yourself and your students, learning that enhances your teaching and relationships with your students. (See Teacher action research on the website.)
TOOLS FOR REFLECTION In conducting action research, you can use the following tools to focus attention on these key events.
Note-taking Teacher researchers use note-taking—both “in the midst” of instruction (e.g. when groups are at work) or “after the fact” (immediately after class in the case that you are actively involved in teaching) to record and “placehold” what has happened of importance so that it can be studied, analyzed and reflected upon.
Journal Writing Keeping a reflective teaching journal a few times a week about what you are noticing or what is bothering you is a useful technique. Another idea is to take a student artifact (an essay, a project) or event and to write about it, reflecting on the specifics of what happened, to reflect on how what was made or occurred furthers your overall goals as a teacher or for a particular class, and to try out ideas that you might try in the future based on what you notice.
Narrative Reflection You can use narratives to recapture the particular behaviors, dialogue, and feelings of your own learning of literature or teaching a specific lesson, as if you were writing a
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short story. You can reflect back to difficulties and successes in your previous experiences in secondary and college literature courses, reflections that lead to challenging some of the assumptions about learning and teaching, for example, that the teacher should be the final arbiter as to what constituted the meaning of a text (Reid, 2010). Grappling with difficulties in learning can then lead you to formulate your own theories as to more effective ways of teaching literature based on your own experiences. You can then reflect on what you trying to accomplish in your own instruction and whether you achieved that goal; what may have gone wrong or how were your expectations not fulfilled—what was the difference between what you wanted your students to do and what they actually did; how did this particular context or setting shape the experience; and how did you portray yourself in the narrative—as having agency and power or as limited by the classroom or schooling as a system?
Collecting Student Work Collecting student artifacts or papers and studying them is a powerful technique. Videotaping or audio-taping students as they work allows you to focus on particular instances. You can also use a technique called “stimulated recall” by asking students to view a section of tape on which they are featured and to “think-aloud” or explain what they were thinking and doing during this segment of class. Jeff has used “stimulated recall” in his studies of students using visual and drama techniques with reading. Students watched tapes and discussed what they were thinking as they created various artifacts or used various drama strategies.
Digital Video Digital video provide you with an efficient retrievable record of student work and interactions (you will need to get student and parent permission to video students if you plan to share videos with others.) (Sherin & Van Es, 2005). You can also use audio/podcast or video recordings of your instruction for receiving feedback on your teaching or for self-assessing your instruction. (See Educator and classroom audio reflections/ podcasts and Video reflections on the website.) To reflect on specific events in a video, you or others can use using video annotations tools such as VideoAnt (http://ant.umn.edu) or VoiceThread (http://voicethread.com) described in Chapter 6, as well as Viddler (http://www.viddler.com) (for other more specialized tools, see Rich & Hannafin, 2009; for rubrics employed at Michigan State University for self-assessing video annotations, see http://msuenglished.wikispaces.com/ VBRR-CEE09 (Caughlan, Juzwik, & Adler, 2008). For example, if you created a video of you leading a discussion, you could create a transcript of that video and reflect on the following: •
•
The percentage of your talk versus student talk, instances of consistent stretches of student turns and the question or statement that precipitated those stretches. One way to determine this is to code different discussion turns as a “T” and students as an “S,” and then count the number of instances in which you find a stretch of “S” turns, focusing on what may have precipitated that extended stretch of students interacting with each other. The extent to which you facilitated interaction between students as well as engaged non-participant students.
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•
• •
• •
The types of questions you asked—closed versus open, or questions related to different types of responses (engagement, description/summary, connections, interpretation, judgments, etc.). The types of responses students actually employed in response to your questions and how those different types changed over time. The depth of development of their responses, and the extent to which students moved from sharing their own individual responses to collaboratively formulating new composite responses building on individual responses. The degree to which students were respectful of each other’s perspectives and beliefs. The extent to which students adopted critical stances or approaches related to analyzing the ideological aspects of a text.
You can also have your instructor or peers provide annotations to your video. For example, this video (http://mediamill.cla.umn.edu/mediamill/display/44436) includes an instructor’s annotations of a discussion that was led by a preservice teacher in the University of Minnesota English education program, Rick Filipkowski, with three other graduates of that program, Abi Narish, Adam Hayes, and Kelly Rudh, discussing the poem, “she being Brand,” by e. e. cummings (1968). The instructor noted that Rick begins with an open-ended question and then pauses to provide chances for different students to participate. He then noted that Rick asks, “how else may we read this,” a question designed to foster adoption of alternative perspective on the poem. And, he noted that, later in the discussion, by asking students to speculate about whether the speaker would have the same perspective five years later, Rick is inviting students adopt the speaker’s own perspective, an effective use of a speculation question.
Analyzing Data You can then analyze the data by looking and explaining patterns. If the data supports your explanations, you can then begin making data-driven decisions to improve your teaching. The prompt of “What is this a case of?” helps you to classify kinds of events and themes and relate them to each other and different events. For example, maybe you have two classes in which you have excellent, engaging classroom conversations. But in another class, the discussion falls flat and you revert to lecturing. Explaining reasons for these differences then helps you determine how to improve your classroom discussions. You can also view examples of teacher reflections as online video cases housed on sites such as The Goldman-Carnegie Quest Program (gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/ insideteaching/quest/collections.html). For example, Marsha Pincus (2006) addresses the question about her high school students’ drama class, “how can I connect students to the work of Shakespeare, by infusing ‘main stage’ teaching with ‘second stage’ practices?” by showing examples of her students drama performances. (See Online teacher cases on the website.)
ENGAGING IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT In addition to reflecting on your teaching, you can also engage in various professional development designed to acquire new ideas about teaching literature.
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Working with a Teacher/Mentor Many schools have mentor programs for new teachers. In fact, some states are requiring that new teachers have a mentor throughout their first years of teaching. If your school does not have such a program, you should seek out an informal mentor. Mentors are established teachers who know the ropes and how to keep from getting hung with them. They can inform you about the secret unarticulated life of the school, and to understand expectations and conventions, like when to hang the attendance sheet outside the door, and that you can’t skip a faculty meeting to coach a team, and who the unofficial computer guru is in the school who can help you with your printer problem. The mentor tries to be proactive and to anticipate issues and expectations the new teacher might not understand before the fact.
Participation in Professional Organizations and Graduate Training There are many other ways to interact with colleagues to share ideas. Attending conferences, both at the local and national level, can be a very exciting and stimulating experience. Taking graduate courses and pursuing advanced degrees gives you the opportunity to interact with college and university personnel as well as other like-minded dedicated teachers. Joining NCTE (the National Council of Teachers of English) and IRA (the International Reading Association) entitles you to receive journals such as Voices from the Middle for middle school language arts teachers; English Journal for high school teachers; and IRA’s Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy for educators of all adolescents and adults, and the knowledge, that, as a professional, you are supporting your professional organizations. (See Online professional development organizations on the website.)
Creating an e-Portfolio As part of your preservice program, as well as for assessment of your initial years of teaching, you may be required to create your own e-portfolio to gather information to document and reflect on your students’ learning, portfolios that may also be used in seeking teaching jobs. For example, in his e-portfolio (http://tinyurl.com/ybwpkhs) for use in his job search, Josh Axtman, a preservice English teacher in the University of Minnesota post-bac licensure program, included personal information about himself, his philosophy of teaching, summaries of his courses, Minnesota teaching standards he was addressing in his program, and some samples of work completed in the program. (See Teaching portfolios and Preservice teacher portfolio reflections on the website.)
Building Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) Given the centrality of online networking for sharing information, you can build personal learning networks (PLNs) through creating, subscribing to, and/or commenting on teachers’ blogs, wikis, or podcasts, as well as professional development sites for English teachers such as the English Companion Ning (http://englishcompanion.ning.com). For example, to keep abreast of uses of digital writing tools in teaching English, you can listen to the podcast, Teachers Teaching Teachers (teachersteachingteachers.org). Drawing on these professional development activities contributes to your growth as an English teacher, growth that enhances your engagement in the classroom as not only a teacher,
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but also as a life-long learner with your students. (See Educators’ blogs and wikis, Social networking sites, National Writing Project sites, and Online technology training modules on the website.)
PORTFOLIO REFLECTION Review back over your work in your methods course. Reflect on your initial beliefs about teaching literature, how those beliefs may have changed during the course, and reasons for those changes. How will your new beliefs influence your teaching in the future—what specific methods will you now focus on to foster student learning?
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References
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Index
Abdel-Fattah, R. 79 ability ranges 10 reading 45–6 Academy of American Poets 98 Academy of Poets 132 access 81–7 accessibility 67–8 online literature 98–9 accommodation of difference 45–7 Achebe, C. 34, 199, 227 action research 173, 244–5 activities 47–8, 52, 57, 72 drama 165–6, 173–83 visual response 165–6 adaptations 102–5 additional resources 76 Adichie, C. 75 Adler, M. 64, 83, 246 adolescents 9, 11, 17 advertising 108–9 archetypes 56 choice 93 development 25–6, 233–5, 248 fables/myths 147 librarians 91 millennial teens 18–27, 77 multiliteracies 34, 36, 79, 150 multiple identities 29–30 New Criticism 83 realistic fiction 84–7, 89 texts 153 zero sum games 33 advertising 108 Alexie, S. 91, 107 Allen, A. 52, 88 Allison, P. 209 Almasi, J. 193 alternatives audiences 204–5 perspectives 191–3 testing 226–8
Alvermann, D. 237–8 American Library Association 78, 91 Anaya, R. 11 Anderson, C. 136 Anderson, D. 126 Anderson, J.H. 216 Anderson, L.H. 80, 88 Anderson, M.T. 80, 105, 108 Angelou, M. 13, 218, 233 Animoto 104 Anson, C. 97, 194, 196–7, 199, 208–11 anthologies 92–3 anticipating difficulties 213 Applebee, A. 63, 85, 186 Appleman, D. 4, 76, 86, 155, 159, 161, 194 approaches 71–5 classics 67–70 Apted, M. 112 archetypes 15, 54, 70, 75 genres 109–10 images 149 narrative patterns 144 perspective 56, 155–6 Aronson, M. 218 artwork 208 Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) 84–5, 91 assessment 75–6, 162, 223–41 instruction 237–9 tests 236–9 assignments discussions 212 formulating 5 genres 230 parents 204 writing 213, 230–5 assumptions 215 asynchronous discussions 198–9
Atwell, N. 49, 85, 205, 209, 230, 236 Audacity 105 audiences alternative 204–5 texts 113–14 audiobooks 98 Austen, J. 12, 91, 102, 143, 214 Austin, J.L. 145–6 autobiographical connections 188 Axtman, J. 105, 248 background knowledge 121, 123 Baker, T. 6, 118, 122, 125, 131–2, 164 Bakhtin, M. 157, 171, 192, 204 Baldridge, C. 105 Baldwin, J. 155, 218 ballads 135 Bambara, T. 146 Barbiegirl 114 Barthes, R. 108, 164 Bartholomae, D. 214, 216 Bartleby.com 98 Bauer, M.D. 238–9 Beach, R. 6, 12, 15, 44, 97–8, 105–6, 140, 155, 161, 188–9, 191–2, 194, 196–7, 199–200, 208–11, 215, 228, 235 The Bear 184–5 beliefs inference 145–7 teaching literature 3–5 big ideas 64 biography lenses 160–1 perspective 156 Black, R. 200 Blackford, H.V. 12 Blanchard, J. 110 Blau, S. 14, 76, 137, 205, 213 Block, F.L. 86, 88–9
INDEX
blogs 208–10, 226, 230 Bloom, A. 85 blues 135 Blume, J. 77, 84 Boal, A. 173 Bolter, J. 97 Bonnycastle, S. 153 book clubs 193–5 books 22, 79–80, 90, 92–3 Booth, C. 99 Branagh, K. 103 Broad, B. 232 Brooks, S.L. 43–4 Brown, D. 218 Burke, K. 191 Burns, K. 111 Butler, O. 215 Byrnes, J. 105 Cahalan, J. 104 Campbell, J. 110, 148–9, 191 canon 63–7, 89 Capote, T. 218 Carlsen, G.R. 84 Caro, N. 35 Carroll, L. 39 Cart, M. 78 censorship 77, 93–5, 175 complaint forms 94 NCTE 94 parents 93–4 Center for Digital Storytelling 102 Center for Social Media 99 Chambers, A. 78 Chang, J. 134–5 characters creation 216 logs 72 perspectives 156 characters’ actions 12, 139–42, 145–7 assumptions 215 conflicts 216 consistency 233 contextualization 233–4 drama 171–2 explaining 13, 224, 227 formulating 13 interpretation 192 note-taking 206 Charboneau, E. 104 The Chaser 174–5, 177–81 Chbosky, S. 89 Cheever, J. 144, 149 Chiri, M. 113 choice 10, 57, 93–5 choral montage 181 choral performance 32, 167, 181
Christensen, L. 217 Christian-Smith, L.K. 108 citations 215 Claiborne, J. 87–9 Clare, C. 87, 89 clarity 234 class 106–7 classics 61–76 classrooms discussions 228 environment 33 testing 236–7 Clear Channel 109 Cleaver, E. 218 Clinton, B. 87 Clinton, K. 130 closed questions 186–7 CNN special report tableaux 179–80 Cole, M. 8 Coleridge, S.T. 56, 135, 181 collaboration 210–12 College Entrance Examination Board 83 Collier, J. 174 comics/graphic novels 79, 91, 100, 129, 149–50 coming of age 24–5, 34–6 communities 107 competence in reading 122–3 complaint forms 94 conflict 216 connections 13–14 Conrad, J. 227 consistency 232 consumerism 108–9 contextualization characters’ actions 233 learning 118 conventions 130–2 Cook, L.S. 44 Cooke, S. 113 copyright 99–100 Cormier, R. 27, 84, 88–9 correct-answer tests 226–8 correspondence 181 dramas 167 costs/benefits 177 Crane, S. 66 Creative Commons 99, 105 critical method 70 approaches 50–1 lenses 15 media representations 106–9 perspectives 151–2 theories 86–7 Crowe, C. 80 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 51 cues 141
267
cultural modeling 14, 18, 30–2, 52, 187 cultural worlds 56–7 access 81–7 considerations 65–6 ideals 81–7 norms 142–3 participation styles 187–8 understanding 171–3 cummings, e.e. 247 curriculum 3, 5, 7, 11–15 anthologies 92 assessment 162, 237, 239 book clubs 194 classics 61, 69 co-construction 182 contextualization 60, 118 drama 167 formulating 5, 53 goals 39, 41–7 informality 33 integration 54 learner-centered 83–4 media literacy 97–8 multiliteracies 18, 28 multitextured 34–5 practices 11–15, 17 standards 47–8 tools 16 traditional 96–7, 151–2, 154 underground 80 Cushman, K. 15 Dalrymple, B. 108–9 Daly, M. 83 Daniels, H. 193–6 data analysis 247 Davis, A. 218 Davis, B.G. 191 Davis, M. 100 Dean, D. 130–1 debates 73 deconstruction perspective 157 development 242–8 Dewey, 42, 53, 82 dialogue development 216 journals 208–10 Didion, J. 218 difficulties, anticipating 213 Digital Booktalk 98–9 digital worlds literacy 96 poetry 218 storytelling 97, 99–100, 102, 218 texts 99–102 video 246–7 Dillard, A. 218
268
INDEX
discussions annotations 247 artwork 208 assessment 162, 224, 228, 230 assignments 212 asynchronous 198–9 book clubs 193–5 constructivist 203 drama 164, 166, 171, 174, 176 evaluating 228 facilitating 188–90 focus groups 238 freewrites 206 goals 176–7 large-group 186–8 leading 184–201 listing 207 multiple perspectives 154 online 195–201, 204 participation 240, 243 radio show 180 role 73 self-assessment 193 small-group 193–5 synchronous 196–8 texts 160 video 246 virtual reality 199–200 Disney/ABC 109 district standards 47–8 Dixon, C.N. 83 Dixon, J. 83 documentaries 111–12 Dolan, J. 103 Dos Passos, J. 156 Douglass, F. 218 drama 16, 18, 30, 32 access 81–2 action research 244–7 activities 173–83 alternative audiences 204 constructivist 43 contextualization 118–19 conventions 125–6 correspondence 181 cultural understanding 171–3 demands 127 dialogue 216 facilitating 51 feedback 228 fish-bowl 140–1 flexibility 167–71 frontloading 173 gender 106 genres 55–7 implementing 173–5 perspective-taking 11–12 podcasting 105 portfolios 240
power 167–71 prior knowledge 172 race 107 reflection 175–83 response activities 165–6 strategies 163–83 transactional reading 164–7 values 171–3 workshops 205 Drew, N. 81–3 Dube, J. 6, 118, 122, 125, 131–2, 164 Duffy, G. 120 Dylan, B. 112 e-portfolios 248 e-readers 98 Ebert, R. 160 Eddleston, S. 188–9, 192, 228 Edelsky, C. 8, 15, 53, 87 Edgell, Z. 35 Edmiston, 43, 170–1, 191, 235 Education Media Foundation 112 Elbow, P. 206, 229 Eliot, T.S. 218 Elkind, D. 11 enactment correspondence 181 drama 163–71, 174 inferencing 174–5 reading improvement 175, 182–3 role-play 177–80 strategies 32, 81, 112, 127, 164–7 engagement 188 Engestrom, Y. 8 envisionment 187 essay writing 226–7 Esslin, M. 126 evaluation 214, 223–41 evidence 214, 234–5 exit memos 235 expectations 123 expert mantle 166, 169–71 explaining characters’ actions 13 exploratory thinking 203 Eyre, C. 107, 189 fables/myths 129, 147–9 Facebook profiles 129–30 facilitating 48, 51–2 Fader, D. 84 Fairclough, N. 153–4 FanFiction sites 200 fantasy 33, 79, 87, 89 archetypes 149 exploration 9 films 110
language 12 short stories 235 socio-cultural learning 8 Farr, R. 238 Faulkner, W. 56, 157, 184 feedback 228–30 Feedburner 105 FeedForAll 105 feelings 171–3 Filipkowski, R. 129–30, 247 Filkins, S. 142 film 26–7, 35–6, 100–5, 112–13 advertising 108 audiences 113–14 book clubs 194 clips 59 creating 96, 102–4, 106 discussions 189 gender 106 genres 55–6, 96, 109–11, 132, 159–61 interpretations 69, 90 language 65 online 99 race 107 storylines 148–9 techniques 100–1 final papers/projects 57, 74, 161 Fitzgerald, F.S. 10, 50, 68, 76, 80, 192, 206–7, 227 Fleischer, C. 15 Flesch, R. 84 focus 69 Ford, J. 160 formal writing 212–15, 226–7 formalism 156 formulation 44–5, 213 four corners 173 Fox, E. 218 Fox News 109 Frank, A. 27, 127, 209 free-reading 30, 82, 89 Freeman, R. 218 freewriting 51, 93, 101, 188–90 exit memos 235 motivation 224 poetry 217 role 192, 202, 205–6 tools 240 freezing action 168–9, 177–8 Freire, P. 7, 15, 153 frontloading 118–21, 124, 127, 176 conventions 132 drama 173 macro-frame 176 questions 119–20 strategies 13 Frost, R. 154
INDEX
frozen moments 177–8 Frye, N. 13, 144, 149 Fuentes, A. 24–5 Galloway, G. 78 GarageBand 105, 135 Garden, N. 84, 89 Gardner, J. 68 Gardner, T. 133 Garland, S. 79 Gee, J.P. 12, 16, 30, 52, 113, 199 gender 106, 157, 161 genres 26, 42, 45, 48–50 assessment 81 assignments 230 background knowledge 121 characteristics 7, 83 comics/graphic novels 149–50 conventions 130–2 critical method 70–1 cultural differences 187 difficulties 213 documentaries 111–12 envisionments 187 fables/myths 147–9 fantasy 8–9, 12, 33, 79, 87, 89, 110, 149, 235 favorite 236 features 181 film 26–7, 35–6, 55–6, 59, 65, 69, 90, 96, 99–114, 132, 148–9, 159–61, 189, 194 formulaic 216 gothic novels 18, 87, 89 graphic novels 33, 79, 91, 129–30, 149–50 induction 131 intertextual links 227 literacy letters 210 multiliteracies 86, 89, 219–20 music 112 narratives 138–47 new 125–8 online 98 poetry 132–8, 217 problem novels 84 range 5 reading strategies 119, 122–3, 125–6, 128, 149, 163–4, 174, 183 rewrites 219 role 55–6, 129–50 romance 62, 75 science fiction 9, 11–12, 87, 89, 108–10, 132, 149, 237 strategies 119 teaching 129–50 television 96, 109–13 think-alouds 122–3
unit design 54–7 variety 92 westerns 160 Gergen, K. 29 Giannetti, L. 102 Gibbons, L. 85 Giblin, J.C. 218 Gibran, K. 218 Gibson, M. 103 Glaspell, S. 139 globalization 34–5 goals 44–5, 71–5 curriculum 41–7 drama 176 inferring 145–7 Goatley, V. 194 gods 148 Golden, J. 103–4, 112 good angel/bad angel 178–9 Goodman, K. 85 Goodrich, F. 209 Google 98, 104–5, 211 gothic novels 18, 87, 89 Gough, D. 206–7 grading 72–3 graduate training 248 graphic novels 33, 79, 91, 129–30, 149–5 Green, C. 31 Green, J. 88, 91 Grusin, R. 97 Guevara, C. 218 Guthrie, J. 120 Guys Read 98 Hackett, A. 209 Haddon, M. 35 Haertling-Thein, A. 12, 44, 140, 188, 215 Haider, T. 211 Haley, A. 218 Hall, G.S. 24 Halperin, M. 134 Hamel, F. 124–5 Hamlet 78 Hansen, D. 53 Hasapopoulis, M. 190 Haskins, J. 218 Hawthorne, N. 10, 57, 61–5, 75, 172–3 Hayes, A. 247 Heans, J. 117–21, 125–8 Heller, J. 144 Hemingway, E. 156 Hendrix, J. 113 Herriot, J. 218 Hesse, K. 79, 88–9 Hicks, T. 205, 240 Higginson, W. 217
269
high-school students 9 Hillocks, G. 239 Hine, D. 22, 23–4, 36 Hinton, S.E. 79, 84, 104 Hipple, T. 87–9 Hirsch, E.D. 85 historical worlds 56–7 lens 160–1 norms 142–3 perspective 156–7 historicism 65–6 Hodgson, K. 102, 104 Holden, J. 15, 160 Holt, J. 83 hotseating 166, 178–9 The House on Mango Street 58–9 Hubert, K. 216 Hughes, L. 28–9, 207 human-like characters 148 Hunt, K. 104, 211 Hunt, R. 141, 204 Hurston, Z.N. 190 Huxley, A. 69, 199 Ibsen, H. 171 identity 18–19, 26–30, 35 Ilten, P. 105 images 148–9 immersing 48, 51–2 iMovie 104 individual needs 46–7 individualized programs 49–50, 240 inferencing 174–5 informal writing tools 205–10 initial interest 57 Inoue, T. 91 Inquiry Square 131–2 inquiry-based approach 15–16, 41, 57, 97 action research 244 analyses 106 assessment 229, 235, 239–40 constructivism 203 contextuality 170 difficulties 137 discussions 194, 228 drama 173 enactments 182 essential questions 123, 125 experiences 160 Inquiry Square 131 modeling 136 non-fiction 218 opinions 121 papers 189 perspectives 129 poetry 132, 136 rethinking 118
270
INDEX
sharing 209 workshops 205 instruction 41–2, 58–9 assessment 238–9 International Reading Association 237 Internet Movie Database (IMDB) 103, 112 Internet Public Library 98 interpretation argument 203 clarity 234 formulating 53 rubrics 232–5 strategies 50–1, 213–14 thematic meanings 234 intertextual connections 188 interventions 167 interviews 245 introducing poems 133 inventory 32–3 issues 55 Jackson, P. 110, 159 Jackson, S. 52, 142, 212 Jacobs, D.L. 79 Jacobs, H. 214 Jocson, K. 218 Johnson, C. 242–3 Johnson, R.S. 239–40 Jones, E. 134 Jordan, J. 218 journals 208–10, 226, 230, 245 Junger, G. 69 Kaiser Foundation 21 Kauffman, G. 16 Kaysen, S. 16, 36 Keane, N. 99 Keillor, G. 105 Kent, T. 192 Kerr, M.E. 34, 89 key words/phrases 136–7 King, M.L. 112, 218 Kingsolver, B. 55, 94, 195, 235 Kingston, M.H. 75 Kinory, A. 100–2 Knobel, M. 33, 97 knowledge acquisition 131–2 funds 32–3 Koch, K. 217 Kohn, 236 Kojima, G. 79 Kozol, J. 83 Kress, G. 98 KRS-One 135 Kudo, K. 79
Laboskey, V.K. 243 Labov, W. 141 lack of purpose 203–4 Landowne, Y. 91 Langer, J.A. 43, 186–7, 190 language considerations 65 Lankshear, C. 33, 97 large-group discussions 186–93 LaRochelle, D. 89 Larson, J. 100–1 Larson, R. 51 Latifah, Queen 135 Lave, J. 8 Le Guin, U. 148 learning determining 235–6 different notions 225–6 objectives 47–8 Lee, A. 106 Lee, C.D. 14, 31–2, 44, 52–3, 187–8 Lee, H. 12, 28, 34–5, 44, 69, 112, 129, 142, 151 Lee, S. 112 Leonard, G. 83 Lesko, N. 26 lesson planning 39–41, 45–7, 61, 70–5, 151, 159–62 Lewis, C. 44 LibriVox 98 Lipsyte, R. 79, 84 list-and-gist writing 203 listing 207 literacy letters 210 Literary Worlds 199 literature adaptations 102–5 experiences 71 periods 7, 42, 56, 112 responses 119–24 lived-world assumptions 215 Lorbiecki, M. 79 Love 112 Lovell, J.H. 239 low-level participation 189–90 Lowry, L. 25, 87–8 Lynn, S. 155 Lyons, N. 243 lyric poetry 134 McBride, J. 35 McCormick, K. 203 McCormick, P. 80 McCullough, D. 218 Macedo, D. 153 McMahon, R. 145 McMahon, S. 194 McNeil, E. 84 macro-frame 176
McTighe, J. 237–8 magazines 21 Malchow, R. 103, 194–5 mapping 207–8 Mar, R.A. 138 Marrin, A. 218 Marsden, J. 78 Marshall, J. 237 Marxist perspective 157 Mass, N. 112 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) 238 Mathabane, M. 35 Matthiessen, P. 218 meaning makers 83 media literacy 21, 96–114 media-literacy curriculum 18, 28, 96–8 advertising 108 audience construction 113–14 consumerism 108–9 digital storytelling 100 documentaries 111–12 film 100–5 genres 109–13 multimodal texts 97–8 online literature 98–9 podcasting 105 representations 106–9 texts 99–102 video 103–5 Meier, D. 236 Meltzer, M. 218 Melville, H. 14, 65 mentors 248 Merton, T. 218 metacognitive awareness 123–4 Meyer, A. 46 Meyer, S. 18, 25, 33, 79, 82, 87–9 middle-school students 9 millennial teens 18–27 modeling/scaffolding 9 young adult literature 77–8 Miller, C. 105 Mitchell, S. 163 modeling 7–8, 14, 53 cultural 18, 30–1, 187 discussions 176 enactments 182 formal writing 212 informal writing 205 inquiry-based approach 136 online response 230 question-asking strategies 190–1 scaffolding 9, 48–9, 52 techniques 48–9, 52–4
INDEX
think-alouds 122–3 workshops 205 Momaday, M.S. 11 money 21 monitoring 123–4 monocultural mindset 30–2 Moon, B. 76, 134 Moore, M. 111 Moore, T. 218 Morrell, E. 112 Morrison, T.G. 35, 53, 215 Mosenthal, P.B. 15 motivation 4, 7, 9–10, 17 actors 166 articulation 76 characters 156, 164–5, 224 development 18, 22–6, 36, 39–40, 57, 124 questions 191 reading 175 standards 47 values 55, 64–5, 68–9, 71 multiliteracies 34–5, 86–7, 89 multimedia texts 97–8 multimodal texts 97–8 multiple identities 29–30 multiple perspectives 151–62 multitextured teaching 34–5 Murphy, H. 202, 223–5 Murphy, J. 218 Murray, D. 216 music 112–13 Myers, J. 6, 12, 15, 97 Myers, W.D. 12, 79, 86, 88–9 mythic characters 148–9 Narish, A. 247 narratives 138–47, 245–6 “A Nation at Risk” 83, 85 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 84, 94, 112, 237–9, 248 national curriculum 47–8 Naylor, G. 75 needs 46–7, 71 Neelands, J. 183 New Criticism 83, 85 New London Group 86 News Corporation 109 norms 142–3 note-taking 206–7, 245 noticing 244–5 novels 61–3 Nystrand, M. 186, 188 Oatley, K. 138 objectives 47–8, 50 O’Brien, C. 107
O’Brien, T. 12, 195, 224 O’Donnell-Allen, C. 194, 208 Olberg, R. 135 Olson, C.B. 212 online worlds chat 230 comprehension 123 discussions 195–200 genres 98 images 99 literature 98–9 role-play 200 writing 219 Open Culture 98 open-ended questions 186–7 opinionnaires 122 opinions 121 oral interpretation 134 Organization for Transformational Work 114 organizational structures 54–7 orienting 48, 53–4 Orwell, G. 199 outcome prediction 143–4 The Outsiders 83–6 overview of lessons 70–1 Pace, B. 187 pairing 68–9 Pardo, L. 194 parents 3–5, 18 assignments 204 book loans 50, 90 censorship 93–4 contextualization 233 helicopter 19 interviews 59, 114 multiple identities 29–31 profiles 129 rationale 94 single 20–1 surveys 22 threatened 84 Parks, D. 12, 44, 140, 188, 215 participation drama 175 low-level 189–90 self-assessment 193 styles 187–8 texts 163–83 patterns 232 Patterson, J. 88 Paulsen, G. 86 peer feedback 229–30 performing poetry 133–5 Personal Learning Networks (PLN) 248
271
perspectives 55, 62–4, 66, 70–1 alternative 109, 191–3, 195–6, 205, 214, 227, 237, 247 archetypes 56, 155 biographical 156 blogs 209 character/psychological 156 comics/graphic novels 149 constructivist 203 cultural modeling 187 deconstruction 157 determination 235 distorted 111 drama 170–1, 173, 182–3 feedback 223, 228–30 formalist 156 gender 157 genres 129 historical 75, 81, 83, 156–7 interpretation 187 Marxist 157 multiliteracies 86–7 multiple 151–62 narratives 139 non-fiction 218 non-objective 215 poetry 217 political 94 postcolonial 158 re-writing texts 219 reader-response 155 response activities 165 rhetorical 216 role-play 166, 174, 176 social class 157 social/historical 126 subjective 104 taking 11–12, 228–30 unique 92 unreliable 121 values 140 Peschel, L. 212 Petrosky, A. 214, 216 Pew Internet and American Life Project 21 Piaget, J. 83 Pirie, B. 159–60 places 107 planning model 47–54 Plath, S. 161 podcasting 105, 134 Podomatic 105 Poe, E.A. 134 poetry 132–8, 181, 217 digital storytelling 218 freewriting 217 writing 217–18 Poetry Archive 132 point-driven stance 141
272
INDEX
points of relevance 66–7 Pope, R. 219–20 popular music 112–13 Porter, A. 127–8 portfolio reflections 17, 36, 60, 76, 95, 114, 128, 150, 162, 183, 201, 220, 239–41 postcolonial perspective 158 Pound, E. 134 Powell, J. 134 prerequisites 117–19 premature interpretation 187 preparation 64, 154–5 Pringle, L. 218 prior knowledge 172 problem novels 84 problem-solving 14–15 professional development 247–8 professional organizations 248 psychological perspective 156 Public Enemy 113, 135 Pullman, P. 87 purpose 120–1, 123 activities 52 writing 203–4, 213 questions 14–15, 47–54, 73–4 frontloading 119–20 premature interpretation 187 role 137–8 strategies 190–1 quests 148–9 Rabinowitz, P.J. 53, 122, 132, 136, 141–2 race 27–8, 35, 107 radio shows 105, 166, 180–1 Radio WillowWeb 105 Ransom, J.C. 83 Raphael, T. 194 raps 135 rationale 10, 191, 237 re-enactments 167 re-reading 14–15 reader-responses 155, 161, 229 Readergirlz 98 reading 22, 33, 75, 83–90 ability 45–6 comics/graphic novels 149 competence 122–3 contracts 94 enactment 163–4, 175 explicit ways 127–8 general process 119
improvement 175 individualized programs 49–50 media makers 96–114 strategies 119–26, 128, 163, 182 struggling readers 124–8 texts 153–4 think-alouds 174 transactional 164–7 workshops 205 reading-sucks syndrome 22–6 Reagan, R. 85 Reef, C. 218 reflection 54, 175, 242–8 regional worlds 56–7, 107 Reif, L. 208 Rekrut, M. 145 relevance 66–7 reliability of assessment 239 Remple, N. 209–10 representation 27–8 research 244–5 responses digital texts 99–102 engagement 188 formulating 53, 188–9 online literature 98–9 rethinking practice 118–19 revision 228–30 rewrites 219 Riefenstahl, L. 111 Rock Our World 105 Roe, B.D. 164 Rohd, M. 173 role-play 32, 89, 129, 166 activities 174 costs/benefits 177–8 dialogue 216 group 177 implementation 173 online 200 participation 175 portfolios 240 situating 168–71 virtual reality 199 romance 62, 75 Romano, T. 56, 219 Rose, J.M. 214 Rose, D. 46 Rosenblatt, L. 42, 82, 85, 93, 164 Ross, E.P. 164 Rowling, J.K. 87 Rozema, R.A. 97, 105, 200 rubrics 232–5 Rudh, K. 247 rural communities 107 Ryan, Michael 153
Salinger, J.D. 27, 84, 88–9, 135, 242 Santiago, E. 27 Satrapi, M. 79 scaffolding 7, 9, 48, 52–3, 62, 217 The Scarlet Letter 73–5 Schaafsma, D. 15 Schmitt, J. 15, 160 Schned, M. 103 Scholes, R. 76, 108 science fiction 87, 89, 108–10, 132 archetypes 149 perspectives 11–12 preferences 9 unit questions 237 Scimone, A.J. 208 scoring rubrics 232–3 Sebold, A. 4, 33 selections 48–51 criteria 92 poems 132 self-assessment 193 self-monitoring 123–4 senses 136 sequencing 48–51 settings 141–2, 216 SFX Entertainment 109 Shakespeare, W. 78, 103, 134, 219, 236 Shaw, G.B. 144 Sheehy, M. 125 Sherin, M.G. 244, 246 Short, K. 16 Showalter, E. 7 Singer, P. 171 Skype 105 Smagorinsky, P. 44, 208 small-group discussions 193–5 Smith, J. 150 Smith, K. 8, 53 Smith, M.W. 10, 124, 126, 131, 142, 150, 159–60, 187, 194, 244 Smith, R.S. 99 social class perspective 157, 161 social construction 12–13 social justice 86–7 social-bookmarking 210–11 socializing 48, 53–4 socio-cultural theories 8–9, 44 Somers, A.B. 134, 217 Sontag, S. 218 speaker identification 136 specificity of objectives 48 Spiegelman, A. 150 Spielberg, S. 111 spoken-word poetry 134–5
INDEX
standards 47–8 Standards for the Assessment of Reading and Writing 237 Stardoll 114 starting classes 158–9 state standards 47–8 Steinbeck, J. 66, 69, 191 Steinberger, A.M. 79 Steineke, N. 193 story development 143–4 storylines 144, 148–9 storytelling 100 strategies drama 163–83 enactment 164–7 literary responses 119–24 question-asking 190–1 reading 119–24, 163 teaching literature 67–70 struggling readers 124–8 student-centered theories 7, 42–4 students collecting work 246 discussion 184–201 engagement 151–62, 188 noticing 245 requirements 159–62 Stupeflix 104 suburban communities 107 Sunstein, B.S. 239–40 supplementary reading 75 surveys 122, 245 Swift, J. 80, 125 symbolic meanings 13 synchronous discussions 196–8 tableaux vivant 167–9 Taggert, G.L. 244 tagging 210–11 taking action 176, 181 Taylor, M.D. 28, 88–9 teacher development programs 248 teaching literature assessment 223–41 beliefs 3–5 classics 67–70 curriculum 11–15, 41–7 development 242–8 different notions 225–6 evaluation 223–41 genres 129–50 goals 41–7 instruction 237–8 issues 17 pre-requisites 117–19
professional development 247–8 reflection 242–8 shaping 10–11 strategies 67–70 technique types 48 theories 6–10 tools 16 writing 202–22 young adult literature 77–95 technology 21 Teen Reads 99 Teen Voices 99 television 96, 109–13 tellability 141 tentative thinking 203 tests correct answers 226–8 devising 236–9 text-centered theory 42 texts assumptions 215 audience construction 113–14 digital 99–102 exploratory thinking 203 lesson planning 160 media literacy 97–8 participation 163–83 reading 153–4 rewriting 219–20 role 81–7 sharing knowledge 210–12 transfers 131 writing 216–20 themes 13, 55, 64, 69, 234 theories 41–2, 86–7 formulating 44–5 synopsis 155–62 teaching literature 6–10 think-alouds 122–4, 174–5, 177, 179 Tholen, A. 211 Thoreau, H.D. 218 Time Warner 109 To Kill a Mockingbird 129–30, 151–2 Tolkien, J.R.R. 83, 148 tools 16, 245–7 topics 54–5, 74 Toriyama, A. 79 traditional curriculum 96 training 248 trait inference 145–7 transactional reading 164–7 transmission theories 6–7 Twain, M. 10, 35, 69, 80, 82, 145
273
U2 113 understanding 171–3 uniform lists 81–3 unit design 54–9 urban communities 107 US Census Bureau 21 values canonical 64–7 drama 171–3 instruction 224–6 perspectives 140 Van Es, E.A. 244, 246 VandeWeghe, R. 124 variety 57 Vásquez, A. 206 Venkatraman, P. 79 video 21, 23, 32–4, 36, 99 adaptations 102–5 anthologies 92 assessment 246–7 audiences 113, 118–19 background knowledge 121, 149–50 creating 39–40, 125–6, 218 critical analysis 106–7 discussions 195–200 facilitating 51 media literacy 97–100, 102 monologues 244 poetry 133 power 167–8, 179–80 purpose 120 role 179–80, 246–7 variety 57, 59 writing 209 VideoAnt 103, 246 Vipond, D. 141 virtual reality sites 199–200 visual response activities 165–6 visualization 136 VoiceThread 104, 134, 246 Voigt, C. 86 vote with your feet 173 Vygotsky, L. 8–9, 16, 229 Wagner, B.J. 175 Walker, A. 28, 140 Walker, M. 33 Watson, L. 160, 200 Wayne, J. 160 websites 90–1 Wells, C. 24 Wertsch, J. 16 West, C. 28 West, K. 211 westerns 160
274
INDEX
Wiggins, G.P. 237–8 wiki platforms 211–12 Wilhelm, J. 6, 10, 43, 118, 120, 122–6, 131–2, 142, 150, 159–60, 163–4, 167–8, 170–1, 182, 194, 205, 244 Williams, D. 230–1 Wilson, A. 189, 191, 244 Windows Movie Maker 104 Wiseman, F. 111 Wissman, K. 100 Wolfe, P. 8, 53 Wolfe, T. 218 Woodson, J. 79, 91
workshops 205 world reading 153–4 writing 202–22 criteria 230–5 feedback 230 formal 212–15 informal 205–10 journals 245 online 219 poetry 217–18 texts 216–20 workshops 205 Xisto, P. 161
Yang, G.L. 79 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) 87–8, 99 young adult literature 26–7, 77–95 youth 24–5 YouTube 103 Zancanella, D. 10 Zeffirelli, F. 103 zone of proximal development (ZPD) 9, 229 Zunshine, L. 139
