Responding to Literature

1. Responding to Literature David H Slomp

2. What do we teach?

3. What do we teach?

4. Entering the text • The primary goals for these activities are • To engage students, to capture their attention, to make them wonder about the book they think they won’t enjoy. • To somehow frame the focus you hope to bring to the study of the text. • To activate prior knowledge

5. Entering the text • Free Writing • Brainstorm a list of prompts you might give to students to help engage them with the text • Visual Representation • Identify a visual representation assignment that a) taps into a key idea/symbol/theme of Pirate’s Passage; b) that would generate student questions/curiosity. • Think-Pair-Share • List a series of prompts that students could discuss as a means of preparing them to think about the novel. • Internet Research • Develop a number of prompts/topics that students could research. Prompts should a) connect to an issue/historical context/key idea related to the novel; b) interest/engage students. • Minilecture • Brainstorm a list of minilecture topics that you could use to introduce students to the text. • Script Writing • Provide students with a loose context for creating a short skit that taps into a key moment/issue/situation in Pirate’s Passage. • Other • ??????? What can you come up with

6. Exploring the text • What principles for exploring text were illuminated through your readings? • What principles might you add to this list? Question: What does the monologic discussion of a text teach students about texts and about themselves as readers?

7. Exploring the text: Reader response Transaction refers to the interactions between the reader and the text. This is the point where meaning is constructed. Personality, purposes, experiences Real world knowledge Genre knowledge Text knowledge Meta-cognitive strategies Textual Features

8. Reader response prompts • Personal Triggers • Think of a Time when... • Describe a person who... • Envision a situation... • Suppositional Readers • Look at the cover, what does it suggest to you about what is inside? • Prediction activities . . . • Conceptual Readiness/Synergistic texts • Select three or for texts that deal with similar issues/concepts • what do these texts reveal about the concept? • What can we learn from the juxtaposition of these texts?

9. Reader response prompts • Associative Reflections • As you read, check moments in the story that feel familiar. • Identify two most powerful reference points • This character/event reminds me of . . . • The words here make me think of . . . • Collaborative Authors • Read the text and join the author’s project by completing one of the following prompts. . . . • Imagine this • Monologues, dreams, dialogues, diaries. . . from a character’s perspective.

10. Reader Response Prompts • Character relationships • Have students develop a tableaux which represents shifts in the relationship between characters as the text progresses. • Develop a continuum upon which to organize characters • Develop character maps/webs that represent relationships between characters • Images • Have students select a text or passage that is rich in image. Have them develop a representation that reflects makes that image concrete. • Found poetry • Design a found poem assignment that requires students to communicate their understanding of the text or of an issue it explores.

11. Reader response prompts • Focal judgements • Most important word • Most important passage • Most important aspect • Interrogative Reading • Develop an assignment through which students will be required to provide the questions that will be discussed during a fishbowl or hot seat activity. • Title Testing • After reading the text, provide prompts that require students to consider the significance of the title to the text.

12. Community exploration Focus on communal response to plot, character, ideas

13. Community exploration • Unrehearsed Reading • Model for students your reading of a text that is unfamiliar to you (Great for introducing poetry). • Proximate Reading • Students select two important short passages from the text: the one that they consider most important, and the one that foreshadows it. • Record details (including page # on cue cards) and have students read passages in order. • Discuss effect of this reading.

14. Community exploration • Communal Judgements • Structure an activity that draws individual judgements into a collective exercise • Most important word • Most important passage • Most important aspect • Defining vignettes • Develop an activity that requires students to script a retelling of the story. • Readers’ Theatre • Develop a readers’ theatre assignment that requires students to capture what they believe is the core idea in the text.

15. Community exploration • Assessing Characters • Personalized license plates • Bumper stickers • Develop an activity that requires students (in groups) to assess characters.

16. Formal analysis • Guidelines for formal analysis • ZPD –focus on what students are able to deal with • Literary terms should be explored in context • Should be seen as a language that helps us talk about text more precisely • Engagement should come before analysis • Literary analysis should be seen as a recursive act through which students refine their capacity to engage with texts.

17. Formal analysis • Consider elements (plot, character development, setting, point of view, tone, style, theme, symbol) of the novel Pirate’s Passage and identify which two elements you think best lend themselves to exploration. • Develop a series of questions that students could consider when exploring each element • Develop a brief activity that students could be asked to complete that would help enrich their understanding of how that element functions in enriching the novel.

18. Critical synthesis • Apply a range of critical lenses to a text • Moral/philosophical • Historical/biographical • Formalist • Rhetorical • Freudian • Archetypal • Feminist • Marxist • Deconstructionist • Reader response • New historical After having introduced students (briefly) to a number of theoretical lenses, ask them to examine the text through two or three of those lenses. Discuss how each lens leads to a different reading.

19. Extend • “Extending means taking the ideas, urges, and preachments of the text into our daily worlds.” • Extension implies using the texts we study to develop personal satisfaction as well as social and ethical insight. • Extension requires we move beyond ourselves to the broader social implications and possibilities evoked by the text.

20. Final projects • Having considered a number of activities designed to assist students in their reading of Pirate’s Passage, consider developing three projects that: • Invites them to enter the text • Enables them to explore the text • That requires they extend from the text to broader social or cultural issues. Consider developing projects so that students need to be actively working toward them while taking up the text.

21. Types of Units • Thematic • Social Issues • Genre • Text Creation • Project • Workshop • Concept • Major Literary Work • Literary Period • National or Regional Literature • Author(s) study • Chronological Approach • Combination

22. Considerations when Unit Planning • What are the transferable ideas/skills/understandings I want to focus on in this unit? • Do my objectives match curriculum objectives? • How does this unit fit in my overall year plan? • Do I have access to the resources I need to complete this unit? • Will my major activities engage my students?

23. Planning for Instruction • Decide on 2-4 projects/assignments for students to complete by the end of this unit. • Remember to • Ensure a range of language arts (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, representing) are required for students to complete these projects/assignments • Ensure that each project/assignment requires students to demonstrate skills related to a number of specific expectations. • Ensure that projects/assignments both challenge and engage students. • Ensure that projects/assignments are responsive to individual student needs.

24. Planning for Instruction • Write up the projects as a handout for students. • Include: • A description of expectations • An outline of process • Evaluation criteria • Link to achievement chart • Link to specific expectations

25. Scaffolding –planning for success • Consider: • What skillsdo my students need to develop in order to be successful on the unit projects/assignment? • Brainstorm a list • What background knowledgedo my students need to develop in order to be successful on the unit projects/assignments ? • Brainstorm a list • What understandings do my students need to acquire in order to be successful on the project/assignments? • Brainstorm a list

26. Mini-lessons –learning scaffolds • Consider your three lists. • What mini-lessons can you develop that will help your students develop the skills, background knowledge, and understandings that they need in order to be successful? (Aim for 10 to 15 lessons) What feedback loops do you plan to build into your mini-lessons so that you will know if your students have developed skills, background knowledge, and/or understandings you’re aiming for? What sequence makes the most sense for these lessons?

27. Unit Scaffolding for Pirate’s Passage. • Sheet 1: • Essential Questions • Learning outcomes • Sheet 2: • 3 Projects • 1 for entering • 1 for exploring • 1 for extending • Sheet 3: Scaffolding/mini-lessons/assessment activities designed to build competency.

28. Review • Post chart paper on the wall. • One group member stay with chart paper to help explain/answer questions • Remaining group members fan out and visit other postings. • Discuss with presenter. • Complete PQP cards • One statement explaining what you liked about the unit • One question you had about the unit • One suggestion for polishing or improving the unit.