Teaching Literature to Adolescents

TEACHING LITERATURE TO ADOLESCENTS

-BY: YARITZA MORALES

NOVEMBER 18, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENT

·     Part I: Why Teach Literature

·     Part II: What literatures are we teaching?

·     Part III: How do we engage students with literature?

·     Part IV: Where do I go from here? 

OVERVIEW:THIS BOOK HAS METHODS OF TEACHING LITERATURE TO MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. IT EMPHASIZES TEACHING LITERATURE BY ORGANIZING IT THROUGH THEME, ISSUES, AND TOPICS. IT FOCUSES ON HOW TO ENGAGE STUDENTS TO BECOME READERS AND HOW TO ADDRESS STUDENTS WHO HAVE A DIFFICULT TIME SUCCEEDING IN LITERATURE. THIS BOOK PROVIDES VARIOUS STRATEGIES THAT CAN BROADEN CRITICAL THINKING AND TOOLS TO ENHANCE STUDENT’S UNDERSTANDING OF TEXTS. ALONG WITH OTHER GREAT METHODS OF TEACHING LITERATURE.

IN EACH CHAPTER YOU WILL FIND-

·      It presents inquiry-based approaches for teaching literature (each is organized around a specific question)

·      Teacher case narratives on particular issue related to question

·      Methods

·      Portfolio reflection, writing activities for teachers 

·      Links related to topic, additional readings, recommended literary texts, and activities to do with students

WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK: 

I chose this book because it presents teaching methods. As a new teacher, I want to learn about various teaching strategies that I can steal and implement in my future classroom. When I read the back of the book, it stated that it contained approaches that incorporated reading, writing, drama, discussion, and media production in literature classroom. I really enjoyed that this book was broken into sections that is organized around specific questions that English educators heard from preservice teachers. A lot of these “how” questions are the same questions I have asked myself and others. The biggest question I have is, how do we engage students in literature? The first two teaching ideas I have presented are strategies on how to engage students in literature. The last teaching idea explicates how I will assess and evaluate a student’s learning. I really enjoyed chapter thirteen that focused on “how do you know what they have learned?” As teachers, we need to first address what does it mean to learn literature before teaching it. Literature assessments should not be correct answer quizzes, tests, or worksheets, the assessment should provide open-ended responses. I believe this book presents various teaching methods that I will implement in my class. 

TEACHING IDEAS: 

1.    The Power of Purpose: Before handing a book to my class, I will set purpose for my students. I will create understanding of a text by linking it to personal beliefs. For example, before diving into Romeo and JulietI would use the Exhibit: Opinionnaire/Survey provided in the book. The survey has students identify whether they agree or disagree with each statement that relates to relationship. They would choose one statement that they feel strong about and write a short story about what they have experienced that makes them feel so strong about that statement. Students will share their story with their peers. (Introductory: frontloading, essential questions, brainstorming themes)

2.    Facebook Profiles: For a unit on teaching To Kill a Mockingbird I would have students create a Facebook profile for the character Scout, as well as for other characters in the story. Students will update character’s profile as they progress in their readings. Students will describe the character’s unique role and perspectives, biography, birthdays, relationships, relationship status, education, work information, and other Facebook elements. Key questions for 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?

3.    To Kill a Mockingbirdassessment: Students will write in their journals as an entry task to explain a character’s action. Students will explain characters’ actions and compare them to other character’s traits, knowledge, beliefs, plans, and goals. Student will provide examples and evidence from text. 

CHALLENGES: 

I believe that a possible challenge in implementing these strategies from this text is student resistance. A possible challenge can be that students who have been previously told they are wrong in interpreting texts are shutdown. Or students who have been given correct answer assessments on literature have not learned how to explore with essential questions or learned to read with purpose. I may have low reading students who may feel insecure to share their writing or participate in readings. To address these possible challenges, I would implement various informal free-writes, think alouds, pair discussions, respond to free-writes, and create safe learning environment. 

GREAT RESOURCE: 

As student teachers, we are beginning to create our own lesson plans and we are often stuck with the how question. Questions like, “How do I teach what my students are reading? How do I help students understand what they are reading? How do I get my students to participate in textual worlds? How do I get students to talk about literature? How do I get students to write about literature?” and so forth. I believe these are questions we all have and are concerned about going into creating and teaching our lessons. This book does an amazing job providing methods to ease our concerns and explicitly answers those questions. 

Methods of Writing

THE COMPOSITION OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Author: John Mark & John Metz

Books Content: 

Ch. 1Inventing ideas, Ch. 2 Remembering who you were, Ch. Explaining relationships, Ch. 4 Observing, Ch. 5 Analyzing concepts, Ch. 6 Analyzing images, Ch. 7 Making arguments, Ch. 8 Responding to arguments, Ch. 9 Evaluating, Ch. 10 Searching for causes, Ch. 11 Proposing solutions, Ch. 12 Thinking radically, Ch. 13 Researching & writing, Ch. 14 Anthology everyday rhetoric

WHAT YOU FIND IN EVERY CHAPTER: 

In each chapter you can find a point of contactsections that encourages students to slow down in their reading, possible writing topics, and questions or connections to life. In the Analysis section, it helps students develop meaning and significance to their topics filled with dialogic activities. The Public Resonancesections contains writing projects with rhetorical situations that engages students to explore what others believe. TheThesissections contains guides, outlines, examples, and Evolution of a Thesis chart to illustrate gradual development. The Rhetorical Toolssections teaches students that all rhetorical tools can be applied to the writer’s need. The Vitalitysections explains and illustrates strategies to vitalize writing. In the Deliverysections it connects writing to the world, so students can see the relationship between the two. 

WHY I CHOSE THIS TEXTBOOK:

I chose this textbook because it is a guide to writing. As a student, I have writing anxiety and find myself struggling to find ideas on what to write about. As a future teacher, I do not want my students to develop those same writing anxieties. I believe this will be a great resource for teachers to have because it presents readings that connect to culture, family, popular culture, gender and identity, justice, and other topics that students can engage on. Students then can reflect on those readings and think about their own topics, re-think based on values, assumptions, claims of others, and develop new ideas on what they may write about. This book does an amazing job connecting readings and writings to other texts, self, and world. I believe this is so important because as a teacher I want my students to realize the connections they can make. If my students learn to make those connections, they will learn to enjoy writing because it has meaning to their lives or experiences.

TEACHING IDEAS: 

1.    Responding to argument: Students will read “Entitlement Education” and analyze the writing strategies the author uses to support his claim. As well as, the key ideas and resources the author uses to support his claim and response to the original argument. I can use this as an entry task, students will write their thoughts and ideas then pair-share with peer in writing journal. I will then lead a whole class discussion with tiered questioning. 

2.    Remembering who you were: This activity has students bring in an old photograph to class. Students will free write about the photograph, they will write about what they remember about the photo and how they felt in that specific time. The text presents students with questions they can respond to if they feel stuck. I believe this is a great way for students learn about one another, as well as an opportunity for me to learn about them. 

3.    Explaining relationships: Students will read John Steinbeck’s Americans and the Landas an introduction of explaining relationships and activity. In point of contact activity, students will explore and investigate possible ways two entities relate to each other. I would create a graphic organizer for the students with questions they can respond to and think about while they are exploring. In this specific lesson, I will focus on teaching organization strategies. I would use organization strategies presented in book. 

CHALLENGES: 

I believe this is a great resource book for teachers to have because you can grab ideas and make them into lessons, free writes, or fun writing activities. But I do not think a school or myself would use this as a textbook to teach from. I realized this textbook is for college writing instruction, so high school students may find it very boring to read or work from the student textbook. The instructor’s edition presents a lot of information, I assume the student’s edition would be the same and this would be information overload at high school level. I believe specific readings and writings can be used inside an eleventh or twelfth grade classroom because it challenges students. Some challenges that may arise from using these writing strategies may be that students struggle with sharing their writing because it is personal information, or they may feel insecure about their writing skills. 

TAKEAWAY: 

This textbook’s main focus is to make writing instruction go beyond the classroom. It focuses composition experience to student’s everyday life to create meaning. It also provides students with the opportunity to create new connections, radical thinking, and generate a better way of thinking about a topic. 

Writing

In evaluating the common core standards for writing, we can see that the expectations for students in creating arguments with supportive claims, establish formal writing style, composition, organization, and other conventions for writing progresses in each grade. In my sixth grade English class placement, students are learning about figurative language, plot, conflict, theme, and characters to get them ready to write their own narrative. It will be interesting to see if any grammar lessons will be incorporated within the lesson. In the NES book, it goes over the importance of having students understand capitalization, punctuation, and word usage. I know that a lot of schools do not teach grammar in isolation and can be easily incorporated as a mini lesson when it comes to proof reading essays. I believe incorporating mini lessons on conventions will be very important for all my students but especially for my first period. My first period has about ten students who are on IEPs or 504s, as well as ELLs who will highly benefit from these mini lessons. Plus, I want students to understand that writers go through proof reading and revising before their final product. I also want them to understand that good writers seek others to revise their work. I would have students proofread each other’s essay with minimal marking. In the NES and common core standards it elaborates on the main concept that students need to have a well-organized written essay that has clear ideas, transitions, development of body, and conclusion. I will want to incorporate free writes as entry tasks to get students motivated and engaged in writing. Maybe from the free writes, students will read back and find something they can elaborate and make into their narrative essay. When I think of having students complete any type of essay, I want to provide them with graphic organizers, list of various transitional phrases, and examples of written essays. I would express my writing anxieties with my students to convey that I struggle with the same writing anxieties they experience and that it takes time and effort to achieve these various types of writing skills.