Yale New Haven Teachers Institute Curriculum Unit:
Mythology and Literacy
The goal of this cross-curriculum Reading Unit is to encourage and enhance student literacy and improve Connecticut Mastery Test scores. The cross-curriculum objectives will include examination and analyses of the diverse peoples, places and plots introduced through World Mythology. The reading content or subject matter, mythology, will introduce students to six trickster tales from six continents and six different cultures.
In addition to the curriculum readings, students will concurrently be exposed and immersed in Cooperative Learning based on the Johnson and Johnson model. The Johnson and Johnson model is well documented in educational research for promoting learning while providing opportunities to practice the responsibilities of good citizenship and communication skills. The Johnson and Johnson prescription for cooperative learning is highly structured and specific in directions and details concerning processes and product. Roles, responsibilities, and expectations for individual students, for teams, and for teachers are definable and specific.
In the Johnson and Johnson formula product and process receive equal emphasis along with group and individual performance. Assessments and evaluations are key components of this instructional model and are taught and practiced daily by students. Assessments include formal and informal procedures. Evaluations are individual and group-centered and consider intra- and inter-group performance. Evaluations require teacher, student, peer, and self -assessments.
All reading class students will be expected to participate and contribute to the proper functioning of this cooperative learning environment. The Johnson and Johnson model identifies and promotes peer tutoring as a paramount goal and objective; however, introductory lessons of this unit will concentrate on traditional teacher-directed group and individual instruction. This teacher-directed instruction will require intra and inter group interdependence. Consulting the Johnson and Johnson monograph on Cooperative learning will provide procedures and guidelines for establishing the desired environment. Daily lesson plans will be structured according to the guidelines and procedures suggested by Johnson and Johnson.
Initially daily mythology lessons will be teacher-directed and focused through Reading Comprehension and Questioning Strategies. These recognized and proven teaching techniques include: Question Answer Relationships (QAR) Strategies, Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DR-TA) and the Inferential Strategy. These approaches are compatible with and reinforce cooperative learning and curriculum literacy objectives. The following highlights, overviews, and summarizes these strategies which are delineated in Herber’s Levels of Comprehension. These strategies demand continuous and intimate student involvement with the textual information and furthermore require and encourage students to use their own prior knowledge and experience. These strategies stress the importance of the student’s prior knowledge in understanding and predicting outcomes based on textual information.
These Reading and Questioning strategies are structured step-by-step approaches to improving student reading comprehension. Students are methodically guided through a textual analysis of a reading passage. The teacher poses a series of specific questions that require students to read and reread, think, and evaluate distinct lines and levels of textual meaning.
The first level of comprehension is literal; what do the lines on the page literally mean; and what is the denotation of the words? This is called reading the lines, literally! The next stop or step is Interpretive; reading between the lines! This entails inference: the student must consider the words’ connotative meanings and infer the authors’ intent. This interpretive attempt is termed reading between the lines; what the author intends and the text implies. The third and final stage of directed reading, thinking, involves a leap beyond the confines of the lines or the space between the lines, a leap further than the page itself. The reader is expected to grasp a more expansive or abstract meaning, a meaning suggested by the interpretive connotations but not constricted or confined by the limitations of the words’ denotation. This is termed reading beyond the lines. The reader must be able to synthesize the literal and interpretive meanings and create a new synergistic understanding and product.
Demonstrating this higher level of comprehension could take the form of writing. It has been said that reading makes a person knowledgeable. Knowledge enables and expands a person’s thinking but writing, only writing, will make thinking concise. Concise thinking and writing are hallmarks of a literate student; both are objectives of this course and New Haven curriculum guidelines.
In an earnest attempt to improve student writing, the New Haven School Board has endorsed and promoted the John Collins Writing Across the Curriculum program. This structured writing program was initiated three years ago on a system-wide basis. All sixth- grade teachers at Roberto Clemente Middle School have received extensive instruction in this program and have adapted its use across the curriculum. The Collins approach identifies five distinct types of writing and emphasizes Focus Correction Areas. This writing approach will receive a prominent place in this mythology course and reinforce other literacy skills of speaking, listening, reading and thinking. Other strategies designed to improve student communication and comprehension skills include CLOZE activities, SQ3R, note taking and the use of specialized graphic organizers; all will be utilized.
It is hoped that this cross-curriculum collaborative reading unit on mythology will encourage and enable students to be more fluent in literacy and citizenship. The unit emphasizes the structured approaches found in the Johnson and Johnson Cooperative Learning Model, the Collins Cross Curriculum Writing program, and Directed Reading Thinking Activities
The following highlights, overviews, and summarizes the methods, materials, and procedures that will be applied in examining each of the six trickster tales selected from World mythology.
Daily lesson plans: SIX SIMPLE STEPS TO MYTHIC LITERACY!
I. (A) Pre-test, sustained silent reading passage, CLOZE activity.
(B) Self-assessment of CLOZE activity.
II. (A) Oral reading or myth/trickster tale.
(B) Aural listening (CMT skill)
III. (A) Collins writing types one and two.
(B) Use of graphic organizers. Note taking, summarizing.
IV. (A) Speaking, discussing, listening. Individual, team and group.
(B) Blackboard, flipcharts, storyboards.
V. (A) Rereading, rewriting, reviewing.
(B) Improving notes and summaries
VI. (A) Synthesis, Syngergy, Recreation!
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(B) Type three writing Collins writing; convergent and divergent myth directions.
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FIVE GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS FOR SIX TRICKSTER TALES
I. Character Analysis
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(A) People Graphic Sketch
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(B) Character column chart.
II. Period Analysis
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(A) Time Period. Time line.
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(B) Historical Clock.
III. Plot Analysis
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(A) Plot, Storyboard.
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(B) Cause/Effect Diagram.
IV. Place Analysis
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(A) Places, Geographic Maps.
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(B) Political Maps.
V. Perspective Analysis
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(A) Perspective, Characters view characters, Readers view characters, Author views characters, Readers view author.
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(B) Past and Present.
VI. Six Trickster Tales from Six Continents and Countries
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1. Ananse, Western Africa
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2. Raven, North America
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3. Loki, Northern Europe
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4. India, Asia
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5. The Twins, Mesoamerica & Quwi, South America
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6. Mimi and Namorodo, Australia
