So how do we help students to cross the bridge from concrete to abstract thinking and to actively engage with the text as they read? In the section that follows I would like to present some methods that I have found particularly effective in helping students come of age as
thinkers.
All of these strategies challenge students to make their thinking
visible.
I frequently remind students that they are smart and are already doing the kind of thinking that they need to do in order to respond thoughtfully and analytically to literature. The problem is that they don’t capture their thoughts or articulate why their conclusions make sense. It is essential to focus on fluency as students get their thinking on paper. At this point the focus is on getting ideas down. This is “first draft thinking” and students are expected to make discoveries and revise their initial reactions to the text as they go.
These strategies also promote independent inquiry among students. Traditionally, the teacher asks the majority of the questions and sets the agenda for class discourse. These methods put the onus on students. They are encouraged to remain curious, continually probing the text and relating it to their own life experience, as they seek answers to their own questions. They are then able revise, add to or clarify their theories through discourse with their peers. In fact I encourage students to keep their classmates in mind as they get their thinking down on paper. Making their thinking visible allows them to rehearse what they plan to contribute to class discussion.
Student centered discussion enables students to collectively develop interpretations and explore multiple perspectives. Inevitably they recognize that sometimes two people have equally viable points of view, even though their ways of seeing an issue are quite different. The reader response strategies encourage a similar ability to identify diverse characters’ points of view and ultimately the author’s perspective. Students begin to automatically look to the text to identify passages that reveal the character’s and the author’s assumptions about the world. Ultimately, these strategies help students step outside the text and consider author’s craft and the broader implications of the author’s choices.
The purpose of practicing these strategies continually in the classroom is to enable students to internalize mature “habits of mind” as readers and thinkers.
Reader Response Starters
Carol Olson and Robert Probst have both done extensive research on the cognitive strategies that underlie the reading and writing process. Olson has created a series of response starters that help students contruct meaning. Experienced readers tap prior knowledge, ask questions, make connections and reflect on the text during and after reading. The response starters provide a scaffold for students until these strategies become second nature. Sometimes I encourage students to use the starters to write in the margins as they read. To practice the process together, I often read a text aloud to students and stop at strategic points to have them respond to the text using the prompts. They can ask questions, make connections, evaluate the text or make predictions. The sentence starters kickstart their thinking.
I have found the prompts to be most helpful as a tool to help students articulate their initial understanding of text. Although, students want to verbalize their first emotional response immediately, when the class puts their first thoughts on paper using the prompts, a more analytical discourse follows. I have attached a list of open-ended prompts for responding to literature that I have adapted from the work of Robert Probst and Carol Booth Olson. A comprehensive list is available is available in Carol Booth Olson’s book
The Reading\Writing Connection: Stategies for Teaching and Learning in the Secondary Classroom
.
Questioning and Theorizing
This strategy taps into students’ natural curiosity by encouraging them to generate their own questions about text. It is important that students understand that the types of questions I want them to generate do not have obvious answers. In other words they are not literal level questions that are spelled out in the text such as: What did Esperanza do when the teacher gave her the smelly sweater? (She took it) Where was Esperanza from? (Mexico).
A simple way to encourage higher level inquiry is to have students begin their questions with the phrase I wonder why: “I wonder why Esperanza… ?” or “ I wonder why the author, Sandra Cisneros chose to ____________.” Both questions lead to analytical, interpretive and/or evaluative thinking. These are questions that do not have answers that are that are definitively correct or incorrect. They are debatable and require that the student develop a theory or multiple theories to answer the question. A theory requires support. I ask students to explain to me why their theory makes sense. They need to refer specifically both to the text and to their own experience of the world to substantiate their theory.
As my students are sometimes insecure about developing this habit of inquiry, I like to remind them that they already question and theorize on a regular basis. I point out that when I observe students in the hallway, most of them seem curious about each other. Additionally, I explain that I’ve overheard a lot of conversations at school (in the hallways and the teachers’ room) about what people are doing and why people do what they do. I urge students to bring the same curiosity they have about people in real life to the people they meet in the texts. As students develop theories to answer the questions they generate, I urge them to make more of their thinking as visible as possible. In class I urge them to point specifically to the place in the text that shows us that their theory makes sense. Then I encourage them to think about where they have seen this “kind of thing” happening in real life.
Students’ questions and theories provide the foundation for classroom discourse. As students share the “thinking they have done on paper,” I encourage them to listen and respond to the theories of others by asking for clarification, adding to what’s been said or offering a divergent opinion. Again my goal is to increase the flexibility of my students’ thinking. I urge students to remain open-minded as I point out that there are multiple viable theories.
Finding and Interpreting Philosophical Passages
Most experienced readers read with a pencil or highlighter in hand. Often we underline passages that resonate with us or that we find particularly important or meaningful. Oftentimes, students are puzzled when asked to find
significant
passages. They instantly want to know what it is
I’m
looking for. At this point, I focus on the character’s perspective. I tell students that significant passages are the philosophical ones-the ones that give us clues about what the character is thinking or feeling about something..
Finding these philosophical passages allows us to analyze the character’s perspective, particularly his or her logic, beliefs and assumptions. I explain to students that one’s philosophy, in the most simple sense, is his or her way of looking at the world. As the students begin to explore multiple perspectives, I expect that they will begin to appreciate that each of us has his or her own “truth” based on his or her own experience. Rather than jumping to premature conclusions (i.e that character was so stupid, or, she
shouldn’t
have done that), students will investigate causes.
By tracking these philosophical passages the student is able to recognize how and why the character has changed as a result of his experience. After locating philosophical passages and recording them in their notebooks, students can respond to them and then have a peer add his or her insights. (See appendix 1) Certainly, an understanding of the this character’s shift in perspective will enable students to better understand the author’s intent or the theme of the piece. I often help them to determine the author’s perspective by completing the following sentence: I think that after reading this piece, the author wants me to understand that…
Identifying the Most Important Word, Phrase or Text Feature
Similar to finding philosophical passages, identifying the most important word, line and/or text feature helps students to root their interpretations in the text. Additionally it moves students from response to analysis. For example, they often have a gut sense that a certain word or phrase is important but have not been yet explored their reasoning. Again, they are asked to make their thinking visible to themselves and others. As they listen to the words and phrases that their classmates have selected they have an opportunity to reflect upon (and hopefully accept) multiple interpretations.
Identifying most important text features is a little more complicated but very useful in developing the ability to evaluate author’s craft. Prior to using this strategy, it is important to have reviewed and identified basic rhetorical devices. The student can then identify literary elements: the author’s use of figurative language, symbols, dialect etc. Theorizing about the stylistic choices the author made allows students to begin to see how they are related to the overall meaning of the piece. As students begin to master this skill, they learn to develop a more sophisticated critical stance.
Symbolic Responses
To help his students engage more deeply with texts, teacher researcher Jeff Wilhelm developed a strategy called symbolic story representation. In the SSR (1997) students reenact important scenes in the story using cutouts, objects or special props to represent characters, settings, motifs and key ideas. Although Wilhelm found that his students’ first attempts were usually simple line drawings displaying the characters facial expression or surroundings, eventually they graduated to more sophisticated representations, such as dice to show risk taking or a tortilla to show that a character was “all wrapped up in himself.”
I’ve found it helpful to begin by guiding students to think symbolically about the story. For example, I ask them to come up with an object, song, animal or color that reminds them of the character. Next, I ask students to explain why they made the comparison they did. Many students create these visual metaphors easily and the pictures give them a great starting point for interpretive thinking. A secondary benefit is that by creating their own similes and metaphors, students become more aware of these literary devices in texts.
Taking the Character’s Perspective Through Role Play
I often ask students to take on the voice of one of the characters in the piece they are reading. Sometimes I’ll ask students to do this in writing. They might write a diary entry or letter as the character. This assignment offers us the opportunity to examine voice and dialect as well as the character’s inner life. The creative writing needs to stay true to the text. My experience has been that many students who have had difficulty writing analytical responses demonstrate insight when they step into the character’s shoes.
Scripted or unscripted dramatic role play also offers students the chance to demonstrate their interpretations. The benefit of this type of activity is that it allows students to experience multiple perspectives. There are many variations of this activity. Students can produce a talk show where the characters are guests or two characters from different pieces might meet or have a conversation. Improvisation also provides opportunities for students to playout key conflicts in the text. Students often enjoy assuming the persona of one of the characters and answering questions directed to them by the class.
The Chalk Talk
This strategy is outlined in the New Haven Public School District’s 9
th
grade curriculum. A Chalk Talk is a silent way to do reflection, generate ideas, check on learning, develop projects or solve problems. In short, it is a silent discourse. It can be used with any level group. During the activity no one may talk at all. Instead the conversation must take place on chart paper or the blackboard. The teacher/facilitator usually starts out by posing a question or presenting a comment in writing. Students then respond. Participants can write a comment, comment on another’s idea(s) (simply by drawing an arrow or line to the comment to which the response is directed), ask a question, etc.
The teacher can facilitate the discussion (or
problematize
) by circling interesting ideas, writing questions about a participant comment, adding his/her own reflections or connecting two interesting ideas/comments together with a line and adding a question. mark. The chalk talk can provide an excellent record of the thinking of the class that can be analyzed. I like to point out to students how they have helped each other clarify and expanded upon their thinking. Often the class generates multiple theories to answer a single question. Students are able to
see
and consider the validity of multiple viewpoints.
