Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements
How to Teach What Really Matters About Character, Setting, Point of View, and Theme

by M.W. Smith and J.D. Wilhelm



Welcome to the world of Literary Elements! I’ve selected this text because teaching the elements of literature is a very large part of what I am asked to do. What I really want to discover through reading this work is how to (as our classmate Rachael said) become the “guide on the side” and get away from my current role as “sage on the stage” .

This text is coauthored by Wilhelm, who also wrote You Gotta Be the Book. I really enjoyed the first chapter of that work, which we were assigned to read for class, so I am anticipating that this will be a very helpful and applicable book. I wish that we could have a literature circle discussion over this text, because I would love to hear what each of you would have to say about it. Perhaps we will have the chance to do that some through your comments to this blog.

Before getting into the meat of the work, the authors explain that there are six principles that underlie their ideas.

Principle 1: The importance of the why - It is critical for students to understand why we ask them to do what we ask them to do. Authors tell that the “most powerful way (they) have found to demonstrate the why of what (they’re) teaching is to embed (their) instructions in inquiry units which focus on essential questions.” Examples are “What makes me me?” and “To what extend are people responsible for what happens to them?” Asking a big question makes the unit a social project of exploration.


Principle 2: The importance of how – Teachers must focus on procedural knowledge – how to read literature, rather than declarative knowledge – technical vocabulary and the details of a particular interpretation of a text. “The what is best learned and the most useful when learned in the context of the how.”

Principle 3: The importance and difficulty of transfer – How does what we do today prepare students for what they will do later? We want them to transfer what they learn about people and stories to their understanding of the literature they read, to their writing, to other texts they read, and to their lives.

Principle 4: The importance of sequence – Teachers must activate schema, move from known to new, begin instruction by activating students’ existing knowledge about what we want them to learn.

Principle 5: The importance of providing opportunities for choice, co-production, and discussion - Teachers should provide opportunities for students to stake their identity in their pursuit of individual interests and choices. In this way, we get to know them and they get to know each other.

Principle 6: The importance of connecting reading to writing – What students learn about reading and interpreting literary elements can be applied to their own composing.

Journal entry for this chapter:

Why does what I am teaching right now matter right now? What work can it possibly do? How does is count for readers, writers, and problem solvers? When the author stated that, “somehow he had lost sight of teaching purposefully” I could totally relate. He said, “ He’d just been assigning stuff and letting the curriculum or anthology be his guide.” Wow, this sounds just like me!! The type of instruction described as declarative is, sadly, the method used in my classroom. There is little sequencing and very little choice given to students. Luckily there is the strong connection between reading and writing. I really hope that this book will inspire me with practical ways in which to make changes in these areas.

And so, I read on.