Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Preparing Students to Understand Theme

One way to help students understand the importance of theme is to use the skills, which they already have as applied to simulated texts such as fables, collages, timelines, paintings, photos, and precious objects.


FABLES – Often thought of as useful for lower grades only, fables can be used in all grades for the purpose of teaching students to understand theme.

IN ACTION - Read a couple of fables that relate to the particular essential question that you be pursuing.For example: when using the inquiry question, “What does it take to be happy?” read fables such as "The Flies and the Honey Pot," "The Lioness," and "The Miser." With the first few fables tell the students what the moral is and ask, “What comment on achievement and happiness does the fable make?” After a couple of fables are addressed together in this way present other related fables without giving the moral. Students can then work in pairs or small groups to write the missing morals. They can then debate who has written the best moral by tying their particular moral to data in the fable, explaining how their moral matches the story, and finally how their moral connects to life in general.

With this preparation, students are nearly ready to write their own fables. Brainstorm qualities of people that really get on their nerves. Choose one human foible to work on as a class and have kids address the following: “What kind of problems are caused by that shortcoming? What are the consequences of the quirk?”

Next discuss the knowledge of form for the fable. Lead a discussion on the animals what would best represent that foible. Then consider how the behavior will change an initial situation, complicating it and leading to particular consequences. Finally students can be helped to see how a moral must reflect the trajectory of the story, … how the moral reflects the changes wrought or problems caused by this particular foible.

Students can then work in groups to compose a fable together. Then jigsaw the students into new groups with one pupil from each group entering the new group to share what their original group had come up with. “After a read around of each fable, students discuss the choices they made and why they made them” (pg 170).

Next students could write advice from the point of view of the author – in this case Aesop. The RAFT technique can be a useful organizing and brainstorming device.

R = Role = Aesop
A = Audience = a person who need advice about happiness – the miser
F = Form = an advice letter
T = Topic = Advice about happiness based on a particular fable

Next, students can rewrite the ending of the fable, then rewrite the letter of advice to match the new situation and moral. This last step helps students to see how the ending of a novel is of great importance in establishing theme.

More to come on simulated texts to develop theme.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Thinking About Theme

Since we are getting close to the end of our Blogging Bliss, I have decided to sort through the remainder of this work on literary elements and cover the sections, which I found the most helpful. So I will move away from the promised blogs on setting and move to the last section of the book, which covers the element of theme.

“Theme is where all the other literary elements come together to give a story's ultimate reward and fulfill its consummate purpose.” p 153 A great theme is something we can transfer to our lives. It can transform us and help us grow.

Authors Smith and Wilhelm point out that there is more to theme than the moral or gist of the story. They describe theme as a rich understanding, expressed through a crafted work of art but applicable to life beyond the work, and situated in an ongoing cultural conversation that tests and complicates it. Pg 155.

What theme is not – a one-work topic: love, war, friendship. Why not? Because these are topics from which many themes can be generated. What about love? What about friendship? Understanding the topic is only the halfway point. We must understand the topic and the conversation. Thinking of theme as a conversation is what we need to do. If a group at a party is discussing education we may feel that we are able to join the conversation. However, they folks could be discussing any number of ideas regarding education and we may or may not be inclined to want to jump into.

Throughout this text the authors have proposed that we teach literature by structuring units around essential questions. These questions are about ongoing disciplinary debate or cultural conversations.
This is where theme comes in. Rich and complex works of art will contain multiple themes, both major and minor. For example while teaching Romeo and Juliet as part of an inquiry unit on what makes or breaks a relationship, students came up with themes like “love stinks,” “love is always changing,” and “deceit causes all human problems” as they progressed through the text.


What should teachers do to help their students be successful in finding themes?

· Help students recognize the existence of ongoing cultural conversations and place their reading in those conversations – by using essential questions.

· Help students see the importance of coherence and develop and name useful coherence strategies – recognizing and making inferences and understanding genre patterns.

· Create an environment where students feel free to discuss and accept or reject the author's themes. For example one of our classmates mentioned that their students struggled when they were told that the theme of Romeo and Juliet was that we are controlled by fate. I would too. I don't see it that way at all. Nevertheless, let's day for the sake of the argument that this was Shakespeare's intent. As a reader we must have the right to disagree with the idea that we are controlled by fate and to argue that we have the power of self-control and that our decisions bring about consequences.

“Figuring out theme is a challenge but it is one we can help students meet." pg. 164

In the next blog we will discuss how to connect theme to student's lives using simulated texts, fables, collages, paintings, and precious objects.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

“Setting is really about rule setting.”

Let's get back to reflecting on Literary Elements and How to Teach What Really Matters About Character, Setting, Point of View and Theme. In previous blogs we discussed character, what matters in teaching students about it, and how to best do that. These next few entries will be dedicated to discovering what really matters about setting, why, and how to best work through those ideas with students.

After reading this chapter I have to admit that I am guilty of poor teaching in this area. I have always taught my students a definition of setting to memorize – the time and place in which the characters are placed – and that is about it. Authors Smith and Wilhelm have showed me that setting is one of the most overlooked elements in a novel. There is more to understand regarding setting and there is importance in understanding the setting. Our teaching and thinking have to be much deeper and more nuanced than it generally is. I have to warn you, Reader , that this information is new to me and I have not fully digested it. I will do my best to pass on to you what matters most about setting.

Let's think about setting for a minute and what matters about it in our personal lives. Setting is directly related to our behaviors, actions and words. Take for example two settings of the office and the home. In the office we try to look nice, we speak politely, and we behave in a professional manner. At home on the other hand we slip into comfy clothes, raise our voice if needed, and let our hair down. Two other examples would be the classroom and the playground. In the classroom we teach our students to use inside voices, not to run, and to be kind. On the play ground students yell, run, and are often unkind.

So what does all this mean in relation to text? Every setting will imply certain rules of behavior. It is vitally important for students to understand the setting in detail to understand why characters behave in the way that they do, whether their behavior or words are appropriate, weird or normal according to the rules of the location and time period. For example if students are to understand why a certain character is seen as impertinent they must know that men were not supposed to talk to unmarried women during certain time periods. Understanding the setting helps us get a feel for the motivation behind the characters actions. How people follow, adapt, or violate these rules says a lot about their character and relationship to the social settings in which they are operating.

When considering setting we must keep in mind that there are multiple contextual influences on characters and situations. Our job is to figure out which ones are important to notice keeping in mind that all activity is situated and must be understood in that context.

1) the microsystem – the family, friendships, church, school, and neighborhood
2) the mesosystem – the government, entertainment and transportation
3) the macrosystem – the global climate

Note to self: I tried to apply this information in my classroom this week as we got into our new novel Silas Marner. I wanted the students to really understand fully the English countryside setting at the time period and how the people stayed very much to their own communities and how anyone from outside was suspect. I felt that this was important because it resulted in the countrymen's behavior towards Silas. This did cause some confusion for me because we have talked about not giving the students our interpretation of the text before they have read and had a chance to make meaning themselves. I wonder if I should have let them read some chapters first and waited to see what questions they had. However, I am suspicious that they would not ask anything and just get a very small bit of the meaning out of the story. Maybe that is OK.