secondary education Archives

2 Ways to Analyze a Passage From Literature

June 18, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

All ELA teachers want to develop their students into good readers. That not only involves building the love of reading but also involves developing critical reading skills in the classroom. We want our students to be able to read critically and analyze a passage, which involves taking a passage apart and seeing how it works. In short, we want students to not only understand what they are reading, but also how the author accomplished their goal through literary devices, syntax, diction, and other skills.

Annotation is one way we can get students to analyze the text, but frequently students need a more structured way to analyze a passage. Something that gets them looking differently at a text in ways that annotation doesn’t provide. I have adapted two strategies from the book Writing Analytically by David Rossenwasser and Jill Stephen to get kids interacting with a passage of text in meaningful ways.

Strategy #1: The Method

This strategy, called “The Method,” is modified from the Analytical Moves section from Rosenwasser and Stephen’s book by adding a few tweaks. With this technique, students look for patterns and repetitions in a passage. Students will need a sheet of paper. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: List the exact repetitions of words that occur in the passage and count them.
Step 2: Make a list of similar words, either words that are synonyms, or words that are closely related.
Step 3: Create a T-chart in which you list binary oppositions found in the text – words that are opposite in meaning or tone.
Step 4: Determine the primary opposition that occurs in the passage, such as good vs. evil, male vs. female, or rich vs. poor.
Step 5: Determine how this opposition is significant to the novel or play.
Step 6: Discuss what the students found, either in small groups or as a class.

A lot of times The Method works well for the opening few paragraphs of a novel, when the setting and themes are established. I’ve done it this way for Their Eyes Were Watching God. It also works really well for passages from Shakespeare, such as the prologue to Romeo and Juliet or Iago’s monologues from Othello. There are plenty of passages from Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak that would work well. However, not every passage will work. You have to look for a passage that has the repetition and binary opposition present. You also don’t want to give students a passage that’s too long – a few paragraphs are best.

Strategy #2: So What?

This strategy helps students see not only what’s important in a passage, but also why it’s important. Students will need a sheet of paper.

Students should divide their paper into three sections. The first section should be labeled “Observations.” The second and third columns should both be labeled “So What?”
The first section is for observations – things that happen in the passage that are important, and are easily proven to be there. This is the basic level of understanding – what happens in the passage that’s significant?
In the next column, students take their observations and answer the question “So What?” Why is this event significant? What are the implications behind what happened?
In the final column, students will take the answer to the first “So What?” and ask “So What?” again. They will try to come to some conclusion about what happened. In the words of Rosenwassen and Stephen: “we look at the evidence and draw a conclusion that is not directly stated by follows from what we see.”
Discuss their findings in small groups or as a whole class.

While this works well for passages that students have encountered before, it also works well for passages that students have not read yet. It’s especially good for passages where there is a specific point the author is making. A good passage for this activity, for example, would be Chapter 2 of The Hate U Give when Starr and Khalil are pulled over by the police. It’s obvious that Angie Thomas wants us to think a certain way about the encounter. The “So What?” exercise gets students thinking about the implications of the event and what conclusions they can draw from it.

Final Thoughts

If you need a quick exit slip that indicates how well your students are doing with thinking critically about a passage, either of these two methods will tell give you a glimpse at how well students can analyze, as well as a general sense of how well they understand the novel or play.

Like any strategy, neither of these exercises are one-and-done. Like with any skill, students will benefit from repeated practice until this level of analysis becomes natural to them. Once we have students analyzing the structure of a passage and the author’s intent, we are developing in them the ability to flourish as skilled readers.

Here are some other blog posts you might enjoy:

Writing Rubrics That Give You Back Your Weekends

Building Better Topic Sentences

Mini Timed Writings: Getting Students to Write More Without More Grading

A Workshop Approach to Essay Planning

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.

5 Reasons You Should Be Teaching More Poetry

January 22, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

I’m frequently asked by other people what books I teach. No one ever asks what poems I teach.

There’s no question that language arts curriculum centers around novels and our classroom can get pretty novel heavy if we’re not careful. We all know about the need for non-fiction. But let’s not forget poetry, which can be the genre that gets left out. We might do a few poems here or there that tie in thematically with what we’re reading, but we don’t give it room for serious study.

However, there are many reasons why we should include more poetry in the classroom. In fact, last year I eliminated a novel to make sure I had four good weeks throughout the year to study poetry. Here are five reasons why you should open up your lesson plans to include more poems.

Students can’t fake read them.

We all know fake reading is a problem in the language arts classroom. Give a kid a novel and he may decide to go online to avoid doing any reading. I have had students proudly say they have gone through high school without reading a single novel.

However, if you give a student a poem in class they have to read it. And then they have to analyze it and say something about it. They may decide not to read novels, but they can’t escape a poem that’s sitting on their desk right in front of them. A healthy diet of poems is a great way to ensure that students are building critical reading skills. Furthermore, I had a college English professor tell me that the best way to become a better reader is to become a better reader of poetry. (I’m not sure if that’s true, but I’m going with it.)

They can add diversity to your curriculum.

For a dual enrollment class that I teach, we are not allowed to have students buy books. Thus we are restricted to those works in the public domain, which cuts down on the diversity of works available- lots of dead white authors. Many of my students don’t see themselves reflected in those works.

However, because poetry from all times and places is readily accessible online it’s an easy way for me to add authors that reflect the diversity in my classroom. The modern poetry community is very diverse, and tackle a number of issues related to diversity as well (more on this below.)

Even in my freshman class where students are required to purchase their books, we still have a curriculum dominated by Shakespeare, Wiesel, and Steinbeck. I make sure in our poetry unit that we have a wide variety of authors from different races, cultures, and backgrounds to offset the lack of diversity in the works I’m required to teach.

Poetry allows you to address important social issues

Especially modern poetry. Check out Warsan Shire’s “Home.” Or Clint Smith’s “Counterfactual.” Or Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones.” These poets and their poetry speak to modern issues in ways relevant to our students.

These poets prove that poetry is more significant than it ever has been and has found a home in our short attention span world. Many of these poets deal with significant social issues.

Not to mention the emergence of spoken word poetry, which my students really love. Here’s the best list of spoken words poems I’ve come across. All are geared towards students, although all might not be appropriate for lower grades. There are even some spoken word competitions for high school students and you can watch poets that are the same age as your students. Maybe it will inspire them to enter a competition!

Poets have active lives outside the classroom in the worlds our students inhabit.

Many living poets have an active social media presence because that’s how they promote their work. They also use social media to promote other poets’ work. Following a particular poet’s Twitter feed can be an enlightening way to make an author come alive.

If students aren’t old enough to follow poets on Twitter or Instagram, you can bring up their feeds in the classroom and showcase how they engage with their followers and what causes they promote (many poets are politically active.)

Furthermore, most poets are easy to locate and don’t mind if you contact them if you have questions about their poetry. A lot of them are gracious enough to Skype with you and your students to discuss their work. Unlike novelists, who tend to work through agents, most poets can be contacted directly. And there’s nothing like knowing the person behind the work you’re reading.

Poems don’t require much prep time

This is a pretty flimsy reason, but it’s real. When I’m teaching a novel I spend a considerable amount of time rereading the novel in addition to planning. With poems, that time is cut down considerably. If you’re finding yourself a little burned out from too much planning because your class is novel heavy, plan a unit of poetry to give yourself a chance to catch your breath.

So how do you find poems to teach?

The worst thing you can do is go to Google and type in “poems about _____” because there is a lot of bad poetry out there. You’re better off looking for poetry at the Poetry Foundation or poets.org where they screen for quality. In fact, poets.org has a great section of poetry for teens collected by subject. This year I had my students vote on what subject they wanted to read poems about and chose the top two. I selected about six poems from each of the categories and away we went.

I also like to teach a unit on sonnets. Sonnets are great because they are a predictable format, easy to learn how to read properly, and have been written for years, so you can read sonnets from as far back as Shakespeare to as recent as Terence Hayes. As a final project I have my students do an analysis of a sonnet they have chosen themselves from the sonnet page on poets.org. (Don’t have them just use google to find poems or they’ll end up at sites like poemhunter.com where anyone can submit poetry. You want control over the process.)

I also like to teach several poet by a particular author. I have used the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson successfully. This year I’ve done a unit on Rita Dove and in another class we read Clint Smith III’s Counting Descent, both of which my students loved.

For more poetry resources, check out Teach Living Poets. Lots of great ideas there, and a terrific community. Also check out #TeachLivingPoets on Twitter.

For a fun activity with poetry that you can do anytime, check out You Call That A Poem? Reading Weird Poems In Class.

For a fun model text activity with poetry, check out Teaching Poetic Devices Using Impostor Poems.

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.

Using Sketchnotes With Novels and Plays

January 6, 2019 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

What are sketchnotes?

Sketchnotes are becoming an increasingly popular way for students to take notes for lectures. However, there is much value to be gained from using them along with – or instead of – traditional methods like Cornell notes and annotation. Studies have shown that engaging the visual part of the brain as well as the textual part adds in retention of information. Plus, it’s fun.

Here’s a personal story about the power of sketchnotes. When I was getting ready to do Sketchnotes with my freshmen, I decided to give it a try myself to serve as a model and discover any problems they might face. I did sketchnotes for the first five chapters of Frankenstein before I asked them to do any on their own. I didn’t do any more of the book, But guess what? Those five chapters are the ones I remember the best. Imagine the value of using this tool to really get students to engage with a novel or play.

Here’s a short introductory video I show the students to give them the general idea:

My sketchnote for Chapter 5 of *Frankenstein.*

For our second venture with sketchnotes, I had my freshmen in groups of five, each doing an act of Romeo and Juliet while working as a team to make something that looked like it all belonged together. They were not as successful this time, and I learned that I can’t just show them a few models of sketchnotes and expect them to be able to get the idea. They need more structure. So I developed the visual above to help them organize their ideas before they start.

Here’s the first five things students should do before they put anything down on paper:

Pick a Pattern.

The first thing students need to do is choose an organizational pattern for their sketchnote. If they don’t, they’ll just draw a bunch of things randomly on their paper. They need to think about the ideas that they are presenting and what pattern best suits that. I always have students justify their organization pattern to me and why it works best for what they want to do.

I’m not a big fan for linear patterns because what students tend to do is create a comic or an illustrated version of the text, which isn’t what sketchnotes is all about. I steer students toward either the web or the columns by asking them to sketchnote how a particular main idea or theme is present in the text. Then they might use the web, put the theme in the middle, and show several instances of how that theme was explored around the periphery. Or perhaps they use the columns by placing the theme at the top, choosing two or more characters from the text, and using the columns to fill in how those characters dealt with that theme through conflict. Of course you can use any organization method and do something cool with it, and if they want to do something more sequential I don’t mind as long as they aren’t just retelling the story.

It also bears mentioning that the visuals provided are just guidelines. You don’t need to do a web as a bunch of circles or use rectangles for columns or have a specific number of ideas to work from that you can’t exceed. These are not set in stone.

Choose some frames

Next to the pattern of the sketchnote, frames are the most important organizational feature. They keep text organized and are used to create banners for important ideas. Some lend themselves to specific uses – for instance, a speech bubble could be used for important quotes. But, really any of them will do.

Frames – which serve as containers and keep ideas separate while providing structure – keep the sketchnote from being too messy.

You can find several other examples of interesting frames with a quick online search, especially some that might be particularly well-suited for the novel or play you’re reading in class. I also encourage students to think of frames that might come naturally from the novel – a handkerchief for Othello, for instance.

Select Connectors and Separators

Connectors guide the viewer through the sketchnote and can indicate relationships, such as cause and effect and the passage of time. Simple arrows will do the trick, and most of the choices will be aesthetic because connectors are functional and aren’t responsible for communicating meaning. However, they do provide a place for students to do something fun and artistic.

While connectors link ideas, separators keep everything tidy. They don’t need to be fancy to do the trick. All they need to do is keep related ideas separated from other ideas. Generally I find that students will add these last to add clarity.

Pick some bullets

Sketchnotes need text. A sketchnote with only visuals is just a bunch of pictures. The text is where the true meaning is. And bullets organize text.

Paragraphs will overwhelm the pictures. And students need to remember these are notes, not a paper. That’s where the bullets come in. Just like in a PowerPoint presentation, bullets effectively present main ideas efficiently.

While it’s not that important to linger over which bullets you choose, I like to include this step to emphasize that text is required and paragraphs should be avoided.

Decide on fonts

While fonts are fun, they serve a purpose. Students can choose one font for headings, another font for important information, and another one for quotes. Three seems to be a good number to shoot for – anything else can become difficult for someone looking at it to process.

Fonts are also a good way to introduce hierarchy by making more important words or phrases larger than others. When writing a paper we can underline, italicize, and boldface certain words for emphasis. While you can certainly do those things with handwritten fonts as well, sketchnotes also allows for the opportunity to add emphasis through size.

Not everyone likes sketchnotes. The less artistically inclined would rather take traditional notes (I maintain that the just need more experiences before they are won over.) However, most students found them an effective, absorbing way to process text. Plus, they were great to review for their final paper.

If you’d like the sketchnotes visual featured above as a jpeg, click here. If you’d like it as a PowePoint slide, click here.

Learning should be fun! Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for fun resources like the ones you see below.

Annotation: Why Students Hate It (And How To Fix It)

September 20, 2016 By David Rickert Leave a Comment

Annotation is a common reading strategy used to promote active reading. Annotation is a skill that helps students comprehend what they are reading and leaves a trail of “bread crumbs” for students to follow if they have to respond to the text in writing. Ideally, it will help students make meaning of what they are reading.

As language arts teachers we want students to be good readers and also learn to love reading, and in many ways the two go hand in hand. However, for many students annotation promotes the first goal at the expense of the second. Many of my students who like to read tell me that they hate to annotate. It takes away from the pleasure of reading and makes a chapter of assigned reading that much more time consuming. And as nice as it for teachers to know through annotating that kids have read the book instead of reading Sparknotes, it’s apparent that for many students annotation is something they do for the teacher and not for themselves. They don’t find the value in it and consider it busywork.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. If we change the way we present annotation to students – and change our expectation of what the end result should be – annotation can be a valuable tool that won’t seem like so much of a chore.

Here are some ideas:

Don’t give students too much to manage.

In the past I have required students to look for literary devices, ask questions, and do chapter summaries. I required them to have a certain number of comments per page. In short I was asking them to do about five different things when they annotated.

What I had to learn was that annotating is essentially multitasking – they have to read and do whatever else I asked them to do. When they were looking for personification and characterization and setting details all while asking them to comprehend what they read at the same time, they were not likely to do any of those things particularly well.

The solution? Give students one thing to focus on while they annotate. That way students can read for comprehension but focus on an important part of the assigned reading. Maybe they can look at setting for one chapter and examine the use of literary devices in the next one. This way they can really build the skill of annotating without becoming overwhelmed.

Have a purpose.

Annotating works well when students have a reason to do it other than “to make you better readers.” I try to tie annotation into a final product, whether it be an essay or a presentation. If they are writing a paper on a particular character from Pride and Prejudice I give them the prompt and tell them what to look for as they read. I don’t want them to have to reread the book again, and I don’t want them going online to find quotes. I model this myself – the books that I teach are heavily annotated so that I don’t have to reread every time I want to find a particular passage. In some cases, I don’t even have to read the book again to teach it – I can read my annotations and go from there.

If students know that annotating will benefit them in concrete ways, it will help them see the value in it.

Give them a break from annotating.

There’s nothing wrong with letting kids read a chapter or two without annotating. Let them just enjoy the book with no strings attached. Better yet, incorporate independent reading in your classroom so they always have an opportunity to read for pleasure.

Do an annotation on the second read.

Something that has worked well for me is to do a simple light annotation the first time students read the book. For struggling readers, it does help give them a way in to a text they might find difficult. But I find a tremendous amount of value in doing a second annotation of what they just read on the following day. The students aren’t spending time keeping track of what’s happening, so they are free to look closer at how the text is put together. This is a great way to address foreshadowing, for instance.

In conclusion

The best thing that we can consider with annotating is to think about how much of the reading task should be taken up with it. It’s not something that many teachers I’ve talked to have ever thought about.

I think a good ratio is annotating should only take up 10-20% of the total time spent reading. That way the vast majority of the time, students are simply reading. The annotating won’t add what is perceived as an unreasonable amount of time, and you can still accomplish a lot.

Annotation is a valuable skill, but the love of reading is even more valuable. We don’t have to sacrifice one or the other if we employ sound strategies for both.

Suspenseful Story Writing in Language Arts: Model Texts

October 11, 2015 By David Rickert 6 Comments

Students love to write suspenseful stories, especially around Halloween. They can be a fun diversion in a secondary Language Arts classroom which can sometimes be dominated by essays. But if done properly, they can also teach students a great deal about how stories are constructed using suspense and imagery to create a particular mood. In this post I will address how I teach students about the technique of creating suspense and some of the texts I’ve used to model it. In the second post I will explain how I use writing suspense to teach literary devices. In the third post I will cover how we write the story.

First off, I allow students to write a suspenseful non-fiction story about something that happened to them, or I let them write a fiction piece. However, I tell them they cannot write a horror story. There should be no blood or violence, even implied. Too often students fall into basic horror story tropes that they don’t do particularly well. Also, as you’ll find out in a later post, they aren’t writing a story that is a piece of flash fiction (or three-minute fiction) rather than a full length story. You can certainly do that; however, I find that students need some boundaries or they’ll write too much. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but many students tend to lose control of their writing that way.

The Basics of Suspense

You can do a search for “how to create suspense in writing” and find a lot of good handouts. But the idea is pretty simple: you make your reader wait for something they want to know. There are a couple of ways to do this.

Slow the story down. Many young writers get to an exciting point in a story and speed up the action. The trick is to slow it down by adding details. One way you can do this is to get inside the character’s head and describe what they are feeling. You can also describe in great detail the setting, the slow walk to open the door, and various other things.
Withhold information. Don’t immediately tell your reader what was in the box. Make them wait. Linger over the person’s expression first. Send them out of the room and out of the house. Have them scream “thank you!” or, “Why would you think I would like this?”
Put in a hard decision. Give the character a tough decision to make and have them weigh in their mind what to do. Too many students give the character a choice but then solve it too quickly. Make them weigh the pros and cons by getting inside the character’s head. Better yet, give them two undesirable outcomes and have them choose from those.

I have a couple of model texts that I use with students that get them thinking about suspense. I try to use several different genres as well to help them understand how suspense can be used in a variety of settings. The links to the stories are at the end of the post.

“The Listeners” – Walter de la Mare

This is a frequently anthologized poem with an air of mystery about it. Suspense is created because the traveler knocks on the door a couple of times and receives no answers, and there’s some ghostly listeners as well. Why is he there? What’s the deal with the cryptic message he delivers?

“The Storm” – McKnight Malmar

I love using this story to teach suspense. For one thing, it’s the type of story that students would like to be able to write. A woman is home alone during a storm and believes that someone is looking in the house. She goes to the basement and finds a dead body. I have the students read and annotate looking for examples of the ways to create suspense described above. The part where the woman goes down into the basement and discovers the body is a textbook case of how to create suspense. I usually ask my students what would happen if we simply read that she went downstairs, opened the trunk, and found the body. There’s an awful lot of great imagery in the story as well.

“The Ravine” – Ray Bradbury

This story is a part of the novel Dandelion Wine and describes an older woman taking a shortcut across a ravine to get home, all with the threat of The Lonely One lurking in the background. This is another example of a story that kids would like to be able to write and works particularly well with middle school students. I tend to use “The Storm” over this one because to be honest, it’s a little corny and a little too long. But it would still work well. The chapter that makes up the story is on page 124 in the link. There’s also a pretty cool radio adaptation of the story here.

“The Dare” – Roger Hoffman

This is a nonfiction piece about a boy who is dared to jump in between the wheels of a moving train, stay there for a minute, and roll out the other side. It’s a great example of how you can create suspense as we find out whether or not the narrator will succeed. This is a quick newspaper article.

These selections are the ones that I use in class as models for suspense. In the next post I talk about how to use these works to teach literary devices.

“The Listeners”

“The Storm”

“The Ravine” (“The Whole Town is Sleeping”)

“The Dare”