Edition 1.0 | 2011
50 Great Strategies
To Teach Texts
Effectively
|James & Bridget Pinnuck|
Introduction
This book is divided into sections. These sections reflect the stages of learning that the effective
teacher should plan for when writing a text response unit. Using each of these stages means that
students will be given the opportunity to engage with text, become familiar with the text itself,
develop a more sophisticated understanding of the text and finally be given the tools to respond
effectively to the text.
While the response of a student may be the outcome that a teacher is ultimately aiming for, and is
generally placed at the end of a unit, the other stages - crucial though they are to developing the
ability to respond - are not always clearly articulated and defined. The teacher’s own enthusiasm for
the text, or familiarity with the text may make it difficult for them to establish relevance and
familiarity for the students. If these first two steps are not approached systematically, it is extremely
difficult for students to reach a point where they deepen their understanding of the themes,
characters, settings and symbols contained within it. Students will then produce a substandard
response to the text. Dividing units into different stages and planning activities accordingly, makes
it easier for teachers to see more clearly what areas of their own teaching pedagogy need more
focus and adjust their units accordingly. It is important to realise that this does not mean a whole
new approach to planning a unit studying texts, but to fine-tune and adjust to meet the needs of the
students. Furthermore, it is helpful to students if each stage is taught explicitly so that the students is
as clear as the teacher about the objectives of each activity.
The sections of this book are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Establish relevance;
Develop familiarity with the text;
Analysis of the text;
Build capacity to respond to the text.
A brief outline of what each of these entails is set out below.
Although this book is divided into four sections, it is important for teachers to recognise that each of
these stages overlap. A particular strategy may aim to both develop a student’s familiarity with the
text and deepen their understanding of it, or to deepen their understanding of a text and build their
capacity to respond to the text. With this is mind it is even easier to see how units can be developed
that respond to each of these learning needs efficiently
It is of further importance to recognise that if students are to respond to a text effectively,
purposeful strategies for each three stages of teaching a text need to be employed. Students will not
be able to respond to a text effectively if their understanding of a text is not deep; nor will they be
successful in their response if there has not been sufficient support for them to develop their
capacity to respond to a text.
In all of this it is fundamental that students have a strong familiarity with a text. Excellent class
plans to deepen students’ understanding of a text can be completely wasted if students are only
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 2
scarcely familiar with a text in the first place. From strengthening students’ familiarity with a text
comes the ability to succeed in the others two phases of teaching a text.
1. Establish Relevance
In this stage of teaching, teachers explain the aims, goals or objectives of a unit or class to students.
The aims or goals along with the content or skills to be learn is linked to important milestones in
students’ learning at school or their real world experiences. Teachers make clear the success criteria
for a unit of study and provide information on how students will be supported to achieve the desired
outcomes by the end of the unit. This sections draws upon pedagogy not particular to teaching texts,
but important to any type of learning outcome: for a student to engage in learning, they must be able
to ‘see’ the point of it.
The three further sections of the book centre on stages that are particular to teaching texts:
2.
Develop familiarity with the text
In this stage of teaching, teachers use a range of strategies to support students to read a text and to
be able to identify the sequence of plot events, the major characters and minor characters, and the
setting. Students are scaffolded to recognise and recall important moments in the texts and to see the
link between cause and effect in the narrative.
3.
Analysis of the text
In this stage of teaching, teachers use a range of strategies to support students to explore how setting
and narrative structure contribute to the meaning of a text, to interpret the motivations of characters
and the relationship between characters and the setting of the text, to identify and analyse themes,
symbols, literary techniques and their effect on the meaning of a text as a whole. Teachers introduce
students to the idea of dominant and resistant readings of a text and provide strategies for students
to explore competing interpretations of the same text.
4.
Build capacity to respond to the text
In this stage of teaching, teachers develop a students’ ability to discuss and write about a text in a
variety of formats. Teachers explicitly model text response formats to students and provide
scaffolding strategies and opportunities for students to practice their own responses. Through a
range of strategies teachers build students’ ability to articulate and justify their interpretations of a
text. In addition to this, teachers support students to develop their ability to employ critical
terminology and metalanguage in their responses to a text.
***
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 3
Establish Relevance
Set purposeful learning objectives and criteria for success
Usually teachers have implicit goals for their students when developing a unit. Implicit, because
while they may be clear to the teacher, they are rarely clear to the student. Furthermore, the goals in
studying a unit may be so varied that it is difficult for the average student to achieve in each area.
Typically in a unit based upon text study, a student is expected to master the content of a text, as
well as the techniques and symbols used in crafting the text, as well as some kind of understanding
of the authorial goals of the text as well as developing their own essay writing, oral presentation, or
creative writing skills.
In designing a unit, teachers need to ensure that the learning objectives are directed towards the
criteria for success. The learning objective is the content or skills that teachers want students to
know or develop by the end of a unit. The success criteria are the items against which a student will
be scored in the assessment task. While this seems at first something that doesn’t require further
investigation or alteration, it can often be a fundamentally flawed process. This is because the
general learning objectives in teaching a text are typically consistent from text to text. Teachers
want students to understand the characters, themes, literary techniques and then be able to respond
to them in some format. However, these learning objectives are broad in nature and while remaining
broad are likely to result in non-purposeful teaching. The more specific the learning objectives for a
unit on a text, the more purposeful will be the learning. Teachers need to prioritise the content and
the skills they expect students to learn from each text studied in the course of the year and plan for
a student’s development and progress in this area. Teachers also expect students to develop their
writing or oral presentation skills without explicitly demonstrating or teaching how this is to be
done. There is often the assumed understanding that students’ writing will naturally develop with
time and practice, and little actual teaching time is devoted to developing these skills, other than
outlining the general outline of an essay structure (which is largely unchanged from junior school
to senior school). So teachers are giving student the same structural advice that they may have
received in junior school and expecting them to write an essay for senior textual analysis.
The overwhelming nature of learning objectives can be seen below in a list of general learning
objectives for a texts along with a specific example of a learning objective for Romeo and Juliet.
• The nature of the setting and its contribution to the meaning of the text
• Example - For students to understand how the cultural setting of the relationship between the
Montagues and Capulets contributed to the decisions all characters made in Romeo and Juliet
• The nature of the narrative structure and its contribution to the meaning of the text
• Example - For students to understand the Five Act structure of Romeo and Juliet and how a
certain phase of the drama unfolds in each Act
• The most important moments in the narrative of the text
• Example - For students to be strongly familiar with the dialogue between Romeo and Juliet on the
balcony, Capulet’s instruction to Juliet that she will marry Paris, Romeo’s conversation with the
Friar after his exile and Juliet’s conversation with the Friar after Romeo’s exile
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 4
• The motivations of major characters and their journeys in a text
• Example - For students to understand the difference in gender motivations between Romeo and
Juliet
• The relationships between major characters and their similarities and differences
• For students to understand the difference in the responses Romeo and Juliet have to Romeo’s exile
and the different motivations they have for their relationship
• The relationship between major characters and minor characters in a text
• Example - For students to understand how the Nurse and The Friar contribute to Juliet’s decision
making and how The Friar contributes to Romeo decision making.
• What themes tell a reader about the messages and values of a text
• For example - For students to understand how a conflict between loyalty and peace exists in the
text and how this conflict is resolved at the end of the play
• How symbols, motifs and literary techniques contribute to a readers’ understanding or
characters and themes
• Example - For students to understand how Shakespeare uses oxymorons in the play to emphasize
the nature of the conflict in Romeo and Juliet
• Using metalanguage to discuss a text
• For students to develop their understanding of the words: ‘imagery,’ ‘symbolism’ and ‘narrative
structure’
This list is by no means exhaustive and does not even begin to address the area of skill a student
needs to work upon as they develop the nature of their response. It is however, easy to see how this
list is overwhelming to students and how diverse the teaching goals must be for students to master
textual analysis. But students begin a long way from mastery. Teachers should approach each text in
the course of the year with the idea of building students abilities to master various aspects of the
content of a text. Any one text study unit will not be able to achieve all of these objectives.
Different texts will lend themselves more easily to different objectives; teachers should take the
time at the beginning of the year to establish which particular objectives they will focus upon for
different texts. In this way, students learning of various aspects of text study will be incremental and
achievable. When considering learning outcomes for a unit of study on a particular text, teachers
should choose only a few of these particular objectives, keeping in mind that later units of work will
address those objectives missed. Furthermore, these objectives should be made explicit to the
students, for instance:
• The relationship between major characters and minor characters in a text
• Example - For students to understand how the Nurse and The Friar contribute to Juliet’s decision
making and how The Friar contributes to Romeo decision making.
• Using metalanguage to discuss a text
• For students to develop their understanding of the words: ‘imagery,’ ‘symbolism’ and ‘narrative
structure’
• The motivations of major characters and their journeys in a text
• Example - For students to understand the difference in gender motivations between Romeo and
Juliet
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 5
Students should be asked to look out for these particular aspects of the text before they begin
reading it, so they are reading with purpose.
When students know what their learning objectives are, these activities will help make the text more
meaningful to them:
Relevance Survey
Senior students can be motivated to learn about a text because “it will be on the exam” or “on the
test.” These can be significant motivations for all senior students hoping to do their best in their last
years of school. However, this is less of a motivation for younger students. Teachers need to employ
strategies to establish the relevance of texts. The more students are interested in a text, care about it
and link it to their own lives, the better they will learn about the text.
A survey is one way teachers can begin to get students to think about how ideas and situations in a
text feature in their own lives. For example, teachers might ask students the following questions
about Romeo and Juliet:
• Has someone ever given you good advice about what friends or relationships you have?
• Has someone ever given you bad advice about what friends or relationships you have?
• Have you ever felt that you couldn’t be friends with someone because of other “stuff” that was
going on?
The ‘Film Relevance Survey’ (in Handout section at the back of the book) is an example of a survey
students can do before watching a movie. The point of this survey is to get students to think about
why it is important to think critically about movies. It asks students to consider how many movies
they watch with others compared to how many they watch on their own and then to consider how
much time they spend talking about the movies they watch. Generally, students watch many movies
on their own and spend little time talking about them in any depth. As the survey goes on, students
are asked to estimate how much violence, sex or death and other events they witness in a movie. As
teachers we can ask students to consider how important it is to talk about and think critically about
these things which we are likely to witness much more often in the movies than in real life.
Attached also is a ‘Novel Relevance Survey’; this helps students understand what kind of reading it
is that they do (and it is a very unusual student who doesn’t even read magazines or websites) and
their own reading interests. It also helps students begin to think critically about the sort of
information they are consuming.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 6
Priority Pie
The priority pie is a tool students can use to represent how relevant factors or aspects from a text are
in their own lives. For example, if studying Romeo and Juliet, you may ask students to think about
how relevant the following factors are in the decisions they make in their own lives:
• What your parents want
• What your friends want
• Advice from a role model
Students can represent how significant these factors are in a pie chart. They simply draw a circle
then allocate each factor a wedge of pie sized according to its significance. This can be revisited
after reading the text, as a point of comparison and as a springboard to class discussion.
Decision Maker Questionnaire
In the decision maker questionnaire, teachers take specific decisions characters are faced with in a
text, turn them into more generic decision questions and then give them to students. Since the
questions might sometimes be confronting, the questionnaire can be completed anonymously or not
handed in. The point of the task is simply for students to think about what they would decide to do
in their own real lives when faced with the same decisions characters have to make in a text.
• What would you do if you parents hated your best friend’s family and wanted to pick your best
friend for you?
• There’s a group of kids you really don’t like. Their friends and family are having a big party. Your
friends encourage you to crash it. What do you do?
Plot prediction
Students can often be very familiar with the narrative structure of a text even before reading it.
Genre texts - particularly teen movies/books, action movies/books, romance movies/books - follow
genre rules. They contain particular types of characters, who face particular types of situations in a
particular order. As an audience we have a certain expectation about what will happen when we go
to see a teen film or read a romance novel. Part of our entertainment comes from having our
expectations fulfilled. Another part of our entertainment can come from texts deliberately surprising
us by putting a twist on what we would normally expect to happen.
Students can be engaged with a text by seeing how much they already know about the narrative
structure before they read it or watch it. Afterwards a talking point with students can be how much a
text conforms to plot expectations or how much it differs from it.
A plot prediction activity can work in a number of different ways. Here is the first:
1. Students first begin by thinking of examples from the genre of the text they will be reading or
watching.
2. After this they brainstorm typical settings, characters and complications that happen in this
genre type.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 7
3. Students form small groups. Within a certain time limit (5 minutes works well), they need to
generate a one paragraph plot summary for a film/novel of that genre based upon 5 of the
characters, 1 setting and 1 complication from the brainstormed list.
Alternatively, teachers can begin this activity a prepared list of typical settings, characters,
orientations and complications to students. A list for these elements of a teen movie can be found in
‘Teen Plot Prediction’ (at the back of the book).
A different way again of getting students to do this task is to give them a brief description of some
of the characters from the text they will be studying, along with a brief description of the setting,
orientation and complication. In small groups students need to write a one paragraph plot summary
of what they predict will happen. This activity will only work if students are familiar with the genre
but not familiar with the text.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 8
Develop Familiarity With
The Text
Having established why we are teaching a text, it is important for students to develop familiarity
with the text. This seems obvious, but it is easy to overestimate students’ ability to remember and
recall important events in the text. Also, students will often remember details that seem peripheral
to the teacher, while overlooking pivotal events in the narrative. Students who are not familiar with
the text will have difficulty responding to the text in meaningful ways and are more likely to
regurgitate only the examples given in class. While students will develop familiarity with the text
throughout the unit, greater familiarity in the beginning stages of a unit will increase confidence and
engagement in subsequent classroom activities.
These are several different activities that will help students develop familiarity:
Plot Recount
This activity can have several purposes:
a) To ensure students understand the sequence of main events in the plot
b) To be able to identify turning points
c) To be able to group events into causes and effects
There are three steps to this activity each developing a more complex understanding of the text.
Depending upon the class, you may wish to stop the activity after steps one, or two:
1. At its simplest, all this activity involves is listing 10-20 important events in a text. These are cut
up into cards and then jumbled. Working in groups or pairs, students are then required to order
these events into the sequence they occur in the text.
2. Students then put a tick next to 3-5 events (depending on how many events you have given
them) which they identify as ‘turning points’ in the text. Students will need to provide reasons
why these are turning points.
3. Depending on the nature of the text being studied and the events that happen, it can be very
worthwhile for students to organize events not only into a sequence, but to identify events into
causes and effects. Students may re-order their cards into a table, rather than into a simple list,
where the events that are causes are in one side and the events that are effects are in the other.
With both of the above activities it is also an interesting activity to get students to identify what they
believe is either the most important cause or the most important turning point.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 9
Picture Plot Recount
In this activity students don’t initially use words to recount a plot, but pictures. Teachers list the
10-15 main events of a text that they want their students to be familiar with. Using either clipart in
Microsoft Word, or by doing a Google Image Search (or a combination of both), teachers find
pictures which are both strongly and loosely connect with the main events of the text. This activity
works best if teachers give students more pictures than events (25 pictures for 15 events is a good
number). Teachers get students into groups and give them these instructions:
1. There are 25 pictures. Select 15 which you associate most closely with the events of the text.
2. Arrange the 15 pictures into a sequential order which reflects how the story of the text goes.
3. Using post-it-notes, write a sentence about what each picture represents about the events of
the story. Place the note above or below the picture as a reminder for class discussions.
This activity asks students to think laterally by linking pictures (when their relevance isn’t always
immediately apparent) with the text. Using pictures also helps students to create their own picture
narrative in their heads; rather than the event being a list of words. Students will also have different
interpretations of the same picture, which results in interesting class discussion and enables the
teacher to see how the student thinks about different events in the text. At the end of instruction 1
and instruction 2 there is also ideal opportunity to have a class discussion about why students have
made the choices they have.
Word Journey
As a class, brainstorm as many words to do with the text as possible. Students then each pick from
the final list on the board the 10 words they think are the best to describe the text. They then need to
arrange these ten words into a sequence which represents for them the sequence of ideas or events
in the text. For each word they need to write 1 sentence explaining its part in the sequence. This is
an excellent vocabulary building exercise which is beneficial for later responses to the text.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 10
25 Words or Less
This thinking tool helps students clarify the important elements of a narrative. Students use the
sentence prompt below (with some modeling from the teacher) to write brief summaries of the plot
of a fictional narrative or the content of a non fiction narrative.
Somebody (a character) / wanted / but (there was a problem) / so (what was the outcome)
This is a fun activity as a class competition where students are modelling competitions that ask
them to explain in 25 words or less why they should win something. It also renders a text to
hilarious by-lines that make them easy to understand and remember. For example:
Macbeth
‘Macbeth really wanted to be the king of everything but there was already a king so he killed
everyone and was killed himself.’
OR
Pride and Prejudice
‘Lizzie really wanted to marry Wickam but he was a cad who tried to marry Georgiana and then ran
away with Lydia so she married Darcy instead’
12 Key Moments In The Text
This tool is an extended version of the ‘Concise Summary’ activity. While students may have a clear
understanding of the overall plot of the text, they probably will not immediately see what the most
defining moments of the text are. This is therefore about the teacher explicitly identifying the parts,
passages or events in a text they believe are most important for students to be familiar with in order
to be able to respond to it well.
Teachers begin by identifying the 12 key moments in the text (it may be more or less). Throughout
the unit teaching the text, teachers spend time in class looking at each key moment from the text in
chronological order and discussing the important features of each passage such as:
•
•
•
•
What it shows us about the motivation for each character
What is shows us about the relationship between characters
What important decisions characters make and why
What is the use of symbolism or imagery
Students should keep a chart with:
1. a one sentence summary of the moment;
2. the important traits demonstrated by the characters;
3. the themes shown;
4. quotes
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 11
Random Moments In The Text
The point of the strategy is the same as the above strategy. However, the operation of this strategy
challenges students more and requires more lateral thinking.
1. Teachers ask students to think of 5 numbers between 1 and the number which is the last page of
a book and write them down. These five numbers represent five pages from the book.
2. Once students have done this, they need to turn to those five pages of the book and make a
summary of what is important on that page in terms of:
•
•
•
•
What do we learn about a character?
What do we learn about the relationships between characters?
What important decisions does a character make?
What ideas or themes are being represented on this page?
Like the strategy above, students can turn this information into a chart. They can also share their
information with 3-4 other students to create a list of their own 12 most important moments in the
text as a whole. This means that students are able to make their own decisions about the key
moments in the text are are therefore more confident in responding to the text.
Focused Class discussion
Students will focus on key moments in a text more attentively if they know what they need to
search for or how they need to respond to what they see or read in a passage. Like the above
strategies, the aim of this technique is to build student familiarity with a text by making sure they
are clear about important features of a text they need to identify and discuss. However, this
technique also aims to promote class discussion and give each student a role in the class discussion.
This strategy works by giving each student in a class a card with a task on it such as ‘identify an
important quote’ or ‘describe a character’s actions and thoughts in three different ways’ or ‘identify
something important we learn about a character.’ Each student in the class has a card on it with
something they need to identify and be able to contribute to a class discussion once the passage has
been read or the scene has been viewed. For a full list of cards see ‘Focus Cards’ handout at the back
of the book.
Narrative analysis
Analysing narrative structure can be one of the most effective ways for students to develop their
familiarity with a text. This activity involves giving students a model for a particular narrative
structure and then asking them to identity how many parts of this narrative are present in the text
being studied. It gives students tools and language for introducing discussions of genre and a
metalanguage for responding to a text.
The Hero Journey
The hero journey is a narrative structure present in many texts. It may often occur in texts that fall
under other genres and is a structure familiar to all, being one at the core of many stories within the
English canon. By identifying aspects of the hero journey present in the text they are studying,
students will develop their familiarity with the changes a protagonist goes through in a text, the
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 12
motivations for their journey, their relationship with other characters and their achievements at the
end of a text. See a summary of the hero journey in handout section.
Science Fiction plot
Science Fiction texts are built upon a very clear narrative structure that dates back to Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein. In the handout section are the eight phases of the Science Fiction narrative. Not all
eight phases will be present in every Science Fiction text, but most phases will be. Teachers should
give students a copy of this sheet and first go through and explain each phase. After this, teachers
can show a range of scenes from a film or give the page references for a book which can be linked
to each phase of the Science Fiction narrative. Students must try and link each scene or passage to a
phase of the Science Fiction narrative on the summary sheet.
Romantic plot
This is the basis of many texts from Pride and Prejudice to Mills and Boon novels and romantic
comedies. The structure can be similar to that of a ‘Five Act Structure’ (see below) but with a few
variations particular to this genre. Orientation is when we meet the hero and heroine and become
familiar with their quirks or traits (often the audience becomes more familiar with one that the
other); the Meeting is where initial dislike and prejudice is established, usually due to a
misunderstanding; Complication occurs when a series of events throws the hero and the heroine
together and they are forced to find points of mutual attraction; Resolution sorts out the series of
complications that brought the pair together and will often bring about a parting of (reluctant) ways;
Denouement is the mutual declaration of undying love and the admission of past prejudice
explained. See these phases in the handout section.
Five Act Structure
While Shakespearian plays did this before him, during the 1800s Freytag developed a five act
structure for plays that featured the following stages: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling
Action, Resolution. An adaptation of these phases can be found in the handout section. This basic
structure underlies many films and novels and is the basic structure that we expect when first
reading a text of any kind. Variations of this structure are often noteworthy and are the sorts of
things that a teacher will automatically point out to a class (for instance, when the text is cyclical in
structure). By analysing a text through this five act structure it can help clarify for students what are
the key stages of a text - and thus the critical parts of a character’s journey.
Identity Plot
This plot structure belongs to texts where characters think explicitly about questions to do with their
identity and search for answers. This style of plot is best represented in teen texts (often in a ‘makeover’ type plot) but can also be found in dramatic texts. Through using the ‘Identity Journey’
handout structure students can identify key parts of the identity journey of the main character.
Narrative Roles
It is sometimes easier for students to get a handle on individual characters if they have a label to put
on them. Characters fulfill certain roles within a text to help the narrative unfold. Looking at the
narrative roles in the handout section, students should attach a role to each of the characters within
the text.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 13
First Impressions
This activity works best for film texts but can also be adapted for a novel. It is based upon the
premise that in many texts we learn all that we need to know about the setting in the first scene or
the opening pages. A film can rapidly establish how we feel about the characters, what will happen
and what a major theme of the text is by visuals it shows and the music it plays. A novel, with its
opening descriptions, can do the same. Using the adaptation of the Y chart entitled ‘Opening Setting’
in the handout section, students can watch through the opening scene of a film or read through the
opening pages of a novel and identify as many elements as possible that influence how we think
about the text.
Tech Tips For Building Familiarity With The Text
Timeline: Students can create great looking timelines of events in a text by using online timeline
makers. Thinkport’s My Timeline will allow students to create their own time markers (i.e chapter 1,
2, 3 etc...) and insert as many new events as they want. Students can save their timeline and return to
them later. So it is a tool that students can use to record key events in each section of a novel as they
read it. It’s free to use and no login is required. Find the tool at: http://timeline.thinkport.org/
Popplet: This is an online mind mapping tool. There are many online mind mapping tools, but this
is one of the easiest and best looking ones. Students can also use this tool to create great looking
timelines. This tool also allows students to easily insert pictures, which means they could do the
picture sequence activity listed above using this tool. The teacher simply needs to digitally share a
set of pictures with them. This tool is also collaborative - which means that more than one students
can work on a popplet map at the same time, making it even easier and better to do an activity like
the picture sequence. Use of the tool is free - but students will need to create an account. This is
quick and only requires them to enter a name and email. The tool can be found at: http://
popplet.com/
Diagrammr: Diagrammr is a fun and attractive tool that turns written summaries into diagrams. It
goes best with an activity such as the Concise Summary where students have written one sentence
summaries of a text. The tool is free and quick to use. No login is required. It can be found here:
http://www.diagrammr.com/
Comics: Comics can be a great way for students to show their understanding of what has happened
in a text by creating visual summaries of it in the format of a comic strip. There are dozens of free
and easy to use comic strip generators on the internet. Here’s two of the best: First - Pixton is a UK
comic generator. It has a special section for schools. Teachers can create a class account for free.
Students can easily choose from a wide range of templates, comic book characters and speech
bubbles to create visually interesting summaries of texts. The tool can be found here: http://
www.pikistrips.com/. Second - Pikistrips is another free to use tool and allows users to upload their
own images. This is great if students want to draw and scan their own pictures, or, more easily simply collect appropriate digital pictures that they save and insert into their comic strip. The tool
can be found here: http://www.pikistrips.com/. If students do need to search for images, they might
like to try using a visual search engine, rather than Google images. Visual search engines are a
dynamic and quick way to find visuals for the subject your search for. One of the best tools to use is
Spezify which can be found at: - http://www.spezify.com
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 14
Analysis of The Text
In this section we look at tools to help students think critically about the text that they are reading.
When students are learning to read, they are usually only encouraged to read for meaning. This
means that they can answer the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘how’ and a limited number of ‘why’
questions. In secondary schools, we are expecting them to develop a whole new skill set of analysis.
The easiest way for students to begin their analysis of a text is usually with characters. It is
relatively easy for students to think critically of people and the way they dress, think and act. It is
more difficult for them to think critically of heroes or of narrators, so these sorts of activities are
later in the section. Similarly, the setting of a text is often immediately apparent and can be visual
(even for social and historical settings there are often quite visual clues). Understanding the setting
is often crucial to developing a complex view of the characters’ actions and reactions. Themes are
more difficult to understand, but usually texts are chosen that make theme-based activities more
accessible. However, the temptation for teachers to set pages of theme-based questions for students
to plod their way through often makes themes boring and therefore inaccessible. Setting theme
questions tends to suggest that there is a right or wrong answer. The activities in the ‘theme’ section
of this book are more open-ending and invite students to have their own input and interpretation of
the themes. The third and final aspect of text analysis is the analysis of symbols. This can be seen as
esoteric and difficult to access for students. Understanding the symbols is however key to
developing a sophisticated understanding of the text and therefore a sophisticated response.
Part 1: Characters
Character Attributes
This activity asks students to think about character traits and meaningful ways of describing and
comparing characters to each other. Using the ‘Character Attributes’ handout, students identify the
attributes characters have in a text and where along the attribute continuum they are.
Character Roles
This strategy requires students to identify roles that the main character fulfills in a text. It is an
important strategy to support students to think about the complexity of the protagonist. Using the
list of roles in the handout section, students can circle all the different roles a character fulfills in a
text. Once students have identified the different roles a character fulfills in a text there are a number
of different things they can do:
• Conflicting roles: For many protagonists, their different roles can be in conflict. They may be a
friend, for example, but this role is in conflict with their role as betrayer or hero. Ask students to
identify if there are any roles that are in direct conflict and why.
• Hidden roles: For some heroes, roles are hidden or disguised for a number of reasons. Ask student
to identify if a character is public about all their roles, of if any are hidden. Why?
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 15
• Different roles: Characters display different attributes in different roles. They may act one way as
a son, for example, but a different way as a father. Ask students to identify roles a character fulfills
where they show very different attributes. This activity can work well for some of the more minor
characters as well.
• Likes and dislikes: Which roles does a character like to fulfill, which ones don’t they like to fulfill.
Why?
Role Developer
In almost any text, the protagonist is on a journey of development and self-comprehension. It is
important that students develop their understanding of this for a sophisticated analysis of the text.
One of the ways students can understand the journeys of characters in a text is for them to think
about how the protagonist learns to balance their different roles and come to an understanding of
which roles are more important. Using the ‘Role Developer’ template, students can track how a
character develops in each role throughout a text.
Character Motivations
This activity is based on the premise that every character is motived by questions about their
identity. But these questions can be different. Students use the ‘Character Motivation’ chart in the
handout section to circle the questions of identity that are most important to a character. They also
consider what is the character’s goal or aim at the start of a text and whether this goal or aim
changes during the text (or do they find a different way of achieving their goal or aim?).
Students then circle what they consider to be secondary motivating factors for the character. This
activity should be completed for each of the major characters in a text.
Finally, students can then look at the differences between characters – do different motivations
cause conflict amongst the characters?
Pie Chart Profiler
The Pie Chart Profiler allows a visual representation of factors that influence a character. Students
start by choosing factors that influence a character somehow such as:
•
•
•
•
A character’s value set
A character’s attributes
Events that influence a character
A character’s relationships
In a pie chart students then visually represent the significance of these factors in the character’s
journey in the text by allocating each factor a piece of pie according to its significance.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 16
Empathy scale
The actions and beliefs of characters elicit a response from us as readers. We empathise (understand
them, relate to them, sympathise with them) with them to greater or lesser degrees. Draw a line on a
page from one end to the other with the words ‘most empathise with’ up one end, and ‘least
empathise with’ up the other end. Arrange the main characters along the chart according to how
much you empathise with them. Be prepared to justify your answer.
As an extension to this activity, students could look at the narrative role that characters fulfill (in the
‘Develop Familiarity’ section) and compare the affinity that they feel for the character and the
narrative role that the character is placed in. Is there a link?
Character affinity mapping
Affinity mapping is where ideas or objects are grouped according to like attributes. Character
affinity mapping is a strategy that works well in texts where there are five or more characters
developed with some substance. To complete this activity:
1. Ask students to work in pairs to write down the names of all the characters on scrap pieces of
paper.
2. Students should then group these characters into areas of affinity (this could be something like a
character trait, or a social grouping or likeness of appearance). They keep a record which
characters were in each group and what was the affinity.
3. Now students must regroup the characters, moving at least one character from each group - or
creating entirely new groups. Once again they keep a record of the groups.
4. After this, students must regroup the characters once more.
Major characters vs. minor characters
Minor characters perform a significant function in helping us understand the major characters of a
text. However, students often ignore the role of minor characters because the major characters are
so much easier to understand. Ask students to start this activity by writing down the names of all the
characters and dividing them into two groups - major characters and minor characters. After this,
students can use the template ‘Minor Characters’ in the handout section to understand how minor
characters relate to major characters. With this template, students write the one major character in
the middle of the sheet. Surrounding it are four boxes - similar minor characters, contrasting minor
characters, supporting minor characters, hindering minor characters. In terms of the major character
in the middle, students need to list the minor characters in one of the four boxes: Do they provide a
comparison or contrast to the major character (i.e do they help develop the characterisation of the
major character)? Do they support or hinder the major character (i.e do they drive the narrative)?
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 17
Circle of influence
This activity aims to get students to have a bigger picture of how a protagonist is influenced by a
range of factors. The activity starts by creating three columns on the whiteboard at the front of the
classroom: Setting factors, Narrative factors and Character factors.
1. As a class, brainstorm what are important factors, aspects or elements of the setting of the text;
what are key narrative events and who are all the characters in the text.
2. Students now take a large piece of paper, draw a large circle taking up all of it and write the
protagonist’s name in the centre. On the edge of the circle they write ‘indirect and weak
influences.‘ Inside this large circle, students should create another, smaller circle (so that their
page looks a bit like a target). Inside this circle, students should write ‘occasionally have a strong
influence’. Around the character’s name students will draw the third and smallest circle and
write ‘direct and powerful influences’ here.
3. Looking at the list on the board, students put down at least 10 (you can pick the number
depending on the range that has been brainstormed) influences on the protagonist, and arrange
them in the circle depending on how immediate or indirect they are.
Circle of belonging
This strategy works well for texts which contain characters who are portrayed as ‘belonging’ or ‘not
belonging’. Students need to draw a large circle on a page. In the centre of the circle they should
write the words – ‘people who are seen as ‘normal’ and are most socially accepted’. Around the
outside of the ring of the circle they should write the words – ‘people who are seen as not ‘normal’
and are not socially accepted.’ Students should then place all the characters in the circle according to
how they believe they are portrayed in the text. Do they belong towards the very centre because
they are ‘normal’ or do they belong closer to the outside ring? Follow this up with a conversation
about what is seen as ‘normal’ and ‘different’ in the text.
The first person narrator as a character
Many texts we study in our English classrooms are narrated in first person. Unless they are
otherwise persuaded, students may tend to unquestioningly accept what a first person narrator has to
say about a story. We need to teach our students to think critically about whether a first person
narrator is completely trustworthy or not. Do we accept their version of the story - is there anything
that needs to be contested? Using the checklist in the handout section, students can begin to think
about the role and trustworthiness of the narrator in the text.
The first person biased narrator?
In this activity, students are asked to not only recall the events of the novel, but to make a
judgement about whether the actions/events show the narrator in a positive or negative light.
Students list the events they can recall, then create two piles - events that show the narrator in a
positive light and events that show the narrator in a negative light. Students can then evaluate each
event - has a narrator been unrealistically positive or negative in their portrayal of themselves? Are
they reasonably fair or not?
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 18
The third person narrator
A third person narrator can as biased as a first person narrator. However, because a third person
narrator appears removed from the action of a text, and to have no self interest in it, we tend to trust
this narrator much more instinctively than a first person narrator. But a third person narrator’s
judgement of characters can be very prejudicial for us as an audience. Get students to read through
the questions in in the handout section on the narrator. Which questions can be asked about a third
person narrator? What are the answers?
The Third Person Narrator and the Protagonist
In some ways, the third person narrator can be even more biased about the protagonist than if the
protagonist were writing about themselves. Using the ‘Character Attributes’ handout, students
should rate only the protagonist against these traits. Now students should count up the number of
traits they see as ‘positive’ traits that the protagonist possesses and compare these to the ‘negative’
traits of the protagonist. Comparing these numbers, students should consider whether the narrator of
the text is objective in their representation of the protagonist. Does this mean any of the characters
are represented fairly? Are we as readers being presented with a one-sided view?
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 19
Tech Tips For Building Familiarity With Characters
Answer Garden: Answer Garden is an online tool where users can give brief feedback on a prompt
or question such as ‘Romeo is best described as...’ You can quickly and freely create a prompt such
as this one, and then share the URL with your students so they can respond. Students’ answers are
shared in a visually interesting word cloud format. It works well if students each have a laptop or
share a laptop in class. If you set up a data projector projecting the page at the front of the
classroom, students can visit the page, type in feedback and see the page instantly updated to
include their feedback.
Flitsi: This is an online polling tool. You can create questions with yes or no answers or multiple
choice answers. This can be a fun and engaging way for getting students’ opinions on aspects of a
character such as ‘To what extent did this character show this attribute...’ or ‘Was this character...’.
You can create questions for free and without logging in and share the URL with students for them
to easily visit the questions and answer them. The tool can be found at: http://flisti.com/
Museum Box: This is an online tool that allows students to fill a virtual box with artefacts that they
believe represent an event, culture, or, in this case, a person. Museum Box can be used as a visual
character profiler. Students collect images, video, links or text from the internet that they believe
represents a character and place it in the box. This can be a fun aid, particularly for more junior
secondary students, to doing presentations about a character. The tool can be found at: http://
museumbox.e2bn.org/
Online Venn Diagram: There are lots of online collaborative diagram and drawing programs.
Twiddla is one of the best because it is so quick and easy to use and because of its range of features.
If students all have access to laptops they can create one page for a small group and create a range
of diagrams to compare and contrast characters - such as a venn diagram. Use the tool at: http://
www.twiddla.com/
Popplet: This tool has less features than Twiddla but is better for creating timelines and character
maps. Students will be able to quickly create simple but visually attractive character maps which
they can work on collaboratively or share with the class. Use the tool at: http://popplet.com
Part 2: Settings
Identifying the setting
The setting of a text can by critical to understandings its themes and its characters. While students
will often find it easy to identify the physical settings, they may find it more difficult to identify the
social and cultural setting within the text. Using the sheet labeled ‘Identify Settings’ in the handout
section, students can identify whether a text has important:
•
•
•
•
Physical Settings
Cultural Settings
Social Settings
Imaginative Settings
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 20
Circles of Influence
If there are multiple settings in a text, students can then create a diagram to represent the importance
of the settings. This is particularly helpful for identifying the impact of different physical or cultural
settings upon the character, since characters may be influenced by the different cultural settings
operating for instance, at home and at school.
1. Students should create a Venn diagram demonstrating the interlocking nature of the different
settings with the protagonist’s name in the centre of these interlocking circles.
2. They can put the other characters in the circles around. Within these circles, students should
identify words and phrases that describe the relationships of the characters within these circles
and develop vocabulary for describing the different settings.
Part 3: Themes
Junior students can struggle to understand what themes are. In later years, students might
understand themes well enough but can find plodding through ‘theme questions’ boring and
pointless.
A definition of themes for junior students
Themes are ideas about important parts of life and how we live life. At different times of our lives
different ideas are more important than others. In books, characters are usually preoccupied with
(thinking about) only a few ideas because of what is going on around them. When we are reading
books or watching a film, we are asked to think about the ideas that characters are thinking about.
When we are studying a text we call these ideas ‘themes’.
Identifying themes
Often we give students a list of themes about a text (so we are in effect giving them the ‘answer’) or
get them to brainstorm themes (so we are not giving them any stimulus or scaffolding to guide
them). As a middle ground it is quite effective to give students a list of potential themes and ask
them to:
1. Identify the 4-5 main themes
2. Or list all the themes in order of importance
3. Or, cut out all the themes in Handout 15, and ask students to create two piles. One pile of
words that they associate with the text and another pile that they don’t associate with the
text. After this, students divide the pile of words that they do associate with the texts into a
further 3-5 piles. Students must select one word from each of the piles that is the main or
‘heading’ word.
In the handout section is a list of common themes to be found in texts.
Once students have identified the main themes they can identify examples of what characters do or
say in the text that demonstrate these themes.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 21
Quotes and Themes
Another strategy for getting students to identify themes is to type up and cut out a series of
important quotes from the text you are studying (10-15 is a good number). Working in groups
students are to sort these quotes into 3-4 different groups based upon similarity. They are then to
come up with a label that describes the theme these quotes are on.
A different version of this strategy is ‘What’s my rule?’ In this version of the strategy you divide a
series of important quotes into 3-4 different groups already. Giving students a list of potential
themes, they need to identify how you have thematically divided the quotes up.
Themes in their own words
Students will often take on the teacher’s identification of a theme in the text and then write about it
in an essay in the following style:
‘Many of the characters are concerned about the Theme of Family in...’
While this is far from ideal, it is often representative of the way teachers discuss themes in class. To
give students the opportunity to develop their own vocabulary around themes, ask them to play a
game where they have to use words get their classmates to guess the theme without using the ‘name’
that the theme has been given in class. To make this activity more difficult when some of the themes
are more easily guessed at, you might decide on a list of words that are forbidden (using the words
‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ when discussing the theme of ‘family’, for instance).
Graphing the Importance of Themes
Throughout the narrative of a text, different themes have differing importance to the characters things that may be important to a character at the beginning of a text (popularity, shallow
friendships, etc) may not be as important as other themes; similarly, themes that are not important to
characters (family, academic achievement, etc) may be increasingly important. One way for students
to represent this is by graphing these changes in a line graph.
1. Label the y axis (the vertical line or the one standing up) ‘Importance’.
2. Label the x axis (the horizontal or lying down one) ‘Beginning’, ‘Middle’ and ‘End’
3. Using different colours to represent each of the themes, graph the importance that each theme
has to the protagonist as time goes by.
4. Students can create a different graph for each of the more developed characters.
This way of representing themes is a terrific visual and can start some interesting class discussions/
disagreements. One of the advantages of representing themes this way can be the manner in which
the importance of one theme increases as another decreases - seeing this can help students begin to
articulate theories as to why this is the case.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 22
The point of the themes
Often we get students to the point where they have identified themes, but this in itself provides little
help in getting students to respond to a text. Students need to understand what the point of the
themes is.
This activity aims to get students to understand that a text often explores two sides to an idea or a
set of ideas. A thesaurus will be handy for this activity.
1. Students should draw a table like the one shown below.
2. Once they have identified a theme using a process such as the ones discussed in the section
on themes, in the top row they insert a name for a theme.
3. In the row underneath (divided into two columns) they need to insert 3-4 words to describe
positive aspects of this theme (in one column), and opposite negative aspects of the theme
(in the other column).
4. Underneath this students then need to insert characters they believe engage in positive
aspects of the themes and examples of actions and quotes (this of course depends on how
well students know the text. You might like to give them a list of material to choose from to
help them along).
5. Students should do the same thing for the negative aspects of the theme.
Example:
Trust
Friendship
Understanding
Characters, examples etc…
Loyalty
Betrayal
Abandonment
Inconstant
Characters, examples etc…
Discussing the point of the themes
If you are studying a text where the positive and negative aspects of a theme are being particularly
well shown, then this activity is a good way for students to think about what it means.
Explain to students that in a text a theme does not always explore an idea solely from one
perspective. Characters have different beliefs, they manage themselves and situations differently.
This inevitably brings conflict or opposing views on an issue. At the end of a text some of these
conflicts are resolved, but not always all of them.
Students need to identify the conflicts occurring in each theme, give examples (use the above
activity to do this), discuss whether the conflict is resolved or not, and give an interpretation as to
what point the text is trying to make. Follow the formula below – you need to identify and analyse
as many conflicts for each theme as you can.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 23
The conflict:
In the text (this character or group) want to (do this action) or believe (in this idea)…but (comes into
conflict with this opposing idea, person, group or action or can’t do it because of their own
behaviour…)
Examples of this are:
The resolution:
This is/isn’t resolved because…
The point:
An important idea the author/director would like the reader/viewer to take from this is…
Tech Tips For Building Familiarity With Themes
Words magnets: Shifting theme cards around, and classifying them and ranking them, is a
powerful way for students to explore their understanding of themes. Instead of cutting lots of pieces
of paper out, this activity can be done using online tools that create moveable word magnets. One of
these tools can be found at http://www.teachitprimary.co.uk/custom_content/magnet/
fridge_primary.html. This site allows you to type in words and turn them into magnets. It works
well if you have in interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom and can do this as a whole
class activity. A more advanced, but still easy to use tool, can be found at web educator David
Triptico’s site: http://www.triptico.co.uk/. Triptico specialises in creating innovative ICT tools for
teachers. A desktop application can be downloaded from his website once you have registered. This
application includes a word magnet tool which is better than the Teach It Primary tool - because the
words can be arranged into different columns, colour coded, and they can be created before hand
and saved. Students can download the software themselves if they register with the site, or the
teacher can download the software then share it with students.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 24
Part 4: Symbols
Symbols are typically one of the hardest things to teach students - often because the teacher is so
busy with getting students to understand the plot, characters and themes that it seems to
overwhelming to begin on something as ‘literary’ as symbols. However, this is particularly
important at senior levels and is not as difficult as it first may seem. The techniques which are most
straightforward to teach are those ones which either visually or aurally reinforce ideas about a
character or theme.
What is a symbol?
Every day, we are presented with symbols that we then interpret. The ‘Symbol Handout’ is a
collection of commonly used symbols that we expect every person to understand. Ask students to
cut out 4-5 of these symbols and paste them into the centre of the page. Around this symbol,
students should write words that they closely associate with this symbol. Leading from each of
these words, students should draw an arrow and then write at least two implications that this word
has for the world (why this is an important thing to symbolise).
Colours as Symbols
One of the very common symbols in a text is the use of colour - characters can be commonly
associated with light or darkness as a way of linking them to good and evil. However, all colours
have their own associations. Using coloured pencils, ask students to list the ‘meanings’ of colours.
This colour activity is an easy introduction to talking about characters in films (think Star Wars or
Avatar or even ‘chick flicks’ where the girly characters wear pink or teen films where the ‘rebel’
wears black). However, this activity is also useful for many novels.
Teacher Support for students to understand symbols
Before linking techniques to how they are used to help an author or director portray a character or
theme, it’s best to look at techniques in isolation.
1. Do a Google search to find pictures of any symbols that are used in the text
2. Ask students to group these different images into meaningful different groups.
3. Students should now choose one group of pictures and paste them into the centre of a large
sheet of paper.
4. Around these pictures students should draw a small circle and within this circle brainstorm
feelings, ideas, objects, adjectives and actions that they associate with the picture.
5. Now ask students use the large space outside the circle to record particular examples in the text
that they associate with these symbols.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 25
Link techniques to themes and characters
It’s important for students to see how techniques link to the presentation of themes and characters in
a text. For this reason, it makes sense to teach students techniques after you have done some
activities on themes and characters.
The Pie Chart Profiler is a good thinking tool to use for students to link techniques to both
characters and themes. For this activity, students will need an A2 or A3 piece of paper.
1. They should draw a circle on the piece of paper which takes up most of the space.
2. Ask students to concentrate on one character or one theme at a time. On the top of the piece
of paper they should write the name of the character or theme they are looking at.
3. They should next look through the list in Handout 16 that lists all the ways a character can
be characterized in a text or a theme presented. They should think about the character or
theme they are concentrating on – which techniques are most important in how we think
about the character or theme?
4. The circle becomes a pie chart for showing the extent of the importance of each technique in
portraying a character or theme. Students need to allocate each technique a portion of the pie
according to how important they think it is in the overall presentation of a character or
theme.
5. Students need to annotate each piece of the pie giving reasons as to how and why they have
judged the importance of particular technique
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 26
Build Capacity To Respond
To The Text
The more familiar students are with a text, the easier they will find it to respond. However, all
teacher know that asking students to produce a meaningful response to a text is not as simple as this.
Often teachers will move quickly from short answer comprehension-type questions to asking
students to write an extended essay or produce a lengthy oral presentation. This is a big jump for
many students to take, and can be very daunting to begin with. As teachers, one of the most valuable
things to do in a class is to gradually build students’ text response capabilities. Students who are
familiar with the text will often want to showcase their academic understanding with
correspondingly impressive academic language. For this reason, building students’ academic
vocabulary is one of the things we do that will most develop their capacity to respond to texts.
Included in the next section are a number of strategies to help with this process. Beyond this are
activities designed to get students to think critically and meaningfully about the ideas they have
studied and to begin writing smaller responses to the text.
Word Squares
With this vocabulary activity you place an important theme or idea in the centre of a 3 x 3 grid.
After this you generate a further 8 words or phrases that are a mixture of character names, themes,
quotes and terms the can be linked to the main theme or idea. Students then need to create sentences
from the three squares in the top row. They can add other words, change the order and modify the
form of the word or phrase to better make sense in the sentence. After this, they do the same for the
next row, and the bottom row, and then the same for each of the columns and the diagonals.
Word Circles
In this activity, students brainstorm a vocabulary rather than the teacher providing it.
1. Students draw three concentric circles - the centre circle only needing to be big enough to put in a
single word or phrase, the outer two circles being big enough to contain many words or phrases.
2. A theme (or character) goes into the centre circle. Explain to students that name = noun
3. The next circle is action. Action = verbs. Students need to write verbs that they associate with the
theme.
4. The next circle equals description. Description = adjectives. Students put adjectives to describe the
theme or the actions associated with the theme.
5. Students can write adverbs on the lines between circles.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 27
Orientation, process, resolution
This strategy invites group brainstorming then individual application. First, students brainstorm as
many words as they can think of to describe a text. Share ideas as a class on the whiteboard. Once
students have shared ideas, ask students to write down from the whiteboard the best 12 words. They
must then divide these words into four groups of three. The words in each group must then be
sequenced into: first - a word which describes the orientation of the text (something that happens at
the beginning); second - a process (a way that the characters do things in the text); third - and a
resolution (something that happens in the end). Students must then write a sentence or sentences for
each group using the words in that order. For example, in Romeo and Juliet students might put these
three words together: Love, loyalty and desire. Desire might be the orientation word, love the
process, and loyalty the resolution. They might then put it into a sentence like this: To begin with
Romeo feels desire towards Juliet. This turns into love and both Romeo and Juliet are loyal to each
other in the end.
Focus on the title
Titles of texts can often be an interesting way to get students to think holistically about a text. This
strategy only works when a title is something other than a character’s name or a simple description
of a character’s role in a text. Simply ask students to brainstorm 3-5 reasons why a text has the title
that it does. They need to think about:
•
•
•
How it might describes the various roles characters perform in a text
The themes of the text
Important messages of the text
Fact or interpretation
Once students are quite familiar with a text you can have a detailed discussion about it. Give your
students a series of statements about the text which could be either ‘facts’ or ‘interpretations.’ Ask
them to divide the statements into ‘fact’ or ‘interpretation’ - they must put a certain number in each
pile. As a class, go through and discuss each statement. Encourage debate.
Forced Perspectives
Students will often interpret or ‘read’ a text in the most obvious way possible. Forced perspectives is
about challenging students to investigate ‘resistant’ readings of a text. A simple way of introducing
this idea is to give students a statement which forces them to think about the text from a character
perspective that they wouldn’t normally think about it. For example, students normally identify that
Juliet is a much more courageous character than Romeo. A forced perspective task would ask them
to consider: Romeo is much braver than Juliet because... A more sophisticated way of doing this is
to use the resistant reading template entitled ‘Resistant Readings’. This template asks students to
think about a text not simply from different character’s perspectives, but from different theoretical
perspectives.
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 28
Essay CAF
CAF stands for Consider All Factors. It is chart that forces students to think about different
elements when responding to a topic. If arguing a proposition, a CAF chart may have categories for
Political, Economic, Social and Environmental Factors on it. Students must choose at least three of
these factors to discuss in their essay. For this activity, teachers should create their own CAF chart
using ideas from the text studied. A CAF Chart may include categories such as Setting, Major
Characters, Minor Characters, Themes, Important Quotes, Symbols, Literary Techniques, Important
Events and Outcomes. In each category the teacher would provide examples or key terms as
stimulus. When responding to an essay topic, students must choose examples from at least four of
the categories to use.
Essay CAF Card Shuffle
The CAF shuffle helps students both come up with ideas to respond to an essay topic and to begin
to plan an essay. This activity involves putting important factors not on a chart but on cards that can
be shuffled. Each example that would have been in a factor category now has its own card. Students
look at a topic then shuffle through the cards and pick out as many cards as they think they could
use to respond to a topic. After this, they must arrange the cards into 3-5 groups and give each group
a main idea heading. These groups will be the basis for the paragraphs in their essay.
Essay - Contrasts Prove The Rule
Essentially, this strategy is about students showing their understanding of a topic by giving
examples and non examples. Essay topics typically invite us to focus on examples that prove the
proposition of the essay statement. For example, if we were asked the question: The main character
in this text makes good decisions - it invites us to give examples of the good decisions the main
character makes. However, we can also demonstrate how the main character’s decisions are good,
by contrasting the main character’s decisions with the poor decisions of other characters (so what
makes the minor character’s decisions poor and the major character’s decisions good).
What we want to teach our students here is that we can respond to essay topics with detail not just
by focusing on examples that prove the proposition, but by using non-examples to prove why real
examples are true.
Students can experiment with this by first responding to essay questions that ask them to focus on
character actions and responses (such as the decision essay question above). This way students can
easily contrast character examples that prove a statement to be true with the actions of character’s
who fail to do what the statement of the essay question is proposing. Students can use these prompts
to help them consider answers:
• Examples that show us the statement is true...
• Examples that show us the statement is true because they show a failure
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Once students begin to master this technique they can build to using it to answer more sophisticated
questions such as: In this text, nature imagery is used to show the growth of characters.
In responding to this topic, students will naturally discuss examples of imagery that does show this.
However, they can also discuss other examples of imagery which are ‘non-examples’ of this imagery which shows different themes.
Tech Tips For Building Capacity To Respond To The
Text
Visuwords: This is an visual thesaurus tool. Students can log onto the page at: http://
www.visuwords.com/, look up a word, and then get a colour coded concept chart of synonyms for
that word. By scrolling over each word you will get a definition for that word. This is a great
vocabulary building tool.
Thsrs: This is a a thesaurus tool, but unlike the visual thesaurus above, it only gives synonyms that
are shorter than the entered word. This is an effective tool for weaker students because it will
present them with a list of synonyms that will most likely already know. The tool can be found at:
http://www.ironicsans.com/thsrs/
Wallwisher: This is a collaborative online discussion board. You can create a discussion board in a
matter of seconds and share the URL with students. People can contribute to the discussion by
easily adding a sticky note with text. In a class with laptops, this tool can be used effectively to get
every student responding to discussion points on the text. The tool can be accessed at: http://
www.wallwisher.com
Web 2.0 Creative Responses
To Texts
There are a range of simple or more advanced ways students can respond to texts creatively using
Web 2.0 tools. These strategies might be used during a unit in order for students to develop their
understanding of a text or form part or whole of a student’s assessment at the end of a unit.
Create a blog entry for a character: This is a creative writing task that asks students to adopt the
perspective and characteristics of a character through writing in their voice. While this is a
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 30
traditional enough type of creative task, internet blogs now allow students to do this task with more
creativity. Not only can students type blog entries, they can also include images, audio and video
that they believe might represent a character. There are many free blog sites, but one of the best and
easiest is Tumblr. It can be found at: http://www.tumblr.com
Write a newspaper report: Another traditional creative response to texts is to get students to write
newspaper reports on events in a text. Students can now use a number of tools on the internet to do
this task in an engaging way. Fodey’s newspaper clipping generator allows students to create a
newspaper name, title and article and generate it to look like an authentic newspaper clipping. The
tool can be found here: http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp. Alternatively, UK
website Making The News has a number of great templates to use for students to generate authentic
looking newspapers: http://kmi4schools.e2bn.net/uk_mtn/
Creating a map: Understanding the setting is an important part of understanding a text. Visualising
the setting can be a powerful way for students to do this. Simply ask students to think of 5-10
important places in the text. Ask students to draw an image of these places on a large piece of poster
paper (or find an image online if they don’t like drawing) - spreading them out to somehow
represent the space between them in the text (of course it doesn’t need to be in scale in any way).
Students should then create a character path mapping the main character’s journey to each place in
the text and annotating the path to include: 1) What happened? 2) Why was the setting important how did it impact on what happened? A fun way of doing this online is to use the presentation tool
Prezi - see more on this below.
Create a film poster: If students are studying a novel, they can have fun imagining what it would
be like if it were a film - who would star in it, what would it be like? Students can create film posters
here: http://bighugelabs.com/poster.php
Create a book video promo: More and more frequently books are now promoted via video
‘trailers’ - just like films. Writing a new blurb or creating a new front cover for a book is a traditional
creative task, but students can now create a video trailer that challenges them to tap into the most
exciting and interesting elements of a text and present it visually. Examples of book trailers can be
found here: http://bookscreening.com/. Students can easily use Movie Maker on a PC or Imovie on
a Mac to make video presentations. They can also accompany their video presentations with a
written summary of why they chose to visually represent the elements of the text that they did.
Screentoaster: Students can now complete oral presentations without needing to get up in front of
class. Screen toaster is a vodcasting tool that allows students to record video of what’s on their
computer screen and provide a voice over. This makes an ideal tool for presenting analysis of key
scenes from films. As the scene plays, students can comment on key features such as: character
development, theme development, use of symbolism and imagery, use of music and camera angles.
The tool can be found at: www.screentoaster.com
Tube Popper: This tool can be used for similar reasons to the one above. However, it does not
allow you to add a voice over to video, but rather to add speech bubbles. Students can easily write
an analysis of a key scene from a film by adding speech bubbles at different moments in the scene
and typing in what is important. Here is the address: http://www.tubepopper.com/
Prezi: This is a dynamic online presentation tool. A simple way Prezi can be used is to replace
Power Point. Students can use Prezi to create a visually interesting presentation on a text’s
50 Great Strategies To Teach Texts Effectively 31
characters or themes to share with the class. Rather than providing separate slides for different
elements of a presentation, Prezi provides one giant canvas which is scrolled around on a ‘path.’
Students can click anywhere on the canvas and add text, video, audio, images and documents.
Afterwards, they can select the ‘path’ (i.e the order) that these will be shown in. They simply click on
each - adding a number 1, 2, 3 etc...and what they have created will be shown in that order. One way
Prezi can be easily used is to create a character journey path. Students start by identifying important
settings in the text as described in the map activity above. They find images that represent these
settings and place them on the Prezi canvas. Then their Prezi ‘path’ can become their character path
- they visually map out a character’s journey to and from each setting and what happens in each
setting. The tool is here: http://prezi.com/
Glogster text: This is an online poster-collage tool. It allows people to create a visually dynamic
poster page on an idea with text, images and audio and publish it the web to be shared. It can be a
very visually interesting way for students to create a character or theme profile. Set a group of
students a different character or theme, give them a time limit, and at the end of the time limit
students can share their Glogster with each other on the web. The tool is here: http://
www.glogster.com/
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