PDS Inquiry Paper for Creating Connections: Making Texts Meaningful to Students by Andrew Newhouse June 9, 2011 Newhouse 1 Creating Connections: Making Texts Meaningful to Students Research Premise The purpose of my inquiry paper is to explore the ways through which high school students can have a meaningful connection with classroom texts. When I was in high school, there was one particular teacher who would insist upon pointing out the meanings that were accepted among scholarly circles instead of within literature circles (a term synonymous with the student exploration of meanings within books). It is my belief that the best way for students to interact, and in fact learn, with classroom texts is by providing them with multiple tools and perspectives through which they can discover meanings as unique as themselves. But, how do we create an environment where students have a desire to interact with the classroom texts? In my paper, I will analyze the following sub-­‐questions in order to explore some possibilities: What is literature? Are there some texts that are unapproachable for adolescent English students? What are some ways that teachers can facilitate meaningful connections for students? Why are such connections desirable? My paper will provide answers to these questions through my analysis of current techniques that I have either used myself or that I have observed other teachers within this school implementing. The results from my analysis will demonstrate how allowing students to form their own connections, facilitates an environment that is both pro students and pro learning. Reflection I remember one pivotal experience from when I was a student in my tenth grade English class. We were reading Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Newhouse 2 Sea, which prior to that time was one of my favorite books. The story made me remember going out with my grandfather in his little johnboat into the Florida bay. To me, the book was about a sense of adventure and the special bond between children and their elders: the attraction between the wonderment of childhood and the wisdom that comes from the experience of age. However, in my English class, I remember being taught about the symbolic nature of the wooden boat, which my teacher continually compared to the cross of Jesus Christ. I even remember being quizzed about what certain "symbols" meant. At that age, the story to me was primarily about the bond between an old man and a young boy, but my teacher deemed my interpretation unacceptable. My point here is not to speak about how it is wrong to push religion in public schools (though my teacher did have a special affinity toward religious iconography) but to explore the possibility that by dissecting the meaning of stories for our students, we have the potential to ruin them. Fortunately for me, my love of literature remains intact, but now that I'm a teacher, how do I help my students discover meaning in literature without forcing it down their throats? Defining Literature and Learning If I were to define literature, I would simply state that it is any work of recognized literary merit. However, this definition begs the following question: who is providing the recognition? According to the State College Area High School English department, so-­‐called canonical texts are referred to as "common/core texts," because "they are taught to all students in a given course." These texts serve Newhouse 3 as examples of books having merit that is recognized by teachers, librarians, and reading specialists (presumably after they were highly regarded by literary scholars and critics). Additionally, these titles have traditionally been used with success for a multitude of years in both our school and in schools across the nation. The previous statement should raise another question for readers: how exactly is it that a text can be taught with success? My consultant Jason Whitney had a rather formulaic question for determining how to assign reading: "What is the highest quality of work that you can assign that students will actually read?" To me, high quality works for students (and for any reader) reflect the words of Douglas Hesse, a literature teacher who published numerous findings regarding students' literature study. He writes that high quality works are "...certain texts [that] display more complexity, offering stronger challenges to their sense of how the world is and what is good and right and true" (22). But what exactly is "good and right and true" for our students, and how can we make truths accessible to them? Educational Theories for Interpreting Literature In order to understand how meaning resonates with student readers, I employed the works of several educational theorists. I used their works to obtain insight into the ways through which meaning is created when interpreting literature. These ideas will later be manifested as I show their utility in the activities for my tenth grade literary study of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. In order to unpack the theories I incorporated into my class's study of literature, I first want to provide a general term that encapsulates the means through which literature can be viewed. I therefore will use "lenses" as a general term for the various means through Newhouse 4 which meaning is derived from literature. Although this word is commonly used in conjunction with literary criticism, it can easily be applied to all "texts," which in a general sense of the word can represent video, images, songs or practically any medium containing information. Every experience a student brings with him or her while interpreting any such text colors that student's view of it. All students have unique experiences and proclivities that factor into these interpretations. Here lies the area where different educational theories come into effect. One theory that I drew upon for my unit is Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences." Gardner believes that there are seven distinct intelligences that people possess in varying degrees. These intelligences consist of the following areas of understanding: language, logical/mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (Gardner). Howard Gardner uses "lenses" to explain the ways in which his multiple intelligences could be viewed. He writes that "when the appropriate observational lenses are donned, the peculiar nature of each intelligence emerges with sufficient (and often surprising) clarity (Gardner 9). Therefore, in order for students to demonstrate their unique intelligences, it is essential to create activities that capitalize on those intelligences. The multitude of lenses I employed during my unit draw upon Gardner's multiple intelligences to provide opportunities for a diverse array of learners to form meaningful connections with a given text. The very nature of forming connections draws upon a variety of intelligences because there are different types of connections one can form. Among high school English teachers, the typical terms applied to the three general connections are as Newhouse 5 follows: text-­‐text, text-­‐self and text-­‐world. Using this method for providing lenses, "when teachers intentionally encourage intertextual connections . . . reading comprehension is broadened and learning is increased" (Lenski). These three textual connections will later be used when categorizing different lenses from my unit in Fahrenheit 451. John Dewey, the famous philosopher known for his pro-­‐student approach to education, wrote about the ways that connections are formed on the basis of "the actual lived experiences of the student (Kucey, Parsons 13). Dewey's beliefs demonstrating the importance of "communication, peer interaction, and shared experiences" provide the "basis for democratic thinking and powerful individual learning" (Kucey, Parsons 14). Therefore, because Dewey's theories take into account the value of the students' experiences and how they can be used as lenses for forming connections to texts, it was necessary that I also took his views into consideration in planning my unit. By incorporating Dewey's pro-­‐student approach that gives their experiences utility within the classroom, I worked to create an atmosphere that shows respect for the process of exploring one's ideas and the interpretations that resonate within one self. This method for interpreting meaning aligns with Jean Piaget's belief "that it is not the accuracy of the child's response that is important but rather the lines of reasoning the child invokes..." (Gardner 17). The thought process, as Piaget suggests, is inherently important; this is especially true when creating an open and thoughtful discourse for a classroom community. In order to create a democratic classroom environment that values opinion and a place where students feel open to explore Newhouse 6 their understandings, I incorporated the top of the pyramid from Bloom's Taxonomy, which is "more complex and demand[s] higher cognitive skills from students," whereas the pyramid's bottom contains "simple knowledge-­‐based and recall [skills]" (Neal). I have included the upper tier because, "in the larger community outside the classroom walls, few issues are black-­‐and-­‐white" (Neal). The same theory holds true for interpreting literature, because interpretations vary based on the unique experiences that each student brings to understanding the reading. Therefore, it is equally essential for both literature interpretation and for becoming "contributing members of our society, [that] adolescents . . . become critical thinkers, find their own voice, and be recognized for having opinions that matter" (Neal). Students Define the Meaning of Literature In order to incorporate student opinion in my class and to better understand the lenses through which students view literature, I had students explain what attributes they valued most for reading. Because this particular book depicts a dystopian society where oppressive governmental control has lead to the censorship of books through means of incineration, I was able to use this topic of censorship to discover what my students valued in reading. On SCoodle (the SCAHS version of Moodle, a course management system), I posed a hypothetical scenario for my students where they, too, lived in a society where their books could be stripped away from them. By stating their favorite books and explaining why they wouldn't want them taken away, students also explained what they believe to be the Newhouse 7 purpose and value of books. After isolating the opinions of students from their responses to the forum (appendix 1), I copied their responses into a Wordle: As you can see, some of the larger words, which are determined by frequency of use, are message, express, information, opinion, beliefs, and think. Therefore, it appears as though the facets of reading that students value are certainly part of a message (emphasized by its large size), which could contain information expressing one's beliefs or opinions that challenge a reader to think (presumably about his or her own opinions or beliefs). It is clear to see that this definition isn't too far away from Hesse's definition about readers discovering "what is good and right and true," because the books students value are ones that make them think about those ideas; thusly, the books students value should "display more complexity" and "offer stronger challenges" (22). Before we investigate the ways in which my unit for Newhouse 8 Fahrenheit 451 provided students with an environment to pursue a reading experience to match their value of reading, it is necessary to ask another question. Uncovering My Assumptions Are there some texts that are simply unreachable or inaccessible for a particular age group of readers? At the beginning of the school year, I had heard several students declaring their unyielding hatred of Jane Eyre in the school's hallways. This came as no surprise to me because I had read Jane Eyre and knew that it contained complex themes, which I had viewed as too far out of the realm of experience of a ninth grader to be understood and appreciated. I wondered, "Why would a ninth grader even be required to read such a book?" It wasn't until I observed a ninth grade advanced English class discussing Jane Eyre that I had a change of view. An activity called a Socratic Seminar demonstrated to me that some books containing complex themes, books such as Jane Eyre, could become relatable for younger readers. When I went into that classroom to observe and discovered that they were reading Jane Eyre, I was expecting to see disengaged and unwilling readers, and yet, that is not at all what I found. Despite Jane Eyre containing numerous underlying themes such as social inequality, feminism, and historicism, all of these themes can be read and connected to by a younger audience of readers. The Socratic Seminar began when the class's student teacher requested that
students arrange seats into a circle. The circle, like Arthur's Round Table, symbolizes that
students have equality in the discussion. The student teacher then wrote on the board the
appropriate literary terminology and theory (Marxism and historicism) for students to
Newhouse 9 discuss. Those terminologies were provided to the students prior to the reading in the
form of informative articles or, according to the general lenses for literary interpretation,
a text-text connection. Next, she set the ground rules for discussion. Each student was
required to contribute three times for full credit. During these contributions, students
made use of their text-text connections, as well as text-self and text-world connections.
The italicized statements below are my recorded observations from the discussion that
demonstrates those connections:
Students discuss how Jane's social status affects her relationship with Rochester.
Students explore how education can elevate your social status.
In this example the students were examining historicism, relationship dynamics during
Victorian times, and Marxism, social inequality and social status. Both of these lenses
would be text-text connections because students used articles about both of those theories
to critically read Jane Eyre.
One student says that she would love to be a governess b/c she could live in a nice house
and fall in love with some rich man. Then students say that they feel it's weird that Jane
calls Rochester "master."
For this example the first student to speak is using a text-self connection. She is using the
text, Jane Eyre, and relating it to her feelings. The second students to speak, the ones who
replied, were probably also using text-self connections because they responded by stating
a feeling, weirdness, that a particular word, master, evoked.
Students then bring up the age difference in romantic relationships. Was it more common
then than today?
In this example, students are drawing upon two types of connections: text-text and textworld. Again, they begin by referring to their information about Victorian customs
(historicism, a text-text connection). Then, they begin discussing what they know about
romantic relationships in our world today (text-world).
By having the background about these theories and by coming to class prepared with topics to discuss, students were well prepared by their teachers with several ways from which to approach discussion. Additionally, having multiple lenses
gives students more chances to be connected with the material. As I stated earlier, Jane Newhouse 10 Eyre is a book with many rich meanings and complex themes, but by providing students with lenses through which to view the information, the teachers were able to explore some of those deep thematic concepts in an engaging and meaningful way. Nearly all of the students participated, and they were able to explore many issues because they had time to think about them independently prior to the onset of the activity and because they had access to multiple ways of exploring the content (literary criticism and three connections). Then, when it came time to discuss their responses, the students were able to feed off of each other's comments, enabling them to focus on the aspects that were most relevant to them (text-­‐self). Also, to extend textual relevancy even further, students were able to relate issues from the novel to today (text-­‐world) and were even able to place themselves in the characters' shoes (text-­‐self). By scaffolding the lesson from providing lenses, enabling students to work with questions independently, and then bridging their responses to a full-­‐class discussion, students were encouraged to engage with the text, and many of them had willingly done so throughout the duration of the discussion. As I already stated, Jane Eyre is a book with many rich meanings and complex themes, but by providing students with lenses through which to view the information, the teachers were able to explore some of those deep thematic concepts in an engaging and meaningful way. I took these lenses, or tools for making connections to literature, and adapted them for my unit in Fahrenheit 451. The following passages will detail how I incorporated those lenses into my unit by facilitating text-­‐text, text-­‐self and text-­‐world connections for my students. Newhouse 11 Lenses for my Unit in Fahrenheit 451 In order to have students interpret complex meanings found within Ray Bradbury's novel, I had to employ scaffolding. Vygotsky called this the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is a way that a learner can reach potential levels of functioning through the help of a more experienced other (Cumming-­‐
Potvin 487). I scaffolded our study by providing lenses to my students, rather than having them find their own. These lenses took the form of various classroom activities. One activity contained articles, which provided students with information to give them a context for the book's events (similar to the previous section). Each week I chose one article, connecting in some regard to the novel, to be read and responded to. In these "Article of the Week" (Gallagher) assignments, I employed text-­‐world connections through a range of genres from feature articles to famous essays. Another way in which I helped students to interpret the book's events was to provide them with vocabulary instruction composed of the book's words. The words that I chose had meanings that contributed to the thematic understanding of the novel. Another lens I took advantage of is journals, which are a text-­‐self lens. I had students write in journals in order to further explore our class activities and to make personal connections to the text. Then, to provide students even more ability to explore their own connections, I facilitated my own Socratic Seminar. At the end of our unit, I took the scaffolds away, and students were required to explore their own text by capitalizing on the previous methods and by sharing their findings with the class. Newhouse 12 Article of the Week One tool we have been using in order to help students form more connections to the literature we read in class is called the "Article of the Week" (AOW). This activity was shown to me by my mentor, who found it among Kelly Gallagher's resources for "Building Deeper Readers and Writers" (the title of her Web site). We actually find many of the articles that we use from the Web site, because they are topics that are relevant to many students. Some topics include: benefits of handwriting, The State of the Union Address, our country's economy, the recent uprise in Egypt, and the use of advertising to raise revenue for public schools. Gallagher says on her Web site that the purpose of these articles is to "broaden their reading experiences into real-­‐world texts." My mentor and I also valued this activity because it provides students with text-­‐world connections upon which they can rely when analyzing literature in the classroom. For example, in my Fahrenheit 451 unit, I included an article about failing liberal arts programs after students were introduced to a character that was a formal English professor at one of the last liberal arts schools in Bradbury's dystopic world. Because I intentionally paired the article with the text, it is called a complimentary text, and when texts are paired in this way, "students are provided with many opportunities to learn various aspects of a single theme" (Lenski). In their responses, students debated the value of liberal arts schools in today's world and examined quotes denoting the reasons for why they closed in Bradbury's book (appendix 2). When students in our classroom read the AOW, they are to comment in the margins about particular topics, words, or phrases that intrigue them. Students then Newhouse 13 use those comments as a way to form their responses, which include the author's purpose and intended audience but mainly serve as outlets to explore their thoughts on a controversial issue, for example, the value of a liberal arts education. So, for the article about failing liberal arts programs, students might have formed text-­‐text connections in the margins, relating the failing liberal arts schools from the article to the ones mentioned in Fahrenheit 451. They also write about the particular aspects of the issue that interest them (text-­‐self) and the real-­‐world implications (text-­‐
world). Students then use these connections to create comments, which become topic starters for our end of the week discussion about the article. On most Fridays, the date upon which the articles are due, we begin class by discussing the aspects from the article that the students found most interesting. This activity has really been great for our students because it has allowed them to analyze the author's arguments and determine whether they are in agreement with them (a text-­‐self connection), which is important because "students who draw conclusions from texts are not merely constructing meaning, but are exploring the ways the text is connected to their own lives" (Lenski). For the discussion of the liberal arts article, I wanted to make the author's arguments explicit, so I pulled up a description for a graduate program, the Masters of Fine Arts major for aspiring authors, in Penn State's college of liberal arts. Due to statewide budget cuts at public schools, Penn State was forced to eliminate several programs, and among the first to go was this liberal arts program. Because this timely event related to both the article and the book, I thought it would be an appropriate discussion point. The president of the school referenced in the article Newhouse 14 for closing, said that the reason for the decreased interest in liberal arts schools is that they are not as specific as other schools, meaning that they are not designed to prepare students for a particular career. We examined the validity of this statement as a class, as it related to Penn State's program. As a result, some of the students agreed with the author that liberal arts programs, such as Penn State's, are not as specific as other majors, but there were also some students who thought the program's description was specific to particular career paths. The AOW allows students to broaden their knowledge about many timely issues that often have significance in their lives. Also, the ability to explore the ideas expressed in smaller, non-­‐fiction texts allows them to understand the importance of ideas in larger fictional texts, which ultimately enables students to "form mental models of single texts currently being processed" (Lenski). Finally, by connecting the book to an article and then to events occurring closer to home, my students were able to see that information from fictional books can have real-­‐world implications. Vocabulary Instruction One thing I've noticed about grammar exercises and vocabulary acquisition is that if you simply drill students about sentence structures or parts of speech, then students will merely become skilled at following drills. What I mean by this is that students link the utility of that knowledge to the grammar activities themselves, rather than the usages of sentence structure and vocabulary acquisition for their own writing and for a broad context. In planning my unit for Fahrenheit 451, I wanted to work on expanding the vocabulary of my students so that the words had Newhouse 15 real-­‐world relevance. I had the belief that many of the words that students will use for future writing and on standardized tests are existent in the texts that they read in their literature studies and that the best way for them to acquire these words is by connecting them to the text itself. This is another example of preparing complimentary texts, because the vocabulary list is organized "around a central topic," the book itself, and because the words are placed within the author's sentences, the vocabulary words take on "thematic" meanings (Lenski). While I was searching for possible activities, I discovered a vocabulary activity that seemed to fit my criteria perfectly (appendix 3). This activity, created by Mary Collins, presents the vocabulary words along with the sentences encompassing them. Additionally, the activities draw upon words in a comprehensive order, meaning that the activities follow the progression of the book. For the first part of the handout, students use the context clues existent within the sentences to determine the word's meaning. Additionally, they may want to consult the book to see the context surrounding that sentence. This type of activity is particularly appealing to students who are linguistic learners, because individuals possessing this intelligence, "such as historians or literary critics, may seem far more dependent upon language, not only as a source of what they study, but also as a means for conveying their conclusions" (Gardner 96). Therefore, by completing a vocabulary activity that connects with the vocabulary to the text, linguistic learners are able to not only derive meaning for the words but also gain a better understanding of the book. Additionally, by completing the activity after reading the corresponding section from the book, students not only form Newhouse 16 connections "from prior experiences," seeing or using the words before, "but also information from past texts," reading Fahrenheit 451 (Lenski). What this means is that you can introduce the activity right after students begin reading the corresponding section of the book, and students will have the opportunity to deeply explore the author's language by using text-­‐self and text-­‐text connections. Through this manner of discovery, students have the ability to thematically connect word meanings to the text. In doing so, students not only gain a rich understanding of the word, but they also gain a deeper understanding of the text. Also, after students use the context clues, they are then required to match the words to their corresponding dictionary definitions. This could also relate to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, because not all students are adept with language, but by having visible definitions to match with the words in the sentence, visual and spatial learners could decipher the word meanings. At the end of the activity, we discuss how we determined the word meanings by talking through them as a class. By approaching vocabulary in this way, all aspects of English are incorporated (reading, writing speaking and listening). Additionally, the activity is made more appealing for a diverse group of learners. Along with high quiz scores across the board, I know this activity is effective because when my students were provided the opportunity to write in their journals about the book, they freely chose to incorporate their new vocabulary words into their analysis, again demonstrating Gardner's belief that language learners are "far more dependent upon language, not only as a source of what they study, but also as a means for conveying their conclusions" (Gardner 96). In their response, they Newhouse 17 associated certain words with characters' proclivities (to use one of our vocabulary words from part two) and made connections to the odious (to use another word) environments of dystopian genres. Journals The reason behind having students journal is similar to one of the merits Ray Bradbury attributes to reading books: "You can shut them, say, 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it" (84). I wanted to give students something that they could have control over. Like most books, a composition journal is small easily accessible. You can take it anywhere, and unlike a laptop, it never needs recharged. My hope was that this ease of use would contribute to the students' flow of free thought: they could write their ideas about what they read from Fahrenheit 451 (text-­‐self) and about class activities and discussions to create new knowledge for themselves through reflection. This thought relates to Dewey's theory of experiential learning: "Thinking . . . is the intentional endeavor to discover specific connections between something which we do and the consequences which result, so that the two become continuous." For my Fahrenheit 451 unit, students were expected to turn in a journal once a week about any area(s) of interest from our weekly lesson. In these journals, students were encouraged to make their own connections to the book. In order to facilitate these connections, I provided a quote for each day, which I would have written on the board before each class. The quotes consisted of selections I picked from the previous night's assigned reading, and they were chosen based on their ability to provide insight about the characters' personalities and Bradbury's beliefs Newhouse 18 about his world. Here is an example of a quote I chose (Bradbury 27) and a student's response (Journal, Fahrenheit 451, March 18, 2011), commenting about that topic: Beatty: "It doesn't think anything we don't want it to think." Montag: "That's sad...because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing. What a shame it that's all it can ever know. Student response: I think it could represent Adolf Hitler in a way. Both Hitler and the
Mechanical Hound seek out certain things to kill and burn. For the Mechanical Hound it
was books and the owner of the books, and for Hitler it was anyone not of the so-called
Aryan Race, but especially Jews. Hitler killed millions of them, but more symbolically,
burned them, which relates to the job of the Mechanical Hound in Fahrenheit 451.
Prior to reading Fahrenheit 451, we read Night by Elie Wiesel, which is the true story of the author's experiences surviving the Holocaust. Additionally, at the beginning of the Fahrenheit 451 unit, students read an Article of the Week selection by Austin Cline about 19th century German poet Heinrich Heine and his theory connecting the burning of people to the burning of books. Cline writes, "Burning books and burning people are connected because both stem from a desire to eliminate ideas that are a threat to the some group or ideology which is in power."
Therefore, when the student interprets the Hound as a symbol for Hitler, particularly relating to burning of Jews and books, he is making a text-­‐text connection. Although students were not required to refer to these quotes for their responses, they were made available for any student who would care to use them. If I had made them required, I would have been limiting the ideas and expression of my students, which goes against my motive behind using the journals. Along with making connections to the book, students were also granted the ability to reflect on any activity that we engaged in within the classroom. So, again, had I limited their responses to the quotes alone, they wouldn't have had the Newhouse 19 opportunity to mull over the classroom discourse. Often times, ideas from our classroom activities (refer to vocabulary instruction) would carry over into the students' journals, particularly when the activities were student-­‐led discussions. For instance, one student wrote in her journal the following entry: In her response, you can clearly see that she has chosen to further examine her small-­‐group conversation in her journal. She then begins making connections between the book and our real world (text-­‐world) when she writes, "People in this Newhouse 20 society (referring to the book) seem so used to happiness that they could actually be afraid of not being happy. I mean, people today (referring to our world) seem to be going in that direction." In addition to this response showing a text-­‐world connection, it also demonstrates the way in which Dewey believes experience connects to thought. That is, the student reflected on the class discussion, a text-­‐self connection, and as a result formed a "continuous" connection between having the discussion, "something which we do," and the new broader understanding connecting the book to the world, "the consequences which result." Therefore, the journal allowed my students to use the lenses of all three literary connections and experiential thinking to explore meanings from the text and create deeper understandings about them. Socratic Seminar The Socratic Seminar is an activity that, like the journal, allows students to explore the topics that most interest them. According to the Web site I used to model my instruction, the Socratic Seminar is: ...Socrates' theory that it is more important to enable students to think for themselves than to merely fill their heads with "right" answers. Therefore, he regularly engaged his pupils in dialogues by responding to their questions with questions, instead of answers. This process encourages divergent thinking rather than convergent. (StudyGuide.org) I thought this method of exploration would encourage students to explore their own understandings while incorporating their knowledge from the other class activities. In looking back on the last section (journals), it is apparent that students made Newhouse 21 symbolic connections, relating the Hound to Hitler and analyzing fire as a tool for censorship and murder. One student builds upon that analysis of symbolism when he writes his Socratic Seminar questions: What do you think the destruction of Montag's home town symboliz[es]? Was it the start of the revolution? Was it the final destruction of Montag's beliefs about burning books? Or was it simply just the destruction of a city and has no symbolism? As the questions demonstrate, the student is continuing previously visited occurrences of symbolism (destruction and book burning) and expanding them to pursue new questions. On Bloom's taxonomy, these open-­‐ended questions are considered "more complex and demand higher cognitive skills from students" than simple answer questions, e.g., questions with yes/no responses (Neal). The complexity of open-­‐ended questions "can get learners talking, discussing, reflecting, and writing their thoughts. That’s when they really begin to 'own' their learning" (Neal). Although I have already mentioned the logistics of a seminar in "Uncovering My Assumptions," my version was a bit different. Because my students were already accustomed to writing in their journals, I requested that they record three open-­‐
ended questions about their reading on a page within their journals. They were required to produce their questions the day before the discussion. After I gave them credit for their questions, they chose their favorite question and typed it into a Google Doc (appendix 4). The following day, I would begin class with their questions projected on a screen. I would operate the computer and scroll down on the screen Newhouse 22 to whichever topic the class decided upon. That was my primary role in their discussion, other than occasionally injecting questions to spur conversation (though this was rare). I told students before the discussion, "If it goes well, it is because you prepared. If it fails, it is no one's fault but your own." It was the students' opportunity to explore what they had learned and to put to use their own lenses for understanding the book. By creating that educational space for them, I stayed true to Dewey's pro-­‐student philosophy, because "communication, peer interaction, and shared experiences are becoming, as Dewey foresaw, a basis for democratic thinking and powerful individual learning" (Kucey, Parsons 14). All worked out well and the students drew upon the three textual connections to respond to their peers' questions displayed on the projector. Also, the students used their original questions to ask more open-­‐ended questions, reaching the upper levels of Bloom's taxonomy while continuing in the tradition of Dewey's "democratic thinking" (Refer to appendix 5 for my supervisor's observation of the activity.). Final Project The final project incorporated all of the lenses that students had used throughout their study of Fahrenheit 451. During our unit, students were required to examine the real-­‐world significance of many topics from the book through text-­‐text, text-­‐self, and text-­‐world connections. All of the previously mentioned activities included methods for evoking connections between the text and our world. Therefore, in order to have a final project that assessed the culmination of skills developed throughout the unit, it was essential that it include similar connections. Newhouse 23 I found an excellent project that comprised the essential skills that I had worked on with students. The title of the unit in which I discovered this project is Science Fiction: Critiquing the Present, Exploring the Future by Joshua Dyer, and this conceptual unit challenges students to examine science fiction works as a social commentary about real-­‐world experiences (making connections). Throughout our unit, as previously stated, we explored the ways in which Ray Bradbury used the genre of science fiction to examine his beliefs about the 1950s and project them into an imaginary futuristic world, which students discovered shared some eerie similarities to our world today. For the students' project, they needed to form connections from their world and use their own critical lenses to envision how a current trend might be projected into the future, which, again, capitalizes on Dewey's belief in the "relevance of teaching to the actual lived experiences of the student" (Kucey, Parsons 13). The project provides students with choices, and as with all of the activities, the students' proclivities (Gardner's multiple intelligences) are an integral part. For the first option, students were invited to write a one-­‐thousand word paper examining another science fiction work to observe the social implications from our world that are projected in the work. The second option, for the more artistically adept students, was for them to create an artifact for the future while explaining its current cultural significance and its validity for a future Earth (appendix 6). In the example project, the student cites current social dilemmas of "poor air quality" and "high oil demand" for the reasons that spurred his invention: "the 2985 Ford Efficiency, Ford's most fuel efficient vehicle ever." As the year of the car Newhouse 24 suggests, the student projected current concerns into the future. As the name of the car suggests, the growing trends of rapidly deteriorating natural resources and increasing air pollution have created a need for his creation. By projecting current societal concerns into a future imagined world, the student incorporates his understanding of dystopic and science fiction themes. Concluding Remarks & a Call for Further Research Throughout this paper, I have explored several ways through which teachers may facilitate meaningful connections to literature for their students. I have taken a look at what students value about their books, the ability of students to appreciate complex texts, and various methods through which teachers can help students to form meaningful connections to their texts. Through drawing on various lenses throughout the unit, students were prepared to apply them independently to assess the societal relevancy of a work of science fiction. Although I have explored an array of methods for facilitating richer reading experiences for students, there are still additional areas where further exploration is needed. For instance, I explored lenses primarily in the form of activities comprised of simplified literary theory: text-­‐text, text-­‐self and text-­‐world connections. However, I would be interested in researching the ways in which more specific literary theories could be applied as lenses. I wonder whether introducing students to more technical literary terms would lead them to richer interpretations of a novel. Additionally, it would be interesting to research the ability of students to use Newhouse literary terminology to assess the merits of a given work in order to explain what makes it valuable to them as readers. 25 Newhouse 26 Appendix 1 (Taken from a SCoodle forum in response to the ALA's 100 most banned books) my favorite books, such as Eragon, or Divine Madness... ...explore interesting and complex themes... tell stories and disseminate information Some of my favorite books are The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Book of Lost Things, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. they are things that I enjoy going back to again and again. they are very important parts of our culture. classics, and that's what makes us want to read them...you are supposed to read for pleasure 1984 I just read that for an English project. And it made you think. Books are a way of expressing opinion... Books are a valuable source of information Some of my favorite books are My Sister's Keeper and The Time Traveler's Wife... everyone is entitled to their opinion and to have their voice heard through the words of the text that they have written. My favorite book is "Before I Die" by Jenny Downham, it is about a teenage girl with Lukiemia who has a list of unruly things that she wants to do before she dies. My favorite movie is "Dear John" because it triggers a lot of emotion which makes movies more enjoyable to watch. One of my favorite books, Gone With the Wind... To Kill A Mockingbird... was a very important part of my English class in 8th grade... books are a way of younger generations learning from older generation's mistakes, and preventing them from happening again. Some of my favorite books are the two Jurassic Park novels my favorite movie would probably be the Boondock Saints. Catcher in the Rye... That book contains ideas and issues that most of us never think about. But by reading it and thinking about them we can realize our faults and fix them. Harry Potter... I remember being a little kid running around waving a stick. a book is a way to express your own beliefs and talk about the struggles which society may be facing...they allow us to express out beliefs and expand your knowledge Newhouse 27 I have a few favorite books. They are The Last Song, The Lying Game, and Pretty Little Liars. My favorite movie is A Walk To Remember. [books] are people's opinions I have read A Separate Peace, Animal Farm, and I have also seen the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest... they are classic pieces of literature and film that deliver a very good message... the message that these books and films portray can be meaningful to students. I read To Kill A Mockingbird, which I'm sure most, if not all, of us have read. I enjoyed the book more than any other book I read through school last year... a message that we humans need to learn Appendix 2 Newhouse Appendix 3 28 VOCABULARY WORKSHEETS - Fahrenheit 451
Part I: Using Prior Knowledge and Contextual Clues - Reading Assignment
Below are the sentences in which the vocabulary words appear in the text. Read the
sentence. Use any clues you can find in the sentence combined with your prior knowledge, and
write what you think the underlined words mean on the lines provided.
1. With his symbolic helmet number 451 on his stolid head...he flicked the igniter and the house
jumped up in a gorging fire.
2. Impossible: for how many people did you know that refracted your own light to you. 3. And if the muscles of his jaws stretched imperceptibly, she would yawn long before he would.
4. He felt that the stars had been pulverized by the sound of the black jets and that in the morning
the earth would be covered with their dust like a strange snow.
5. And the men with the cigarettes in their straight-lined mouths, the men with the eyes of puff
adders, took up their load of machine and tube, their case of liquid melancholy and the slow
dark sludge of nameless stuff, and strolled out the door.
6. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the Nylon-brushed
nostrils of the creature. . .
7. Below, the Hound had sunk back down upon its eight incredible insect legs and was humming
to itself again, it multifaceted eyes at peace.
31
Newhouse Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary for Reading Assignment 1 Continued
29 8. It's like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide on for it. Part II: Determining the Meaning
Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions. If there are words for which
you cannot figure out the definition by contextual clues and by process of elimination, look them
up in a dictionary.
1. stolid
A. Sadness; gloominess
2. refracted
B. The study of the dynamics of projectiles 3. imperceptibly
C. Having or revealing little emotion
4. pulverized
D. Having many faces
5. melancholy
E. Deflected from a straight path
6. capillary
F. Impossible to detect by ordinary senses 7. multifaceted
G. Fine; small in diameter
8. ballistics
H. Reduced to powder
32
Newhouse 30 Appendix 4 Appendix 5 Newhouse 31 Appendix 6 Newhouse 32 Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Del Rey, 2003. Print. Cline, Austin. "Heinrich Heine on Burning Books: Connecting the Holocaust to Book Burning." Agnosticism / Atheism -­ Skepticism & Atheism for Atheists & Agnostics. About.com. Web. 09 June 2011. <http://atheism.about.com/od/weeklyquotes/a/heine01.htm>. Collins, Mary B. Fahrenheit 451: A Unit Plan. Teacher's Pet Publications, Inc., 1996. Web. 25 May 2011. Cumming-­‐Potvin, Wendy. "Scaffolding, Multiliteracies, and Reading Circles Scaffolding, Multiliteracies, and Reading Circles." Canadian Journal of Education 30.2 (2007): 483-­‐507. JSTOR. Web. <http://www.coe.uga.edu/~smago/VirtualLibrary/index.html>. Dyer, Joshua S. Science Fiction: Critiquing the Present, Exploring the Future. University of Georgia, 2004. Web. 25 May 2011. <http://www.coe.uga.edu/~smago/VirtualLibrary/index.html>. Gallagher, Kelly. "Article of the Week." Building Deeper Readers and Writers. Kelly Gallagher, 2008. Web. 22 May 2011. Gardner, Howard. Frames of the Mind: the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. 2nd ed. New York: Basic, 1993. Print. Hesse, Douglas. "Canon and Critical Thinking." The English Journal 78.7 (1989): 16-­‐ 22. JSTOR. ITHIKA. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/817948> Newhouse 33 Kucey, Sharen, and Jim Parsons. Connecting Dewey and Assessment for Learning.ERIC. Web. 5 June 2011. Lenski, Susan. "Intertextual Intentions: Making Connections Across Texts." Clearing House 72.2 (1998): 74-­‐80. ERIC. Web. 1 June 2011. Neal, Mary-­‐Anne. "Engaging Students through Effective Questions." Education Canada 51.1 (2011): 0. ERIC. Web. 1 June 2011. "Socratic Seminars -­‐ StudyGuide.org." Home -­ StudyGuide.org. Web. 09 June 2011. <http://www.studyguide.org/socratic_seminar.htm>. Whitney, Anne E., Michael Ridgeman, and Gary Masquelier. "Beyond "Is This OK?": High School Writers Building Understandings of Genre." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 57.7 (2011): 525-­‐33. Print.