Teaching Strategies
The strategies that I use in this lesson are not that far removed from most strategies that teachers use in any high school English classroom. While many English teachers engage students in powerful literature through short stories, riveting nonfiction texts, and beautiful poetry, it seems novels are beginning to fall by the wayside because of the shift in nonfiction versus fiction at the secondary level as evidenced by the Common Core State Standards for ELA-literacy.
Choice Survey
The first strategy that will be used in this unit is called a “choice survey” (See Appendix 1). This will require that students complete a survey on paper with questions asking them about which of the five dystopian novels they’ve read before, seen before, and would like to read for this unit. They will have to rank each book from #1-5 according to which book they want to read the most and which the least. #1 will be for students’ first choices and #5 will be for students’ 5th choices. It is also imperative that I consider their reading levels and relationships with each other when placing students in groups of four or five. Students who are too talkative with one another will not be placed together. Students who are very low will not all be placed in the group. They will be placed with stronger readers so that they do not struggle to read their given novels.
Think-Pair-Share
The activities set up throughout this unit require students to be familiar with a discussion model. My classroom is set up in the form of two very long tables with students on both sides of them. They will be prompted to turn to the partners sitting right next to them and across the table in order to think-pair-share when discussing important themes of their assigned novels. This strategy, the second strategy of my unit, is called “Think-Pair-Share”. It was designed to differentiate instruction by providing students time and structure in order to think about topics and themes covered in texts and share their ideas with a partner. Think-pair-share reinforces classroom participation by encouraging deep thought, conversational skills, and cooperative learning. This strategy is more effective in eliciting more student participation than when a teacher poses a question and students raise their hands to respond to his or her question. All students get the opportunity to share their thoughts with someone rather than competing to be called on. In other words, this discussion model promotes the speaking and listening strand of the Common Core State Standards and encourages student-to-student interactions in addition to the tradition model of discussions between the student and teacher alone.
Literature Circles
The next strategy that will be used in this unit is referred to as “literature circles”. This teaching approach is a collaborative and student-centered reading strategy that utilizes the book club format to promote in-depth literature discussions of meaningful texts.3 Students gather together with others who are reading the same text to discuss their assigned novel. Students are then introduced to their five separate roles in the literature circles: discussion leader, diction detective, connector, reporter, and illustrator.
The Discussion Director is the group facilitator for the day. The Discussion Director’s job is to keep everyone on task while facilitating effective communication between peers and communicating with the teacher about the group’s progress when necessary. The Discussion Director ensures that all group members get to participate and are respected. The Discussion Director may also provide clarification about directions, guidelines, and ideas shared when needed.4
The Reporter’s job is to identify and report on the key points of the assigned section. They are to make a list or write a summary that describes how the author develops the setting, plot, and character in this section of the book. Then, reporters will share their work with other group members at the beginning of the meeting to help them focus on the key plot elements in the read chapters.5
The Diction Detective’s role is to examine the vocabulary and language (word choice) used in the assigned chapters of their group’s novel. These students must search for words, phrases, and portions of text that are descriptive, meaningful, interesting, comical, thought-provoking, shocking, or confusing.6
The Connector makes connections between the events of the novel and other people, places, events in school, the community, other books or articles, movies, and the world. The connector can also make connections to other portions of the novel, just as long as they are significant. For instance, the connector may make a connection between conflicts experienced by the main character in one chapter and connect it to a solution read about in a future chapter while detailing what this connection is meaningful to a theme in the novel.7
The Artist’s role is to draw the most important event read about in the novel. It can be a cartoon, diagram, chart, or some other interpretation of the events of the chapters read. Students will use show their illustration to the group without any explanation during discussion time. Each student will be given time to comment on their artist’s picture. This will allow group members to guess what is happening in the picture, which will in turn build further understanding of the portions of text they read. After all students have commented and/or guessed what is happening in the picture, the artist will explain what is happening in the picture and what evidence helped them to illustrate it.8
Double-Entry Journal
Another strategy that will strengthen the implementation of this unit is the use of a double-entry journal. Double-Entry Journaling enables them to become more actively engaged with the text they are reading. Students record their responses to text as they close read by first recording quotes or sentences from their assigned reading to which they will respond later with their reactions to them. Double-Entry Journaling improves students' reading comprehension, vocabulary use, and content retention. Through reading, writing, and discussion of texts and writing, students are able to collaborate with peers and their teacher in order to deepen their understanding of literature.9
Jigsaw
The last strategy I plan to use in my instruction is called jigsaw. Jigsaw is a highly effective method for group sharing and learning of specific content and literature. This strategy helps students work collaboratively and fosters responsibility because each student becomes responsible for each other's learning by trying to master content in order to share it effectively. First, students must complete their assigned reading. Then, they must meet with others assigned to the same topic for about 20 – 30 minutes. The teacher may also choose to have them share about the same topic but from different texts. Students will then discuss the material in order to identify pertinent or interesting information worth bringing back to their "home groups" to instruct them about information that was learned or heard while in their "expert groups". Each student must teach what was learned to the other "home group" members.10
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