Teaching Strategies
These are strategies that will be used throughout the unit and subsequently the school year. Specific activities to go along with these more general strategies will be outlined in the following section.
Binder Set-up
The use of a binder with dividers throughout the year will not only keep things organized but also house all the students’ work for the year on the Statement of Inquiry and essential questions which will prove helpful with the year-long project. The binder should have five sections: Historical Background, See Think Wonder, Using Language, Literary Devices, and Year Long Writing Assessment. The Historical Background section will house notes on historical background and the image & text relationship for the various literary periods. The See Think Wonder section is where all those exercises can be kept. The Using Language (grammar concepts) and Literary Devices sections is where all class notes will go respectively. Finally, the Year-Long Writing Assessment is where the students will keep track of their writing process, so it will contain all the journaling brainstorms, outlining, notes on rough draft writing, conferences, peer collaborations, etc.
See Think Wonder
See Think Wonder is a fabulous introduction to reading images and a great tool while trying to increase all types of literacy levels. After giving the students an image (or image paired with text), ask the following questions: What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? A See Think Wonder exercise allows students to break down and slow the way they look at images. It asks students to make observations, interpret their observations and question the image. It is in its essence very elementary but builds to higher order thinking.
First, it asks the student to identify what they see in the most basic way--identify shapes, colors, recognizable objects, etc. For example, if we were to do this activity for Magritte’s “Treachery of Images” mentioned earlier, the answer to this would be “I see letters or words written, a large black & brown pipe against a beige background.” It is important to note that the students should be looking at the markings at the bottom of the page as grouped letters. To think would be to read them and that is next. This concept can be used when teaching literary analysis with text alone as well. The purpose of taking each of these steps is slow down the eye and not miss anything.
Then, it asks students to take those observations to another level and asks what they think about the things that have identified--to read the grouped letters at the bottom, translate the words if the knowledge is there, identify it as a depressing image, comment on the busyness or simplicity of it, possibly compose a backstory, etc. For our image, students may respond “I think that smoking a pipe is bad for your health” but ideally they soon begin to read the letters and words, so their thoughts turn to questions on the discrepancy between the text and image.
Lastly, begin to ask them to question the image and think deeper about it. As the student “wonders” about the image they are thinking about a variety of components--its origin, authorial/artistic intentions, possibly a critical lens to view it through, etc. Finally, this should be where the students begin to question Magritte’s intention in creating this piece. Hopefully, the students will wonder their way into McCloud’s ideas on iconology and ask why it is not a pipe. Using this technique on images, again a non-threatening mode of analysis for students, is preparing students to do close readings on text or image-texts as the year goes on.
Utilizing the Writing Process & Teacher Student Conferences
Since this unit includes a text-creation project, it will become increasingly important for students to be organized and be able to recognize what point in the writing/creative process they are at. Because of this, student will keep everything in their binders under the Year Long Writing Assessment. For my purposes here, the writing process has 6 stages: brainstorming (various activities & journaling), outlining, rough draft writing, peer edit/work shopping, ongoing revision, and publication (final copy due to the teacher). Since everyone’s project will most likely look very different, it is very important that the students have some autonomy with their process. However, assessment of the process must also occur; there needs to be tangible evidence of each stage of the process in this binder section. In many ways, the process is just as important as the final publication product. In order for the students to understand that ideal, there need to be benchmarks throughout the year where the progress is assessed and recorded in the gradebook.
In addition, there needs to be time set aside to conference with students and allow for peer editing and, more importantly, collaboration. During these conference times, the students can show their work and receive feedback. Assessing the process should be based on artifacts (consistent journaling for brainstorming, text/image creation, peers comments on the student’s work, etc.) and on their ability to communicate their thoughts through oral communication. The majority of documents will be housed on Google Suite, so teacher and student have constant access to the documents for communication as well as peers being able to collaborate. Students must be given time to workshop their ideas throughout the process.
One of the ongoing objectives of the unit, and ideally an outcome of this strategy specifically, is teaching students that writing is an organic process that takes time and revision and may never quite possibly be “done.” I am hoping that housing their creative process here will drive that point home and pragmatically keep them organized and engaged.
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