ELLEN
BERG
Diary #23
A Novel Confession
I have a dirty little secret.
Shh. Don't tell.I am a sixth year language arts teacher and I have no clue how to "teach" a novel. Isn't that something my college professors were supposed to be sure I was proficient at before they unleashed me on hundreds -- thousands, eventually -- of kids who trust me to teach them what to do with a longer book?
Well, I am here to say they failed in their duties, because I am starting a novel study in another couple of weeks, and I am in panic mode.
Thanks to the Middleweb listserv and an abundance of quality books by folks like Ellin Keene and Janet Allen, I do know what effective reading practice looks like. I long to abandon packed-up high school memories of study guides, daily quizzes, and questions no one cared about and embrace a new way of reading our novels, reading to be delighted in the printed word, sinking way down in the story so that the classroom disappears.My obstructions
Unfortunately there are several obstructions in the road to bliss. Never mind I am probably putting them there myself (the kids have a way of getting around all sorts of obstacles when properly motivated). I am worried about several things:
1. How do I support my students who are reading at a much lower level, who still have issues with decoding text? 2. How do I go beyond teaching them the book? What concepts and skills do they need to know to translate to readings of other novels? How do I teach them those concepts within the context of our novel? 3. How do I deal with pacing? What happens when my proficient readers finish the novel weeks ahead of schedule and my slower readers are weeks behind? 4. What types of support do I need to give all my students? How can I have them practice the comprehension strategies without being too intrusive? 5. What happens when we finish? Do they pick a project, or is the "doing" along the way enough? These questions and many more bombard me constantly, even creeping into my dreams. Every time I try to sit down and plan, my heart rate quickens, my already too short fingernails get shorter, and I retreat from making these very crucial decisions.Gosh darn it, I want to be right!
There's no "right" answer
The real problem is there is no one "right" way to do this. I am starting to understand the frustration and work avoidance I sometimes see in my students as they are presented with an open-ended task which requires understanding some general principles but has no one right answer. I understand their pleas to "Just tell me what to do!" As much as I value my independence and freedom of thought, here, now, with the responsibility of 100 students' learning in my hands, I want someone to tell me what to do. But alas, this is not to be. Just as this is an opportunity for my students to develop their comprehension skills, it is an opportunity for me to develop my skills as a teacher of the novel. As in so many other areas of my practice, I will have to learn by trial and error. And I'll get it -- eventually.The first task at hand is to decide on the novel. My team is teaching a loose thematic unit on the Medieval times, so I have several excellent books set in the Middle Ages from which to choose. My first thought was to have five or six books available and to let my students choose which novel to read in a literature circle, but I have decided against that, mostly for very practical reasons.
Although I would like to give my students a choice, I realize I am not ready or equipped to help my students be successful if I am pulled in so many different directions. Sometimes we have to compromise our very best practice simply because if we do not, nothing will work well.
Still, the question of which novel to pick is tricky. How do I find a book that everyone can enjoy? Many quality young adult novels seem to be geared to one gender or another, and my current situation is no exception. One book, though superficially geared to young women, might fit the bill simply because of the topic. The novel is Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It is the story of what happens to Cinderella after she moves to the palace and before she marries the prince. Let us just say that "happily ever after" is an incorrect description of what she experiences in the palace.
I like the story because it shows a young woman who takes charge of her own destiny instead of relying on someone else to take care of her life's decisions. Since we have been studying different Cinderella stories, I think my boys will find a lot to like in the book as well. Finally, since we have already spent a lot of time building our background knowledge about Cinderella, a scaffold of comprehension is already in place. It seems like the best candidate.
What do I want my kids to know?
The second decision I have to make is regarding content. What do I want my kids to know after reading this novel? I want students to be able to make text-to-text (TT), text-to-self (TS), and text-to-world (TW) connections to aid their comprehension. I want students to understand the general structure of a novel and to be able to recognize those elements in context because I think good readers use those structures subconsciously to help them define their expectations about what will happen next. Finally, I want my students to become comfortable with talking about what they have read, because I know talking about our ideas deepens our comprehension.Okay. So I know what I want to learn and be able to do. The real trick is how to do it. I do not want to be too intrusive, but I do want to be sure my students have the support and learning opportunities they need. One thing I think I need to do is spend a week or so practicing TS, TT, and TW connections on shorter pieces.
Then, as students read, I can have them keep dialectical journals with their connections, requiring perhaps three or four connections per reading. I also think during the last 10 minutes of class it would be a good idea to have students share some of their connections and record them on a class chart. If my struggling students see other students' thinking on paper, it might help them develop their own skills.
Some strategies to teach structure
To teach the structure of the novel, I think I will take a less direct approach. I think I might be able to ask questions along the way in whole- and small-group discussions that might help students anticipate and use the elements of a novel to aid their comprehension. After we finish reading the whole book, I could go back and help them directly recognize those elements.
I am also going to spend some time to put the book on tape. My slower, less proficient readers can use the tape to help them focus on comprehension and not decoding. I will also make a copy for the resource teacher so he can review with my IEP kids.As for a
final project, do I really need one? Will it teach them anything new,
or will it just be a pretty decoration at the end of the novel? At one
of Dr. Beers' workshops she shared a quote from a young man who hated
to read in school. He essentially said that even when teachers chose interesting
novels to read, they always ruined it by assigning some stupid project
at the end. I think this young man has made an excellent observation.
As I read over what I have just written, it seems I might know an awful lot more about how to teach this novel than I formerly thought I did. It may not be a perfect plan, but it is a start in the right direction. The power of reflection!
Sorry. You'll just have to gossip about someone else. I do know how to teach a novel, at least a little. ;-)
