Chapter 2 Teaching Comprehension of Complex Disciplinary Texts
69
Comprehension of Literary Texts
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In comparison with the three disciplinary texts that we have just examined, the following Of
Mice and Men excerpt may seem remarkably less complicated. Readers are not navigating
elaborate pages rife with varied informational displays and compacted sentences and
paragraphs steeped in insider discourse. Unlike the textbooks, this book is completely
prose text: no visual information, no study supports, just page after page of unbroken
paragraphs. At the start of Chapter 3, you read this:
Slim and George came into the darkening bunk house together. Slim reached up
over the card table and turned on the tin-shaded electric light. Instantly the table
was brilliant with light, and the cone of the shade threw its brightness straight
downward, leaving the corners of the bunk house in dusk. Slim sat down on a box,
and George took his place opposite.
“It wasn’t nothing,” said Slim. “I would of had to drowned most of ’em anyways. No
need to thank me about that.” (Steinbeck 1963, 42)
However, readers of literary fiction are presented with more novel challenges. There is
no technical vocabulary in the passage, although several references are made to life in a past
time and place. This text also includes dialogue and dialect. Sentences are straightforward
and not very elaborate. The entire work follows a storytelling pattern, as many of the same
characters will be featured during the narration of the action throughout the book.
Indirect Communications
Unlike the science, history, and algebra examples, literary fiction such as Steinbeck’s
classic novel represents an indirect communication. Expository texts, such as the sample
Progressives, protists, and linear equations pages, can be seen as direct communications:
the authors undertake to tell readers directly what they think is important for the readers
to know. Of course, as pointed out in the previous sections, these texts also have significant
implicit layers: unstated assumptions of knowledge, understanding, and perspective.
However, the intention of authors of expository texts is to directly convey some sort of
meaningful communication.
Literary fiction, however, depends on the reader’s interpretation to achieve an
understanding. Authors of literary fiction communicate to readers through the telling of
a story, the behavior of characters, the use of language, and the craft of literary devices.
Authors of literary fiction may grapple with ideas or project a point of view about some
facet of life as a key element to their writing, as opposed to authors of popular fiction,
whose main goal may be to tell an interesting story and provide entertainment to the
reader. Did Steinbeck have something on his mind when he wrote Of Mice and Men? Was
there something he wanted readers to understand about the Great Depression, the lives of
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Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines, Second Edition
displaced people, obligations to cognitively challenged individuals, friendship, loyalty, and
morally ambiguous choices? If so, he does not directly tell us; it is left to the interpretations
of his readers, using what he tells us and our own knowledge and experiences as guides for
constructing our understandings.
As indirect communications, literary texts generally approach argumentation in more
subtle, implicit ways, as possible author arguments are embedded in the storytelling, to be
articulated through reader interpretations of conceivable themes of a story or novel. For
example, one can certainly argue that George Orwell definitely had something on his mind
and was proffering some cogent arguments in both Animal Farm and 1984. Consequently,
there is no Reading Standard 8 on argumentation for Literature, with the emphasis instead
on detecting theme (Reading Standard 2) and point of view (Reading Standard 6).
Many individuals relish the experience of reading through a literary lens. However,
other readers can become frustrated with this challenge of constructing meaning with
competing possibilities, preferring instead expository texts and authors who come right
out and tell us what they have to say. It is certainly acceptable for individuals to desire texts
that exhibit direct communications.
In our schools, such individuals
Contemporary research in psychology
are frequently those who have math
and brain functioning confirms the value
or science identities and may not
see the point of reading literary
of fiction in our intellectual and emotional
texts. Another group that can be
lives, telling us that the effects of reading
resistant at times are those students
fiction are far more significant than the
who are readers of popular fiction—
mere pleasure of vicarious experience and
sometimes voracious readers of a
the temporary and insignificant release
particular genre such as fantasy or
of momentary escape from the present.
teen-centric novels—and expect
(Beers and Probst 2013, 17–18)
fiction to be entertainment and
deal with topics of high interest to
them. These students revel in the
vicarious experiences of their personal reading and may be stern judges of literary fiction
as boring, disconnected from their lives, lacking in the imaginative flavor they seek, and
too challenging for expending their time and energy. Many students, exasperated by their
struggles with a work of literature, lobby to just be told what the book means, hoping for a
CliffsNotes distillation from their teacher that they can settle on as their comprehension.
“
A Fictional Lens
Unlike science and mathematics classrooms, students do anticipate that they will be reading
and writing for a significant portion of their learning in English language arts classes.
Students will read from a variety of literary genres, from short stories, novels, plays, and
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Chapter 2 Teaching Comprehension of Complex Disciplinary Texts
71
poetry, to literary nonfiction such as essays, speeches, biographies, and autobiographies, to
informational texts such as newspaper and magazine articles, to a myriad of online texts.
Literary fiction, whether delivered in literature anthologies or met in novels, can
be especially problematic for students as they develop their capacity to read through a
literary lens. First, because literary fiction is an indirect communication, readers need to
be constantly aware of the author’s voice and the author’s “moves” in writing the work.
Readers are called on to infer the author’s perspective as they interact with the elements
of a story. Furthermore, the craft of an author not only displays aesthetic value as a work of
art but also is critical to the communication of a possible theme and ideas.
Second, novels, because of their length, require endurance, perseverance, and the ability
to track events and ideas through extended story lines and details. Readers have to stay with
it even if a work does not sparkle with the excitement and appeal of book-length popular
fiction. Third, readers must engage their imaginations to re-create a world suggested by an
author, a world that might focus
on people, places, times, events,
Fiction addresses the concerns of real life,
and cultural practices that are
its myriad stages, conditions, times, and
very distant from readers’ lives
or are unknown to readers. A
places. It shows readers what it means to
common complaint by students
be human. And it is rooted in facts. (Atwell
is “Why do we have to read this
2016, 21)
book about people who are not
like us?”
Our Of Mice and Men example illustrates these variables of literary fiction: a story set
during a past historical period with people of European descent placed in a rural western
United States context that includes descriptive writing, dialogue between characters, and
storytelling by an author skillfully employing literary devices in his craft. What this book
might mean is something that students need to explore with their teacher and with each
other.
“
“
Writing Conventions
In addition, literary fiction can contain a huge range of writing conventions and use of
language. Students might read noncontemporary prose with more intricate and lengthy
sentence structures by authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, or Edgar
Allan Poe. Students might encounter unfamiliar dialects in works by Zora Neale Hurston
or Mark Twain. Students might have to resolve unconventional narrative structures,
such as stories told out of sequence or by multiple narrators. Students are also likely to
be expected to infer meanings of unfamiliar general vocabulary, words infrequently used
in conversation but that surface as the more precise language of written texts. A random
stop on a page in Of Mice and Men reveals the words lumbered, brusquely, pantomime,
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contemplated, imperiously, and terrier—Tier 2 vocabulary that can be difficult for many
students.
Literary Terminology
Unlike our science, social studies, and mathematics examples, however, the discourse of
literature does not necessarily appear on the page of the novels and short stories read by
students. Instead, the disciplinary discourse of English classes appears in the discussion
and analysis of literary works. Terminology such as figurative language, metaphor, simile,
flashback, foreshadowing, satire, irony, parody, diction, allusion, and symbolism are all
vehicles for describing and explaining the author’s craft as readers wrestle with developing
an interpretation of a literary text. In effect, readers must pick up that an author is using
irony even though the word irony is nowhere on the page. There is also the discourse of
composition (for example, thesis statement, parallel structure, present tense), the discourse
of grammar (noun, conjunction, adjective, complex sentence, modifier), and so forth.
The discourse of literature provides a disciplinary tool for communicating recognition
of an author’s moves in writing a work and communicating understandings of that work.
For example, readers should be aware that the book’s title, Of Mice and Men, is an allusion
to a line in Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse, on Turning Her up in Her Nest With the
Plough” (“The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew”) as they consider possible
ideas that Steinbeck is exploring through his story. Of course, many of our students would
rather just read the story and not spend all that time delving into it using this disciplinary
terminology.
Mentoring Literary Readers
Given that the reading of written texts is central to the English language arts curriculum,
it is frequently assumed that it is the English language arts teachers who should shoulder
the responsibilities for the development of adolescent readers and writers. Yet, English
language arts teachers protest that they are not trained reading teachers either, and
clearly the English language arts curriculum does not encompass the type of disciplinary
texts that are prevalent in science, social studies, mathematics, and technical fields.
And, as previously stated, students read more than literature in English/language arts
classrooms; CCSS expectations place an increased emphasis on informational texts
as well. Researchers such as Peter Smagorinsky (2015) note that ELA has historically
“foregrounded” the reading of literary texts, but that the discussion of reading in the ELA
curriculum needs to expand beyond literature.
However, readers of literature also need mentoring. As Lee and Spratley (2010) observe,
“Just as there is little direct instruction about how to tackle the problems that disciplinary
texts pose in history, science, and mathematics classrooms, there is also insufficient
attention in literature classrooms to the nuts and bolts of how to read a range of literary
texts” (9).
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Chapter 2 Teaching Comprehension of Complex Disciplinary Texts
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In a wonderful disciplinary literacy resource for English language arts teachers, Kelly
Gallagher (2004) makes a strong distinction between assigning reading and teaching
reading: “When it comes to reading challenging text, not enough attention has been paid
to understanding the steps we can take to provide effective scaffolding for our struggling
readers” (7). He describes a series of classroom literacy practices that take readers
through surface understandings to second-draft readings that engage readers in focused
rereadings and collaboration to construct deeper understandings of complex literary
works.
Smith and Wilhelm (2010) sum up mentoring students to read through a literary lens:
It seems so obvious that we should teach students how to do what we want them to
do, but sadly, many reviews of what and how we teach in our English language arts
classes show that it is rarely done. In our experience, however, rather than focus on
teaching students how to read literature, teachers often substitute teaching two
other foci: technical vocabulary and the details of a particular interpretation of a
text. (10)
Instructional ideas on reading through a literary lens are emphasized in subsequent
chapters.
REFLECTION INTERLUDE
A Return to the Gradual Release Model
Reflect on your thinking about the gradual release of responsibility model (see
Chapter 1, page 23). Focus on one of the four sample texts in this chapter: science,
history, algebra, literature. What kinds of modeling, instructional support, and
scaffolding would make it possible for students to gradually develop, grade by
grade, the capacity to meaningfully interact with texts in the discipline you
have selected for consideration?
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PARTING THOUGHTS AND TALKING POINTS
•
Teachers can, and indeed need to, teach reading comprehension.
Comprehension instruction emphasizes explicit modeling and support of
fundamental comprehension processes: making connections to background
knowledge, generating questions, creating visual and mental images, making
inferences, determining importance, synthesizing, monitoring, and problem
solving.
•
Comprehension instruction must be embedded in the teaching of the
discourse of an academic discipline to support learners as they increasingly
assume some of the attributes of insiders. Content teachers, as masters of
their disciplinary discourse, are the people best positioned to mentor their
students as they experiment with using comprehension strategies to learn
within specific academic disciplines.
•
Reading through a disciplinary lens involves immersion into the discourse
of a discipline. Students gain experience with reading, writing, hearing,
and speaking the talk of an academic discourse and gradually adjust their
thinking to correspond to the way scientists, historians, mathematicians,
fiction authors, and other disciplinary experts think when engaged in
reading and learning in their respective disciplines.
•
Understanding the nature of argumentation, and how arguments are
developed and supported in different disciplines, is an essential component
in learning within a discipline.
•
Teachers need to examine the role that written texts should play in the
learning within their disciplines. Students who are not expected to read, or
who can rely on being told or shown what they need to know, do not develop
their capacities as readers of disciplinary complex texts.
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Chapter 3
Teaching to the Match: Bridging
Academic Knowledge Gaps
Essential Question: How do academic knowledge gaps affect the
reading of disciplinary texts?
W
had’Ya Know? For years the iconic public radio comedy quiz show Whad’Ya
Know? based in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, kicked off each program
with host Michael Feldman asking this whimsical question, which was immediately
answered in a cheerfully resounding chorus by the studio audience (and mouthed by the
listeners back home): “Not much!” Of course, this is all in good fun, but what you know
is a make-or-break variable in reading comprehension. And “not much” is a significant
handicap when reading complex disciplinary texts.
For example, what would a reader have to know if the following passage were to make
any sense? Obviously, you would need to know meanings of words, but what about deeper
knowledge? As you read the paragraph, make a mental inventory of all the knowledge a
reader must bring to this text if comprehension is to occur:
Modern forensic science is in the midst of a great reckoning. Since a series of highprofile legal challenges in the 1990s increased scrutiny of forensic evidence, a range
of long-standing crime-lab methods have been deflated or outright debunked. Bite75
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mark analysis—a kind of dental fingerprinting that dates back to the Salem witch
trials—is now widely considered unreliable; the “uniqueness and reproducibility”
of ballistics testing has been called into question by the National Research Council.
In 2004, the FBI was forced to issue an apology after it incorrectly connected
an Oregon attorney named Brandon Mayfield to that spring’s train bombings in
Madrid, on the basis of a “100 percent” match to partial fingerprints found on
plastic bags containing detonator devices. Last year, the bureau admitted that it
had reviewed testimony by its microscopic-hair-comparison analysts and found
errors in at least 90 percent of the cases. DNA typing has long been held up as
the exception to the rule—an infallible technique rooted in unassailable science.
(Shaer 2016, 49)
The passage is excerpted from an Atlantic magazine article on the false promise of
DNA testing in law enforcement. What did you notice as necessary reader background
knowledge? Clearly, there are language variables at play in the paragraph. A reader must be
conversant with sophisticated Tier 2 vocabulary (for example, reckoning, profile, scrutiny,
deflated, debunked, unreliable, uniqueness, reproducibility, infallible, unassailable), but
it is certainly possible for a reader to be comfortable using each of those words and still
be mystified by what the author might be talking about. Readers must also be tuned in
to the Tier 3 vocabulary of criminal science discourse (forensic, fingerprinting, crimelab, ballistics, detonator, microscopic-hair-comparison, DNA typing, testimony), which
involves extensive conceptual knowledge, as discussed in Chapter 2. The author also
alludes to organizations and place-based events (FBI, Salem, Madrid), expecting that
readers will establish meaningful connections to each as they read along.
Yet the complexity of this passage can hardly be ascribed to merely hard words. Beyond
vocabulary, readers must activate several packets of considerable knowledge to facilitate
an understanding of this paragraph:
•
Forensic Science: What this is, why it is used, who does it, what crime labs are,
what some of the procedures and techniques of this field are;
•
Biological Science: What genetics is, what DNA is, how DNA is related to forensic
science;
•
Criminal Justice System: What crimes are, who investigates crimes, what laws are,
who makes laws, who enforces laws, who breaks laws, what types of crimes involve
forensic science;
•
Courts and the Legal System: Who’s involved in the legal system, how evidence is
gathered in legal cases, who gathers it, what forensic science has to do with the
legal system, how courts operate, how trials unfold, how judgments are decided;
•
Societal Concerns with Justice: What legal challenges are, why there are legal
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