VPSS
English – Level 1
Literary Response – Reading Comprehension
VPSS Training
San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools
Day 2
Literary Response and Analysis
Metacognitive Strategies for Making Sense of
the Text:
Prereading, Predicting, Questioning, Word
Analysis, Concept Formation
Agenda
• Inside-Outside Circle
• Standards Trace – Literary Analysis
• Strategies for Frontloading Vocabulary
• Metacognitive Strategies for Making Sense of Text
• “After Twenty Years” – O.Henry
• Elements of Plot
• Characterization
Inside – Outside Circle
• Take a few minutes and write down 3 big ideas from
Day 1.
• Form two circles facing each other
• Share one of your ideas with the person facing you
• At time, the outside circle will move one person to
the right.
• Share another idea with your new partner
What is Literary Response and
Analysis?
• Quickwrite: On notebook paper,
write down what you believe
students are expected to do when
analyzing literary text.
Reading Domain
Domain
Reading
Strand
3.0 – Literary Response and
Analysis
Substrand
Narrative Analysis of Grade Level
Appropriate Text
Standard
3.4 – Determine characters’ traits
by what the characters say about
themselves in narration, dialogue,
dramatic monologue, and soliloquy.
Standards Trace
• Each table has been assigned a literary analysis
substrand
• Search the Literary Analysis standards (3.0) for
grades 6-12
• Notice how the standard changes
• Create a poster to illustrate the development of this
topic for students
• Be prepared to share
Reading and Responding to
Literature
Research shows that good teaching begins with clear
learning goals.
Goals are the reason classroom activities are designed.
Without clear goals, classroom activities are without
direction.
Researchers Joseph Krajcik, Katherine McNeill, and Brian
Reiser (2007) explain that good teaching begins with clear
learning goals from which teachers select appropriate
instructional activities and assessments that help
determine students’ progress on the learning goals.
Marzano, R. (2009). Designing & teaching learning goals & objectives (p. 4).
Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Goal: what you want your students to be able to do
Activities and Assignments: what you give your students to do to
master the material to support that goal
Strategies: how you make the text accessible to your students
through those activities and assignments so the student can attain the
goal.
Goal specificity begins with making a distinction between learning
goals and the classroom activities and assignments that will support
those goals… As the names imply, activities and assignments are things
students will be asked to do. They are a critical part of effective
teaching, but they are not ends in themselves. They constitute the
means by which the ends, or learning goals, are to be accomplished.
Marzano, R. (2009). Designing & teaching learning goals & objectives (p.
13). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Goal
• Identify narrative
features of the plot
of O. Henry’s
“After Twenty
Years”
• Develop
vocabulary
• Read and
comprehend the
story
FRONTLOAD FRONTLOAD FRONTLOAD
“The more we frontload
students’ knowledge of a text
and help them become
actively involved in
constructing meaning prior to
reading, the more engaged
they are likely to be as they
read the text.”
(Beers, 101)
Activities
• Use graphic organizers –
• Index Cards Template
• Dialectical Journal
• Cognitive Dictionary
- to facilitate learning vocabulary from O.
Henry’s “After Twenty Years”
Strategy:
Create a Cognitive Dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com
Word
Predicted Meaning
Actual Meaning
Sketch
Stalwart
Vicinity
Staunchest
(stanchest)
Plodder
Egotism
Submerged
Your choice
©Freeology.com
Vocabulary Word Map
VOCABULARY WORD MAP
synonyms/antonyms
definition in your own words
VOCABULARY WORD
use it in a sentence
draw a picture of it
Practice and Discussion
• Why are these effective strategies?
• What are some ways you might adapt
the strategies for your student
population?
Strategy -Tea Party
• This strategy not only helps
students to identify vocabulary
words, it also acts as a
prereading activity that builds
fluency each time the text is
revisited.
• The variation here is using just
a snippet, or a sentence out-ofcontext to help students acquire
vocabulary, to make
predictions, and to facilitate
comprehension.
Practice and Discussion
• Why are these effective strategies?
• What are some ways you might adapt the
strategies for your student population?
• Predictions?
Narrative Features of the Plot
• Theme – what message does the author want
you to take away after you finish reading and
thinking about the story?
• Foreshadowing – what clues or hints does
the author give to prepare the reader for what
is to come?
Freytag’s Pyramid
Analyzing a story's plot:
Gustav Freytag was a Nineteenth Century
German novelist who saw common patterns
in the plots of stories and novels and
developed a diagram to analyze them. He
diagrammed a story's plot using a pyramid
like the one most of us are used to seeing.
Elements of Plot – Simple Version
Freytag’s Pyramid
• Exposition: setting the scene. The writer
introduces the characters and setting,
providing description and background.
• Inciting Incident: something happens to
begin the action. A single event usually
signals the beginning of the main conflict.
The inciting incident is sometimes called 'the
complication'.
• Rising Action: the story builds and gets
more exciting.
Freytag’s Pyramid
• Climax: the moment of greatest tension in a
story. This is often the most exciting event. It
is the event that the rising action builds up to
and that the falling action follows.
• Falling Action: events happen as a result of
the climax and we know that the story will
soon end.
• Resolution: the character solves the main
problem/conflict or someone solves it for
him or her.
Freytag’s Pyramid
• Dénouement: (a French term, pronounced: day-noo-moh) the
ending. At this point, any remaining secrets, questions or
mysteries which remain after the resolution are solved by
the characters or explained by the author. Sometimes the
author leaves us to think about the THEME or future
possibilities for the characters.
•
You can think of the dénouement as the opposite of the
exposition: instead of getting ready to tell us the story by
introducing the setting and characters, the author is
getting ready to end it with a final explanation of what
actually happened and how the characters think or feel
about it. This can be the most difficult part of the plot to
identify, as it is often very closely tied to the resolution.
•
Adapted from http://users.aber.ac.uk/jpm/ellsa/ellsa_openboat3.html
On-line Resources for Graphic
Organizers
• http://www.thesolutionsite.com
• http://www2.scholastic.com
• http://www.readwritethink.org
• …and many more…there are over 100,000
“hits” for “graphic organizer for plot”
• Don’t forget to use the resources that came
with your textbook…
Seeing is believing…
• Can you recognize
elements of plot?
• What kind of action
should happen next?
• Can you make
predictions?
Characterization
What you figure out for yourself…
•
Behavior – Speech and actions of the
character/Speech and actions of the other
characters as they relate to the character
•
Motivation – causes of the action that they
do - why they do what they do
•
Consequences – results of the actions
Characterization
•
Responsibility – moral, legal, or mental
accountability
•
Physical description of the character
And…
•
What the author tells you to believe about
the character
Austin Powers – International Man of
Mystery
Type of Indirect
Characterization
Speech
Thoughts
Effect on others
Actions
Looks
Examples
Explanation
Practice and Discussion
• Why are these effective strategies?
• What are some ways you might adapt the
strategies for your student population?
Cognitive Elements of the Reading
Process
• Chunking – how do you eat an elephant?
• Talk to the text – make the inner monologue
known
• Annotation – why it is good to have
consumables
• Dialectical journal – keep your thoughts
close
Background Information
• Read the
background
information
provided.
• You will be making
a prediction
Make a Final Prediciton
• Based on what you
might already know
about the author or
story
• Based on what you
learned by prereviewing
vocabulary
• Based on Tea Party
Finally: Read the Story
• Chunk the Text
• Stopping points are marked in the text
• Talk to the Text
• At each stopping point, pause your reading
and record your thoughts about what you read.
• Instructor will model the first TWO chunks.
After Your First Read
• What was your first reaction?
• Based on your predictions, was this story
what you were expecting?
• Check your initial Tea Party sequence.
• What is the theme?
Second Read - Chart the Plot
• Look for the
turning point…
• What
foreshadowing
“clues” can you
find?
Practice and Discussion
• Why are the strategies presented today
effective?
• What are some ways you might adapt the
strategies for your student population?
15 Minute Grammar
• Do your students turn in assignments written in
“text?”
• Grammar Girl
• Revise this text message:
Yo B-20 yrs. Lkng frwd to mtg w/u
agn. C u @ bjbs @ 10. ttyl J
Day 2 Outcomes
• Identify narrative features in After Twenty Years
• Develop vocabulary
• Read and comprehend the story
On Your Own
Write a lesson that embeds
the information you learned
from today’s workshop for
teaching reading of a literary
selection.
Standards Focus
• Reading 1.0: Word Analysis, Fluency, and
Systematic Vocabulary Development
• Vocabulary and Concept Development
• Reading 3.0: Literary Response and Analysis
• Structural Features of Literature
• Narrative Analysis
• Literary Criticism
Ticket Out the Door
• Please complete the sentence starters on your ticket
out the door as a reflection of today’s learning.
• Thank you!