RESPONDING TO
LITERATURE
David H Slomp
What do we teach?
The Teaching Cycle (Milner and Milner)
Enter
Explore
Extend
What do we teach?
Time Allotment
Reader Response
Interpretive
Community
Formal Analysis
Critical Synthesis
Entering the text

The primary goals for these activities are
 To
engage students, to capture their attention, to make
them wonder about the book they think they won’t
enjoy.
 To somehow frame the
focus you hope to bring
to the study of the text.
 To activate prior
knowledge
Entering the text
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Free Writing
 Brainstorm a list of prompts you might give to students to help engage them with the text
Visual Representation
 Identify a visual representation assignment that a) taps into a key idea/symbol/theme of
Pirate’s Passage; b) that would generate student questions/curiosity.
Think-Pair-Share
 List a series of prompts that students could discuss as a means of preparing them to think about
the novel.
Internet Research
 Develop a number of prompts/topics that students could research. Prompts should a) connect to
an issue/historical context/key idea related to the novel; b) interest/engage students.
Minilecture
 Brainstorm a list of minilecture topics that you could use to introduce students to the text.
Script Writing
 Provide students with a loose context for creating a short skit that taps into a key
moment/issue/situation in Pirate’s Passage.
Other
 ??????? What can you come up with
Exploring the text
 What
principles for exploring text were illuminated
through your readings?
 What
principles might you add to this list?
Question: What does the monologic discussion of a text
teach students about texts and about themselves as readers?
Exploring the text: Reader response
Transaction refers to the
interactions between the
reader and the text.
This is the point where
meaning is constructed.
Personality, purposes,
experiences
Real world knowledge
Genre knowledge
Text knowledge
Meta-cognitive strategies
Textual Features
Reader response prompts
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Personal Triggers
 Think
of a Time when...
 Describe a person
who...
 Envision a situation...

Suppositional Readers
 Look
at the cover, what
does it suggest to you
about what is inside?
 Prediction activities . . .

Conceptual
Readiness/Synergistic
texts
 Select
three or for
texts that deal with
similar issues/concepts
 what
do these texts
reveal about the
concept?
 What can we learn
from the juxtaposition
of these texts?
Reader response prompts

Associative Reflections
you read, check
moments in the story
that feel familiar.
 Identify two most
powerful reference
points

 As
 This
character/event
reminds me of . . .
 The words here make
me think of . . .
Collaborative Authors
 Read
the text and join
the author’s project by
completing one of the
following prompts. . . .

Imagine this
 Monologues,
dreams,
dialogues, diaries. . .
from a character’s
perspective.
Reader Response Prompts

Character relationships
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Have students develop a
tableaux which represents
shifts in the relationship
between characters as the
text progresses.
Develop a continuum upon
which to organize
characters
Develop character
maps/webs that represent
relationships between
characters

Images

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Have students select a text
or passage that is rich in
image. Have them
develop a representation
that reflects makes that
image concrete.
Found poetry

Design a found poem
assignment that requires
students to communicate
their understanding of the
text or of an issue it
explores.
Reader response prompts
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Focal judgements

Most important word
 Most important passage
 Most important aspect

Interrogative Reading


Develop an assignment
through which students
will be required to
provide the questions
that will be discussed
during a fishbowl or hot
seat activity.
Title Testing

After reading the text,
provide prompts that
require students to
consider the significance
of the title to the text.
Community exploration
Focus on
communal
response to
plot,
character,
ideas
Community exploration

Unrehearsed Reading

Model for students your
reading of a text that is
unfamiliar to you (Great
for introducing poetry).

Proximate Reading
Students select two
important short passages
from the text: the one
that they consider most
important, and the one
that foreshadows it.
 Record details (including
page # on cue cards)
and have students read
passages in order.
 Discuss effect of this
reading.
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Community exploration

Communal Judgements

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Structure an activity that
draws individual
judgements into a
collective exercise
Most important word
 Most important passage
 Most important aspect

Defining vignettes


Develop an activity that
requires students to script
a retelling of the story.
Readers’ Theatre

Develop a readers’
theatre assignment that
requires students to
capture what they
believe is the core idea
in the text.
Community exploration

Assessing Characters
 Personalized
license
plates
 Bumper stickers
 Develop an activity
that requires students
(in groups) to assess
characters.
Formal analysis

Guidelines for formal analysis
 ZPD
–focus on what students are able to deal with
 Literary terms should be explored in context
 Should
be seen as a language that helps us talk about text
more precisely
 Engagement
should come before analysis
 Literary analysis should be seen as a recursive act
through which students refine their capacity to engage
with texts.
Formal analysis

Consider elements (plot, character development,
setting, point of view, tone, style, theme, symbol) of
the novel Pirate’s Passage and identify which two
elements you think best lend themselves to
exploration.
 Develop
a series of questions that students could
consider when exploring each element
 Develop a brief activity that students could be asked to
complete that would help enrich their understanding of
how that element functions in enriching the novel.
Critical synthesis

Apply a range of critical lenses to a text
Moral/philosophical
 Historical/biographical
 Formalist
 Rhetorical
 Freudian
 Archetypal
 Feminist
 Marxist
 Deconstructionist
 Reader response
 New historical

After having introduced
students (briefly) to a
number of theoretical
lenses, ask them to
examine the text through
two or three of those
lenses. Discuss how each
lens leads to a different
reading.
Extend

“Extending means taking the ideas, urges, and
preachments of the text into our daily worlds.”
 Extension
implies using the texts we study to develop
personal satisfaction as well as social and ethical
insight.
 Extension requires we move beyond ourselves to the
broader social implications and possibilities evoked by
the text.
Final projects

Having considered a number of activities designed
to assist students in their reading of Pirate’s
Passage, consider developing three projects that:
 Invites
them to enter the text
 Enables them to explore the text
 That requires they extend from the text to broader
social or cultural issues.
Consider developing projects so that students need to be actively
working toward them while taking up the text.
Types of Units
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Thematic
Social Issues
Genre
Text Creation
Project
Workshop
Concept
Major Literary Work
Literary Period
National or Regional Literature
Author(s) study
Chronological Approach
Combination
Considerations when Unit Planning
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What are the transferable
ideas/skills/understandings I want to focus on in this
unit?
Do my objectives match curriculum objectives?
How does this unit fit in my overall year plan?
Do I have access to the resources I need to complete
this unit?
Will my major activities engage my students?
Planning for Instruction

Decide on 2-4 projects/assignments for students to
complete by the end of this unit.
◦
Remember to
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Ensure a range of language arts (reading, writing, speaking,
listening, viewing, representing) are required for students to
complete these projects/assignments
Ensure that each project/assignment requires students to
demonstrate skills related to a number of specific expectations.
Ensure that projects/assignments both challenge and engage
students.
Ensure that projects/assignments are responsive to individual
student needs.
Planning for Instruction

Write up the projects as a handout for students.
 Include:
A
description of expectations
 An outline of process
 Evaluation criteria
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Link to achievement chart
Link to specific expectations
Scaffolding –planning for success

Consider:
◦
What skills do my students need to develop in order to
be successful on the unit projects/assignment?

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What background knowledge do my students need to
develop in order to be successful on the unit
projects/assignments ?

◦
Brainstorm a list
Brainstorm a list
What understandings do my students need to acquire
in order to be successful on the project/assignments?

Brainstorm a list
Mini-lessons –learning scaffolds

Consider your three lists.
◦
What mini-lessons can you develop that will help your
students develop the skills, background knowledge, and
understandings that they need in order to be successful?
(Aim for 10 to 15 lessons)
What feedback loops do you plan to build into your minilessons so that you will know if your students have
developed skills, background knowledge, and/or
understandings you’re aiming for?
What sequence makes the most sense for these lessons?
Unit Scaffolding for Pirate’s Passage.
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Sheet 1:
Essential Questions
 Learning outcomes
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Sheet 2:
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3 Projects
1 for entering
 1 for exploring
 1 for extending
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Sheet 3: Scaffolding/mini-lessons/assessment activities
designed to build competency.
Review

Post chart paper on the wall.
 One
group member stay with chart paper to help
explain/answer questions
 Remaining group members fan out and visit other
postings.
 Discuss
with presenter.
 Complete PQP cards
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One statement explaining what you liked about the unit
One question you had about the unit
One suggestion for polishing or improving the unit.