Designing Literacy Lessons

Jennifer Partrick
Jan 10, 2011

As you think about planning lessons where learning is always the outcome, there are questions that you can ask yourself to ensure that instruction is created to support learning. The first place to start is to know what the students have to learn, and not memorize for tests. This information is provided to you from your Standards. Once you understand what your students have to learn, move to the next step. How do you plan for learning? There needs to be modeling, opportunities for students to practice working with the content they are learning and opportunities for students to discuss what they are learning. Practice and discussion are critical components of learning. Students must be able to put into words what they are learning. They must be able to manipulate the information in different ways that represent understanding, and not simply memorization. But, in order for students to truly learn, learning must then be meaningful, engaging, appealing, thought provoking, and reflective.  Contrary to this, many students memorize content in preparation for a test, after which they dump that information to leave room for the next set of content they will memorize for the following test and so the circle continues. We know this happens because everyone laments each year about how unprepared their students are, how lacking they are, but at the same time, teachers in the previous grades all taught and worked long hours. One of the biggest reasons why teachers work so hard is that they are constantly in re-teaching mode. They have to reteach what was taught last year, last month, and sometimes last week. In order to stop this pattern from continuing, shift your thinking and ask, "did my students truly learn it, did they understand it, could they talk about what they learned; could they manipulate the information in different and meaningful ways?" Because, if understanding is truly present, students should be able to carry that information from week to week, semester to semester, and year to year, but often that is not what is actually happening in our schools.

Lets look at a typical lesson on literary elements. Teachers typically read the story that in many instances is in the curriculum and beginning in Kindergarten, teach character and setting and plot and ask the same tired questions year after year: who are the characters, what is the setting, what happened first, etc. and we leave literary elements there in that boring, tired heap and then wonder why our students have disengaged, why teachers almost beg students to learn, why we work so hard to get our students to produce, why we work so hard day after day and at times wonder why we bother. Who wants to have to answer those same boring questions year after year? Instead of teaching the ‘what’, (characters, setting, problem, solution) shift your teaching to the ‘why’. Instead, teach your students that fictional text has a pattern, there are always characters that function within a setting or multiple settings and how they interact creates the plot. There is generally a problem and most of the time the problem is solved. When students understand how fictional text works they can then use that pattern to help them interact and understand other fictional text. They know to look for how the characters interact and that this drives the plot. They learn to identify the problem and then, based on data at any time, predict what they think will happen next. The reader often identifies with one or more characters and vicariously lives through that character in order to interact with the text. Students also use the pattern to help them write their own stories. They use their understanding of how authors manipulate literary elements to help them manipulate the same elements in their stories. Have you ever read books that you did not want to end? Why? What made that book so wonderful? It is most likely how the author manipulated literary elements.

One of my favorite books of all time is Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. This book can be used to teach just about every aspect of any Language Arts curriculum. How did White manipulate elements of fiction in this wonderful book? What did he do to engage and entice the reader to read on? Do you ever wonder why the main characters are a pig and a spider? How does the juxtaposition of the ethereal and feminine spider and a pig; supposedly dirty, ungainly, and for many, repulsive animals help deepen our understanding of both Charlotte and Wilbur? Why would White do that? How come he did not use cows or horses, bigger animals? Most of the story takes place within a barn. White did not describe the barn in great detail but how he wrote about the animals in that space had the readers envisioning a warm and cozy place, where they would like to be. How did White build momentum and suspense so that as we read on we were fearful for Wilbur? Why did Charlotte choose Wilbur? Did she really want to save Wilbur or did she have an ulterior motive? Was her motivation to find someone to take care of her babies when she died? If so, what did she see in Wilbur? Did she think that he could be manipulated so she chose him? Did she choose Wilbur because she recognized a kindred spirit in him? Did she see that they shared some common bond? When you use a book like Charlotte’s Web do you ever have those types of discussions with your students so that they begin thinking like an author and in turn can write exciting and creative essays themselves? Do you model “I wonder" questions and ideas so that your students do the same thing? Do you model at all, or do you assign pages to read and then ask your students to answer the questions at the end of the passage? That, by the way, is assessment - not teaching. Do you share different types of authors so that students can appreciate how authors manipulate literary elements and then can begin using those patterns to write? When you teach for learning and understanding to be the only outcome acceptable, then you must move from teaching the ‘what’; what are literary element, to teaching the ‘why,' the ‘how.' Why did White choose a spider and a pig to be the main characters? How did he move the story along? What techniques did he use? If you move your lesson construction from simply teaching the ‘what’, the joy of learning is then moved back to the student. This happens because the answer is not necessarily evident. Students have to explain, manipulate, support, and construct meaning as they interact with content they are learning.

So how can you design lessons where students are doing the work? Shift from teaching the ‘what’ to teaching the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. Create lessons that allow opportunities for students to practice and discuss with an emphasis on constructing support, gaining meaning, manipulating and looking at the content in new and different ways. When you teach like this, learning becomes the job of the student!