Transacting with Literature

Say:

I think the reading this week speaks to the underlying issue of teachers not providing a wide variety of texts that foster a meaningful transaction with texts. As a student, I first started transacting with literature by reading poetry. I was instantly hooked by the way poets manipulate and controlled their language to construct a lot of meaning. As I think back on my experience as a reader, it is contigent on the fact that I had a personal connection with poetry. This foundation gave me the starting motivation to explore other texts, moving into more complex narratives and the so called "classics." I think teachers tend to forget that part of our scaffolding needs to teach students how to have that personal relationship with a text. 

Tovani calls for the unrepresented textual lineage for young African-American within the classroom and I have to agree that this plagues a lot of students. There are a lot of students who cannot name or locate a text or genre that really "got" them and made them a motivated reader, which I think directly correlates with their attitude towards the required reading that we give them. As teachers, we are doing students such a disservice by not allowing students the opportunity to lay that foundation that is crucial for the way they look at reading. We have to set aside time to share and experience what it is like to personally transact with a text. 

Part of laying that foundation for awakening the inner reader is to provide them with a wide variety of books. The genre of YA has vastly grown since I was in school and I am pleasantly surprised with how it has developed over the years. All of the readings this week touched on the key element of exposing students to every genre because it directly relates to whether or not students can intimately transact with a text. One of the benefits of being an English major in college was being exposed to so many different classes. I don't think I would ever know about post-modern novels or graphic novels without being exposed to them in college. The problem with this is that it wasn't until college that I was exposed to those genres and now I am obsessed with them!

A lot of the articles highlighted graphic novels as a great way to foster meaningful transaction with a text and I couldn't agree more. I love graphic novels and plan to use them in classroom. I think the biggest benefit of graphic novels is its versatility. It bridges the visual and the text so beautifully as well as functioning as a great supplemental text for many other works. I also have noticed that so many students are into Manga and using graphic novels is another scaffolding technique for bridging Manga, the graphic novel, and the classics. 

Overall, I think most teachers can relate to that one book that started it all, that one book that awakened their inner reader and motivated them to read more. For many of our students, they might not have found that book just yet and it is our duty to help them find it. Once we have laid that foundation, the next step is to take those texts and start connecting them with other texts. Also, those other texts need to show a wide variety of perspectives and genres. As teachers, we are all under the dreaded pressure of standardized testing and making sure we are meeting our standards, but I truly think that with whatever book your students connect with, they will have something that you can use to teach those standards. We can longer use this as an excuse for not exposing students to a wide variety of texts and showing them how to lay the groundwork for meaningful transaction with literature. 

Do: 

Since our articles discussed the graphic novel genre and it has become one of my favorite new genres to read, I had a lesson plan that I created for Speigelman's Maus. I plan to use this during the spring semester (we will be reading Night by Elie Weisel) as a supplemental text because I love that the visuals in the story as well as Speigelman's gripping tale of his father's survival story. I would probably use this graphic novel for several activities or lessons that go with Night. This lesson plan just looks explicitly at the animal imagery and goes into discussion about stereotypes, their effect on people/society as a whole. 

Daily Lesson Plan

Lesson Title: MAUS	Date/Duration:  90 min	Grade/Subject: 9th English		Lesson Goals: Understanding The Holocaust through Art Spiegelman’s MAUS.
Student Objectives: Students will recall their prior knowledge on the Holocaust. Student’s will compare Spiegelman’s graphic novel to other Holocaust’s stories. Student’s will classify and interpret Spiegelman’s use of animal imagery. Student’s will discuss the themes in MAUS.			SC Standards/PACT 7.      Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.* 8.      Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.		Unit and Back-ground or prior knowledge: Student’s will recall their prior knowledge on the Holocaust/WWII.
Resources and Materials Stereotype Handout MAUS handout Powerpoint
Assignment(s): Handout Writing Response
Activities: ·       Student’s will start with a journal entry (give about 5-10 min) ·       I will ask students to tell me what they know about the Holocaust and the type of Holocaust literature they’ve read in the past. ·       Then student’s will watch a youtube video that gives them a snapshot into Spiegelman’s MAUS. ·       I will start the powerpoint presentation beginning with giving information on MAUS and the graphic novel genre. ·       Then I will ask students to refer to one of the handouts where they will look for all of the different animals that Spiegelman shows. Then I will ask students to discuss which animals represent certain ethnicities/racial groups. ·       Once they classify the animals with ethnic groups, we will discuss why he chose to use animals to depict the Holocaust. ·       I will guide the discussion to bring up racial propaganda used by Nazis. ·       I will ask students if they think the animal imagery is problematic? We will discuss. ·       Then I will show two panels in which I show them that Spiegelman struggled with using the animal imagery. ·       Then I will go into the slide with Pavel. We will discuss survivor’s guilt and the future of racial stereotyping, ending with the question of how to racial stereotypes persist today and are we any better at breaking them. ·       At this time I will refer to the second handout (stereotypes). I will ask the students to fill out questions and discuss with a partner. Then with the whole class, we discuss the analysis questions.
Assessment: After the handout, students will write a response to the question: Do you think society has changed enough to where an event like the Holocaust will not repeat itself? Why or why not?
Extension/Enrichment

** Be sure you attach all accompanying notes, handouts, assessments, rubrics, etc.