{"id":156,"date":"2017-09-04T06:37:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T06:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/?page_id=156"},"modified":"2019-02-14T15:23:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T15:23:34","slug":"general-literary-knowledge-strategies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/general-literary-knowledge-strategies\/","title":{"rendered":"General Literary Knowledge &#038; Strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"twelve columns\" style=\"margin-top: 10%;\">\n<div class=\"advance\"><a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary-development-usage\">\u2b05 Previous Lesson<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/instructional-knowledge-professional-skills\/\">Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/addendum-for-suggested-young-readers-literature-list\">Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- CONTENT BEGINS HERE --><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"title\">General Literary Knowledge &amp; Strategies<\/h1>\n<h4>Objective<\/h4>\n<p>In this lesson, we\u2019ll discuss General Literary Knowledge &amp; Strategies designed to encourage students to increase their knowledge of literature.<\/p>\n<h4>Previously Covered:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>In the last lesson, we discussed the four types of vocabulary, the importance of learning vocabulary words, and the many ways of teaching vocabulary to students in and outside of the classroom.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<section>\n<h3>\u201cWhy should I care about this stuff anyway? It\u2019s ancient history, and it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with my life.\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>You will likely hear this comment more than once in your teaching career. Just as math teachers must suffer through students\u2019 protestations that geometry has no bearing on their life, so must literature teachers listen to students complain about how poetry or fiction is useless outside of the classroom. It\u2019s your job to prove them wrong.<\/p>\n<p>First, counter their protestations by informing them that the literature you\u2019re teaching them has withstood the test of time.<\/p>\n<p>Point out that all literature is connected by common themes.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The quest theme is a plot device often found in fiction. The quest involves the main character\u2019s search for a particular object or person. Some famous quests include that of Gilgamesh, who seeks to discover the secret to eternal life. Another quest tale is found in Homer\u2019s <em>The Odyssey,<\/em> which in part tells the story of Odysseus, who encounters many dangers on his quest to return home. The quest is seen throughout contemporary fiction, too. You can point out to your students that J.R.R. Tolkein\u2019s <em>Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy and Mark Twain\u2019s <em>Tom Sawyer <\/em>are quest tales.<\/li>\n<li>The creation myth is another common literary theme. This type of myth deals with humanity\u2019s need to find meaning in a world of unknowns. The mark of a creation myth is its focus on describing how the world came into being so, naturally, most creation stories have religious or spiritual associations. One example of a creation myth is Milton\u2019s <em>Paradise Lost. <\/em><\/li>\n<li>Finally, a common literary device involves the act of naming. The name that a character is given can alert the reader to expectations for that character within the work. In Sandra Cisneros&#8217;s <em>The House on Mango Street<\/em>, the fourth chapter of the book is called &#8220;My Name.&#8221; In this chapter Esperanza discusses the many meanings and images that surround her name and her hope to rename herself something that will feel more fitting to who she is. Also in Chinua Achebe\u2019s novel <em>Anthills of the Savannah,<\/em> the characters perform symbolic acts related to naming during the course of the narrative. In the novel, the character Beatrice appropriates the naming ritual and takes it upon herself to name her child. The second symbolic act occurs when she gives her female child a male name. This action is significant because Beatrice appropriates a role that had previously only been assigned to males. Beatrice\u2019s action allows for an injustice to be corrected, which brings an element of redemption to the novel.You can discuss the significance of naming with your students in class by asking them to make connections between names in books and the characteristics they exhibit. You could also extend your discussion to include other books, movies, or even popular music that has significance regarding names.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>In the classroom, include activities that connect themes, characters, and history from whatever book you are reading to accompanying projects. These activities should trigger understanding of the experiences within the text while reinforcing vocabulary, themes, and character study. Encourage students to see that their lives and the lives of the characters they read about aren\u2019t so different.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, if you\u2019re studying Laura Ingalls Wilder\u2019s book <em>Little House on the Prairie<\/em>, you could encourage students to make the connection between the family\u2019s struggle to make a life for themselves on the prairie and contemporary immigration stories. If you have students in class who have moved to the United States from another country, encourage them to tell their story. You can create maps that trace people\u2019s journeys from other countries or other states, or try one of the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have students interview family members to gather stories of travel or migration<\/li>\n<li>Have students research other people\u2019s stories and write creative stories based on their research<\/li>\n<li>Write papers that compare and contrast the dangers of immigrating or making arduous journeys in the past with the dangers of doing the same thing today<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Similar activities can be devised with other texts you study. These activities will build bridges between the literature you teach and the students\u2019 lives. Offering access to periodicals that tell similar stories is also a good strategy for making these connections.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Revisiting Independent Reading<\/h3>\n<p>As briefly discussed above, independent reading should be used as a tool to increase a student\u2019s vocabulary, but that\u2019s hardly the limit of the pursuit\u2019s advantages. Reading is a pleasurable experience and should be taught in a manner that allows students to have fun with it. Researchers have shown that students who begin reading a book <em>in<\/em> school are more likely to continue reading <em>outside<\/em> of school. As previously mentioned, independent readers have a much higher success rate at learning and absorbing new vocabulary. It\u2019s essential that teachers find strategies to encourage students to read recreationally. Here are some suggestions for teachers who are looking for new activities to get students involved in reading and writing outside of school:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>News reading and writing<\/strong> \u2014Have students read a newspaper article at home and write a one-page short story based on what they read.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Journal writing<\/strong> \u2014Have students begin a journal that chronicles their outside reading and their reactions to the texts.<\/li>\n<li><strong> Fiction writing using characters from an independent reading text<\/strong> \u2014Encourage students to take characters from a book they\u2019re reading and use them in their own short stories.<\/li>\n<li><strong> In-class lending library<\/strong> \u2014Keep a shelf of titles in your classroom that aren\u2019t required on any of the reading lists. Mix classic texts with more contemporary novels or short story collections that students may be more attracted to. You can even include graphic novels (collected comic books) that are recognized as having literary merit. Your aim is to provide a wide range of books so that each student in the class is able to find something he or she would enjoy reading.<\/li>\n<li><strong> In-class periodical lending library<\/strong> \u2014Stock this \u201clibrary\u201d with periodicals that have literary or educational merit. See if you can get donations of magazines such as <em>Science, National Geographic, The Sun, The New Yorker, Harpers, Time, Utne,<\/em> and others that will help your students learn about the world while improving their reading skills.<\/li>\n<li><strong> Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)<\/strong> \u2014Set aside a block of time each day for quiet reading in class after other activities have been completed. This is a great way to encourage your students to read on their own.<\/li>\n<li><strong> Weekly book discussions<\/strong> \u2014Organize students into groups and encourage them to discuss the books they\u2019ve been reading. These discussions help students analyze texts, but they also provide an opportunity for peer recommendations of books that other students are curious about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Review<\/h3>\n<p>In this section, we learned strategies to increase students\u2019 vocabularies, as well as ways to make sure that students are getting the vocabulary lessons they need. We also reviewed ways to connect literature with students\u2019 lives, and how to encourage students to become lifelong readers. All of these strategies will help your students achieve higher success rates in learning literature, vocabulary, and English in general.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- CONTENT ENDS HERE --><\/p>\n<div class=\"advance\"><a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/vocabulary-development-usage\">\u2b05 Previous Lesson<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/instructional-knowledge-professional-skills\/\">Workshop Index<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"button button-primary\" href=\"http:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/addendum-for-suggested-young-readers-literature-list\">Next Lesson \u27a1<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"backtotop\" href=\"#title\">Back to Top<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2b05 Previous Lesson\u00a0Workshop Index\u00a0Next Lesson \u27a1 General Literary Knowledge &amp; Strategies Objective In this lesson, we\u2019ll discuss General Literary Knowledge &amp; Strategies designed to encourage students to increase their knowledge of literature. Previously Covered: In the last lesson, we discussed the four types of vocabulary, the importance of learning vocabulary words, and the many ways [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-156","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":635,"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/156\/revisions\/635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanboard.org\/Subjects\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}