Book Synopsis #5: Inside Out ch. 12 "Writing About Literature"
I. Writing and Literature go hand in hand: things to think about
1. Use writing to explore ideas and expand experiences in literature
2. Use the Creative Response to react personally and honestly to literature
3. Use journals for the first 10 minutes of every class and ask students to respond to the literature for that day.
4. Model writing responses using student work and teacher writing samples
5. Allow students to share insights and interpretations of their reading
6. Give students choices about how to respond; not everyone has to have the same assignment; allow students to modify an assignment based upon strengths or understanding
7. Some reading should be done for sheer joy and pleasure; it does not need a writing assignment
8. Allow for some writing before or during a literature selection
9. Encourage creative expression, not just critical essays
10. Grade less; respond more
11. Let the writing assignment grow naturally out of conversations you and your students have had about literature
12. Let students know clearly what you expect from them
13. Make writing about literature a pleasurable experience
14. Use the Close Out Questionnaire (p. 177) to track individual reading
II. Activities to use when writing about literature:
1. CR Sequence:
Phase 1=Use a song, poem, or short story related thematically to the literature. Have students do a creative response to the selection - they can't write "I like it" or "I don't like it" or anything like that. They must create something of their own: a poem, a short written sketch, how it made them feel, the daydream they had listening to it, etc.
2. Phase 2: Guided response (see activities that follow)
a. Quotable Quotes: put an evocative quote on the board (stated themes work well) and have students use it in writing any way they wish
Variations: students pick own quotes and swap then write
b. Author letter: writing a letter to the author stimulates real writing; write a letter to a living author and mail it- might get a response!
c. Vignettes: students imitate the kind of writing the author did, in their own way
d. Narrators: students write a story using a narrator that is not themselves
e. Tall tale telling: think up a family story (or make one up) and tell to partners
f. Spooky tales: tell a ghost story and then write it down
g. Shopping for Poetry: Place short poems around the room, have students mill around reading and talking about the poems, then they must respond to three of them in writing
h. Strange Poetry: play strange songs/poems and have kids write something strange
III. Alternatives to the Book Report
1. Advertise the book: students write advertising blurbs like those on the back of paperbacks and put up around the room.
2. Continue the story: have students continue the story for a page or two
3. Family tree: have students do for literature and for their own families; telling stories
4. Newspaper Interview: students are reporters asking questions to characters (they can role-play in pairs)
5. Shifting points of view: have students write a sequence of events from another character's perspective
6. Obituaries: students write obituaries for characters who died; bring sensational obituaries as models
7. Minor characters: have students write and develop unimportant characters
8. Book quotes: Double entry journals
9. Nonwritten Responses: Drawing an illustration/visualization; Character portrait; Character Locker (out of shoe box); Illustrated map (draw the neighborhood); Book jacket design; Cast the Movie
IV. Integrating Literature and Writing
1. Look for connections: points of contact between literature and writing
2. Put students in touch with the literature
3. Give lots of choices
4. Talk about the literature with enthusiasm and passion
V. Example Integrated Lesson Plan
1. Setting the scene: write about a favorite place: jot list or cluster
2. Pictorial Display: slides, photos, or videos
3. Students read aloud excerpts from the writing
4. Give students the piece and read it out loud to them; read and talk
5. Have students write a summary of one section
6. Ask students to tell you about a character
7. Students read the piece again and think about the author; have them freewrite
8. Creative response: create something of their own
9. Share the responses; looking for good. Edit and publish the pieces
10. Circle up and have students read their work to each other
This chapter was particularly poignant for me because it validated several of my teaching practices. I have used many, many of these activities in my own classes; such as quotable quotes, author letters, CD covers, continue the story, obituaries, double entry journals, and character journals. I appreciated some of the new strategies listed here as well.
My weakness lies in using too few of the creative responses to literature. My students regularly complain, "All we do is analyze and write essays." It is easy to become too focused upon standards and let fun and creativity fall by the wayside. I'm afraid these practices are starting to turn students off English.
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