Heuristics for Reading and Interpreting Literature

Ahara, Katsuko. "Teacher-centered and Child-centered Pedagogical Approaches in Teaching Children's Literature." Education 115.3: 7+. Web. 21 Mar. 2010. . Katsuko Ahara’s article explores two different types of teaching methods that yield different results. The first, the teacher-centered method, focuses on a one-way transmission of knowledge in which the teacher is the “all-knowing sage” who passes on all values that the students need to learn. This method relies heavily on quantitative and qualitative results, causing the students to spend more time memorizing and less time really learning and exploring the material. Conversely, the child-centered approach has the teacher act as an active participant who explores and learns as the children do. This method is supposed to nurture the child’s methods of thinking, encourages diverse experiences, and connects to the individual needs of the child. However, quantitative and qualitative results are a bit harder to ascertain in this situation. Still, Ahara encourages teachers instructing students in literature to adopt the child-centered method.
Ahara’s observations tie in well with Appleman and Morgan’s ideas about students exploring beyond the one-dimensional or mainstream ideologies presented in classrooms. All three encourage teachers to allow students to pull from a multitude of sources in order to better understand the material and make social and cultural connections. The child-centered method allows students to explore more and go beyond the print.

Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents. New York: Teachers College, 2009. Print. In this text, Deborah Appleman explores the nature of secondary education and how teachers are getting their students involved in reading. Appleman suggests that teachers bring a variety of lenses to a changing classroom dynamic; after all, the “classics” have changed somewhat, the students have evolved, and their responses to the material have undergone a major reconstruction too. Students are no longer entering college with the skill sets that allow them to analyze texts, and Appleman expresses her view of what the problem is as well as her suggestions for solutions.
A major point that Appleman addresses in this text is the need for multiple perspectives in the classroom. This need extends beyond just the students themselves; it also pertains to the material covered in the English courses. Appleman stresses that teachers should have students read books from authors with different points of view on the same situation (either cultural or historical) in order to expand the students’ way of looking at a single text. They must understand the ideologies at play in order to fully digest the literature. This idea of multiple perspectives can be found in some of the other annotated sources.

DeHass, Alyssa Gonzalez. “Facilitating Parent Involvement: Reflecting on Effective Teacher Education.” Teaching & Learning 19.2 (Spring, 2005): 57-76. Print. This journal article discusses the role that home involvement plays in a child’s education and development. Children are sent to school to learn but it is expected that parents help their children and further their progress outside of school. The importance of family involvement is widely recognized in the United States and there have been measures to increase parents’ participation in their children’s education. However, the implementation of these measures is lacking.
Alyssa Gonzalez DeHass addresses this problem in detail and offers a few reasonable solutions. Research shows that family-involvement is lowest in minority homes and when the child undergoes adolescence. DeHass discusses strategies and benefits of parental involvement in education. She touches on specific problem areas including adolescence, culturally diverse families and general communication barriers between parents and students. From the teacher’s perspective, DeHass offers instructional methodology. She believes that this training should start in pre-service teaching preparation and should be carried out through in-service staff development. DeHass makes the claim the both the roles of the teacher and the parent are crucial in the development of a child’s education.
Freebody, Peter; Gilbert, Pam; Luke, Allen. “Reading Positions and Practices in the Classroom.”Curriculum Inquiry 21.4 (Dec 1991): 435–457. Web. 20 Mar 2010. . The authors of this article believe that daily classroom interaction around texts plays a key role in the shaping of what counts as knowledge and competence for students. They also believe that what students learn in reading and literature lessons can be described as a schema for what counts as mature adult literacy, as a model for what counts as valid, appropriate, and institutionally sanctioned ways of reading for school. In this century, reading has become a solitary activity. Reading aloud in a classroom setting, particularly in primary grades, is important for young children and helps develop their confidence, mind, and appreciation for reading. Classroom activities about reading material can also foster an appreciation for reading and build knowledge about new subjects. Students, whether in their first or last year of school, are learning and continuously relearning with teachers in classrooms their sense of what reading entails. In situations in which students read several texts simultaneously in the course of a lesson or theme they can be asked to read a particular text with fresh background knowledge. They can relate their particular text to other texts they have read and find the key similarities and differences between the texts. The authors feel that daily classroom interaction around text plays a key role in the shaping of what counts as knowledge and competence for students.

Guillaume, Andrea M.“Learning with Text in the Primary Grades.”The Reading Teacher 51.6 (Mar 1998): 476–486. Web. 20 Mar 2010.20201949>. This article, by Andrea Guillaume, provides a rationale for learning with text experiences for primary grade-children, lists general approaches for these experiences, and gives a sample lesson that incorporates the approaches. A primary grade content area library should include textbooks, fiction with content information and other kinds of print, including newspapers, interactive software and magazines written for children. Guillaume believes that there are ten main ideas that reflect the literature on content area reading and writing.
Guillaume details these ideas as follows: 1. Access to literature and prior knowledge; some strategies for accessing and building upon prior knowledge include visuals, manipulatives and multimedia presentations, sharing experiences with students from diverse backgrounds, writing experiences, and linking prior knowledge to new concepts and ideas. 2. Provide hands on experience prior to reading; this can be done through arts and crafts, science activities, and film viewing. 3. Read aloud. Hearing a teacher or parent’s enthusiastic reading of a story can greatly influence a child’s listening skills, vocabulary, and appreciation for the text. 4. Read for a purpose. When children set meaningful purposes for their reading, their motivation and work abilities will increase. 5. Provide access to content area material. It is important to have works of fiction in a classroom, but works of nonfiction and other reading materials such as newspapers and magazines are also important. 6. Encourage cognitive and aesthetic responses. An example of a cognitive response to reading is a bookmaking activity, in which students write books after studying such subject material as earthquakes, sharks, and their local community. As aesthetic responses, students can choreograph a dance, or compose poetry about something they have read or studied. 7. Encourage discussion. Forms of discussion, including peer discussion, can build upon students’ prior knowledge to enhance their reading experiences. 8. Connect reading and writing. Classroom writing experiences can foster curiosity and promote confidence in one’s writing abilities. 9. Use general strategies or heuristics. An example of a heuristic is Manzo’s Listen Read Discuss (LRD). During LRD students: Listen to the teacher discuss the content, Read content text aided by the background experience of the teacher’s words, and Discuss the content. 10. Use pre, during, and post reading activities. For a pre-reading activity, the teacher can share a personal story relating to the content of the book about to be read. A during reading activity could include taking notes during the reading. A post reading activity could include a writing activity about the student’s thoughts on what was read. When teachers encourage reading in their classrooms they provide a meaningful context for reading instruction, help their students develop lifelong skills for gaining information, encourage comprehension, the exploration of big ideas and connections among ideas, and nurture their students quest to know and to seek answers to their questions.

Kreber, Carolin. “Developing the Scholarship of Teaching Through Transformative Learning.” Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 6.1 (Aug 2006): 88-109. Print. This article focuses on the role of the teacher and his or her personal development. The author, Carolin Kreber, states that teaching is a profession guided by citizenship. She believes that teachers must constantly be seeking knowledge and maintaining a desire to learn more. This is a process one seeks on his or her own, but is also enriched through support from colleagues and peer-reviews. Kreger focuses on types of learning and types of reflection, both of which are unique to an individual. She defines the three types of learning as instrumental, communicative and emancipatory. She poses the question “Why is reflection on teaching and learning valuable?” and answers this questions through her research and opinions in the article. She develops these types of learning and reflection, gives specific examples of each, and details some strategies of implementation. In this article, Kreber claims that the scholarship of teaching and learning needs to be broadened by conceptualizations of professionalism. She defines reflection as informed by knowledge gained through personal experience and/or through formal inquiry that faculty conduct themselves or read about. Kreber challenges teachers to remain engaged in learning and remember the true intent of their profession.
Morgan, Hani. "Using Read-Alouds with Culturally Sensitive Children’s Books: A Strategy That Can Lead to Tolerance and Improved Reading Skills." Reading Improvement 46.1: 3-8. Web. 21 Mar. 2010. tcu.edu/ehost/>. In this article, Hani Morgan addresses the question of bringing culturally sensitive material into the classroom, especially for younger children. Morgan suggests a number of ways to tackle the issue of introducing this type of reading to children in order to teach them tolerance from an early age and shape the foundation of a more understanding future. Morgan’s tactics center on the idea of a read-aloud, in which the students – at any age – can not only improve their vocabulary and engage their attention, but also dissect culturally sensitive material with an adult to facilitate any troublesome or uncomfortable circumstances that should arise.
The ideas presented by Morgan tie in nicely with Appleman’s opinions about teaching and can be applied to any age group of students. Appleman suggests presenting multiple perspectives in the classroom – and bringing in literature that glorify both hunter and lion – and Morgan has a way to implement those ideas, especially when dealing with sensitive material. If teachers combine the two proposals together in the classroom, then a wide range of perspectives could be introduced and analyzed. The overall effect would be a well-rounded and well-read generation that has confidence and tolerance when dealing with differences beyond the walls of the school.