"Telling people there is a right theme and a wrong theme to get out of a piece of literature is a likely way to make them hate English class, and perhaps hate reading fiction, period. "
Telling students that reading is a scavenger hunt for a thirty-word theme does that regardless of “right” and “wrong” answers.
"7th Grade??? I read that book in the 3rd grade. I polished off Roots in the 6th grade. I really can’t fathom not getting the gist of the book by the 7th grade. "
I also can’t fathom people being less precocious than me. I remember reading Proust in second grade. One of my classmates rhymed it with “Oust.” I was completely stunned.
Way to kill that strawman.
Unfortunately, it’s nothing like teaching math because there is no right answer. This is why even though I read lots of books from a young age, I didn’t like English class because there is not right answer. You can’t keep working it until you get a final answer because there isn’t any one.
What are you disputing, exactly? That teachers require students to write short, crisp little “themes” on book report forms, or that students come to see the process of reading as regurgitating those terse reductions?
If this is just an introduction to themes in literature and she will delve further into this kind of thing is higher grades you may just want to say something like, “I can see where you picked up on this theme in the book. However, because of X, Y, and Z I think you may not have understood exactly what the author was trying to say.” and then grade her accordingly. Then let it go. You will have planted the seed and she will pick up the rest of it as time goes on.
If she is going to be tested on her ability to pick themes out of literature on a state mandated test at the end of the year, you might want to say, “I can see where you picked up on this theme in the book. However, because of X, Y, and Z I think you may not have understood exactly what the author was trying to say. Here is a copy of ______. Read this and try to identify the theme here and provide concrete examples from the story that support the theme you have chosen.”
I don’t think 7th grade is too early to learn this kind of thing, but I was in advanced english classes all through school so my views may be somewhat skewed. I struggled through math every single year though, so I can understand how she would feel if she really didn’t understand something and she felt like she was being pushed faster than she could go.
Since it was an oral presentation in front of the entire class, and I didn’t want to embarrass her or go off on a major tangent when most of the kids in the class didn’t read this book, this is pretty much what I said, with a bit more questioning, like, “Why do you think that was the theme?” She gave the bit about the father abandoning his family, which I told her turned out not to be true at the end of the book, and she shrugged. That was about it, which is why maybe the book talk format isn’t conducive to questions about theme, at least, not for 7th graders.
I hate book reports because they’re so formulaic and tired. I figured book talks would let them practice public speaking and be more interesting. It has limitations, though, and this is one of them, as it turns out.
Which is really the heart of the question: is it developmentally too advanced a question for 7th graders? Some of them can do it just fine, and some really have absolutely no idea. I’m pretty flexible with what I accept for answers, but this particular kid was way off IMO, in contradiction of the actual facts of the story, thus prompting my question. I always try to reflect on whether it’s my expectations that are the issue and not the kid’s answer. I do think she could have come up with something a bit closer to the text. It’s not like this is War and Peace. It’s young adult lit, and the themes are not deeply hidden or hard to grasp.
But fighting IS uncivilzed and the Murrys (and Calvin) understood that–unless the cause is worthy or important enough. In no way shape or form was L’Engle advocating random physical violence-she advocated resisting, preferably peacably. It might be better if you say that participating in a struggle against evil forces or bad guys or conformity is important and moral.
IOW, I think you’re oversimplifying her POV (I could be wrong) and applying it too broadly. Meg and Charles Wallace and Calvin were not Rambo-type people, nor were Mrs Whatsit et al. They WERE strong advocates for individuality (although Meg struggled with that a great deal-she wanted to belong and be “normal” at school).
I can understand a 7th grader grabbing onto the concrete “fighting” because perhaps she lacks the sophistication and the vocabulary to express more complex thoughts. I say this especially since she is reading this book in 7th grade–this book is at about a 5th grade level, I believe. It’s shelved in juvenile books in my library, not in Young Adult (which is 7th grade and up). She may not have finished the book, but she may well have.
I get the feeling that maybe the kids weren’t fully exposed to how to ID themes in class, first?
Lit analysis is somewhat subjective–it is possible to have completely misread something (or misunderstood it). But I can still remember being furious with my AP English teacher senior year in HS-he insisted that Frost’s poem, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” (or whatever it’s called) was about suicide. I disagreed. We had a heated debate about it in class and after class. He was fine with my disagreement (I wasn’t with his; I was 17 afterall!). He was a fantastic teacher.
Perhaps what needs to happen is for you to probe this girl for a bit more info–how did she reach this conclusion? Can she back up her position? If she has no idea how to do so–perhaps that needs to be taught as well.
Sorry, but I am suffering under a VERY poor teacher this semester in grad school, so I am somewhat touchy about putting this on to the student. Sometimes it’s the teaching.
Yes, sometimes it’s the teaching. I did teach them about theme, and we did a unit of 5 short stories where we went through the process of how to identify the theme and discussed it together. They also learned about it in 6th grade.
Also, I am examining where I went wrong with all this and questioning my expectations. I’m not “putting it” on the student, though I admit surprise and dismay to realize that she didn’t get what I thought was well within her abilities to grasp, possibly because she just didn’t finish the book.
But I’m not going to admit to being a bad teacher, either, because she can’t articulate the theme of A Wrinkle In Time, a book she read on her own time without direct guidance along the way from me. Sorry. If it were a novel we read in class and discussed, and she still didn’t get it, then yeah, I’d say the failure was mine. And I’m open to the idea that this is a little harder for them than I thought… but honestly, in this case, I think it was a failure to finish the book.
One of my English teachers did book interviews - not many of them, but everyone had to do at least one. It was a class where there was lots of time for free reading, so he’d schedule them then. You’d have a one on one discussion with the teacher about the book. I’d imagine it would be very time consuming, but it was rewarding and it was very good teaching.
Yeah, you know, the book talks aren’t really working for me either. They take up two class periods for 20 kids to report on their books, and I’m not sure they’re being really in-depth or getting what they read, this last incident being only the latest example of why. Not sure the best way to get them to read on their own and be accountable for it in a meaningful way that isn’t going to take forever (since I have a curriculum to follow which I barely get through as it is) and isn’t the same old tired book report bullshit. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.
Bookclubs? Separate them into groups of five or so and have them read and then have moderated (by you, by a volunteer if you are so lucky as to have some) small group discussion. Still would take a few periods to get through the discussion.
(I’m, however, convinced that regardless of what an English teacher does, unless you are fortunate enough to be teaching AP or better yet, and AP elective - you are going to get students who won’t read, aren’t capable of finding theme if you had big arrows and lit it up with neon, and simply find a summary on the internet - if they bother with that much. Which doesn’t make it easy to meet all those darn “objectives.”)
When I was in sixth grade, our teacher made damn sure we read books: we had to submit a written book review every three weeks, telling about at least one book that we had read.
The choice of book was entirely to the student; you could write on Black Like Me or The Enormous Egg or The Exorcist or a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mystery. But it had to be a book; magazine articles were not allowed. Variations were allowed if you checked with the teacher first. I recall getting at least two variations: one for a non-fiction book I wanted to review, and the other for a book of Robert Service’s poetry I had been reading. We did not have to present our reviews to the class, we simply handed them in, the teacher marked them, and we groaned (or rejoiced) when they were returned with marks.
The teacher gave us very specific guidelines on what he was looking for. If I recall correctly, they were the following (though if you were granted a variation, points 2 and 3 weren’t necessarily important):
All in no more than not less than one but no more than two notebook pages.
As I said, we had to do this in Grade 6, but that’s close enough to Grade 7. Would it be an idea for your students?
Eerily, your teacher’s assignment is almost EXACTLY the assignment for the book talks, except they deliver it orally instead of handing in a written book report, and they have to create a visual aid, like a poster, diorama, puppet, sculpture, or whatever else they want. They make really cool stuff sometimes and it’s fun to see what they come up with. The rationale for the oral presentation is that they need practice with public speaking, it’s a nice break from the curriculum, lets them hear what other kids are reading, and is a much quicker grade (I do it on the spot on a rubric). So yeah, the assignments are essentially the same. Sounds like your 6th grade teacher was on the ball.
Given what I’ve seen as 7th grade reading responses from a bunch of states, I think you’re expecting a bit too much from kids this age. Most of them are twelve going on thirteen and child psych says that concrete thinking is pretty much all kids do until age 12. This is a good age to begin finding themes, but too young to expect them to have consistent success doing so.
And I don’t think a lack of understanding proves that she didn’t finish the book. They’re fully capable of reading every word at that age and coming to startlingly wrong conclusions. I’ll give you a different example.
A few years ago a group of 7th graders was given a 3 page story to read and understand. It was about this young boy their age named Rudi who liked to go cross-country skiing. While he did so, he found someone trapped in a crevasse. After a hell of a lot of effort the kid managed to haul the man up out of the crevasse. The last lines said 'The man was beside Rudi, turning to him, staring at him. ‘Why—you’re just a boy!’ he said in astonishment." Clearly the author meant that the man was astonished that a 13-year-old boy had managed to get him, a grown man twice his weight, out of a pit.
Fully 25% of the kids thought that it was a “twist” ending and that Rudi was shocked after all the hard work it took to learn that he’d pulled another boy out of the pit. :smack:
I think there’s a lot more ambiguity in the book your student chose than that, so I’d be inclined to cut her some slack.
I agree with those posters who say that kids that age often have a hard time dealing with abstract issues. (Not all, mind you, some 13 year-olds are frightfully perceptive, and that’s what makes teaching them so hard because the levels vary tremendously.)
I remember teaching “confirmation” class to a bunch of 14 year-olds and we were supposed to have a discussion of ethics. The kids read a story and were supposed to evaluate the characters based on their actions. The story went something like this:
There are five people on a deserted island: Tom, Jack, George, John and Jane. Jane and John are a couple and they’re all friends. The island is actually two islands separated by a sound with a strong current, a bridge ties the two islands together. At one point there’s a storm that destroys the bridge while John and George are on one island and the other three are on the other. The separation of the two lovers is, of course, heartbreaking and they’re both desperate to get to each other. Luckily, Tom has a boat. Jane asks him to bring her over to the other island and he says he will, if she sleeps with him. Jane’s distraught, turns to Jack who shrugs and says it’s not his problem. Lots of back and forth and tears later, Jane sleeps with Tom and he lends her the boat. John’s thrilled to see her, she breaks down and tells him what happened. He gets pissed, calls her a whore and dumps her. She runs crying to George who immediately finds John and hits him. THE END
Now, this is a silly story, but what surprised me, and everyone else working with the kids, was that the kids were almost in universal agreement as to who had been the most and least ethical in their actions: Jack was the good guy because he hadn’t done anything and George was the bad guy because he hit someone and violence is always wrong.
The moral of this looooong story is that many kids that age have a very black and white view of the world and that influences how they analyze situations and themes. I agree that your student might not have read the whole book, but it’s also possible that in her mind leaving your family is always wrong, just like fighting, and the why and how is not yet important to her.
(We actually had some fun and slightly heated discussions about the island story among the teachers, I doubt I’ll ever forget the “Tom was just being a good capitalist” argument.)
Make them schedule a book talk with you before or after school: have dates/times throughout the grading period. This is assuming that some portion of them get rides from their parents (and can get there a bit early/stay late) and that busses run early enough that the others can get there at least a few minutes before school starts. It takes a bit of time, but you get a grade on the spot and by means of asking piercing questions you can seperate the readers from the people that went to Pink Monkey.
Make everyone pick their date the first week and give them a 10 or 15 point bonus if they sign up for a time in the first two weeks of the grading period so that there isn’t a mad rush at the end.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that you were! Please don’t think that. Can you confront her (privately) about her finishing the book? Just curious.
How about the kids partner up (you would have to pair up comparable reading levels) and both read the same book, then one interviews the other and then they swap? Key is that they cannot share their questions with one another. This also gives them interviewing practice and listening skills.
There is nothing wrong with book reports. How about they have to write an “expose” on the book of their choice? They approach it like they’re journalists–who, what, when, where, why. And write their article. Book report disguised as journalism…
That’s all I’ve got–I’m not a teacher! Good luck.