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In designing units and classroom activities, you can therefore
organizing activities around students’ use of these and other strategies.
You are also organizing units in terms of some coherent, overall
topic, theme, issue, genre, archetypes, historical/literary period,
or production. In many cases, units combine different aspects of
these alternatives; there is no pure prototypical example for each
of these different approaches.
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Topics. Organizing your unit around
a topic such as power, evil, suburbia, the family, etc., means that
you are finding texts that portray these different topics. For example,
you may select a series of texts that portray mother/daughter relationships
in film, television, or literature. Students may then compare or
contrast the different portrayals of the same topic across different
texts. It is important to select topics about which students have
some familiarity or interest, or one’s that may engage them.
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One advantage of a topics approach is that topics do not imply
the kind of value or cultural orientation associated with a thematic
or issue unit. Students may construct their own value stance related
to a topic, for example, defining different attitudes towards the
topic of mother/daughter relationships. However, without that additional
value orientation, students may lack motivation to be engaged in
a topic.
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Webquests:
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Webquest:
The American Dream
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Webquest:
Victims of Mass Hysteria
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Webquest:
Does Social Rank Matter?
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Webquests:
teaching literature
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Unit:
media and behavior
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Themes. You may also organize your
unit around certain themes portrayed in texts. A frequently used
theme is that of individualism or conformity to society—the extent
to which characters must conform to or resist societal norms. As
we just noted, one advantage of thematic units is that students
may become engaged with related attitudes or values associated with
a theme. One disadvantage of thematic units is that they can readily
become too didactic, in which you attempt to have students “learn”
certain thematic lessons — the importance of not conforming to society
or the need to be courageous.
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This problem of didacticism relates to how you organize your
unit. You can organize your unit in both a “top-down” deductive
manner, providing students with theoretical perspectives or frames
for them to apply in a deductive manner. You can also organize your
unit in a “bottom-up” inductive manner, encouraging students to
make their own connections and applications. To avoid the didactic
tendency of thematic unit, you can move more to an inductive approach,
allowing students to make their own interpretations and connections
that may different from any presupposed central thematic focus.
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Planning
a Themed Literature Unit
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Cyberguides:
Teaching American literature
|
Thematic units
|
lessonplanz.com
[Language Arts: Book Activities: Grades 9-12]
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edHelper.com
[literature books for high school]
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EDSITEment
[lesson plans]
|
Daily
Lesson Plans
|
the
Educator's Reference Desk
|
PBS
Teacher Resource: Teaching literature
|
Designing
thematic literature units [ Kathleen Noe: Teacher Education
521, Seattle University ]
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Webquests:
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True
Love
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Good
and Evil in Lord of the Flies
|
Tragic
Heroes in Literature and Life
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Issues, questions, dilemmas. You can
also organize your units around issues, for example, the issue of
gender and power — the degree to which women may have to assume
subordinate roles in a culture. One advantage of an issue is that
students may adopt different, competing perspective about an issue,
tensions that may create interest in that issue. One disadvantage
of studying issues is that students may bring often rigidly defined
stances on issues such as gun control or school vouchers, which
may not allow for further development or consideration of alternative
perspectives.
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Framing units in this manner mirrors adolescents’ attempts to
cope with the complex, ill-defined problems, issues, and dilemmas
in their everyday lives (Beach & Myers, 2001; Short & Harste, 1996).
Part of this involves the ability to pose “what if” hypothetical
questions. For example, adolescents may be caught in a dilemma in
which they have to decide whether to continue a relationship their
parents don’t approve of or seek to please their parents by ending
the relationship. Or, in responding to Romeo and Juliet,
they may examine reasons for Romeo and Juliet being caught in the
same dilemma of competing allegiances. Adolescents often have difficulty
knowing how to cope with situations that do not lend themselves
to simple, easy solutions. Rather than throwing up their hands in
despair, they need some strategies for systematically and thoughtfully
coping with ill-defined problems, issues, and dilemmas in their
everyday lives. They need to learn how to step back and identify
reasons why they have certain concerns or why certain solutions
may not work.
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Inquiry-based instruction is based on using the strategies of
formulating questions, issues, or dilemmas; contextualizing those
questions, issues, or dilemmas; defining how those questions, issues,
or dilemmas are represented in a media text, critiquing those representations,
and formulating alternative solutions (Beach & Myers, 2001). For
examples of hypermedia inquiry project work by high school students
cited in Beach and Myers:
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Social
Worlds Inquiry curriculum
Teen
Issues [ focus on issues of love, relationships, family ]
For example, students may address the issue of suburban sprawl
in terms of how suburban development and lifestyle is represented
in the media or film. In such a unit, students could initially study
examples of television programs or films that portray suburbia in
a positive or negative way. They could then determine the ways in
which these representations influence perceptions of issues of sprawl.
One of the most useful Web-based resources for devising inquiry-based
instruction is the Inquiry
web site at the University of Illinois. Not only does this
site contain numerous examples of inquiry-based units, but the
site itself represents an important media text as a place for
a shared community exchange around teaching and learning, as
well as addressing community issues.
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Sites on inquiry-based learning:
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YouthLearn:
Inquiry-Based Learning
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Institute
for Inquiry [ hands-on activities ]
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How
to Develop an Inquiry-Based Project
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George
Lucas Foundation: Project-based Learning
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National
Science Foundation monograph [ inquiry-based learning ]
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Annenberg
Learner.org [ frequently asked questions about inquiry-based
learning ]
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28
questions that teachers can use to promote the inquiry process
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Use
of technology such as Inspiration mapping to foster inquiry
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To foster inquiry-based learning, teachers employ what is
known as “problem-based,” “case-based,”
or “scenario-based”approaches to create situations
in which students are faced with problems or difficulties they
need to address and formulation alternative solutions. Randel
Kindley, in “Scenario-Based
E-Learning: A Step Beyond Traditional E-Learning” argues
that students are most likely to learn when placed in situations.
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Scenario-based learning is similar to the experiential
model of learning. The adherents of experiential learning are
fairly adamant about how people learn. Learning seldom takes
place by rote. Learning occurs because we immerse ourselves
in a situation in which we’re forced to perform. We get
feedback from our environment and adjust our behavior. We do
this automatically and with such frequency in a compressed timeframe
that we hardly notice we’re going through a learning process.
Indeed, we may not even be able to recite particular principles
or describe how and why we engaged in a specific behavior. Yet,
we’re still able to replicate that behavior with increasing
skill as we practice. If we were to ask Michael Jordan to map
out the actions that describe his drive, reverse, and back-handed
layup, he would probably look at us dumbfounded and say, “I
just do it.”
On advantage of Web-based learning is that students can
participate in complex simulations such as Sim City
3000, Populous, or Alpha Centauri to define
problems or issues associated with housing, transportation,
shopping, business, schooling, waste disposal, day care,
etc., in developing communication. For example, in Sim
City 3000, if players do not zone for incinerators
or landfills, the city piles up with trash.
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It is also important that these situations contain complex,
“ill-structured” problems that do not lend themselves to
easy solutions. In his book Designing World Class E-Learning,
Roger Shank argues that learning is most likely to occur
when people have to face and deal with problems or issues.
It is through learning how to address and cope with problems
that people develop new ways of thinking or behaving. He
therefore argues that Web-based learning courses based on
cases need to include complex problems, conflicts, or dilemmas.
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Schank, R. (1998). Inside
multi-media case based instruction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
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This suggests the value of focusing in on complex issues
or dilemmas portrayed in literature or media texts, as well
as issues or dilemmas associated with use of any media texts,
for issue, the issue of whether violent or sexist computer
games should be censored.
One useful online Webquest-type tool for creating inquiry-based
activities and lessons is the WISE
instructional development site.
This site, developed by the National Science Foundation
initially for use in science education, builds in specific
question-asking, reflection, and journal-writing prompts
and activities. For example, certain screens pop up that
ask students to write in their journals about the questions
or issues they are studying. Teachers can use this tool
to construct highly interactive activities that actively
engage students in their learning.
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Sites on problem-based learning:
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Problem-based
learning [ Maastricht University ]
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The
Learning Tree: Problem-based learning
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Center
for Educational Technologies
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Genres. You may also organize
your unit around studying a particular genre — short story,
novel, ballad, rap, drama, memoir, biography, poetry, film
noir, or hybrid combinations or mixtures of genres evident
in a multi-genre approach to writing instruction (Romano,
2000). As was noted in Module 7 on film and television genres,
one advantage of a genre approach is that students learn
a larger literacy practice of making generalizations about
similarities between different texts based on certain genre
features. For example, have read a number of different autobiographical
essays, students may then identify similar features common
to those essays. One disadvantage of a genre approach is
that is leads readily into pigeonholing or categorizing
texts as representing certain genre features without critically
analyzing those texts. Moreover, such reductionist genre
approaches can also reify a formalist approach to English
instruction — overemphasizing the study of formal structures
without examining other aspects of texts. For example, it
may be assumed that all short stories have “rising action,”
“conflict,” and “resolution,” when in fact there are many
stories that do not follow that formal structure.
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In organizing genre units, you need to work deductively
to provide certain frameworks or concepts about genre features,
while, at the same time, allowing students to make their
own inductive connections between texts. You may also organize
a unit around producing or writing certain genres, integrating
reading and writing instruction. Students need to have opportunities
to create their own genre texts based on their study of
genre. For example, after studying the genre of rap, they
create their own raps. In studying texts, students may then
focus on techniques being employed with an eye towards producing
such texts. In writing texts, they then draw on their genre
knowledge in providing feedback to each other's texts.
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Google
[literary genre sites] |
Fantasy/science fiction literature
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The
Council for the Literature of the Fantastic (CLF)
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Science
Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.
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sff.net:
The Recommended Fantasy Author List
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CyberSpace
Spinner [Archive of Horror and Fantasy Fiction]
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FantasyReaders.com
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Taming
the Alien Genre: Bringing Science Fiction into the Classroom
[digital library and archives]
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Learning
Theory through Pop Culture
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Historical fiction
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Soon's
Historical Fiction Site
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The
Historical Fiction Review
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Romance
|
Google
Directory [romance]
|
Romance
Writers of America
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The
Romantic Novelists Association Web Site
|
Mystery
|
MysteryNet.com
|
sldirectory.com:
Looking for a Mystery?
|
Mystery
Ink: Reviews of Mystery & Suspense Books
|
stopyourekillingme.com
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mysterywriters.org
|
themysteryreader.com
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Modern
Monstrosity
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Autobiography
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Education
Planet.com
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Poetry resources/online poems
|
poets.org
|
Modern
American Poetry
|
American
Verse Project [University of Michigan Humanities Text
Initiative]
|
poetryslam.com
|
Twentieth-century
Poetry in English
|
Reading
and Writing Poetry: 2001 Volume III [Yale-New Haven
Teachers Institute]
|
poetryforge.org
|
About.com
[The English Teacher: Teaching Basic Poetry]
|
onlinepoetryclassroom.org
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poetryexpress.org
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webenglishteacher.com
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Drama resources
|
unexpectedproductions.org
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creativedrama.com
|
webenglishteacher.com
[Drama Resources}
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thevirtualdramastudio.co.uk
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The
Drama teacher's Resource Room
|
Drama
Education [Drama lessons and activities]
|
Literary
Resources — Theatre and Drama
|
Historical periods or cultural movements. You
may also create units based on certain historical periods
or cultural movements, for example, the portrayal of World
War II in films, the rise of Hip-Hop culture in music, or
the Harlem Renaissance in American literature, music, and
art. In studying these periods, you can incorporate background
historical events or cultural attitudes shaping texts, as
well as similarities between literature, art, music, and
popular media. One disadvantage is that it may simply become
matter of covering a lot of historical information or facts
about features of the period without fostering critical
response to the literature itself.
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Jack
Lynch [lots of resources for teaching American literature]
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Voices
of the Shuttle: American Literature [resources for specific
authors]
|
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University
of Colorado [lot of links to American/British/World
literature]
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Literary
Movements in American literature
|
Google
[British literature sites]
|
Georgia
Department of Education: American literature: sequenced
lesson plans
|
History of American literature: organized by periods
|
bibliomania.com
|
PAL:
Perspectives in American Literature
A Research and Reference Guide - An Ongoing Project
|
Annenberg
video series: American Passages
|
University
of Michigan: The Making of America
|
Georgetown
University: Electronic Archives for teaching American literature
|
A
Hypertext of American History
|
Webquest:
American history and literature
|
Webquests: Elizabethan England
|
Elizabethan
England
|
Elizabethan
England in the Time of Romeo and Juliet
|
Researching
Life in Elizabethan England
|
Life
in Elizabethan England
|
Elizabethan
England WebQuest
|
"Seven
days in your lifeas an Elizabethan"
|
What
Were You Doing In Elizabethan England in 1600?
|
Life
in Elizabethan England
|
Mr.
William Shakespeare and the Internet [award-winning
site]
|
The Romantics
|
Romantic
Circle Praxis Series
|
Romantic
Circles High School
|
Webquests: The Puritan period (background for The Crucible,
Hawthorne’s stories, The Scarlet Letter, The Witch
of Blackbird Pond, etc.)
|
esc20.k12.tx.us
An
Internet WebQuest on Witch of Blackbird Pond
Life,
Lust, and Literature in the Puritan Era
Is
Religious Freedom Absolute?
Journey
to the New World
Arthur
Miller's The Crucible
You
Can't Handle the Truth: Teaching Arthur Miller's The Crucible
The
Blackbird Witch Project [a People magazine
exclusive]
The
Crucible: Timeless Persecutions
Resources
for teaching The Crucible
Threads
of Change in 19th Century America
Webquest:
19th Century American Women Writers
Resources:
20th Century British literature
Webquests: The Roaring ‘20s (background for books
by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc.)
The
Changes of the 1920's
The
Roaring 1920's WebQuest
F.
Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920s
esc20.k12.tx.us
Experience
the Travels of the "Lost Generation" of The
Sun Also Rises
THE
ROARING TWENTIES
Webquests: The Harlem Renaissance
Renaissance
and Raisins [An Internet WebQuest on The Harlem Renaissance
and Raisin in the Sun]
A
Harlem Renaissance Webquest
The
Harlem Renaissance
The
Harlem Renaissance WebQuest
Harlem
Renaissance WebQuest
Harlem
Renaissance
Designing
an Art Exhibit:The Harlem Renaissance
Resources
on The Harlem Renaissance
Webquest:
To Kill a Mockingbird: Growing up in the 1930s Post
World War II American literature
Webquests: The Beat Genreation
Beat
- The Course
Beat
Generation
Resources: The Beats
Literary
Kicks
Bohemian
Ink
The
Sixties Project
Women’s literature
scribblingwomen.org
Voices
from the Gaps [Women writers of colors]
Resources: African-American literature
Keele
University [Writing Black]
African
American Writers : Online E-texts
African
American Women Writersof the 19th century
African
American Literature Syllabi
Resources: Native-American literature
nativeweb.org
pbs.org:
circle of stories
A
Talk Concerning First Beginnings: Teaching Native
American Oral Literature
Teaching
Asian-American literature
Teaching
Chicano literature
World
literature in English
Postcolonial literature
Contemporary
Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature in English
Colonial
and Postcolonial Literary Dialogues
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