Especially for Teachers - Teaching English

Choosing and Using Texts

Which texts?
Criteria for selecting texts
Keeping up with the reading/viewing of new texts
Matching texts to learning intentions
The English Club Model
Putting the five perspectives on English teaching to work
Strategies to use to introduce texts
Some useful references
Jenni Connor’s literature text selections
Guided Reading at Lindisfarne North
Jeffrey Wilhelm forum on teaching reading strategies
Jenni Connor's Rapid Reviews for Adolescent Readers

All learning areas use texts, but English focuses on three particular kinds

• Literature Texts (Classic, Contemporary and Popular)
• Mass Media Texts
• Everyday Texts

New types of texts, especially electronic-based texts such as hypertext, hyperfiction and e-mail, are making different demands on students as readers and viewers.

A challenging, rich and balanced English program gives access to

• texts beyond those which students may encounter in their daily lives,
• texts for personal enjoyment, aesthetic appreciation and critical analysis
• texts for conducting the business of everyday life ( at home, at school, in the workplace)

Criteria for selecting texts

In a recent article in the DoE’s Library and Information Centre newsletter, 0278, Jenni Connor suggests different sets of criteria for selecting texts for students.

Texts for reading acquisition

These texts should

• provide a framework that gradually introduces strategies required for skilled reading
• deal with themes and issues relating to the everyday lives of the readers
• provide opportunities to revisit some subjects, themes and characters
• use a simple language structure, so that children don’t have to review many oral language forms to access meaning
• offer opportunities for exploring language at the text, word, part word, and letter level
• provide opportunities for the acquisition of alphabet letters, letter clusters and common sight words in natural contexts
• present many of the conventions of written language including spelling, punctuation and capitalisation
• encourage problem solving on text by having to make analogies, predictions, checking and self-corrections
• have illustrations that give maximum support for the emergent reader, gradually extending experience as reading is more confident
• use appropriate book structure, text size, spacing and layout to match text type, text difficulty and reader skill.

Texts for beginning readers
Beginning readers appreciate:	uncluttered layout uncomplicated storyline secure ending / definite resolution to story predictable narrative familiar events and characters to whom they can relate strong language structures and clear genre humour and fun left to right readability action, animation repetition, rhythm, rhyme onomatopoeia, sound and language play
Texts for extending readers
Extending readers appreciate:	strength of storyline vivid characters more exotic settings more complex picture- word text relationship play with language and pictures alternative versions of familiar stories clue following less literal meanings more lyrical prose reassurance about personal concerns humour, irreverence.
Texts for independent readers
Independent readers appreciate:	cross references, allusions, symbols complexity of story, character and relationship puns, paradox, irony drama, tension, mood and atmosphere mystery and adventure age-peer heroes who succeed unaided by adults idiomatic language the fantastic and the bizarre social realism and veracity chapter and series books revisions of familiar tales
Texts for established readers
Established readers, whose thinking is more flexible and reversible, less concrete and one directional, appreciate literary techniques like:	stories within stories flashbacks and timeshifts stream of consciousness composite narrative, shifting focus and point of view
Texts for reluctant readers
Reluctant readers appreciate:	print size larger than the standard without being insulting generous space between the lines open space which leaves the text less daunting illustrations that beak the text and provide a secondary context clues in language pattern and storyline.

These points provide guidance for teachers especially when they are selecting print texts with individual students for use in personal reading programs or for the whole class or small groups in shared text programs.

Keeping up with the reading/viewing of new texts

Keeping up to date with new texts is almost impossible - there’s just so much. Useful strategies include:

• seeking recommendations from other teachers, librarians, booksellers and students
• visiting a bookshop on a regular basis to ‘glance’ along the shelves
• requesting on-approval copies from publishers and bookshops who send out fliers on a regular basis
• subscribing to reviewing journals which review children’s and adolescent fiction and other texts such as Magpies , The Literature Base, Reading Time, Notable Australian Children’s Books and Viewpoint, Fiction Focus
• visiting children’s literature and film websites. The list of sites in Books for Students is a good place to start.

Matching texts to learning intentions

In planning to use a text in an English class, teachers should be explicit about their intentions. These intentions may be about knowledge, processes, attitudes or values . They are the underlying ideas or concepts upon which experience of the text and its use will focus.

Two methods for planning the use of texts in the English program explained below are familiar to many teachers. The first has been developed by Robert McGregor of The English Club . The second is developed around the Five Perspectives on English Teaching.

Both offer a framework to use in identifying the underlying learning intentions for using texts in an English program.

The English Club Model

Putting the Five Perspectives on English Teaching to Work

There are five broad perspectives underpinning the teaching of English in Tasmanian schools and colleges. They are:

1. a cultural heritage perspective
2. a language skills perspective
3. a personal growth / whole language perspective
4. a functional (genre) perspective
5. a critical literacy perspective.

These perspectives are drawn from both literacy and literary theory and practice, and at various times and for various purposes are observable in all English teaching programs. They have been described to assist teachers to identify clear purposes and pedagogical intentions for their classroom practice.

In practice teachers draw from each perspective , to greater or lesser extent, depending upon their learning intentions for their students, the text(s) selected and the activities designed for use with that text.

In the examples that follow, activities in relation to the each perspective are included.

By using proformas based on these examples to brainstorm learning possibilities, teachers can clarify their intentions for the use of chosen texts and determine different ways to cater for student learning styles. A unit of work might focus on two or three of the perspectives, or may include elements of all five. A process such as this is a useful tool for teachers in planning an appropriate, rich and balanced English program for their students.

Strategies to use to introduce texts

The following strategies may be most useful in working with literary texts but also can be used with the full range of texts. More strategies can be found on the Key Teaching Strategies page.

Research

• Undertake text-based research to access and report on information about unfamiliar topics and concepts to be encountered in the text.
• Sample particular groups (parents, friends, shopkeepers, peers…) using questionnaires/interviews to research attitudes, values and opinions related to issues raised in the text.

When students work with texts from other historical periods or other cultures, the availability of information about the culture helps to give the context. For example, before reading Robert Browning’s narrative poem, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", students could research aspects of life in Medieval Europe

• the Plague or the Black Death,
• troubadours,
• Children’s Crusades,
• sounds (pitch, volume) which might be heard by rats and humans,
• the idea of music having powers to soothe the ‘savage beast’…

Topics should be related to specific teaching intentions. This research could be conducted and reported back to the class using the collaborative Jigsaw structure.

Parallel Narrative

• Use a decontextualized skeleton plot (e.g. boy and girl go on an errand across difficult terrain - an accident happens - medical attention is given - the culprit is punished = Jack and Jill) to help students create their own stories and role plays which fill in the plot outlines.
• Select a concept or value which represents an important theme in the text and have students explore the issue in discussion before creating their own texts in which the concept of value is an important theme.
• Select an important aspect of the text (e.g. plot, theme, narrative structures, use of language…) and have students create their own text on the chosen focus for a particular audience, or genre, e.g. a picture book for an audience of Grades 2/3 students on the theme. If dialogue is significant to the telling of the story then students could create a dialogue story (one told only through direct speech, with no narration).

Before launching into a viewing of a performance or a reading of the script of MACBETH students could explore the notions of right and wrong, host and guest, high status roles and lower status roles, through a role play, incorporating soliloquy, in which you welcome to your home, your boss whom you intend to murder, and the scene before this in which you and your spouse discuss the plan of action. If the focus is upon exploring power and obligation, then students versions may be compared with Shakespeare’s to discover ‘universals’ and differences.

Vocabulary Awareness

• If there are particular words which might be unfamiliar to students (e.g. archaic or from highly specialised areas or neologisms), spend some time introducing the words to students.
• Students could prepare a noticeboard or ‘big-book’ glossary of terms with clear explanations from the list provided by the teacher.
• students could use "Who am I?" riddle structures to explain the vocabulary to their peers.
• Teams of students could use a dictionary to locate the meanings of all the chosen words and ensure that all team members understand them prior to randomly selected team members answering quiz questions.

This would be an appropriate strategy to use in relation to non-fiction texts. With texts from another culture/historical period, such as "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", there are many words no longer used or with different meanings today. Even in the relatively short time since Browning wrote the poem, language has changed greatly and his refined Victorian era English would be different from the many types of German languages being used in Hamelin at the time! An excellent opportunity to focus on how language changes over time. Students could be asked to deduce the probable meaning(s) from the context and illustrations before checking meanings in their dictionaries.

Displays

• Prior to reading texts, display artefacts, illustrations, and photographs relevant to historical, geographical, cultural background of the text. Students could use scavenger hunt quiz sheets to locate and describe details that appear in the story.
• Display and explore visual texts (posters, paintings, video clips…) which represent perspectives on themes or issues relevant to the text.

In working with Gary Crew and Steven Woolman’s The WaterTower (Era Publications) display the illustrations without the print text and ask students to tell the narrative in the pictures.

In preparation for Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mr Tom, (Puffin), display photos of ration cards, gas masks, Andersen shelters, evacuees, children’s clothing of the time, and other items depicting life in Britain during World War 2 (some ‘real’ objects could be included). Students complete a scavenger hunt quiz where they have to describe, in as much detail as they can, particular objects (size, colour, texture, design, use) or write a personal response to images of children/evacuees. Link quiz questions to significant information in the text.

Book Covers

• Individually (or as a group or whole class) deconstruct the information presented on the book cover. Both print and visual information reveals an attitude to, and understanding of, the text, the reader and their relationship. McMahon and Quin (1984) provides a useful framework for this deconstruction in Exploring Images (Batavia Press). See also Johnston (1996) on ‘Reading Book Covers’ in conTEXTs 3. From bookcovers, students can predict possible storylines, characters, themes, and from these predictions can utilise their knowledge of text types to predict genre, language, tone. When using this predicting strategy teachers should structure regular opportunities to reflect on and confirm predictions during the ‘During Reading’ phase.

Before reading Cathy Wilcox’s picture book Enzo The Wonderfish, the teacher asked the Prep class to identify the images on the book’s cover, e.g. ‘There’s a goldfish in a bowl’, ‘The person on the cover is wearing a party hat’, etc.

One boy noticed the ‘Z’ - his family name begins with a ‘Z’. He constructed meaning, but it may not have been what the teacher was expecting!

From the identification of elements students were asked to infer, in talking to a partner, what might be happening in the picture - this was designed to lead them into interpretation and to set up a mindset for active reading of the story.

Mindmapping

• Individually (or in pairs or small groups), using coloured textas and a large sheet of paper, have students construct visual/verbal mindmaps (mostly images with some words) of their understanding of issues, themes, concepts or genres with which the text they will be reading will be concerned.
• Students should revisit their mindmaps both during reading and after reading to amend and refine their mindmaps.

Before the Grade 8 class listened to a reading of Ray Bradbury’s short story ‘All Summer in a Day’ pairs were asked to construct a visual/verbal mindmap of their understanding of the literacy genre of Science Fiction. This helped them to enter into the ‘secondary world’ of the text and to search for the ‘truths’ in the fiction.

Students returned to their mindmaps after reading the story to add or refine insights into the genre, which were later shared with the whole class.

Stem statements

• Provide sentence stems or beginnings as a prompt to key students into prior knowledge and past experience. This can be oral or written and can focus on issues and concepts, a scenario developed from the text to be read, attitudes and values…

Before Reading Selena Solomon’s Dabu,The Baby Dugong (Magabala Books, 1992) with her grade three class, the teacher asked the students to finish these sentence stems:

• One thing I know about dugongs is …
• I wonder…
• Life in the sea is…
• A question I have is…
• Saving the dugong is …

Class discussion of student sentence stem completions revealed which students had little or no knowledge, and that all students had an expectation they would learn about dugongs from this text.

P.M.I.

• This perennial strategy, developed by Edward de Bono, asks students to consider the PLUS or positive, the MINUS or negative and the INTERESTING responses the students have to an idea or concept. Students could write, speak or illustrate their responses.

Introducing Jerri Kroll’s poem, "Filthy Feet" (p.p. 10 & 11, Swamp Soup, Lothian, 1995) the teacher asked his Grade 4 class, in pairs, to do a PMI on smelly feet. Each pair shared a response with the whole class.

PLUS	MINUS	INTERESTING

Before sharing Joan Dalgleish’s picture book The Watchduck (CIS Publishers, 1993) the teacher used a PMI adaptation to consider the use of ducks as ‘watchdogs’ or alarms.

GOOD	BAD	?

KWL

• This strategy to develop active reading of expository texts (Ogle, 1986, KWL in The Reading Teacher, 6, p.p. 564-570) is based on the constructivist understanding that learners make new, or refined, meanings in relation to what they already know or want to know.
• The K stands for what I know; the W for what I want to know; and the L for What I Have Learnt. The K and W sections of this strategy are Before Reading Activities and the L section is an evaluative After Reading activity.
• In relation to literary texts, KWL is a useful strategy to use with texts which develop concepts, or which are information rich, or for when exploring a style or genre.

Before Reading Gary Paulsen’s novel Hatchet with a group of Grade Six boys (reluctant readers) the teacher used the KWL strategy to set some goals for the reading. The topic was "Survival in the Canadian Wilderness (Bush) in winter".

K	W	L

They completed the Know section about their knowledge based on their experiences/understanding. The Want to Know section had questions about how to survive in the snowbound Canadian Wilderness in which the novel is set. After Reading the novel, the students completed the What I’ve Learnt column by answering their questions.

Supporting texts

• When introducing longer or more sophisticated texts dealing with a specific concept, simpler, shorter, more focused whole texts are useful in activating and refining prior knowledge. Picture books and poems are especially useful.
• When the focus is on the study of themes, characters, style… abridged versions, retellings and filmed versions are effective in quickly establishing the plot outline with all students in the class.
• This strategy easily and productively incorporates the use of other strategies in the Before Reading Phase.

Prior to a class reading of George Orwell’s Animal Farm the teacher read aloud some fables from Aesop through to Thurber to his Grade 10 students. Students were asked to recall their knowledge of the fable genre and produce a mindmap of the genre.

Prior to studying various detective fiction stories and novels, the teacher offered her Year 11 students a number of picture books (Bruce Whatley and Rosie Smith’s Detective Donut And The Wild Goose Chase, HarperCollins; Nina Laden’s Private I. Guana The Case Of The Missing Chameleon, Chronicle Books; Jonathan Allen’s Fowl Play; Orion and Rod Clement’s Grandad’s Teeth, Angus and Robertson) as representatives of the genre. Exploring these texts activated students’ knowledge about detective fiction.

As a Before Reading activity for a Grade 9 class reading of Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet the teacher showed the video of Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh version with Denzil Washington and Keanu Reeves) as a prelude to an introductory discussion to Shakespearian language and treatment of love.

Some useful references:

• Benton and Fox (1985), Teaching Literature: Nine To Fourteen, Oxford University Press, London.
• Connor (1998), ‘Literature in an electronic world’, 027.8, LIC, DETCCD, Hobart.
• Creenaune and Rowles (1996), What’s Your Purpose? : Reading strategies for non-fiction texts, PETA, Marrickville, NSW.
• Curriculum Corporation (1994), A Statement on English for Australian Schools, Melbourne.
• Curriculum Corporation (1995), Resource Guide for Aboriginal Studies and Torres Strait Islander Studies , Melbourne.
• Corcoran and Evans (1987), Readers, Texts, Teachers, Boynton Cook.
• DECCD (1996),What is English?, Hobart.
• de Bono, Cort Thinking, Hawker Brownlow Education, Melbourne.
• Fogarty (1994), The Mindful School: How To Teach For Metacognitive Reflection, Hawker Brownlow Education, Melbourne.
• Hillel and Mappin(1995), Choosing and Using Literature, Curriculum Corporation, Melbourne.
• Johnston (1996), ‘Reading Book Covers as Text’, conTEXTs, No 3, p.p. 19-22, DECCD, Hobart.
• Martino and Cook (eds) (1998) Gender & Texts, AATE, Adelaide.
• McGregor (1995), Teaching Towards English Outcomes, The English Club, Melbourne.
• McMahon and Quin (1984), Exploring Images, Batavia Press, Perth, W.A.
• Morgan (1997) ,Critical Literacy in the Classroom:the art of the possible , Routledge, London
• Morris and Stewart-Dore (1984), Learning to Learn from Text: Effective reading in the content areas, Addison-Wesley, Sydney.
• Nieuwenhuizen (1992), Good Books for Teenagers, Mandarin, Melbourne.
• Nieuwenhuizen (1995), More Good Books for Teenagers ,Mandarin, Melbourne.
• Ogle (1986), "KWL: A strategy to develop active reading of expository texts" in The Reading Teacher, No 6, p.p. 564-570.
• Wray and Lewis (1997) Extending Literacy ;Children reading and writing non-fiction, Routledge, London

Jenni Connor’s suggestions for choosing and using texts

Introduction
Below you will find reviews of recent fiction for children and young adults. The texts are organised into Bands of schooling to indicate the kind of text that seems to appeal to students in these age brackets and the kind of activities that are appropriate for students to undertake based on the particular text. There is no suggestion that a title is only suited to a specific age group; the level of student competence will determine how much they can gain from a particular text. Teachers choose books according to student interest, ability to access the themes, structures and language of a text, and relevance to their teaching purposes.

Working with a book:
Many of the texts discussed lend themselves to a range of strategies for literary analysis. Only particular aspects have been selected for emphasis in each case, to avoid unnecessary repetition or excessive deconstruction to the detriment of reader enjoyment.

An emphasis has been placed on developing Contextual Understanding: ie. an understanding about how people’s use and interpretation of language varies with place, time, social, cultural and personal experience, beliefs and attitudes.. Contextual understanding applies both to the factors influencing a book’s construction and its reception.

Without belabouring the task or spoiling enjoyment, each text should therefore be approached with a set of analytical questions:

• Who is telling this story?
• What angle or perspective does he/she have on events?
• What opinion does she/he want us to form about the actions, interactions, motivations and consequences?
• How did he/she position us to form this point of view?
• From what other angles could the events have been portrayed?
• How might this change our interpretations?

Band A - Explanation

Students at this Band of schooling enjoy stories with familiar themes, experiences and characters. They respond well to humour, a strong storyline with a satisfying resolution and illustrations that clearly reflect and expand the written narrative. Young students take pleasure in rhyme, rhythm and language-play and these features, often accompanied by a repeated refrain, support their early attempts to read and make the effort seem worthwhile.

Students working at Level One in this Band will be listening, linking the story with their experience and beginning to understand that texts are created by people in individual ways. Students who demonstrate competence at Level Two, are able to offer considered interpretation and opinion on the likelihood of fictional events in relation to real-life experience. They are beginning to recognise that stories often have a purpose-to inform, persuade or entertain, for example, and that their creators hold and convey particular beliefs.

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Band A Titles:

Greetings From Sandy Beach, Bob Graham. Lothian, Port Melbourne, 1990.ISBN 0 85091 422 1
Suddenly, Colin McNaughton. Andersen Press, London. 1994.ISBN 0 86264 540 9
Nana’s Gift, Margaret Brusnahan and Robert Roennfeldt. Omnibus, South Australia,1998. ISBN 1 86291 192 4

Greetings from Sandy Beach
This typical Bob Graham ‘family story’ is told with predictable warmth, humour and lightness of touch in conveying its message of acceptance and community collaboration. The family set off on their holiday, like most families, with squabbles, regrets and tears- and they’re only going for two days! Young children will relate to the endless tedium that seems to mark any journey, in which the only memorable features are the food consumed and the throwing up. When they arrive at their campsite, Dad is horrified to find it occupied by a bunch of bikers, threateningly called ‘The Disciples of Death’. In adversity however, all are united, as tents are raised and games organised; ‘The Disciples’, Dad agrees, were ‘all right really, once you got to know them’.

Working with the book:
Students can be encouraged to connect the fictional narrative with their own experiences of going to the beach and going on holidays, identifying where the similarities and differences are and the exaggeration and move to the ridiculous that Graham uses to create his humour.

Ask: Who is telling this story? What point of view do they have on events? Whose ‘side’ are we on? What did Dad think of the bikers? Why did he change his mind? Why do people make those judgements about other people? Should they?

Look closely at the two pages about putting up the tent. How can we tell Dad was surprised when they helped? What does Dad do and say? Why do we laugh at the pictures when the family thought they had the beach to themselves? What can we see coming over the hill? (This is a form of irony, when the reader sees events and implications hidden from the story-teller) Discuss why the narrator is embarrassed by her parents when other kids are around. Discuss the different types of framing and their effects and the order in which we read the pictures. Examine Graham’s illustrative style, its ‘sketchiness’, cartoon quality and the way he conveys feelings and expression with body language and very simple facial features.

Draw attention to the use of endpapers, title and final page graphics and the use of white space to highlight and focus. Compare this book with other titles by this author/illustrator and distil repeated elements of his style, theme and life-philosophy.

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Suddenly
This is a wonderful demonstration of how much we need to bring to a text to extract full meaning from it. The story uses all our knowledge about the relationship between ‘pigs and wolves’ to create maximum humour around Preston’s simple walk to the shops for his mum. Preston remains blissfully unaware that he is pursued by the wolf, who suffers disaster and indignity while Preston has an unbelievable series of ‘lucky escapes’.

Working with the book:
Share students’ knowledge about the various versions of the Three Little Pigs, about other ‘wolf stories’ and about other stories, such as Rosie’s Walk, that work on this formula of the innocent narrator and the knowing reader. Discuss how the humour derives from our anticipation and thwarted predictions and the fact that ‘we’re on Preston’s side’ against the ‘evil and predatory wolf; discuss our views about wolves in story and why we make these pre-judgements. Draw attention to the language structures and features-the use of large font and exclamation marks for emphasis; the use of brackets for asides, which speak directly to the reader; the use of ‘talk bubbles and other signage within the picture text, such as on the school house. Look closely at the symbols and picture cues such as the items on the supermarket shelves and the employment of shadows as precursors of danger. Discuss especially, those on the first endpapers and penultimate picture frame when Preston arrives home. Have students create individual or big-book versions of familiar tales such as Red Riding Hood, applying humour by turning the tables on the traditional aggressor.

Nana’s Gift
This picture book is in the tradition of Aboriginal teaching stories, with a gently-expressed message about finding the good in all things & respecting them for what they are. Adam & Ben are brothers who live with their mother, father & ten older siblings in a reserve on the shores of lake Alexandrina in South Australia. Like many youngsters, they long for a dog of their own & look with envy on their cousin’s magnificent hunting dog, Ned. Although it seems that all their dreams have come true when Nana presents them with two tiny puppies, Adam & Ben slowly realise with disappointment that their dogs are chihuahuas & will never grow to be fierce rabbiters. Nana wisely advises that the boys ‘accept them as they are, & let your love bring out the best in them’.

Working with the book:
Discuss the form of teaching stories and share students’ knowledge of them and their understanding of the lesson of this particular tale. Explain how, traditionally, in oral form, stories were literally used to ‘teach’ and to pass on the beliefs and practices of the cultural group. Refer to the author and explain that she has recently renewed her contact with her people. Discuss how important it would be to Margaret now to participate in and represent the landscape and lifestyle of her people. Discuss aspects of that way of life and how going hunting for your food, for example, may differ from urban students’ experience of going to the butcher’s or supermarket. Examine the range of views on killing animals to eat (especially, the double page where the little dogs hunt out the rabbits). Discuss the ways the characters and relationships are represented in the story- the closeness between the boys and their nana, the shared experience and responsibility across the extended family, the ways in which boys and girls, men and women are depicted. Examine Roennfeldt’s illustrations and discuss his use of colour, the positioning of figures, the sense of the lush natural world that he evokes and the photo-real quality of his characterisation. Compare these illustrations with others of Roennfeldt’s such as The Paddock and What’s that Noise. See if students can discern some recurring features of his style , use of colour, media and feeling for landscape. What can we imply about his views on environment? Examine some other recent Aboriginal stories such as those illustrated by Bronwyn Bancroft and Sally Morgan and discuss differences in their approach to illustrating landscape.

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Band B - Explanation

In choosing texts for this broad age group, teachers take care to provide material of varying difficulty and genre, as students need to consolidate their reading confidence and to ‘take time out’ to relax with ‘escapist fiction’ as well as to read and discuss works of increasing literary complexity. Young people in the 8-12 age range continue to enjoy humour, adventure, family and school stories. They begin to confirm their genre preferences, sometimes resisting titles outside of their favourite area, and often ‘devouring’ series novels by one author. Gender differences often become more apparent at this stage, both in the choice of genre of girls and boys and in the varying enthusiasm with which students may approach reading tasks, generally.

The range of fiction available for this age group is immense, including fantasy, mystery, time-slip novels and social realism, as well as picture books of varying sophistication.

Students in Band B have begun to move beyond the literal and appreciate allusion, symbolic resonance and cross-referencing in texts. They can identify stereotypes in texts and discuss how people could have been differently represented with a different authorial ideological position.

Students operating at level Three, are able to identify the symbolic significance of colour, gesture and expression in picture-book texts.

They are more in tune with character and can recognise character types.

At level Four, students realise that there can be more than one interpretation of a text and explain possible reasons for these variations. They are able to recognise nuances in character, action and motivation and to begin to interpret figurative language and repeated symbols and motifs.

Band B - Titles:

Detective Donut and the Wild Goose Chase, Bruce Whatley. Harper Collins.
Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal, Emily Rodda. Omnibus Books.
The Listmaker, Robin Klein. Viking.

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Detective Donut
Detective Donut is a bumbling, blatantly incompetent character, who misses the most obvious of clues and creates complications wherever he goes. Adults recognise the parody on the film, comic-strip and radio ‘private eyes’ from the 30s to the 50s. Type-casting is made obvious by use of trench coats, hats, disguises, apparent ‘goodies and baddies’ and the clipped ‘gumshoe style ‘of his speech. Even very young children recognise the humour in the tone and plot, including hilarious mis-communications, without necessarily picking up on the stereotyping and dramatic irony so appealing to more experienced readers.

In the story, Detective Donut is hired by an extremely suspicious-looking Goose to find Professor Drake and a valuable statue from the museum. While Donut blithely ignores the plethora of clues that fall into his lap, the real detecting is successfully undertaken by his tiny mouse-helper, who isn’t even mentioned directly in the text.

Working with the book:
Look at the front cover and elicit what students know about detectives, their work, character, qualities and actions. Establish if they expect Detective Donut to live up to these expectations and why, right from the start, they predict him to be a buffoon. Discuss the term ‘Wild Goose Chase’ and it’s everyday meaning. Identify the ‘goose’ in the story and follow the progress of her part in proceedings.

Read the story aloud a couple of times, discussing the humorous interpretation of the crime genre as students pick up on new elements of humour as they become more knowing participants in the story’s progress. Draw attention to references to other detective stories and films within the text, explain where necessary and, if possible, provide examples. Help students to locate the visual references to the film, The Maltese Falcon. Bring in another parody on the genre, such as Private I.Guana, by Nina Laden, (Chronicle Books) and discuss similarities and differences in genre, illustrative style, narrative tone and construction of humour.

Closely examine the mouse in each frame of ‘Donut’ and determine his part in the plot.

Ask: How does the mouse find out what’s going on? Carefully revisit additional print on each page, reading newspaper headlines and other script. Discuss the visual puns that arise from a literal interpretation of statements such as ‘in this line of work, if you aren’t careful, you end up with egg on your face’. Discuss corny jokes such as ‘I had my first big break. Unfortunately, it was my big toe’.

Ask from whose point of view the story is told and how this affects our understanding. Discuss how a different, more ‘true’ meaning is carried by the illustrations than by the words. Compare the colour tones used in this and in Private I.Guana and the effect of the sombre tones with occasional splashes of bright colour.

Work with the class to create a version of the story as told from the point of view of the mouse or the goose.

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Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal
In the third book in the series, Rowan is plunged once more into a classic quest, in which he will need to demonstrate the time-honoured virtues of courage in the face of fear, perseverance, and love of others above self, in order to name a new keeper of the crystal and to save his mother’s life. The settings are exotic, filled with mythical beasts, tantalising riddles and magical symbols. The well-crafted plot, with its danger, excitement and intrigue, keeps the reader page-turning quickly to unravel its solution.

Working with the book:
Establish what students know about the Rowan series and about quest novels more generally. Discuss the creation of an imaginary world that is the hallmark of fantasy and ask students to note clues to the ‘non-ordinary’ nature of the landscape and events. Set up a chart on which to record the standard elements of quest fantasy - the problem, the riddles, the journey, the obstacles/dangers, the solution and the gaining of wisdom. Point out the chapter titles and speculate with the class about what each might mean. Discuss the special ‘register’ or tone of this kind of fantasy and examine examples of this language use such as ‘The Moon of the Choosing’ and the exotic place and people’s names. Discuss how important such language features are to the establishment of the magical world and to our acceptance of its unusual possibilities.

As a class, decode each riddle as it appears as a means of predicting what will happen next. Revisit them as the story unfolds, revising understanding in the light of new twists and turns in the plot.

Build up a profile of the main characters, particularly listing their strengths and weaknesses. At the end, discuss how they have changed and what experiences contributed to their development. Rowan is not the expected stuff of heroism. Ask students whether they felt strongly ‘attached’ to him and whether his relative frailty affected this empathy with him and engagement with his quest. Compare Rowan to other quest heroes students may know, noting similarities, for example, to Bilbo Baggins and his fear and seeming inappropriateness for the task ahead of him.

Have students create a map of this journey of Rowan’s, his previous ones, or of Bilbo’s in the Hobbit, illustrating each of the perils encountered.

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The Listmaker
Sarah is a compulsive organiser who uses lists to regain some control over her complicated and unfulfilling life. Her jetsetting father has no space in his schedule for an untidy pre-teen and packs her off to her eccentric aunts. Although Sarah fantasises that this is only temporary and that soon she will move in to a luxury apartment with her dad and glamorous stepmother, the reader soon begins to understand what is really going on. The gradual revelation of this sad truth and Sarah’s eventual recognition of where genuine love and loyalty lie, give the book its poignancy and emotional and moral power. Its other strengths rest in the vivid, if not always likeable characters, the contrast between the warmth and humour of the aunts’ household and the superficiality of the father’s lifestyle and the subtle way in which the reader is involved with the unfolding of the truth.

Working with the book:
Confer with students about their knowledge of Robin Klein’s work and the kind of fiction they expect from her. Discuss list-making generally, why people do it and what the pros and cons may be. Speculate about the image of the girl on the cover and share class impressions about her age, character and current preoccupations.

Read the story over a period of time to the class or set up a group to read it and report to the class. List Sarah’s personal qualities, discussing at different stages which attributes students found likeable/unlikeable and why. Discern whether opinion about Sarah changed, and whether Sarah’s own character changed during the story , and why.

Ask: Why did Sarah have so few friends? Did she realise why? How did she explain this isolation to herself? For what purposes did Sarah make lists? How do the lists indicate her gradual change of heart? ‘List’ the titles of them, noting increasing optimism and grasp of reality.

From whose point of view is the story told? How are we as readers ‘let in on the secret’ of a ‘true’ perspective? What role do the aunts and Corrie play in developing our understanding?

At what moments does Sarah begin to realise where she might really be happy? List these and discuss why they might give the protagonist (and us) insight.

What attitude does the author take to events and the characters’ values? How do we gather these opinions? What might be the final messages of book?

Invite students to write a short piece about Sarah, her life and character in two year’s time. Students could work in pairs on this task, illustrating and preparing their ‘future biographies’ for publication.

Jeffrey Wilhelm forum on teaching reading strategies

In the forum, Jeffrey Wilhelm refers to a number of documents. These are available here as downloadable Word files.

The Instrumental Value of School and Reading
Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies: Chapter 3
Fig. 3.1 Models of Teaching and Learning
Fig. 3.2 Guided Reading
Fig. 3.3 Comparison-contrast inquiry square
Fig. 3.32 Fable inquiry square
Fig. 4.2 Comparison of approaches to teaching reading
Fig 4.3 Pre-reading activity for The Crucible
Fig 4.3 Frontloading for The Crucible: Moral Government
Frontloading criteria
Final symbolic story representation
Symbolic story representation evaluation
'The Chaser' Protocol

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