ENGLISH JOURNAL The Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English Language Arts

Volume 43, Number 2

THE WISCONSIN

Fall, 2001

Classroom Strategies for Good Reading Instruction 3

Editor’s Note

What’s So Good About a Word List? 4

Ed Fry

Making the Case for Literature Circles in the Middle School and

Secondary Classrooms 9

Christian P. Knoeller

Teaching Literature as a Reflective Practitioner: Script and Spontaneity 16

Nicholas J. Karolides

Storytelling and Literacy Learning: A Review of the Reserch 20

Robin A. Mello

Book Reviews 30

Debi Sigwell, Nicholas J. Karolides

ENGLISH JOURNALENGLISH JOURNAL

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Submission Guidelines• Send two copies of each manuscript, typed and double-spaced throughout (including quo-

tations, endnotes, and references), with one-inch margins (see address on page 35).

OR Submit your manuscript electronically to the co-editors, Ruth Wood (Ruthann.P.Wood@

uwrf.edu) and the Anne D’Antonio Stinson (stinsona@uww.edu); a Word or WordPerfect

attachment is preferred.

• Provide a statement guaranteeing that the manuscript has not been published or submitted

elsewhere.

• Ensure that the manuscript conforms to the Guidelines for Nonsexist Use of Language in NCTE Publications.

• Follow MLA format throughout.

The name, address, school affiliation, telephone number, and e-mail of the author should ap-pear on the title page only, not on the manuscript. If the manuscript is accepted, the author will need to provide a disk copy of the manuscript in Word or WordPerfect.

Oral Language and Literacy (Spring 2002)

PrintingEagles Printing Co.Eau Claire, WI (715) 835-6631

Deadline: February 15, 2002

Open Submissions (Fall 2002)Deadline: September 15, 2002

EditorsRuth WoodUniversity of Wisconsin-River Falls

Anne DʼAntonio StinsonUniversity of Wisconsin-White-

THE WISCONSIN

ENGLISH JOURNALThe Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English Language Arts

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Editors’ Note

Dear Wisconsin English Journal Readers:

This month’s issue is devoted to the topic of classroom strategies for good reading instruction. The ideas range from Ed Fry’s piece on using a Word List to help young readers master 90% of the words they’ll encounter to Chris-tian Knoeller’s essay on the effective use of Literature Circles for enhancing reading instruction in middle and secondary classrooms. In between you’ll find some advice from Nick Karolides on how to be an effective Reader Response practitioner and from Robin Mello on using story telling as a reading instruction enhancement. Rounding off the issue is a review of Gerald Coles’s Misreading Reading and a set of reviews on emotionally gripping orphan survival stories. While this issue may seem a little slim, we think that the depth of the selections makes up for its breadth. But—we certainly would like to print fatter volumes! To do that we need more contributions from our colleagues. Please consider submitting something for the upcoming issue.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The thematic focus for the Spring 2002 issue will be Oral Language and Literacy. A number of our members suggested this as an important topic because we realize that the current pressure to “teach to the test” is threatening to squeeze non-testable skills such as oral language use out of our classrooms. How do we keep this from happening? How do you incorporate and emphasize oral language skills in your classroom curricula? Write your strategies and argu-ments up in a page or ten pages and send them to us. Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2002. The Fall 2002 issue will be open to submissions about various aspects of English/language arts education. Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2002. Articles on these and related questions may be submitted to Ruth Wood at UW-River Falls, KFA 239, River Falls, WI 54022; fax 715-425-0657. If your article is accepted for publication, you will be asked to submit a disk in Word or WordPerfect along with a final edited hard copy. Ruth Wood and Anne D’Antonio Stinson, Editors

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What’s So Good about a Word List?

Ed Fry, Rutgers University

What is so good about a “high frequency” word list? Why do teachers of reading and writing want them? The answer is simple and based on very good educational research plus classroom experience. Here are the facts based on Fry’s Instant Words: • The 100 most common words make up 50 % of all written material. • The 300 most common Instant Words make up 65 % of all written material. • The 1000 most common Instant Words make up 90 % of all written material. What this means is that half of all the words in the Los Angeles Times, half of all the words in children’s self-written stories, half the words in any novel are just those first 100 Instant Words. You can’t write a sentence without using some of them. You can’t read without coming across them every single time you try to read anything. And furthermore, you have to be able to recognize or spell them “instantly.” You can’t fool around and try to sound them out. In fact many of the most common Instant Words do not follow regular phonics rules. Try to use phonics on “of,” “one,” or “the.” And even other com-mon words use more sophisticated phonics rules than most beginning readers have mastered; for example, try to sound out: “to,” “was,” or “you.” Now, I am certainly not opposed to teaching phonics, but there is simply more to teaching reading than just phonics. And part of that “more” is to know how to read and spell words on a high-frequency list like the Instant Words. Most teachers know this or find it out sooner or later; thousands of teachers are using the Instant Words in their teaching of word recognition or in spelling lessons, or both. The first few hundred Instant Words have been reprint-ed in numerous college textbooks for reading methods courses and duplicated for handouts at teacher training sessions. The teaching of “sight words” or words in isolation in either reading or spelling lessons went out of fashion during the height of the Whole Language movement. But now that this movement is being modified (hopefully not totally abandoned), there might be more room for the teaching of specific words. A popular way of developing children’s reading and spelling vocabu-lary is through the use of “word walls,” and some I’ve seen are really creative. But you can also teach the Instant Words using flash cards, spelling lessons, bingo games, and commercial or teacher-made materials. Of course one way to learn the Instant Words is through lots and lots of reading. But I am suggest-ing that, in addition to lots of reading, the Instant Words also be taught directly in reading and spelling lessons. The top quartile of students don’t need much

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teaching of basic words– but then there are all those other kids. One caution I would have is be careful not to try to teach too many at once. How many is too many? That’s between you and the students. I sug-gest twenty Instant Words per week in a weekly spelling lesson for grades 3 to 7. Teach fewer spelling or reading words at the primary levels. I suggest five Instant Words and five Picture Noun words per week at grade 1or 2. Remedial reading sessions might contain two to five words per session with plenty of review of words taught earlier. The accompanying table lists all 100 Instant Words in rank (and teach-ing) order. You are welcome to reproduce this list for your basket of teaching tools, for kids to take home, and for teacher training sessions. 1000 Instant Words are available in a little book arranged in nice big print, in teachably sized chunks of five words and with some valuable teaching suggestions. 3000 Instant Words are all in rank order in a big spelling book cover-ing grades 1-6 arranged in weekly lesson-sized chunks. The weekly lessons are supplemented by a strong phonics program in the first three grades and word study in the upper grades. The great granddaddy of high-frequency word lists used by teachers is the famous Dolch list of 220 basic sight words. It was an excellent list when it was developed in the 1930’s, but when Dr. Dolch died, his widow would not let anybody update the list, so it is getting rather old. Instant Words are newer and based on a much larger computer-based word count. In fact, Instant Words are based on a re-ranking of the American Heritage Word Frequency Book which had a total word count base of over 5 million words. But their computer was programmed to count as different words all the variant forms. For example, the words “run, runs, running, Run, & RUN” each had a different frequency count and each had a different and separate rank. The Instant Words collapsed all of those and added together the frequency of each of the forms. So the rank order of words in the Instant Word list is quite different from the American Heritage count. One other problem with a high-frequency word list like the Instant Words, besides phonic irregularity, is that—particularly at the beginning—they are all “function words” like “the” or “with” or “is.” You have to know them even though they really don’t have much meaning. They are so-called “glue words” because they hold the language together. But you can’t write much us-ing just the most common words. Hence, I suggest you use some Picture Nouns. These are common nouns which are highly concrete or imaginable and help your students write more meaningful sentences and read more words commonly found in children’s stories. Another use for the Picture Nouns is with special education and ESL students, who may better see a real relationship between word and meaning when they work with the concrete nouns. Incidentally, Picture Nouns have the same problem with phonics rules regularity as do some of the Instant Words. Take a look at the vowel sounds in “doll,” “two,” or “shoes.”

In summary, we recommend teaching the Instant Words because: (1) So

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few of them make up such a high percentage of all written material that learning Instant Words gives beginning readers a big boost, (2) They must be recognized “instantly” for reading fluency and spelled without hesitation for writing fluency,

and (3) They cannot be mastered using phonics instruction.And you might need to teach Picture Nouns for the same reasons, plus the

fact that they add meaning to reading and writing.Please do not interpret this article as “anti-whole language” nor as an

oversimplified argument that teaching reading and spelling is simply using a word list. Instead, take this as a practical suggestion—that the Instant Word list is a useful tool in the hands of some good and flexible reading teachers.

ReferencesCarroll, John Bissell, P. Davies, and B. Richman. The American Heritage Word

Frequency Book. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971.Fry, Ed. 1000 Instant Words. Laguna Beach: Laguna Beach Educational Pub-

lishing, 1994.Fry, Ed. Spelling Book: Words Most Needed Plus Phonics for Grades 1-6. 2nd

ed. Laguna Beach: Laguna Beach Educational Publishing, 1996.

Correction: In the Spring 2001 issue of the Wisconsin English Journal, we mistak-enly listed Trista Smith’s school affiliation as Carl Traeger Middle School. In fact, Trista teaches English and American

Studies at Bay Port High School.

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The First 100 Instant Words

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4Words 1-25 Words 26-50 Words 51-75 Words 76-100 the or will numberof one up noand had other waya by about couldto words out peoplein but many myis not then thanyou what them firstthat all these waterit were so beenhe we some calledwas when her whofor your would oilon can make sitare said like nowas there him findwith use into longhis an time downthey each has dayI which look didat she two getbe do more comethis how write madehave their go mayfrom if see part

This word list is copyright by Edward Fry but permission is hereby given to teachers, workshop leaders, and college textbook authors to duplicate it or use it as they wish.

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100 Picture Nouns 1. People 6. Furniture 11. Numbers 6-10 16. Farm Animals boy table six horse girl chair seven cow man sofa eight pig woman chest nine chicken baby desk ten duck

2. Toys 7. Eating Objects 12. Fruit 17. Workers ball cup fruit farmer doll plate orange policeman train bowl grape cook game fork pear doctor toy spoon banana nurse

3. Numbers 1-5 8. Transportation 13. Plants 18. Entertainment one car bush television two truck flower radio three bus grass movie four plane plant ball game five boat tree band

4. Clothing 9. Food 14. Sky Things 19. Writing Tools shirt bread sun pen pants meat moon pencil dress soup star crayon shoes apple cloud chalk hat cereal rain computer

5. Pets 10. Drinks 15. Earth Things20. Reading Things cat water lake book dog milk rock newspaper bird juice dirt magazine fish soda field sign rabbit malt hill letter

This word list is copyright by Edward Fry but permission is hereby given to teachers, workshop leaders, and college textbook authors to duplicate it or use it

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Making the Case For Literature Circles in Middle School and Secondary Classrooms

Christian P. Knoeller, Purdue University

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Robert C. Pooley Re-search Foundation and the English Department of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, as well as contributions to this project by research assistants Amy TeBeest and Kim Newport.

Collaborative classroom strategies, including literature discussion groups, have long been recognized as promising instructional methods (e.g. Cohen) and have recently received growing attention. In the English classroom, the prevalence of the writing-process paradigm in particular has contributed to the growing use of collaborative approaches. The proliferation of process-based approaches for writing instruction over the last three decades has precipitated the widespread use of small groups for peer response and editing. While procedures for peer response and editing vary, the purposes for using such groups are clearly defined. By contrast, small group approaches for studying literature appear to be less common, especially in high schools, possibly because their use is less fully understood and their potential role in negotiating interpretations of reading remains relatively unexplored.

Research on collaborative approaches to literature study in middle and high schools explores the overall benefits of literature circles, examines specific procedures for establishing and utilizing small groups, and displays the array of instructional purposes which literature circles may serve.

When considering the potential benefits of collaborative approaches to literature teaching, it is useful to distinguish between overall procedures and subject-specific strategies. There are, after all, a host of well-documented benefits of such collaboration that are not specific to the study of literature. Educational researcher Diane Zigo has cautioned that “group work does not automatically translate” into the sorts of socio-cognitive benefits for which it has been credited generally (321). Like any other classroom strategy, the value of literature circles depends upon several factors including a good match between method, context, and instructional purposes.

There are several benefits to small group collaboration for both indi-vidual students and the class as a whole. For individual students, collaboration often results in increased participation and, thereby, increased engagement as well. When a class is divided into small groups, after all, several students can be speaking at once. The smaller the group size, the greater overall number of opportunities for student participation. Robert Blake found that literature circles had just such benefits in an elementary setting: “Shy children, who are afraid to contribute in a large group but who invariably have something worthwhile to

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say, feel more comfortable in small groups. Within the small group, all chil-dren have an opportunity to listen closely and to speak out with more carefully considered ideas” (17). Consequently, as advocates of collaborative formats frequently point out, through the increased practice that groupwork affords, students have the opportunity to more fully develop oral language skills. Peer-led discussion can also enable students to play a qualitatively dif-ferent role, developing ideas verbally at greater length. Individual students are often enabled to take longer turns in student-led discussions than in teacher-cen-tered classrooms. Importantly, this allows for elaboration and exploration—and, in the case of literature, the chance to explain and defend interpretations (Kno-eller 1998a, 1998b). Further, in small groups, individual students can still read-ily raise questions at will and thereby initiate topics of personal interest. While a subtle difference from standard classroom procedure, this is one of the most fundamental advantages of collaborative formats. As Patricia Enciso notes, students may be “reluctant to describe the worlds of reading that matter most to them in the company of all of their classmates and teacher” (46). In contrast to conventional whole-class discussions, Enciso concludes, the small group format has the potential to reveal “how children imagine the world of a story, how they position themselves within it, create images and interpret relationships” (46).

Raphael, Goatley, McMahon, and Woodman point out that any lit-erature discussion group, including those dubbed “book clubs,” typically share a number of important characteristics including natural peer interaction, student-initiated discussion topics, and an emphasis on personal (as opposed to analytic) response to text (68). Similarly, McGee emphasizes how a teacher’s role in dis-course is transformed by “stepping back and allowing children’s ideas and com-ments to determine the direction in which the talk will move” (112). Elizabeth Noll describes how literature circles in a seventh-grade class “met specifically to discuss a chosen author, book, topic, or theme. . . . They met to raise questions, argue, reflect, negotiate, and make new meanings together” (90). She emphasiz-es student autonomy, “from their initial selection of books and formation of the literature circles through their discussions, investigation, and final presentations” (92). Janet Hickman points out that while small-group dynamics often make classrooms appear less organized than conventional teacher-centered formats, “valuing social interaction usually means adjusting rules accordingly” (8).

Yet teachers need not relinquish a number of traditional instructional roles: to model and to prompt, to reiterate student insights, to emphasize specific interpretive concerns (Knoeller 1998a)—and, more generally, to seize “teach-able moments” (McGee 113). Willey similarly considers the teachers’ roles in supporting literature circle work as defining vocabulary and concepts connected with conventional literary interpretation and analysis (Willey suggests plot, setting, structure, theme, symbolism, and point of view). Students might also be guided by the teacher to use conventional analytic strategies, such as sup-porting their interpretations by close examination of the language of a text. This strategy is a conventional device of New Criticism; and, the fact that innovative classroom strategies such as literature circles can be used in service of tradition-al aims of literature study is probably essential to their acceptance in a secondary

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context. Admittedly, advocates of collaborative approaches sometimes make broad claims about the potential benefits for individual students. Student perceptions of literature circles, as Samway, Whang, Cade, Gamil, Lubandina, and Phommachanh report, reveal increased interest in sustained silent reading and more positive attitudes toward reading in general. Others argue that with increased participation can come a sort of empowerment—the belief that one’s own ideas have value—and that the greater participation enabled by collabo-ration ultimately leads to personal growth and heightened self-confidence. Con-sequently, collaborative approaches to the study of literature have been tailored for particular populations, such as special education students, in the hope of rais-ing self-esteem. In linguistically diverse classrooms, as Cohen notes, “group-work represents an excellent opportunity to expose the language learner to peers who speak English. Particularly if the teacher prepares the children so that they will be ready and able to participate. . . particularly if training and organiza-tion of the groupwork have insured that everyone must participate” (130-31). Moreover, heightened participation helps individual students to get more fully engaged in responding to literature. Having student readers work together has long been a fixture in el-ementary classrooms where the use of ability grouping is ubiquitous in reading instruction. Literature circles, according to critics of ability grouping, offer a healthy alternative. As Cohen claims, when working collaboratively, “elemen-tary school children are capable of many adult intellectual activities and can display impressive abilities in reasoning, hypothesizing, and analyzing” (114). Similarly, Blake sees literature circles in elementary classrooms as especially conducive to linking response and interpretation by “engaging the children in authentic reader-response discussion by prompting them to develop their own interpretation—not finding the teacher’s meaning established in advance—by fostering feeling responses, by asking them to use close reading skills, and by generally teaching them sophisticated skills for reading literature” (11).

Those who advocate the use of literature circles at middle and high school levels point out similar advantages. By allowing student readers to interact with classmates, small group collaboration also creates opportunities for modeling and peer teaching. Accordingly, conversations in small groups often allow students to explore and develop ideas of greater depth and complexity. The class as a whole also benefits from the development of interpersonal com-munication skills “that make group life possible and effective” (Cohen 114). In fact, one of the most often cited results of such collaborative work is building a sense of community in the classroom.

But how do literature circles enhance the study of literature itself? Literature circles are credited with allowing individual students to develop what might be termed a personal appreciation for literature. Samway, et al., describe how literature circles in an ethnically diverse fifth- and sixth-grade classroom enabled students to explore texts in personally meaningful ways and to express personal responses to the literature: “Group members made connections between their lives and themes in the books, argued with each other over characters and

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their actions, and came to new understandings about the meanings of terms such

as ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘prejudice’” (198).By “validating” the experiences of individual readers, literature circles

are said to empower students to imaginatively “enter” works. Moreover, indi-vidual students begin to explore the potential of literary works to “illuminate” life. By discussing reading with classmates, students discover connections between the literature they read and the lives they lead. Indeed, such emphasis on a multiplicity of individual readings echoes the tenets of reader-response theory, as espoused by Louise Rosenblatt (McGee). Related ideals associated with literature circles include that individual students are enabled to develop self-concepts in the context of cultural diversity presented in the texts they read and talk about together. Literature circles also benefit the class as a whole in other ways. For ex-ample, small group collaboration can provide a nearly perfect precursor to more formal analyses of literature, especially at the secondary level. Teachers might specify interpretive tasks for literature circles such as “interpreting the motives of a main character. . . [and] going over the text with great care to glean ad-ditional clues” (Cohen 114). Noll similarly augments literature circle activities with mini-lessons addressing “literary topics or reading strategies” (89). The relatively unrestricted interaction of students discussing readings, for instance, allows students to develop the specialized vocabulary suitable of literature study and apply such terminology to their personal interpretation of works. Further, literature circles provide a format for students to rehearse the sorts of arguments that ultimately underlie successful written literary analysis and interpretation. They allow students to practice drawing generalizations and to exchange, compare, evaluate, and defend interpretations. Willey sees these interactions as opportunities for student writers to become acquainted with the idea of audience: Specifically, by participating in literature circles, students address their initial interpretations and proto-arguments to classmates—provid-ing an initial audience for their more formal analysis and subsequent written response. Further, she argues that among the greatest benefits of literature circles is imbuing students with a sense of authority to interpret literary works for themselves—both individually and collectively. Ultimately, this can lead to more personally meaningful student writing when their essays reflect interpre-tive issues that have arisen through their own reading and discussion. Willey even speaks of such small group negotiations of meaning as “alternative criteria of validity”; that is, interpretations negotiated among student readers as opposed to those received from teachers or professional critics (17-22).

Raphael and her colleagues point out that whole-class discussions, before or after literature circle activities, can serve to model both discussion pro-cedures and analytic strategies. Karen Evans, Donna Alvermann, and Patricia Anders caution that, especially for younger students such as the fifth-graders in their study, it is essential that a collaborative atmosphere be established in the class as a whole for small groups to function smoothly, lest gender dynamics silence female students. It might be further argued that rules for participation in literature circles need to be made explicit. Harvey Daniels, among others, has

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sought to establish specific roles for individual students to play within literature circles. Providing a structure means, in part, to ensure more balanced patterns of participation, as students ultimately take turns performing each role. Other researchers such as Evans, et al., advocate student reflection on interaction and learning in literature circles through written journals, for example. Similarly, Samway, et al., suggest having students end every literature circle session with reflection on “their own and each other’s contributions to discussion. . . [and] the role of the group in gaining meaning” (199).

Teachers and researchers, as we have seen, attribute a host of benefits to collaborative approaches such as literature circles. However, Cohen cau-tions, “The teacher who has no more tools for the planning of groupwork as a democratic and creative setting for learning is likely to run into trouble trying out the new methods” (22). Ultimately, to achieve desired learning outcomes, lesson planning must ensure that strategies are tailored to specific instructional purposes:

It will, of course, necessitate thoughtful planning on the teacher’s part so as to facilitate such a discussion without usurping the role of primary meaning-maker or allowing dominating voices to overpower others. One feasible possibility is to view group size as being flexible de-pending on instructional needs. For example, teachers may continually have students work in partnerships of multiple sizes within one class period, so as to provide a number of opportunities for socially-mediated learning, given the instructional goals of a particular lesson. (Zigo 322) [emphasis added]

McGee, for example, advocates forming heterogeneous groups of five to eight students as well as prescribing discussion rules including sitting in circles, taking turns, listening actively, staying focused, and ensuring individual par-ticipation (112). Other researchers describe classroom strategies that involve choice, whereby students join groups based on which books each has elected to read (Samway, et al.). Practically speaking, teachers need to decide how to group students (e.g. heterogeneously to facilitate peer teaching) as well as how to address assessment (e.g. self and peer evaluations, participation checklists, or co-authored compositions) (Raphael, et al.). Several excellent resources are available for teachers interested in the nuts and bolts of introducing literature circles, including Harvey Daniels’ highly practical Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom, as well as two works by Bonnie Campbell Hill, Nancy Johnson, and Katherine Schlick Noe: Literature Circles and Response and Literature Circles Resource Guide. Beyond the interpretation of specific literary texts being discussed, pro-ponents of literature circles also point out broad benefits with respect to diversi-ty, pluralism, and tolerance. Inevitably, they claim, such informal conversations allow students to explore multiple perspectives. Indeed, by considering the ideas of others, students may well be led to reconsider their own initial interpre-tations (Knoeller, in press). Over time, the argument goes, such rethinking can enable students to develop more sophisticated perspectives about social issues. This view dovetails neatly with reader response theory generally—and the work

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of Louise Rosenblatt in particular:Rosenblatt suggests that alternative interpretations can be judged more or less sound on the basis of “shared criteria.” Importantly, Rosenb-latt has been progressively concerned with how broader cultural and historical forces—which is to say social factors—influence the act of interpreting text. . . If we are to take Rosenblatt to heart and accept the premise that a reader interpreting text necessarily speaks and writes, then to talk about literature requires wrestling with whatever voices are present in the texts, in ourselves, and in our classrooms. (Knoeller 22-23)

Literature circles represent a flexible method well suited to such ends—one es-pecially conducive to responding to and interpreting texts in middle school and secondary classrooms.

ReferencesBlake, Robert W. “From Literature Based Reading to Reader Response in the

Elementary School Classroom.” Paper presented at the Annual Meet-ing of the National Council of Teachers of English (85th, San Diego, CA, November 16-21, 1995). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 392 026)

Cohen, Elizabeth. Designing Group Work: Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press, 1986.

Daniels, Harvey. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom. York, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 1994.

Enciso, Patricia. “Good/Bad Girls Read Together: Pre-adolescent Girls, Co-authorship of Feminine Subject Positions during a Shared Reading Event.” English Education 30(1) (1998): 44-62.

Evans, Karen S., Donna Alvermann, and Patricia L. Anders. “Literature Dis-cussion Groups: An Examination of Gender Roles.” Reading Research and Instruction 37(2) (1998): 107-22.

Hickman, Janet. “Not by Chance: Creating Classrooms that Invite Responses

to Literature.” Book Talk and Beyond: Children and Teachers Respond

to Literature. Ed. Nancy L. Roser, and Miriam G. Martinez. Newark:

International Reading Association, 1995.

Hill, Bonnie Campbell, Nancy Johnson, and Katherine Schlick Noe. Literature

Circles and Response. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers,

1995.

—. Literature Circles Resource Guide: Teaching Suggestions, Forms, Sample

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Booklists and Database. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Pub-

lishers, 2000.

Knoeller, Christian. “Narratives of Rethinking: Listening to Classroom

Language with Bakhtin.” New Literacies for New Times: Bakhtinian

Perspectives on Language, Literacy, and Learning. Ed. S. Freedman

and A. Ball, Tentatively Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and

Computational Perspectives Series, Pea, R. (ed), Cambridge University

Press, in press.—. Voicing Ourselves: Whose Words We Use When We Talk about Books. Al-

bany, New York: SUNY Press, 1998a.—. “Negotiating Interpretations of Text: The Role of Student-led Discussions

in the Understanding of Literature.” Literacy Instruction for Cultur-ally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Ed. Michael Opitz. Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, 1998b.

McGee, Lea M. “Talking about Books with Young Children.” Book Talk and Beyond: Children and Teachers Respond to Literature. Ed. Nancy L. Roser, and Miriam G. Martinez. Newark: International Reading As-sociation, 1995.

Noll, Elizabeth. “Social Issues and Literature Circles with Adolescents.” Jour-nal of Reading 38.2 (1994): 88-93.

Raphael, Taffy E., Virginia J. Goatley, Susan I. McMahon, and Deborah A.

Woodman. “Promoting Meaningful Conversations in Student Book

Clubs.” Book Talk and Beyond: Children and Teachers Respond to

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Teaching Literature as a Reflective Practitioner: Script and Spontaneity Nicholas Karolides, University of Wisconsin-River Falls

In teaching literature, the application of the concept of the “reflective practitioner” is analogous to the frequently referenced double-sided coin. Teach-ers themselves need to be reflective about what they are teaching—and why, and they need to develop practices that will engage their students and cause them to become reflective learners. I am reflective (and energized) twice in my teaching: when I am planning the lesson—anticipating student responses and considering the lesson’s focus, its opening invitation, its strategy—and again when I am in the classroom, interacting with the students, causing their responses to evolve toward interpretation. When I am teaching, I am at once scripted and spontaneous, chore-ographer and performer. The scripted lesson plan provides the genesis of the lesson, its strategy, and, potentially, its direction. The actual lesson event is a spontaneous evolution, dependent on students’ responses. A question or an unanticipated response, leading to a series of responses, can cause a shift in direction, can lead to fresh insights of import to a particular group. Imagine me as a choreographer of ideas, relating to the positions taken, using questions and comments to create movement and to stretch thoughts. As choreographer, I also introduce features (perhaps from the script but certainly from the discussion) that should not be neglected in relation to the emerging interpretation of the text. In this capacity, cognizant of the text, alert to the action of the dance, I am also a performer in the lesson-event, joining the other readers as they extend their responses. My role as teacher is first to encourage response to the text and further to facilitate active discussion in the classroom setting. Students cannot be pas-sive, cannot be spectators either while reading the text or during discussions in the classroom. The teacher’s function is to help them recognize and express their preliminary experiences of the text, make connections with others’ expe-riences, and, through this exercise, to explore and expand the initial vision. The teacher, as a guide, leads learners into the unfamiliar territory of the text, chal-lenging them to envision its features and to discover additional insights. As a guide, the teacher cautions against the idea of a single correct interpretation and, at the opposite extreme, against an anything-goes attitude, using the text as the constraint. In this manner, students create a literary work, apprehending more clearly and fully the world and characters within it, as well as gaining under-standing of their own world and themselves.

The student readers are, of course, the central performers in this learning situation; the reading of the text is, after all, theirs. (I cannot read it for them, nor should I interpret it for them. I must start where they are.) The discussion, then, must also become theirs.

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What do these readers bring to this activity? Their identity. That is, each brings personal traits and background: individual experiences and mem-ories, including previous readings; gender, age, and regional origins. Also effective will be the reader’s current circumstance. Given these many variations among readers, individuals will naturally respond differently to the language, characters, and situations of the text. The “same” lesson’s outcome will vary from class to class as well as from reader to reader.

Implicit in the teaching philosophy and classroom expectations ex-pressed in the preceding paragraphs is the recognition of the reader’s role in the reading process. This role was identified and described by Louise M. Rosenblatt in her seminal works, Literature as Exploration and The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Where previous theo-rists overlooked readers, Rosenblatt recognizes that text and reader condition and empower each other. The reader, in effect, is partnered with the author’s language: the reader’s experience and the inscribed experience come together in an energized relationship.

The reader, an active agent alive to stimulus and response, engages in a dynamic reading process. The reading event initiates the literary experience. The reader reacts to words and situations and the interplay of one word or situa-tion with another. Expectations of the text are projected; later features—words, events, or information—may solidify these early impressions or may bring about a revision. Clues of context are perceived and integrated. In this evolutionary manner, the reader constructs a constantly adjusted scaffold of understandings, attempting to account for the text’s many features. The reader’s sense of the literary work emerges from this transaction.

The reading is not linear; comparable to the writing process, it is recur-sive, a backward-and-forward exploration of what is being evoked in relation to the text. Depending on the reader’s involvement and reading maturity, as well as the text itself, the reading process is reflective and demanding. Recursive-ness may be an actual turning back of pages; the reader, provoked by another passage, rereads to confirm or reconsider an impression. Recursiveness may be thoughtful reflection on previous scenes or behavior to savor the images or to consider the import of a particular dialogue or event. Such explorations, con-scious or unconscious, immediate or prolonged, can reveal additional nuances and developmental understandings.

Another dynamic factor in the reading event is the reading situation. A particular stimulus, mood or preoccupation, context or reasons for reading (per-haps a teacher’s instructions), and the stance taken toward the reading, may each influence the reading transaction.

Stance refers to the frame of mind, the purpose or expectation of the reader, in approaching the text. This depends in part on the reader, in part on the text, and certainly the two of them together. The same text may be approached with different purposes or attitudes by different readers or by the same reader at different times.

At one end of a continuum of potential stances is the predominantly efferent (nonliterary, informational); at the other is the predominantly aesthetic

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(literary). Readers often adopt the stance that is signaled by the language and perceived nature of a text. Generally, there is a blend of aesthetic and efferent stances on the continuum. When recognizing the role of the reader in the read-ing process, we acknowledge that affective emotions can influence responses to an information-oriented writing and comparably that collecting information can enlighten the aesthetic response to literary materials. These are not intrusions but natural consequences of reader interest and concerns.

Understanding this significant aspect of response is particularly impor-tant for teachers. Questions in literature anthologies tend to be oriented toward the efferent end of the stance continuum, emphasizing data and comprehension. Teachers who are aiming for reading comprehension are so oriented. Literary materials, however, signal the aesthetic orientation. While readers may neces-sarily garner information, they need to be led beyond comprehension to inter-pretation—an aesthetic response generated by appropriate discussion questions, writing assignments, and other activities.

Small groups or whole class discussion provide opportunity for cross-fertilization and exploration of ideas among students; the various angles of vi-sion of others provide insights. Writing can also be provocative and stimulating; it has the merit of inclusiveness. Instead of the standard essay, I opt for rhetori-cally based writings (Daigon), which rely on a logical context with a real-world applicability and an audience other than the teacher—such as letters from char-acter to character in the same or between books, from the reader to a character, from a reader to another reader (perhaps in another class), or from a character to an outside audience; broadcast or print media (not limited to reporting); and scripts for scenes that are in the text or omitted from it.

Closely related to these writing exercises are role-play activities, which essentially place the respondents inside the text’s situations with readers taking on the characters’ lives. (Some of the writing activities listed in the previous paragraph reflect this concept.) Such activities encourage identification with characters, in effect exchanging lives with them, and connection with the issues that confront them. Operating here are both invention and constraint. Through their imagination and interaction, the players create the features of the scene, the expression of the characters. The constraint comes from the text, which must essentially be adhered to. With such activities, readers necessarily need to reach beyond preliminary response; such active engagement invites thoughtfulness and growth. An embedded promise of the humanities, of literature in particular, is the promotion of the democratic ideal. Thinking beyond the selection of texts that are inclusive, that express our pluralistic society, we recognize that reader-response methodology is expressive of this ideal. Classroom strategies that promote active reader behavior in making meaning stimulate the recognition of multiple viewpoints. These, considered and reconsidered, project a democratic aspect; the processing pattern discourages automatic adherence to a presented idea. The process of interacting with others produces similar results. The various perspectives within an open, equalizing forum promote acceptance of and insights about other readers-speakers. The nature of these discussions may

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provide seeds for a habit of mind that is provocatively thoughtful, giving equal voice to all sides and testing these voices against our own—the heart of the democratic process.

ReferencesAdams, Peter. “Writing from Reading: Dependent Authorship as Response.”

Readers, Texts, Teachers. Ed. Bill Corcoran and Emrys Evans. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1987. 119-52.

Daigon, Arthur. “Using Adolescent Literature in the Classroom.” Wisconsin English Journal 23 (January 1981): 4-8.

Rosenblatt, Louise M. Literature as Exploration. 5th ed. New York: Modern Library Association, 1995.

—. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. 2nd ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992.

Selected Bibliography on Teaching Literature ReflectivelyBeach, Richard. A Teacher’s Introduction to Reader Response Theories. Ur-

bana, IL: NCTE, 1993.Clifford, John, ed. The Experience of Reading: Louise Rosenblatt and Reader

Response Theory. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1991.Farrell, Edmund J., and James R. Squire, eds. Transactions with Literature: A

Fifty-Year Perspective. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1990.Karolides, Nicholas J., ed. Reader Response in Elementary Classrooms: Quest

and Discovery. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.—. Reader Response in Secondary and College Classrooms, 2nd ed. Mahway,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.Many, Joyce, and Carole Cox, eds. Reader Stance and Literary Understanding:

Exploring the Theories, Research and Practice. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1992.

Marshall, James. Patterns of Discourse in Classroom Discussions of Literature. Albany, NY: SUNY at Albany, The Center for the Learning and Teach-ing of Literature, 1989.

Probst, Robert E. Response and Analysis: Teaching Literature in Junior and Senior High Schools. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1988.

Suleiman, Susan R., and Inge Crosman, eds. The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.

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Storytelling and Literacy Learning: A Review of the Literature Robin A. Mello, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Storytelling is the oldest known instructional method in exis-

tence. Despite the fact that we are living in a highly mechanized and

technological society where most schools will be wired for high-speed

internet communication by 2005, the activity of telling a tale out loud

still takes place. However, the art of telling has become sidelined in the

majority of classrooms today as teachers are presented with a plethora

of new and innovative reading programs, research-based approaches to

literacy learning, richly produced texts, and slick software. It would not

be surprising, given all the competition, if this simple, time-honored form

of teaching wasnʼt around much longer. This would be a shame given

what we know about storytelling and its effect on childrenʼs literacy skills.

In fact, research suggests that the act of telling stories, along with the

listening that storytelling engenders, is one of the most successful and

inexpensive teaching tools available.

Gordon Wellsʼs (1986) seminal study, for example, investigat-

ing the links between storytelling, language development, and school

success, finds that the key to childrenʼs achievement in school is consis-

tent exposure to storytelling and narrative discourse. Wells shows that

the incorporation of stories in school environments strengthens literacy

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learning. His work gives credence to the anecdotal evidence that telling

stories out loud (without books, props, or scripts) isnʼt only for the very

young, naive, or illiterate. Given the evidence, it behooves us, as educa-

tors, to ask why storytelling isnʼt a core component of all school curricu-

lums? Why donʼt all students have the opportunity to be instructed by

storytelling teachers?

What is Storytelling?

The word “storytelling” is used to describe conversation, spiritual wor-ship, reading aloud, writing, history, oral retelling, and description. Writ-ers are described as “great storytellers,” scientists “tell the story of the universe,” and news reporters “tell a compelling story.” However, for pur-poses of this discussion, storytelling means the craft of relating a story to an audience without memorized scripts, texts, or props.

The function of the storyteller is to tell a tale orally so that the listener understands. To do this, storytellers not only rely on their ma-nipulation of language but often make use of dramatic skills such as short and long range gesture, narration, characterization, vocalization, and mimetic action. Reading aloud, although a wonderful and educative activity, is not storytelling. Historically, telling stories was part of the core curriculum at normal schools and teacher training institutions during the latter part of the Nineteenth Century (Apps, Bone, Bryant). Its popularity waned, however, as books, movies, and other media became more accessible and prevalent. By the early 1940s, storytelling, as a methodology, had all but disappeared from classrooms and libraries around the country. In fact, librarians at the New York City Public Library were so worried about an outright “death of storytelling” (Sawyer) that they began a conscious campaign, through a series of public programs aimed at children, to rein-troduce the art of storytelling across the nation (Brown, Shedlock). Their efforts, and those of a handful of folklorists and educators, sparked a resurgence of interest in this ancient craft until finally, in the early 1970s, the National Storytelling Association was created in order to preserve and perpetuate the storytelling craft.

Today, there are a large number of professional storytellers who

are available to provide artists-in-residence programs in public schools,

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and a significant volume of anecdotal and popular literature regarding the

value of storytelling as a teaching tool is also readily available (Bruchac,

Collins & Cooper, Dailey, Gillard, Rubright, Zipes). Yet storytelling is still

considered the second-class citizen of reading and literacy programs and

is delegated, for the most part, to library story hours, preschool circle-

time, and kindergarten classrooms. In addition, many teachers feel that

telling is merely an enrichment activity or— worse—something to do on

Friday afternoon when the children are restless (Farrell & Nessel). Despite the fact that storytelling is not commonly part of the core

curriculum, interest in how it impacts both teaching and learning has recently grown among researchers. More studies are now being done that investigate the value and efficacy of storytelling on literacy skills. The current research examining how stories serve as models for learning includes studies that can be classified according to the following major categories:

• Links between stories, literacy learning, and self-esteem; • Impact of narrative in learning environments;• Efficacy of storytelling in reading programs.

Storytelling and Preliteracy LearningMuch of the recent research focuses on the emergent reader

and looks at the impact of storytelling on language development and preliteracy learning. In the majority of these studies researchers encour-aged children to tell stories using books, videos, pictures, props, and mu-sic as prompts. A minority of studies focused on spontaneous conversa-tions and narrative exchanges between educators (adults) and students, while an even smaller sample examined telling aloud. Figure 1 indicates the broad range of these studies.

Many investigators were interested in how stories relate to suc-cess with introductory reading and writing tasks. Stone, for example, studied preschool children in a public day care setting by taping “spon-taneous conversational free play narratives” (389). Transcripts of the discourse were then analyzed for linguistic responses, speech acts, and meaning units. Stone found that childrenʼs narratives fell into three cat-egories: narratives of events that contained detailed information, reports of prior events, and single sentence statements, and concluded that children were more inclined to create full narratives when speaking with adults. She suggests that teachers spend daily instructional time talking with students so that language is reinforced on the narrative level.

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Varhagan, Morrison, & Everall conducted a similar study with kin-dergarten students and found that narrative fluency directly correlated to the childʼs ease and familiarity with oral language rather than the childʼs age, IQ, or grade level. In general, children familiar with stories or those from narrative-rich environments were more likely to be fluent language learners. Wason-Ellam also focused on preschoolersʼ storytelling and found that as a discourse process it prepares students for the standards of language as well as contributes to the ease with which children learn a second language. Like many others, Wason-Ellam agrees that storytell-ing needs to be planned into the educational routine.

All studies in Figure 1 were based on a belief that “storytelling is an interactionally achieved discourse and sense making activity” (Ochs, et al., 38). Galda, for example, suggests that storytelling play should be viewed as pedagogy and that classroom methods should encourage children to “play out” the stories that they read to help students develop “qualitatively richer stories” (116). Generally, these researchers rec-ognize that young children are inventive in their approach to text, and findings suggest that this creative impulse should be used to enhance language in classroom settings.

Insert Figure 1 about here

After examining the research on storytelling done in the past ten years, the evidence is overwhelmingly supportive for regular inclusion of storytelling in emergent literacy programs. In addition, researchers have found that:

• Listening to and telling stories improves self-concept, reading

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comprehension, and prewriting skills;• Teachers need to model and incorporate storytelling in their

instructional methodology; • Students tell more fanciful and richer stories when no props, pic-

tures, music, or other material are presented in conjunction with the storytelling task;

• Consistency of intervention and the interaction of telling and listening with trusted adults are the most important factors in stu-dentsʼ linguistic success; spontaneous storytelling is more likely to occur between adults and children than between students and their peers.

Storytelling, Social Development, and Literacy Learning Studies investigating the appropriateness and usefulness of stories and storytelling as formats for effective therapeutic intervention and personal growth are shown in Figure 2. These studies, conducted by educators and psychologists, were designed to investigate the links between life-story, healthy development, and writing. Both Davis and Tierney, for example, encouraged children to write and/or retell their life stories in order to help them identify and change “at- risk” behaviors and increase their literacy skills. In Davisʼ study, elementary school children were asked to tell and write their autobiographies during counseling ses-sions; these narratives were then examined. Davis found that both ther-apists and students felt that the experience of producing life-narratives had a positive effect on their self-concept and attitude toward schooling. Tierney, working with life-histories, family storytelling, and tradi-tional folk tales of Native Alaskans, examined the efficacy of storytelling in substance abuse education programs for at-risk Athabascan youth. Through a series of group discussions, public meetings, and open-ended interviews, Tierney developed a storytelling method that encouraged stu-dents to tell, explore, discuss, and ultimately write down their life stories as part of a therapeutic medium that he calls “cultural journalism.” He found that “community storytelling provides a framework in which teach-ers and youth workers can help young people make connections that can empower them” (46) and concludes that storytelling assists students in understanding their cultural heritage, creating healing environments in which to develop effective learners. The positive effect of hearing and sharing stories between fam-ily members is also examined in studies by Stockrocki, Williams, and Pierce. Stockrocki found that, after sharing personal stories, her Navajo elementary school students were better able to address issues of self-es-teem and identity development. Williams found that in African-American middle-class families models of identity were created through family dis-course, and Pierce, who studied the effects of intergenerational storytell-ing on studentsʼ psychosocial development, found that, after listening to and collecting the life stories of elders, middle-school students displayed

24 25

more empathy towards their peers. In addition, their absentee rate, along with violent outbursts in the classroom, significantly diminished. In general, these studies suggest that when cultural and familial groups tell stories as an integral part of everyday activities, the children within these groups benefit. Furthermore, Children who take part in storied discourse and narrative events are better able to develop a sense of identity, more likely to feel empowered, and better able to express themselves in socially acceptable ways. In addition, studentsʼ attitudes toward school, and their interest in writing and reading increases.

Insert Figure 2

Storytelling in the ClassroomSeveral studies of curricular storytelling look at how students develop

abstract concepts (Gallas), social values (Rosman), and literacy skills (Farrell & Nessel, Mello), as well as how storytelling enhances creativity and listening ability (Doss, Mello, Nelson). The research can be catego-rized into three groups of studies that investigate storytelling as an ef-fective teaching strategy, examine learning outcomes during storytelling events, or examine links between literacy learning and the imagination. Storytelling enhances the listenerʼs creativity, imagination, writing ability, and comprehension (Doss, George & Schaer, Mello, Nelson,). George and Schaer, for example, conducted an examination of childrenʼs recall using both first person and televised storytelling events and found that children who hear stories told aloud display greater recall of facts and information than their peers who were presented with the same infor-mation through television or reading aloud. Televised and computerized texts are, according to the authors, “imposed forms of information” (1) because they require passive or prescribed learning on the part of the student. Storytelling, they suggest, is a more effective teaching method

26 27

because it encourages interactions between teachers and students. Doss, Nelson, and Mello analyzed student responses to sto-rytelling, examining the scope and depth of imagery content, reflec-tive language, and images in studentsʼ art and writing and found that students become more flexible and powerful, use richer language, and employ more complex words and images after exposure to storytelling. Nelson also found that students use more descriptive language in their conversation after hearing stories told aloud. In general, these studies assert that forms of imparting information such as storytelling, narrative, and discourse have a greater impact on student memory because they require active participation and creative input on the part of the listener. Rosman and Baumgartner found that storytelling is an effective teaching tool because it affords students opportunities to process information in personal and imaginative ways. Rosman, a teaching rabbi, also recom-mends using storytelling as a technique for imparting cultural and spiri-tual values to children. Findings suggest that storytelling is useful in teaching literacy and communication and indicate that it is important for teachers to incorporate storytelling in their instructional methodology. Storytelling is a persuasive medium for imparting content information and developing self-perception, morality, and creativity.

Insert Figure 3

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What the Literature Finds

In general, most of the literature supports the inclusion of story-telling in classrooms on a daily basis. In addition, a review of the cur-rent literature suggests that using language to create stories assists the learner in making meaning from experiential information. The evidence

References Apps, Jerold W. One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections

from Wisconsin. Amherst, WI: Amherst P, 1996.Baumgartner, Barbara W. “Folktale Storytelling as an Education Tool—

With Possible Therapeutic Implications.” 1996. Dissertation Abstracts International. 57-10-A, 4224.

Bone, Woutrina A. Childrenʼs Stories and How to Tell Them. 1924. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1975.

Brown, J.P. The Storyteller in Religious Education: How to Tell Stories to Children and Young People. Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1951.

Bruchac, Joseph. Tell Me a Tale: A Book About Storytelling. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997.

Bryant, Sarah. How to Tell Stories to Children. 1905. New York: Hough-ton Mifflin, 1979.

Collins, Rives, and Pamela J. Cooper. The Power of Story: Teaching Through Storytelling. Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon, 1997.

Dailey, Sheila, ed. Tales as Tools: The Power of Story in the Classroom. Jonesbrough: National Storytelling P, 1994.

Davis, T.E. “Telling Life Stories and Creating Life Books: A Counseling Technique for Fostering Resilience in Children.” 1997. Disserta-tion Abstracts International, 58-11A, 41997.

Doss, P. “Emotional Expressions of Eleven and Twelve-Year-Old Chil-dren as Seen Through Their Creative Arts During a School Year.” 1983. Dissertation Abstracts International, 44-01A, 0112.

Farrell, Catherine H., and Denise Nessel. Effects of Storytelling: An Ancient Art for Modern Classrooms. (1993) (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 225 155).

Galda, Lee. “Narrative Competence: Play, Storytelling, and Story Com-prehen-sion.” The Development of Oral and Written Language in Social Contexts. Ed. Anthony D. Pellegrini and Thomas D. Yawkey. Norwood: ABLEX, 1990. 105-117.

Gallas, Karen. The Languages of Learning: How Children Talk, Write, Dance, Draw, and Sing Their Understanding of the World. New York: Teachers College P, 1994.

George, Yvetta, and Barbara Schaer. An Investigation of Imposed-In-duced Imagery Methods on Kindergarten Childrenʼs Recall of Prosed Content. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association, Memphis, TN, 1986. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 278 974).

Gillard, Marni. Storyteller, Storyteacher: Discovering the Power of Story-telling for Teaching and Living. York: Stenhouse, 1995.

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Mello, Robin. “Creating Pictures in My Mind: Students Respond to Story-telling in the Classroom .” Primer 6.1 (1997): 4-11.

—. “Creating Literate Worlds Through Writing and Storytelling.” Cur-rents In Literacy 3.1 (2000): 35-37.

—. “Cinderella Meets Ulysses.” Language Arts 78.6 (2001): 548-555. Nelson, O.G. (1990). “Fourth-Grade Childrenʼs Response to a Storytell-

ing Event: Exploration of Childrenʼs Reported Images and Mean-ing Sources.” 1990. Dissertation Abstracts International, 52-07A, 2445.

Ochs, Elinor., C. Taylor, D. Rudolph, and R. Smith. “Storytelling as a Theory-Building Activity.” Discourse Processes 15.1 (1992): 37-72.

Pierce, L. G. “ʼOver the River and Through the Woodsʼ: A Case Study of the Family Biography Project and Its Relationship to Emerging Adolescent Psychosocial Identity Formation Through Grand-parent-Grandchild Interactions.” 1992. Dissertation Abstracts International, 53-08A, 2668.

Rosman, S. M. (1992). “Childrenʼs Verbal and Nonverbal Responses to Fairy Tales: A Description and Analysis of Storytelling Events with First and Aecond-Graders.” 1992. Dissertation Abstracts International, 53-03A,0765.

Rubright, Lynn. Beyond the Beanstalk: Interdisciplinary Learning Through Storytelling. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1996.

Sawyer, Ruth. The Way of the Storyteller. 1942. New York: Penguin, 1976.

Shedlock, Marie L, and Anne Carroll Moore. The Art of the Storyteller. New York: Dover, 1952.

Stokrocki, Mary. “A School Day in the Life of a Young Navajo Girl: A Case Study in Ethnographic Storytelling. Art Education. 47.4 (1994): 61-69.

Stone, Patrick S. “ʼYou Know What?ʼ Conversational Narratives of Pre-school Children.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 7 (1992): 367-382.

Tierney, Michael. In Our Own Words: Community Story Traditions to Prevent and Heal Substance Abuse. A Teacherʼs Guide With Examples from Native American and Rural Contexts. Charleston: Appalachia Educational Laboratory, 1992. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 348 203).

Varhagen, Connie K, and Frederick J. Morrison. “Age and Schooling Effects in Story Recall and Story Production.” Developmental Psychology 30.6 (1994): 969-979.

Wason-Ellam, Linda. Inviting Childrenʼs Life Stories Into the Elementary Classroom: The Storied Life of a Second Language Learner. Louisville: NCTE, 1992. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 357 342).

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2002 STATE CONVENTION of WCTELA and WCA

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, APRIL 26 & 27, 2002

PAPER VALLEY HOTEL, APPLETON

FINDING OUR VOICES IS THE THEME OF THE JOINT CONVENTION OF

WCTELA AND THE WISCONSIN COMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION

(WCA).VISIT THE WCTELA WEB SITE AT WWW.WCTELA.ORG FOR MORE

Insert Graphic 1 Here

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Book Reviews

Debi Sigwell, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Coles, Gerald. Misreading Reading: The Bad Science That Hurts Children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000. 138 pp. ISBN 0618055819. Paperback. US $15.00.

From the introduction to the last page of this excellent analysis of pertinent studies in the field of teaching reading, Gerald Coles provides concise, detailed explanations of many studies considered to be definitive guidelines for reading instruction. At the end of the Introduction, he states his purpose:

I hope to demonstrate the need for educators to adopt the initial charge in the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. If we do not reject the mis-leading “scientifically based” literacy research as a guide for policy and legislation, the alternative path surely will come too late for countless and inevitable casualties of the education it favors. (xix)

For some odd reason, physicians are allowed to spend their entire career prac-ticing medicine while educators are expected to know everything when first stepping into a classroom. This is an unfair expectation as methodologies in education are constantly changing and every few years there is a paradigm shift that causes effective educators to reevaluate their approaches to teaching and incorporate new methods with those that have proven effective over time. Bu-reaucrats, however, do not work in the field of reading instruction; yet, they look at “scientific studies” and assume that they are valid and that educators are fall-ing down on the job. Fortunately, there are works such as Coles’s, which break down these “studies” to reveal what they are truly demonstrating and whether or not the studies were thoroughly conducted. Coles’s book is set up in a user-friendly manner by providing “Con-clusion,” “Claim,” and bulleted “What the Research Actually Shows” sections. An example of this is how he treats the myth that phonological awareness is key to ensuring that students become successful readers. Coles’s first three chapters focus on studies that supposedly prove that teaching phonemic awareness and direct skills instruction improve a child’s ability to read and that not using this type of instruction will result in students being poor readers. Contrary to the claims set for the by the studies, Coles interprets what was truly assessed in these studies and comes to the following conclusions: • Training in phonological awareness does not bring poor readers up to average grade level reading (p. 18)

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• Although the phonological awareness groups made significantly greater gains in phonemic awareness and nonword reading, there were no statistically significant differences between these and other groups in sentence and paragraph comprehension (p. 23) • The Foorman study prompted concerns about its validity because the “authors of instructional materials were also the researchers validat ing those materials” (p. 42) • Preschool reading achievement, not phonemic awareness, was found to be the best predictor of future reading achievement (p. 42)As readers begin to see a pattern in the various studies examined in the first three chapters (that the studies do not prove what they set out to prove), they also are made aware that these studies were poorly conducted; their findings are not reli-able due to inadequate data and the misinterpretation of that data. The next area Coles delves into is that of the learning-disabled reader. One of the major problems Coles identifies consistently not only in regards to this subject, but throughout the entire book is this: The validity of the research is questionable. Since the investigators or researchers knew what they were look-ing for and whom the best candidates would be before the actual studies began, the results of these studies are skewed. Furthermore, when others have tried to repeat the experiments, they have been unable to do so. This is especially disconcerting when looking at the “brain glitch” theory that attempted to explain dyslexia through neurological means by using MRI data. The premise of this experiment has potential, but the experiment was so poorly conducted that virtu-ally no usable data wasextracted. Teaching skills in isolation has not been proven to be more effective than more holistic approaches. As Coles points out, “most parents who have nurtured their children’s early literacy have never heard of phonological aware-ness” (p. 98). Thus, it would seem that instead of focusing on social status, “educational policy should strive to duplicate the written language conditions and experiences that produce the predominant literacy success including literacy ‘skills’ successes indicated in the social class studies” (99). Educators who have “practiced” in their profession will undoubtedly know that supplementing class-room instruction with such activities as videos, hands-on projects, speakers, and field trips benefits all learners regardless of socioeconomic status. Coles’s interpretations are not meant to demean the studies that he ad-dresses; he is simply illuminating details of the research process that may have been overlooked because the results answered important questions about reading in ways that those outside of the educational community (policymakers, for example) found comforting. Coles clearly states this intent in his introduction:

From IQ testing to tobacco research, a long line of reports about scien-tific “truths” have later been shown to be pseudoscientific, sometimes based on consciously manipulated—and even invented—data aimed at “documenting” a predetermined outcome. . .The subtitle of this book, The Bad Science that Hurts Children, uses the term bad to distinguish between research done well or poorly, and my own use of the term implicitly carries a belief in the value of science. (xvi)

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The information contained in the work is essential for all educators as it directly speaks to the issues, which are prevalent in the teaching of reading today. Are phonemic awareness and teaching skills in isolation more important than com-prehension and experience? This question is the essence of the current paradigm shift and is clearly addressed in Coles’s Misreading Reading.

Three Recent Novels Featuring Orphans

Nicholas J. Karolides, University of Wisconsin-River Falls

Stories about individuals facing great odds on their own are popular with readers, adolescents and adults alike. Such books are likely to captivate resistant readers and engage prolific readers alike. Adolescents respond to the threat to life and security and the energy and courage of the protagonist on a personal level, testing their intelligence, strength, and skills, measuring their capacities to endure and succeed. The survival story with the physical focus is a winner, examples stretching from Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins to Gary Paulson’s Hatchet. Emotional survival stories can be exemplified with such early titles as The Edge of Next Year by Mary Stolz and more recently Katherine Paterson’s Lydie and Norma Fox Mazer’s Out of Control. Louis Sacher’s Holes, the recent Newberry Award winner, fits both categories. Orphan survival is a specialized sub group of this genre. Physical survival is often involved; emotional survival is a major component. These tales, too, cut across the years from The Secret Garden, by Frances H. Burnett, and Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, of yesteryear to the novels discussed below.

Lowry, Lois. Gathering Blue. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2000. 215 pp.ISBN 0618055819. Hardcover. US $15.00.

The Ruin destroyed the world as we know it. Generations later, the society in which Kira lives has forgotten what came before. Life is crude, cruel and stifled. The people—deprived, angry, jealous—quarrel with each other and take advantage of the weak. There is, however, an elite, comfortable core, the Council of Guardians, which controls the community. Lowry’s futuristic society is dystopian but quite unlike that of The Giver. Kira, disabled by a birth defect but saved from death by exposure (in the manner of ancient Sparta) by her mother’s resistance, is a gifted “threader.” When she is orphaned by her mother’s death (Kira later suspects foul play), she is selected by the Council for a significant role— to repair and complete the embroidery on the Singer’s robe. This robe tells the story of humankind which he sings at the annual Gathering.

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Her life dramatically turned around, Kira and her new friend, Thomas, a gifted carver also orphaned and rescued by the Council, begin to recognize that while they are not quite captives, they are not quite free. Indeed, both their lives and their talents are constrained. When the search for the plant source of the color blue serendipitously leads Kira to her father—not killed by wild beasts as reported, but blinded by a jealous fellow hunter and left for dead—the savage underbelly of the society is revealed to her. Kira is faced with difficult deci-sions. Readers will compare Gathering Blue to The Giver. Quite different in their expression of government control, personal repression, and the loss of freedom, they are alike in their engaging characters and dynamic plot—and the will of their youthful protagonists to be critical of society and to exert efforts for change.

Cushman, Karen. Matilda Bone. New York: Clarion Books, 2000. 167 pp. ISBN 0395881560. Hardcover. US $15.00.

Cushman’s orphan, Matilda, is a far cry from her orphan heroine in The Midwife’s Apprentice, despite the similarity of the books’ settings. Matilda, deserted by her mother and bereft of her father, is raised in a manor with ser-vants attending to her general needs. Tutored by a priest, she has learned Latin, reading, writing, and figuring, but nothing about the world. The priest taught her merely to be meek and obedient, to seek higher things, and to resist “the Devil’s attempts to lead [her] into sin.” Matilda feels forsaken and alarmed when she is sent from the manor to Blood and Bone Alley to serve Red Peg, the bonesetter. Yet, because the priest has “advised [her] against earthly attachments,” Matilda maintains distance from and disdain of those she meets. She judges Red Peg to be uncouth and blas-phemous, the living accommodations miserable, and the tasks set for her both daunting and beneath her. However, Matilda is clever; she watches and listens and learns. Without recognizing change in herself, Matilda gradually shifts posi-tions. Individuals encourage and affect her; she responds to their warmth toward her. Gaining recognition and some confidence in her skills, she is ready to follow the advice of one of the patients: “Find your tools and put them to good use.” Matilda’s naïveté and self-protectiveness will gain sympathy from readers. Who wouldn’t resist Blood and Bone Alley and the medieval medicine practiced there? Red Peg’s initial presence (through Matilda’s eyes) and the work assigned to Matilda will support this sympathy, although readers will resist Matilda’s coldness and holier-than-thou manner. They will perceive before Matilda does that Red Peg and Doctor Margery are more considerate of their patients and more capable than Master Theobald, the esteemed physician, who is pompous and self-important. They will perceive also the warming of Matilda’s heart as she opens her eyes and lifts her hands, using her tools to help others.

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What she comes to recognize is enlightening to her and will enlighten each reader. Cushman’s “Author’s Note” explains the nature of medieval medical practices, the nature and basis of its medicines. It is informative and eye-open-ingly valuable.

Park, Linda Sue. A Single Shard. New York: Clarion Books, 2001. 152 pp. ISBN 039598270. Hardcover.US $15.00.

Set in the twelfth century in a potters’ village on the west coast of Korea, A Single Shard focuses on Tree-ear, orphaned in early childhood by the fever death of his parents. He has been raised by and lives with Crane-man under a bridge; Crane-man, born with a deformed leg and foot, forcing him to use a walking crutch, is lovingly kind and wise. Tree-ear spends his mornings searching for food in the village rubbish heaps and many afternoons hidden among trees watching the master potter Min at work. Tree-ear’s great ambition is to become a potter. After he accidentally damages a valued pot, as a method of repay-ment Tree-ear begins to work for Min. He continues to do so, despite insult and injury, without payment—except for daily lunch and the joy of working for and learning skills from the potter. But the skills are limited to the preparation of the clay—to Tree-ear’s great disappointment and in spite of Tree-ear’s earnest re-quest. Min resists offering knowledge and training in the actual making of pots, for he believes “A potter’s trade goes from father to son,” and his son has died. Initially despondent, Tree-ear begins to experiment with hand-molded clay.

The pace of Tree-ear’s life quickens as he and Min prepare for the imminent arrival of a royal emissary whose task it is to select and to commis-sion the best potter to create pottery for the palace. The boy’s journey to the capital to deliver the two sample pots to the emissary is spoiled by misadven-ture. His persistence, courage, and dedication to his mission, however, reverse his fortunes. His return to the village brings a further reward, not merely for the success of his journey but for the person he has become.

In addition to the revelations of a strong, moral character of Tree-ear and his capacity to cope with his situation and experiences, A Single Shard offers a meaningful glimpse of life in a Korean village as well as the craft and artistry of the potter. Park’s “Author’s Note” adds clarifying details.

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WISCONSIN ENGLISH JOURNAL 43:2An Official Publication of the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English Language Arts

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