Workshopping the Canon

Mary E. Styslinger

Description

Workshopping the Canon introduces practicing and preservice English language arts teachers to a process for planning and teaching the most frequently taught texts in middle and secondary classrooms using a workshop approach. 

Demonstrating how to partner classic texts with a variety of high-interest genres within a reading and writing workshop structure, Mary E. Styslinger aligns the teaching of literature with what we have come to recognize as best practices in the teaching of literacy. Guided by a multitude of teacher voices, student examples, and useful ideas, workshopping teachers explore a unit focus and its essential questions through a variety of reading workshop structures, including read-alouds, independent reading, shared reading, close reading, response engagements, Socratic circles, book clubs, and mini-lessons (e.g., how-to, reading, literary, craft, vocabulary, and critical), as well as writing workshop structures comprising mentor texts, writing plans, mini-lessons, independent writing, conferences, writing circles, and publishing. This book is for every teacher who has struggled to make beloved classic texts relevant to today’s young readers.

Acknowledgments. Introduction. Chapter 1 - Why and How to Workshop. Chapter 2 - Reading Matters. Chapter 3 - The Power of Language. Chapter 4 - Engaging Reader Response. Chapter 5 - Ways to Talk. Chapter 6 - Mini-Lessons to Teach. Chapter 7 - Need to Write. Chapter 8 - Workshopping as a Process. Appendix A: Canonical Texts with Sample Unit Foci and Essential Questions. Appendix B: Canonical Texts with Sample Unit Foci, Essential Questions, and Supplementary Texts. Appendix C: Reading Survey. Appendix D: Classwork/Online Binder. Appendix E: Movie Response Sheet. Appendix F: Book Club Project. Appendix G: Beowulf: A Hero among Us - Unit Test. Appendix H: Heroic Narrative Survey. References. Index. Author.

Sujets

• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Literacy

Informations

• Publié par: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780814100660
• Langue: English

Extrait

W ORKSHOPPING THE C ANON
NCTE Editorial Board

Steven Bickmore Catherine Compton-Lilly Deborah Dean Bruce McComiskey Jennifer Ochoa Duane Roen Anne Elrod Whitney Vivian Yenika-Agbaw Kurt Austin, chair (ex officio) Emily Kirkpatrick (ex officio)

Staff Editor: Bonny Graham
Production Editor: The Charlesworth Group
Interior Design: Jenny Jensen Greenleaf
Cover Design: Pat Mayer
Portions of this text and student work were previously published in NCTE journals, including English Journal, Talking Points, and Voices from the Middle . Used with permission.
NCTE Stock Number: 58470; eStock Number: 58494 ISBN 978-0-8141-5847-0; eISBN 978-0-8141-5849-4
©2017 by the National Council of Teachers of English.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holder. Printed in the United States of America.
It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Styslinger, Mary E., 1966- author.
Title: Workshopping the canon / Mary E. Styslinger.
Description: Urbana, Illinois : National Council of Teachers of English, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017028801 (print) | LCCN 2017047562 (ebook) | ISBN 9780814158494 () | ISBN 9780814158470 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Language arts (Middle school) | Language arts (Secondary) | Canon (Literature)—Study and teaching (Middle school) | Canon (Literature)—Study and teaching (Secondary)
Classification: LCC LB1631 (ebook) | LCC LB1631 .S838 2017 (print) | DDC 428.0071/2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017028801
For my husband, John Clothiaux, who has always believed in me; for my daughters, Sophie and Anabelle, who now know that anything is possible with hard work; for my mother and father, who would have loved to have read this book.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 Why and How to Workshop
CHAPTER 2 Reading Matters
CHAPTER 3 The Power of Language
CHAPTER 4 Engaging Reader Response
CHAPTER 5 Ways to Talk
CHAPTER 6 Mini-Lessons to Teach
CHAPTER 7 Need to Write
CHAPTER 8 Workshopping as a Process
APPENDIX A: Canonical Texts with Sample Unit Foci and Essential Questions
APPENDIX B: Canonical Texts with Sample Unit Foci, Essential Questions, and Supplementary Texts
APPENDIX C: Reading Survey
APPENDIX D: Classwork/Online Binder
APPENDIX E: Movie Response Sheet
APPENDIX F: Book Club Project
APPENDIX G: Beowulf: A Hero among Us—Unit Test
APPENDIX H: Heroic Narrative Essay
REFERENCES
INDEX
AUTHOR
Acknowledgments
T his book could not have been written without the inspiration and guidance of the many teachers I have known in Alabama, Ohio, and South Carolina. They have whispered in my ear during this long writing process, offering words, ideas, and encouragement. Professors and classmates from Auburn and Kent State University; teachers from St. Vincent-St. Mary and Coventry High School; teacher-consultants from the Midlands Writing Project; literacy coaches in the South Carolina Reading Initiative; and the many students, teachers, and colleagues I have come to know at the University of South Carolina.
I would especially like to acknowledge and thank those teachers who shared their classroom experiences in the pages of this book: Jesse Barrett, Charles Bell, Tempie Bowers, Angela Byrd, Jenn Doyle, Emily Langdon Eberlin, Kayla Hyatt Hostetler, Lamar Johnson, Jessica Overstreet, Timothy Pollock, Nicole Walker, Julianne Oliver Ware, and Alison Whisenant. I also want to recognize the following graduate students: Kayla Finn, Erin McCarthy, Brittany Porter, and Amber Snelgrove. You all amaze me with your passion, talent, and commitment to the profession. Thank you for lending your voice and sharing your models and ideas. Schools are better places because of you.
And last, I would like to thank the editorial team at the National Council of Teachers of English, especially Samantha MacDonald and Bonny Graham, for believing this book into being. None of this would be possible without your professional commitment and expertise.
Introduction
Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.
— ALDOUS HUXLEY, Brave New World

I t's a Tuesday morning, around 9:45, in a nondescript high school classroom. A teacher sits on a stool, ready to introduce twelfth graders to Macbeth . Joaquin puts his head down. Steve is more direct and asks, “Ms. S., I still don't get why we gotta read this stuff. It don't got nothing to do with me, and it's too hard to understand.”
Ready to defend Shakespeare, I respond, “What about the idea of ambition? You're on the basketball team, right? How far would you go if some witches, or recruiters, predicted you could play for the NBA someday? How far would you go to make this happen? Even though this play is really old, the ideas in it are relevant to your life today. Give it a chance.” I hold up three articles—one about a mother who attempted to hire a hitman to kill her daughter's cheerleading rival, another about an attack on a figure skater instigated by a competitor, and a third about songwriters accused of copying a Marvin Gaye song. “I want each of you to choose one of these short articles to read in class today. Either while reading or after reading—whatever is easiest—write down at least two things you learned from your reading and one question you have about your article. Then we are going to talk about what we read in small groups. At the end of class, I'm going to play you a song called “I Want It All.'” I gesture to a stack of six different young adult novels, then continue, “And tomorrow, you are going to get to pick out to read one of these other books, not so old, that deal with ambition.” Joaquin opens one eye.
Are you a teacher who sometimes feels divided? On the one hand, I love literature, and I mean Literature with a capital L . It is one of the reasons I became an English teacher. I want to inspire others to love Macbeth , To Kill a Mockingbird , Beowulf , The Canterbury Tales , Lord of the Flies , Hamlet , 1984 , The Odyssey , Romeo and Juliet , Animal Farm , The Crucible , The Great Gatsby , and even The Scarlet Letter as much as I do.
On the other hand, I am passionate about literacy, too often spelled with a small l . I want to inspire a generation of lifelong readers and recognize that not every student is going to be excited by or ready to read about a Scottish thane's obsession for power, a knight's pilgrimage to Canterbury, or a bunch of talking pigs. Many teachers and students struggle with the readability and relatability of classical literary works that school districts and national standards often expect us to teach. We know that each reader's interests, strengths, and challenges are unique, and no single text is appropriate for every student in a middle or high school English classroom.
So, should we teach canonical works or not? There are those of us who keep trying, and there are those of us who jump at the chance to teach other texts, such as young adult novels, nonfiction works, graphic novels, picture books, and other genres and media such as music and art. And there are those of us who bounce back and forth, teaching a classic novel, followed by a young adult novel, with an essay squeezed in between, who end up feeling a bit schizophrenic in our efforts to satisfy the expectations of districts, standards, parents, students, and ourselves.
It has taken me more than twenty-five years of teaching, a whole lot of reading and listening, not to mention a bunch of teacher trial and error, to figure out a way to interweave literature with literacy. This book suggests a process for planning and teaching called “workshopping the canon.” In this book, workshop is used as a verb (i.e., to workshop) because it involves action on the part of teachers. When we workshop the canon, we actively and purposefully partner classical texts with a variety of high-interest, multiple genres within a reading and writing workshop structure, aligning the teaching of literature with what we have come to recognize as best practices in the teaching of literacy.
No longer do we have to feel divided between a longtime love for literature and a high regard for literacy. When we “workshop the canon,” we can still teach Beowulf , but within a focused unit that includes other genres such as young adult novels, short stories, informational texts, picture books, music, art, and movies. We can explore heroes, past and present, through a variety of reading workshop structures, including read-alouds, independent reading, shared reading, close reading, readers the