Why Do We Have to Write It, If We Can Just Say It? 

Christopher Johnston 

            Introduction: On the first day of class, I often ask students how they feel about writing.  Whether they are 9th graders or 12th graders, advanced or remedial, the response is all too often a chorus of complaint: “Writing sucks!” “Writing is too hard.” “It’s hella boring.”  Music to an English teacher’s ears, right?  And as this is day one, I get to look forward to a year of such concise eloquence.  I don’t even ask them how they feel about reading.             I remember a revelatory moment at the end of one of these discussions two years ago.  I asked the students to jot down a few sentences that explained how they felt about writing and why they felt that way.  Before they started, Jennifer Saephan[1] blurted out, “Why do we have to write it, if we can just say it?”  I’m not sure how I responded.  I know that the question caught me off guard and that I didn’t do it justice.  I probably told her that much of our year would be exploring exactly that question.  I’m sure she rolled her eyes, sensed the evasion underlying the answer, but jotted something down anyway. After all, she still wanted a good grade.             So, given students’ attitudes towards writing, how should one approach the teaching of reader response writing?  The goal of this article is to provide a unified and practical approach to reader response writing, and to do justice to Jennifer Saephan’s excellent inquiry.  Reader Response Writing Defined:  Before describing what reader response writing looks like in the classroom, it is useful to briefly explore its theoretical basis. Frank Madden aptly points out that “the key to the reader-response theory of Louise Rosenblatt is the word transaction” (261).  The term refers to the relationship between the reader and the text and suggests the inherent and indivisible connection between the two.  As such, the term implicitly critiques the notion of authorial intent and acknowledges

the subjectivity of the reading process. The theories of Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser play with similar ideas.  Iser takes into “account not only the actual text, but also, and in equal measure, the actions involved in responding to that text,” and he goes on to claim that “the convergence of text and reader  brings the literary work into existence” (Iser 212).  Fish focuses on the dynamic role readers have in creating meaning.  Authorial intent and the formal features of writing are nonexistent without the participation of the reader.  All three theorists, then, recast the relationship between the reader and the text.  No longer does the text offer definitive truths that we need to uncover.  Rather, the text and reader, the reading process, will create truths that need to be articulated.                         This is all well and good, but how does it translate to a high school classroom?  Louise Rosenblatt’s asserts that “a free, uninhibited emotional reaction to a work of art or literature is an absolutely necessary condition of sound literary judgment” (The Reader, the Text, the Poem  75).   This is a radical idea that has the potential to empower even the least enthusiastic reader.  Yet, simply telling students that reader responses are free, uninhibited, and emotional reactions to literature is an invitation for disaster.  For the purposes of a high school classroom, a more pragmatic definition is requisite.  The following six guidelines will help students grasp what is required.1) Reader response writing is an unapologetically subjective reaction to a text.  There is no right or wrong in reader response writing.2) Reader response writing is introspective.3) Reader response writing takes place immediately or soon after reading.4) Reader response writing is not a formal essay or analytic argument.5) In general, the teacher leaves the prompt open, but guiding questions are sometimes incorporated. 6) Reader response writing blurs the line between the text and the response.  It transacts with the text.[2]

            For the remainder of this article, when I refer to reader response writing, I am referring to writing which conforms to the above outline.Rationale:  Why should reader response writing be included in the secondary classroom?  There is no section on the SAT or the New York State Regents Exam that asks for a reader response.  Few university classes require such writing, and it’s equally hard to imagine an employer mandating a quick written response to a given text.  Shouldn’t the writing we do in class reflect the writing people do in society? And, finally, doesn’t stressing the validity of all interpretations necessarily dull critical analysis?            These are powerful and important objections.  Much of my rationale is embedded in my discussion of a successful reader response writing program.  That said, it is important to provide three fundamental and explicit justifications.            1)  Reader response writing is an excellent scaffolding tool for the teaching of formal[3] essays.  In my experience, a vast majority of students abhor writing analytic essays.  I think this abhorrence has two central causes.  First, students are scared of making incorrect interpretations.  Second, students have negative attitudes towards writing.  Reader response writing allays these factors by fostering interpretive confidence and by providing a stepping stone from creative writing and journaling to written analysis.  Too often, teachers assign expository or analytic essays without having taught students the tools needed to attack such an enterprise.  Reader response writing largely entrenches the requisite skills.            2) Reader response writing cultivates the skills students need to become critical and independent readers. It is self evident that writing in response to a text should necessitate thinking about the text.  By having a student write about a text without intercession by a third party, independent reading and writing skills are employed. In the next section of the article, Getting a Reader Response Program Started, I will discuss how students sometimes slip through reader response writing without thinking critically or

independently, and I will provide some methods for alleviating this difficulty             3) Reader response writing is a more honest reflection of the relationship between text and reader than more traditional formal essays.  I have gone over much of the justification for this claim in The Reader Response Writing Defined section.  This rationale does, however, return us to Jennifer Saephan’s question.  If students are responding orally in interesting and insightful ways to literature, why should teachers make them write?  First, the writing process involves different cognitive skills.  Jennifer’s question implies that she is well aware of this.  After all, if the processes were the same, why would she object to writing?   Second, reader response writing, while a form of communication, tends to be more personal than vocalized reactions.  Later, I will discuss how the classroom can intimidate risk taking.  Written responses, as advocates of journal writing will attest, can open up avenues of discourse that students are fearful to try during class discussion.  Third, the connection between writing and reading is intricate.  By having students write in response to texts, they are engaged more intimately with the text.             Finally, I am not suggesting that reader response writing take the place of journals, oral discussions, or more formal written analysis.  Rather, I am advocating its inclusion as a touch stone activity in a wide ranging and multi-faceted curriculum. Getting a Successful Reader Response Program Started:                      Too often, reader response writing translates into writing whatever one wants.  This occurred frequently in my own classroom.  For example, after reading a poem, I might ask students to write down a reaction.  Much of the time the response is a one sentence gem such as, “That was gay.”  Some students offer more positive but equally banal comments.  “It was cool.  I liked it.  The author really captured the moment.”  In general, the responses are superficial and repetitive.  As teachers we need to ask ourselves why this is so and what we can do about it.  Over the next few pages, I will analyze some of the initial and most basic

issues that stand between the responses mentioned above and more meaningful and perceptive writing.            Why this is so:            There are numerous reasons that may explain why students struggle to respond to literature.  I will focus on four of the main causes.            1) Students do not like/understand/relate to the literature we are asking them to respond to.  Even assuming that most students are reading at or near grade-level, the reasons for this are plentiful.  In my experience, it is often hard for students in contemporary, urban America to connect with Heathcliff’s situation in Wuthering Heights.  In fact, the general emphasis on “canonical” texts, from Homer to Hawthorne, reflects an old-fashioned, medicinal approach.  If it’s painful, it must be good.              2) The Classroom environment is not conducive to open, risk-taking discourse.  As Susan Henneberg notes in her article “Dimensions of Failure in Reader Response,” students are often intimidated by their classmates.  The “covert rudeness” (24) of students, the snickering that occurs during sad moments in novels, the guffaw that “slips out” after a student shares a poem, takes its toll, and often a student’s silence or flippancy is a defense mechanism against fear.    Henneberg goes on to say that “these students’ primary coping strategy is passivity; the less effort they exert, the less they will be disappointed if their efforts do not produce the highest rewards” (23).            3) Students do not view writing as means of expression but as a medium of teacher evaluation.   Many students associate writing with grammar.  They worry about writing and interpreting correctly.  They are anxious about being wrong and sounding stupid.  This is the result not only of the covert rudeness alluded to previously, but also of the evaluative methodology of most teachers.  We find it terribly hard to put away our red pens, to let grammar errors go.  I often fall victim to the temptation to circle each subject-verb agreement error and cross out every unnecessary word.  After reflecting on this habit, I’ve concluded that it arises

not out of a desire to help students improve their writing, so much as a desire to prove my own abilities as an editor and grammarian.  Subsequently, a student’s content rich reflection on a Dickinson poem is covered in red marks as opposed to encouraging comments.  It is no wonder that many students stick to simple and dull sentence structure, diction, and syntax, when teachers consistently critique their more expansive efforts.            4) The stress on grades and test scores, the increasingly absurd requirements for acceptance at colleges and universities, undermines the idea of achieving for achieving sake.  Students have to so many important graded assignments and tests that the notion of an ungraded, informal response is codified as unimportant.  It is hard for a teacher to instill an ethic of effort as its own reward, an ethic of creativity and self-expression, in an educational system that unambiguously endorses impersonal testing as the final judgment of worth.  It used to be that when a student raised his or her hand and asked, “Will this be on the test?” a teacher could shrug and say, “It’s not important whether it’s on the test.”  In today’s climate, however, that scenario is impossible for a two main reasons.  One, a student has little reason to ask that question because everything is on one test or another.  Two, teachers can no longer deride the importance of tests because not only are test scores crucial in a student’s college application, but they also affect school funding.  In this context, then, there is minimal space for assignments that do not explicitly connect to a student’s grade and/or a student’s test score.            What we can do about it:             All four of these issues are extremely complex, and I do not pretend to have solutions.   That said, I will look back at the four problems I’ve identified and offer some guiding principles that should improve reader response writing.            1) Students do not like/understand/relate to the literature we are asking them to respond to.  Randy Bomer writes that “student writers need to learn to be affected by literature” (104).  This is no easy task, and it is impossible to achieve if students do

not connect with the text.  There are two simple ways to mitigate this problem and establish invaluable connections.  First, teachers need to teach texts that are more relevant to students’ lives.  I don’t have the space here to engage in a debate about the worthiness of canonical texts, and I don’t want to suggest that all literary classics be dropped in favor of more contemporary and accessible texts.  However, students, especially emerging readers and writers, need to connect with what they are reading, and this connection is most easily established by teaching relevant texts.  It should also be noted that contemporariness, relevancy, and accessibility do not denote literary inferiority.  Last year, I had the opportunity to teach Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones.  I bought ninety copies and somewhat audaciously sold them to my students.  They grumbled as they shelled over the ten bucks, but by the end of the first chapter I was met with a refrain of comments such as, “I’ve never read a book like this,” “It’s already worth the ten dollars,” and “Why don’t we read more books like this in English class?”  Student enthusiasm for the novel directly improved the depth and energy of their responses.  Their ability to imagine and feel the characters translated into a desire to share their reflections.  I doubt that The Lovely Bones will stand the test of time, but I know that it was a wonderful teaching tool, and it reinforced the notion that teaching relatable texts can help students respond to literature.  Second, when teaching texts that are not immediately relevant to students’ lives, teachers should emphasize the connections.  Most canonical texts contain universal elements that if approached from the right angle are applicable to the contemporary lives of today’s teenagers.  For example, when teaching Othello, do not immediately ask students to respond to Shakespeare’s language or his use of Italy as the setting.  Rather, ask them to write about moments of jealousy or moments when they’ve either witnessed or been the victim of racism.  After establishing the validity of their own experiences, connect their ideas with the text.  Both suggestions are based on a simple approach: students are more likely to respond in a meaningful way, if they find the text

meaningful.2) The Classroom environment is not conducive to open, risk-taking discourse.   This is a difficult problem and one that slips into issues of classroom management.  Obviously, if a writing program of any depth is to succeed, the classroom must be a safe space in which intellectual risk-taking and mutual respect are celebrated.  One crucial aspect of attaining such an atmosphere is teacher modeling and participation.  We can’t expect students to significantly share, if we don’t model that enterprise.  When we ask students to write responses to literature, so should we.  When we ask them to share, so should we.  That said, if classroom management is a serious issue in your class, if some students are still struggling to behave in appropriate and respectful ways, then you do need to adjust your writing program.  One simple way to partially address this situation is to collect student writing, cull a variety of examples yourself, share those with the class and then model what is and is not okay to say about them.  This should help pave the way for student sharing in the future.  Sometimes, of course, there is the class from hell, the class with precisely the wrong mix of egos and insecurities, the class that makes us age a year every day.  In this context, the public sharing of responses may never be appropriate.3) Students do not view writing as a  means of expression but as a medium of teacher evaluation.  Teachers need to carefully monitor how they assess student achievement.    Much of establishing good reader response habits is a matter of instilling confidence and ownership.  In the initial stage of the reader response writing program, teachers must mine student writing and emphasize the positives.  I recommend that teachers collect the first two or three reader response efforts and write affirmative comments on each one.  Since it is impossible to continue such individual attention all year, teachers need to train students to gradually take their place.  Hence, after modeling affirmative and encouraging reactions, you have students trade their responses and write positive comments on their peers’ papers.  This will help instill student ownership in the

process and will deemphasize the teacher’s role in the equation.  After students have become more confident and self-assured, constructive criticism may be incorporated in the process.            As alluded to earlier, many teachers struggle to let grammatical errors go by unmarked.  Writing is a personal enterprise, and students often feel quite vulnerable about even the most banal efforts.    A paper littered with red checks and slashes, with crossed out words and circled sentences, often destroys what little confidence a student has.  While students should always be encouraged to minimize writing errors, a good reader response writing program must prioritize content over conventions.  Thus, in the preliminary stages of the program, grammar errors should not be marked.  After students have started writing thoughtful, content rich responses, then teachers may raise the question of revision. 4) The stress on grades and test scores, the increasingly absurd requirements for acceptance at colleges and universities, undermines the idea of achieving for achieving sake.  There is only so much a teacher can do when faced with societal pressures, and I don’t pretend to have a magical solution.  That said, here are two principles that may alleviate this problem. 1) The process is more important than the product.  This philosophy should motivate most classroom practices and is integral in reader response programs.  While society as a whole might lionize achievement and encourage success at any cost, the individual classroom can create a culture that celebrates effort and progress over end result.  2) Learning for learning’s sake will improve student achievement.  As mentioned in the rationale, reader response writing teaches several skills that students need to do well on the Regents.  Reader response makes them better readers and better writers.   While teaching reader response writing, teachers should pause occasionally and reflect with the students on how the lessons students are learning and the skills they are applying will help them on the various exams. Diving Deeper:            Once these four initial concerns are addressed, students can engage in more advanced forms of reader response writing.   In

this section, I will outline several specific lessons that will enhance student writing.[4]  I’ve divided the lessons into three sections: into, thru, and beyond.  The objective of into lessons is to give students both the confidence and basic tools to respond to literature.  Thru lessons foster critical thinking skills and add an analytical component to the equation. Beyond lessons establish a link between reader response writing and analytic essays.            Into Lessons: Two basic ideas underlie my approach to into lessons.  First, the lessons must be student centered.  Louise Rosenblatt’s suggestion that the teacher’s role is only “an elaboration of the vital influence inherent in literature itself” (“Language, Literature, and Values” 66) is on point.   Our role is not to tell students what a text means, but to help unlock that influence.  Second, in the initial forays of reader response, subjectivity must be celebrated.  Bomer posits that “when students write in response to literature, that writing should originate in the subjective ways the literary work touches them” (Boomer 253). With those two ideas in mind, I will walk us through two touchstone into activities.            Free Response:  I begin this activity by sharing an evocative piece of art.  While I’ll most often use a short literary selection, it is important to vary the “text.”  Sometimes I might share a song with emotional lyrics, other times I might choose an instrumental piece.  I’ve also had good success with visual images projected on the overhead screen.   The prompt is simple: “Please write a written response to this selection.  You may write whatever you want, but try to be honest and thoughtful.  If the selection reminds you of an experience you’ve had, please feel free to write about that.  If the selection made you feel a certain way, please explore those feelings.  The important thing is that you’re trying to write a genuine response to the selection.”  The first time we try this assignment, I pause after sharing the prompt and read examples of responses I’ve culled from previous classes.  After this scaffolding moment, I share a different selection to which the students respond.  I tend to give students about five minutes to

respond, though that will vary significantly depending on the selection.  While you are writing, make sure you look up from your own response in case the class finishes earlier than expected.             As I’ve previously suggested, the initial responses will probably be short, dull, and safe.  That is okay.  As Kirby writes, “Be patient with students at this point.  They will be confused at first by the freedom of the assignment” (169).  The first several times we perform this activity, I collect their work and respond to it.  At this point, positive and encouraging comments are called for, not corrections.  Before handing the responses back, I read several of the selections aloud and have students point out what was good about them.  As students become more comfortable with the expectations and start to embrace rather than fear the freedom of the assignment, the responses will improve and I start having the students react to each other’s responses.   Usually, I will have the students exchange papers and then write a response to their peer’s response.  They then change papers again and the third person reads both responses to the class.             Free Response activity is the basis of my reader response program.  It is the first step in the process and also the last.  All of the ensuing activities, including the analytic essay, lead back to the Free Response.            Guided Responses:[5]  This activity follows essentially the same process as Free Response, but now I incorporate a series of questions meant to solicit different kinds of responses.  These guiding questions will help open up avenues for responding that the students had previously not considered.  Once these avenues have been opened, the class can return to Free Responses. If the questions have been properly internalized, then the free responses should be much more variable in nature.             I give my students a handout of guiding questions[6] which they keep as a reference tool.  As the year progresses, I give students an opportunity to add to our list of guiding questions to increase student ownership of the activity.  Before sharing a selection, I either tell students to which guiding questions I will ask

them to respond or let the students decide.  The following are some examples of guiding questions. 

                       The guiding questions give the students a focal point that often helps them make more insightful observations.  In addition, it implicitly teaches students that the questions one asks about a piece of art can shape the interpretations one makes. Thru Lessons: Teachers and students often mistakenly assume that subjective responses and critical analysis are mutually exclusive.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In the following lessons, I explore two activities that foster critical thinking and literacy skills.  Both activities can be used frequently and both should inform reader response writing.  After students become skilled in these activities, their Free and Guided Responses will be more incisive and insightful.            Say, Mean, Matter:[7]  This simple and fun approach to literary analysis helps students differentiate between paraphrasing, inferring, and synthesizing.   When first teaching this lesson, it is important to select a short work of literature that is accessible, but not completely obvious.  We will use the following sentence as an example:            His hands trembled as he brought the cigarette to his lips and sucked deeply. After reading the selection two or three times, work through the following chart as a class.[8]What does it SAY? What does it MEAN? Why does it MATTER?   

  

                       In the Say box, students fill out a paraphrased version of whatever the text says.  They do not make any inferences or interpretations, but focus on putting the text in their own words.  At times, even this act of direct translation will incite or involve inferential thinking, especially when authorial intent is notably

ambiguous.  That is fine.  In general, however, this section is aimed at teaching students how to paraphrase.  So, for our example, students might write, “A man smokes a cigarette.”            In the Mean box, students employ inferential thinking.  As we discuss this box, I usually write down every inference the students make, even the ones that stretch interpretive license.  Once we have brainstormed, we go back and circle the conjectures that seem most interesting or insightful.  For the above text, students might write things like, “The man is upset,” or “Something has just happened and he’s trying to calm himself down.”            In the Matter box, students have to address a question that they are used to leveling like an accusation: why does this matter or, more accurately, so what?  This is often the trickiest section for students and teachers to complete. It requires them to synthesize the first two boxes and consider the social context of the text. For the above text, the students might write something like “the passage suggests that addiction is a coping mechanism.”            Three Level Questions:  This activity helps students learn how to question a text.  Usually teachers are posed as the inquirers.  This allows students to put themselves in the teacher’s position.  In addition, the more adept students become at asking questions, the better they’ll become at predicting what questions will be asked.  Though often unaddressed, this is a fundamental test taking skill.  Here is how I identify the three levels of questions to the students:[9]Level 1 = On the Page Questions.  These questions are usually fairly simple and they have correct or incorrect answers that can be found in the reading.  An example is: Can the answer to level 1 questions be found in the reading?  Clearly, the answers to level 1 questions are facts, and they are in the reading.  All one needs to do is find the answer.  These questions do not require much thinking on the reader’s part.  They do, however, require one to pay attention and to do the work.  Hence, when a teacher asks a level 1 question, he/she is interested in knowing whether the

students are doing the work.Level 2 = Beneath the Reading.  These questions are more ambiguous than level 1 questions.  The answers are usually implied or suggested by the reading, but not simply written on the page. For example: Does the author of this handout think it is important to ask questions? The answer is not simply written in the handout, yet the handout suggests the answer.  Level 2 questions usually require the reader to think about what the author is trying to say.  The reader must make a judgment, but the judgment should be supported by the reading.  When a teacher asks a Level 2 question, he/she is interested in making the students think about the reading in a deep way.  The correct answer involves the students combining their opinion with evidence from the reading. Level III = Beyond the Reading.  These questions have no right or wrong answer.  They are related to the reading, but the answer can not be found in the reading.  Instead, the student must answer the question based on his/her own opinions on the subject.  For instance: Is it important for you to understand what the point of a question or an assignment is?  This answer is related to this handout, but not at all answered by it.  You must come up with the answer after thinking about your own life. Level 3 questions often make the reader connect the reading with his/her own life.  When a teacher asks a Level 3 question, he/she is interested in making the students think about the world and their lives in a different way. The correct answer is simply the opinion of the student.                Once students have practiced creating different types of questions, this activity can be utilized in a variety of ways.  For example, you could have students create level 1, level 2, and level 3 questions for homework and then use them as the basis for class discussion and/or guide reader response writing.  I’ve also had good success putting students in groups to create questions and then having the groups compete to see which group asks the most difficult and/or the most interesting questions.  Finally, on handouts and quizzes, I often have students identify what types of questions I’m asking.  All three activities encourage students to

self-consciously consider the learning process and foster inquiry skills.            Say, Mean, Matter and Three level questions are great discussion tools and, if done correctly and consistently, will sharpen the critical lens.  They are simple to understand and versatile, yet they require students to think deeply and analytically about literature. After employing these activities, free and guided responses should be more perceptive.   Beyond Lessons:  I am a firm believer in teaching formal essays.  Reader response writing is not an alternative to such essays, but a building block.  The following is a brief exploration of the connection between reader response writing and analytic essays.            Analytic Essays: As I mentioned before, teachers often assign work for which students are unprepared.  Frequently, students are asked to write five paragraph analytic essays without having been taught how to respond to literature in a meaningful way.  The result is that students learn structure and form at the expense of content.  I’ve frequently employed Jane Schaffer’s very structured approach to essay writing.  She breaks down each sentence in each paragraph and clearly identifies the form and function of each sentence.  For example, her basic paragraph, called a 1 –chunk, follows the ensuing format:            Sentence One = TS or Topic Sentence            Sentence Two = CD or Concrete Detail (evidence from text)            Sentence Three = CM or Commentary (how does the CD prove the TS)            Sentence Four = CM (elaboration of initial CM)            Sentence Five = CS or Concluding Sentence. This formula has helped many of my students master a paragraph.  For many struggling students, the emphasis on form instills confidence.  That said, her approach fails to address content.  The result is students who can write a well structured paragraph, but have nothing to say.   This same phenomenon plagues essay

writing in general.  We tell students to write a three page analytic essay without having taught them how to engage with literature, without having taught them how to think critically about a text, without having taught them that subjective responses are both valid and fundamental.             Reader Response Writing is a wonderful scaffolding instrument that dramatically improves the content of student writing.  As such, it needs to be taught before students are expected to write powerful, formal essays.  Preceding an analytic essay on a text, students should a) have responded frequently to literature through reader response writing; and b) have written reader responses to questions and prompts that are directly related to the essay topic.  By doing the above, students will have already distinguished between summary and analysis, and explored numerous ideas in a meaningful way.  Often the content of their reader response writing can be utilized in analytic essays.Conclusion:  I do not advocate reader response writing as the only form of writing one does in class.  Rather, it is a touchstone activity that improves basic skills, encourages risk taking and creative thinking, and is beneficial to both the low-skilled and high skilled student.  Incorporating a successful reader response writing program will largely eliminate banal, superficial, and prosaic responses.  Jennfier Saephan won’t have time to ask her question.  She’ll be too busy writing. Appendix A: Into HandoutGuided Response Chart:                     Name: ___________________Guiding Focus:                                   Guiding Questions:_____________________Artist                                                   What sort of person do you imagine the artist to be?                                                            What race, gender, and/or age do you think the                                                                    artist is?         

Feelings                                              What feelings does the selection inspire?  Why and how does the selection inspire those emotions?Associations                                       What memory does the text call to mind – of                                                                       people, places, events, sights, smells, etc.?Judgments of Importance                   What are some important words in the text? What                                                               is an important phrase or sentence?  Why?Identification of Problems                 What is the most difficult word or sentence in the                                                               text?  What parts are hard to understand?Sight Perceptions                               Paraphrase what you see happening in the text.                                                                    What images are called to mind by the text?Literary Elements                               Choose one of the literary elements we’ve discussed                                                             (plot, conflict, figures of speech, imagery,               characterization, etc) and reflect on what role it       plays in the text.New and Improved                             How would you change the text to make it better? Class Created Guided Responses: _______________________              _________________________________________                                                            ________________________________________________________________              _________________________________________                                                            ________________________________________________________________              _________________________________________

                                                            _________________________________________ Appendix B: Thru Handouts

Say, Mean, Matter             Over the next few weeks, we are going to work on a technique called “Say, Mean, Matter.”  This technique will help us interpret literature in a sophisticated way.  It will also perfect our paragraphs.  So far, we have done a good job learning how write a topic sentence and how to find good concrete details.  “Say, Mean, Matter” will help us with our commentary sentences.How Does it Work?When looking at literature you ask yourself three questions:1) What does it say?   Your answer is just putting the writing in your own words.2) What does it mean?  This is more difficult.  The following questions might help you come up with the answer. Why is it important? What is the deeper meaning?What can we tell about the character?  There are usually many possible answers.3) Why does it matter?  What is the larger meaning for society? For you?! Example:  The early bird gets the worm.                       Say Mean MatterBirds that get up early can find food.

- Do things first if you want to be rewarded.- If you’re late, you might not get rewarded.- It pays to buy an alarm clock.- There are limited supplies

- Our society puts an emphasis on getting things done quickly.- Our society is competitive and, if you want to win, you better get to front of the line.

and eventually things will run out.

- We don’t emphasize working together so much as taking care of our own needs.

           Example:  Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.           Say Mean MatterLife is similar to box full of chocolate candies.  Both life and the box of chocolates are unpredictable.

- Life is random and you can’t control what happens to you.- Life will turn out okay no matter what you do.- There are only 20 or so things that can happen to you.- We pick our unknown fate.

- We need to relax and accept that we can’t control everything.- Have faith that your future will be okay.

Example: He looked at me and said, “You dumb punk.  Only a moron like you wouldn’t know that ten divided by two equals five.”            I started to cry, but then remembered what my mommy always tells me. I look him in the eyes and yelled, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”        Say Mean Matter      Example:

            A Strange beautiful woman met me in the mirror the other night.  “Hey,I said, What you doing here?” She asked me the same thing.                                                                                    - Marilyn Waniek                 Say Mean Matter     

 Thinking about Thinking! 3 Level Questions

            How many people have ever solved a math problem using a formula or a calculator?  Do you ever get the feeling that you don’t really understand what you are doing?  Sure you can get the right answer, but you’re not exactly sure how you reached the correct conclusion?  Or how many times have you aced a vocabulary test by memorizing the definitions without really learning what the word means?  You simply write down the definition without truly thinking about the word.             What’s my point?  Well, I think it’s very important to start thinking about the learning process.  So, the first thing I want us to work on is understanding the questioning process.  In this class, we basically work with 3 levels of questioning. Level I = On the Page Questions.  These questions are usually fairly simple and they have correct or incorrect answers that can be found in the reading.  An example is:                        1) How many levels of questioning do we work with in this class?            Clearly, the answers are facts and they are in the reading.  All you need to do is find the answer.  These questions do not require much thinking on your part.  They do, however, require you to pay attention and to do the work.  Hence, when a teacher asks a level I questions, he/she is basically interested in knowing whether you are doing the work.

 Level II = Beneath the Reading.  These questions are more ambiguous than level I questions.  The answers are usually implied or suggested by the reading, but not simply written on the page. For example:                         Does the author of this handout think memorizing definitions of words without understanding the definitions is a good thing?            The answer is not simply written in the handout and yet the handout suggests the answer.  Level II questions usually require the reader to think about what the author is trying to say.  The reader must make a judgment, but the judgment should be supported by the reading.  These questions require critical thinking by students.  When a teacher asks a Level II question, he/she is interested in making the students think about the reading in a deep way.  The correct answer involves the students combining their opinion with evidence from the reading.  Level III = Beyond the Reading.  These questions have no right or wrong answer.  They are related to the reading, but the answer can not be found in the reading.  Instead, the student must answer the question based on his/her own opinions on the subject.  For instance:                        Is it important for you to understand what the point of a question or an assignment is?            This answer is related to this handout, but not at all answered by it.  You must come up with the answer after thinking about your own life. Level III questions often make the reader connect the reading with his/her own life.  When a teacher asks a Level III question, he/she is interested in making the students think about the world and their lives in a different way. The correct answer is simply the opinion of the student.                             Practice time! Below is an excerpt from House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.            

            Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous.  They think we will attack them with shiny knives.  They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.          But we aren’t afraid.  We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that’s Rosa’s Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he’s Fat Boy, though he’s not fat anymore nor a boy.          All brown all around, we are safe.  But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah.  That is how it goes and goes.

             Now take out a separate piece of paper and write down three level 1 questions, two level 2 questions, and two level 3 questions.   

Works CitedBomer, Randy. Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle and High School. Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann,  1995.Cooper, Charles R., and Lee Odell. Evaluating Writing. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1999.Fish, Stanley. “Interpreting the Variorum.” Modern Criticism and Theory. Ed. David Lodge. New York, NY: Longman Inc.; 1988. 211-228.Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in this Class? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press;             1980.Henneberg, Susan. “Dimension of Failure in Reader Response.” English Journal. Vol. 85 No. 3, March 1996. Pages 21-26.Iser, Wolfgang. “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach.” Modern Criticism and Theory. Ed. David Lodge. New York, NY: Longman Inc.; 1988.          211-228.

Kirby, Dan, and Tome Liner. Inside Out: Developmental Strategies for Teaching Writing, Portsmouth, NH :  Boynton/Cook Publishers,  c1988.Lattimer, Heather. Thinking Through Genre. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2003.Lewin, Larry. Paving the Way in Reading and Writing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003.Madden, Frank. “Reader Response Theory.” Theorizing Composition. Ed. Mary Lynch             Kennedy. West Port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. 261-263.Parker, John. Writing Process to Product. Evanston, IL: McDougal, Littell, and Co, 1991.Probst, Robert. Response and Analysis: Teaching Literature in Junior and Senior High School. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988.Probst, Robert. “Reader Response Theory and the English Curriculum.” English Journal.            Vol. 83, No 3, March 1994. 37-44.Rosenblatt, Louise. “Language, Literature, and Values.” Language, Schooling, and Society.  Ed. Stephen N. Tchudi. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton, 1985. 64-80.Rosenblatt, Louise.  The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Carbondale: Southern Illionis UP, 1978.

 Soven, Margot. Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools: Theory, Research,             and Practice. Boston:  Allyn and Bacon, 1999.Young, Art, and Toby Fulwiler. When Writing Teachers Teach Literature: Bringing Writing to Reading. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook :  Heinemann,  c1995    

    

      

[1] All names of students have been changed.  [2] While this is an important idea, it may prove too abstract for the classroom. [3] I’m using ‘formal’ as an umbrella term that includes persuasive, analytic, and expository essays[4] While I try to make my suggestions broad enough to be applicable to most Secondary English classrooms, I am focusing on an average 9th or 10th grade English class.[5] This activity is based on work done by Margot Soven and Thomas Newkirk.[6] See Appendix A for handout.[7] This activity is based on a creation of The Bay Area Writing Project. [8] A student handout is located in Appendix B.[9] The handout I give to the students is located in appendix B.