More symbolism, sweetie

In previous blogs, I have talked about knowledge retrieval and its problems in English, so I am not going to rehash or revisit the argument. It is simply far more complex than learning several facts. However, there are occasions where I think we need more explicit teaching of knowledge. Symbolism is one particular area that we rely on heavily in English, but rarely do we teach it explicitly.

Symbolism is taught often when it reveals itself in a text or if there's some heavy symbolism in a poem we might pre teach the symbols. Yet, knowledge is often context dependent. Those symbols work for that text at that moment. They wouldn’t work, possibly, in the same way with another text. Clothes can represent comfort and closeness in one context and in another they can represent smothering, control and the enforcing of power. 

We rely on symbolism a lot in English. The weather. The characters. The objects. The actions. The setting. Yet, we focus so heavily on the language. Students can spot a simile but struggle to comment on the symbolism of a dream. Students can spot every example of personification in a poem but cannot explain how an action symbolises a character’s inner turmoil. 

One of the sad things about the changes in English teaching is the reduction of media teaching. In time when it is morally imperative that our young people are media savvy, we removed the explicit teaching of media in the curriculum. The teaching of media gave students that knowledge around encoding gender, age or lifestyle choices through image, colour and positioning. The problem we have now is that we are expecting students to find symbolism in texts when they don’t have the knowledge or the experience of symbolism. If you don’t have the knowledge, you cannot spot the symbol. If you don’t have the knowledge, you cannot even begin to explain the symbol. 

When exploring Question 3 for Paper 1, I was alarmed by the students' lack of knowledge around symbolism. Sometimes, what is perceived as being an obvious symbol wasn’t known by a group. That led me to working harder to explicitly teach students about the knowledge of symbols. 

Lessons started with a simple bit of knowledge retrieval. Here are six images - a coffin, a plant, a boat, dice, a crown and a bridge. What are they symbols of? It was important that we spelled out what the image was so that students weren’t simply translating images. 

From this, we were able to discuss the plurality of symbols. A coffin can represent death, but it can also represent the end of something. A boat can represent freedom but also escaping something. Yet, the image was linked to abstract concepts by the class and the group were building their knowledge around the symbols. The benefit of this was that the class were building their knowledge of symbols but the language to explain symbols. Often, they could connect images together. The coffin, the plant and the boat could all be symbols of new beginnings. Therefore, students were working to understand: 

[1] The connection between an image and an idea 

[2] The language around explaining a symbol - often using abstract nouns 

[3] The plural meaning behind one image

[4] How writers can use more than one image to express a similar idea  

After several lessons, starting like this, I was able to see that the students’ confidence in symbolism was stronger. They were more perceptive to exploring symbolism in a story. But, they needed that prior knowledge and prior experience to be at that level. 

It is easy to reduce the symbolic complexity of English to every writer who is either discussing ‘sex’ or ‘death’,  yet a more nuanced level of understanding of English isn’t there unless we work harder to reveal it. The problem is how we as teachers interact with symbolism. Do we treat symbolism as facts to teach the students the text? Or do we allow students to explore the symbolism of the text? 

We’ve just been through the literature exams. Teachers have taught facts around symbolism for the main texts. Eva Smith is a symbol of the voiceless lower classes. Mr Birling is a symbol of capitalism. When faced with the unseen extracts, do students really explore the symbolism?  Only a few perceptive ones. 

I would argue we need to explore how we teach symbolism across our curriculums. For it is what we repeatedly hope students to comment on and explore, yet we teach it like facts. Concrete. Clear. Definable. You cannot present it on a  knowledge organiser or reduce it to a list. It is about experience. That’s where the problem is. We don’t give enough experience to allow the buildup of background knowledge and plurality behind ideas and meaning. We need more time and lesson content to focus on symbolism and the construction of symbolism.

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

P.S. Here’s the template of the PowerPoint with a few examples.