Deep Reading: Literacy Across the Curriculum

My journey to work takes about twenty five minutes. It should be shorter, but that is down to several things on the way. First, I leave my street and wait at the junction and wait for gap to get through the traffic. Then, I carry on a road for a few miles and then I have to stop for pedestrians crossing. After a few more miles, I come to some traffic lights – one of three I have to sit through.  I wait for them to turn green and then I have to take my time as I join a road that cyclists love. At this point, I have to slow down (not that I am speeding) and be cautious for the lycra clad muscle machines as they swerve all over the place. Now, I travel through some country lanes and either I get stuck behind a tractor or I have to stop to allow a person to get through, as the lanes are so narrow. Then, traffic lights again. A bit where there are speed cameras. A difficult junction. Another set of lights. A junction. Finally, I arrive at school.

My point is: I have a twenty five minute journey that should take me about fifteen minutes. There are a number of obstacles that stop the journey. It isn’t a simple case of going from A to B. Before you imagine that I am a ‘speed demon’ on the road, I am not; I am just using this idea of driving to make a connection to reading. My daily journey to school is not a stress filled one like that great John Cleese film ‘Clockwise’. Anyway, reading in secondary schools can be a bit like my journey to school.

I am obsessed with reading at the moment. My daughters are currently learning to read and I am part of that process. Every night, if possible, I sit with them as they break words down and read simple sentences. I am seeing the results of what the teachers do in their primary school and I am amazed. Months ago they could only recognise their own names and now they are reading line after line. It has been a speedy process. While helping them, I have thought about secondary schools, and how we help ‘the reading process’. Please note that I say ‘the reading process’ and not ‘reading’. I personally think schools work really hard to promote reading. There are so many great things happening to promote books. Yet, and as recent reports and news stories suggest, there might be more we need to do to strengthen the reading process.

As an English teacher, I have a range of things I do to help reading in lessons. I break down texts. I use different reading strategies. I select texts that are suitable for the students. I explore unfamiliar words and their meaning. I do a lot on the understanding of a text, the subtext, the writer’s purpose and how the reader reacts to a text. Yet, I don’t always do enough on that decoding of words - the simple reading of words and linking them together to work out the basic units of sense. Yes, I do it for Shakespeare and some long winded writers, but I don’t always do it for everything students read in lessons. Why? Because, I assume that they have understood it. This is what I think is an issue we need to address in schools. Our assumptions.

We know with the new emphasis on literacy that writing is important. We are now using our writing mats, our sentence starters, our key words and many other good things. But, what do we do to help students with their reading? This is exactly the question I have inferred from Ofsted when they visit. They will also ask the question: How do they support and develop writing? I am sure they have hundreds of questions, but I like to simplify things. There are a lot of good things people do to help with the reading, but I think that we do assume somethings about how the students read. We assume the words they know. We assume the speed at which they read. We assume how they will understand things. We assume that have a certain level of proficiency in reading, yet we have nothing concrete and explicit to back these assumptions with. It roughly boils down to: they are a level 5 so they must be able to do it.

I have taught a wide range of student with various abilities and there is always that surprising time when they don’t know a word or concept that shocks you or alarms you. In truth, it might also be a sign of me getting old. You could be talking to Year 10 about a court of law and then one of the students asks: ‘What’s a trial?’. You then wonder how this student can watch endless episodes of Eastenders and not understand what a trial is. But, it happens. Therefore, I went back to the beginning with one-to-one reading that parents do with 5/6 year olds. I took my class of Year 9 students and did some one-to-one reading over several months and it made some surprising discoveries.

To put it simply, I sat with a student and got them to read to me an extract from a story. They read a photocopy and I annotated another photocopy where they struggled, broke down words or hesitated.  Some were really good and read flawlessly. Some struggled. Some, who I thought would be good, struggled too. It revealed a lot about my assumptions. If they demonstrated understanding at a high level in their writing about a text, then clearly understood the text and everything in it. In fact, that can be far from the case. One extract I read with the students had the word ‘agony’ in it.  A very high number of students struggled to read it out correctly. So, what would they normally do in a class? They would have a strategy to cope. In fact, most of our reading teaching focuses on strategies of how to cope with difficult texts. But, do these strategies fix or mask a problem?

At this point, I am going back to my journey to work at the start of my blog. For some of our students, reading is like my journey to school. They have several traffic lights that stop the flow of thought, ideas and understanding. These traffic lights are words that they are unfamiliar with when written down. They also have to face a cyclist on the road.  These cyclists are usually those long multi-clause sentences that they have to take extra care with to understand. They have to face a tractor that just stops the journey dead. The tractor is one of those words or phrases that without its meaning you can’t get any further. Take the phrase ‘dejà vu’.

Tom was feeling sick as he had a feeling of déjà vu.

Without a teacher, a dictionary or TA, a student will not work out the meaning of sentence; unless they know it, of course. Is it a disease? Is it an emotion? The strategies that we usually employ don’t work in this case.
 
You could argue that the gist of a text is important, but that isn’t the case when you look at exam papers and text books. Complete understanding is needed for some of the simplest of questions. If students are finding a tractor in every sentence, then their overall understanding is reduced completely. What can we do about it?

Deep Reading

We need to work harder to avoid superficial reading in lessons. I could adopt David Didau’s idea of ‘Slow Writing’ at this stage and consider that we adopt ‘Slow Reading’; however, I think ‘Deep Reading’ is far more suitable.  Most of the students I read with ( and I have done this with a large number of Year 7s this term as well) read quickly and that is generally fine for most, because they get the overall gist and understand the key parts of the text and then that helps them when they read for questioning. However, some students don’t get the initial gist of a text because of these stumbling blocks. They get a picture with the key parts missing. Then, when they approach the questions they struggle as they have the key pieces missing.

That’s why I am thinking of the following before reading a text:

Traffic Lights

These are the words that they might know and use verbally, but they might struggle to read them.  

·        Before reading a text, pick the polysyllabic words and get students, as a starter, to pronounce the words and discuss what they mean. It could also make a great bit of prediction. When they read the text, they know the pronunciation and some of the meaning of the words.

Cyclists

These are the long sentences where you often forget what the start of the sentence was about by the time you get to the end.  

·        Remind students that they have to take more care with the longer sentences. They might have to go a bit slower with these sentences.

·         Sentences that have lots or one of  these  ;/  : /  , / ( ) might need to be reread. 

·        Teach students how to read these long sentences.  

Tractors

Words that they might not be familiar with.

·         Rather than give the word and its pronunciation like the fanfare usually given to the unveiling of a plaque, show them the word and get them to pronounce it. Then correct them if necessary. If we don’t give them opportunities in simple lessons to explore how to say words, how are we going to help them build their confidence at guessing with words that they are not familiar with?

·         Give them a short glossary of five to eight words.

·         Simplify for the audience.

A Passenger

One-to-one reading. I think we don’t do this enough in secondary. We seem to think reading something aloud in class is the equivalent. I think it isn’t. Personally, I think it can cause more problems than it fixes. It can destroy confidence. Simply, reading to a teacher is so much more effective as it is less public and there isn’t so much of an issue if you correct the student.

·         While students are on task, get one student to do it verbally with you. They could read the text and you question them afterwards. The comments they give you can be written in their exercise book as bullet points. This can be done for the full spectrum of ability and not just those that are weak at reading.

 

Most of these things I have tried myself and others are things I am currently working on or trialling.

 

There are days when I wish I had a passenger with me when I am reading, especially when I am reading a Shakespeare play I have never read before. Then, there are road works and a traffic jam that is tailed back several junctions.

Thanks for reading,

Xris32   

Shakespeare and I: Teaching Shakespeare

It was only predictable that I would get to Shakespeare at some stage in my blogging career. It just so happens that I am currently planning to teach Macbeth. In my early years of my teaching career, I had some pretty bad experiences of Shakespeare.  Shakespeare can be the source for some of the best lessons; however, it too can be the source of some of the worse lessons.  On one hand I have enjoyed watching a group of rugby lads pretend to be Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, including high-pitched 'Monty Python' voices. Then, on the other hand I have watched time stand still, as students try to read, understand and follow a scene in ‘The Merchant of Venice’.

From the start, I want to say that William Shakespeare is bloody brilliant. Great plays. Great characters. Great ideas, although borrowed from someone else. Great language. And, I do think Shakespeare has a place in the curriculum we teach in schools. The ideas he wrote about are still topical and relevant and they often feature in soaps on a daily basis. Sadly, the language is the barrier. I do feel that the experience of Shakespeare must be, for some of our students, like one of those French lessons where the teacher only speaks in French.  It is not a natural experience and we expect the students to tune in and accept it. At the start of my teaching career, I was told to simply read the play with them and they will tune into the language. Some did; others didn’t, and, to be honest, it wasn’t effective teaching. It was probably like watching a programme on S4C (the Welsh Channel 4) you recognise the odd word, but the rest is incomprehensible. Understandably, they were excited when we started a new topic after Shakespeare. No matter how dull it was.

At the start of teaching any Shakespeare play, I share with students an explanation of how I prepared for teaching that play. I would explain to them how I spent weeks reading the play line by line working out what it means and what is going on. All thanks to my lovely Arden version of the play.  I stress to them that: a) Shakespeare’s plots can be quite complicated; b) we don’t always know the true meaning of every line; c) it is as play so it shouldn't be read cold in a lesson - it should be performed. This shared understanding that 'it is difficult' helps, I think, to put the context that it is hard and not always straightforward. Taking away the ‘solution’ or the right answer, helps to make the reading of the play less of a puzzle and more of a journey of exploration. We work together to work out what is going on and how Shakespeare shows us what is going on. Oh, and how to perform it.

Then we get cracking on. Usually, I do a pre-reading activity which might involve pictures or names or even a list of key events for them to turn into a piece of drama. I might look at the idea of ‘battle of the sexes’ or ‘kingship’, but I always make sure that I look at an idea or thread in the story that will directly relate to them. Whatever I do, I aim to hook them in. After this, we work through the story.  

I always seem to be the one sat next to the Shakespeare-phobic adult  whose heading is spinning watching the play. I patiently explain to them who is who and what is happening every 5 minutes, because for the first-timer there is a lot of swapping and changing in Bill's plays. Therefore, I always make sure I tell the story in some way. Surprisingly, some people suggest in books that we shouldn’t tell students the ending of a story, as they might lose interest. Codswallop! The genre of the story dictates the ending, so most people can predict how the story will end. Plus, if we continue to mystify the story, then it will alienate students from Shakespeare even more. When I was a Year12 student, I studied Hamlet with Mr Powell. We knew how the play ended from the start. With that foreknowledge, we were able to build on our knowledge and learn more. Furthermore, when you have a grasp of the plot it is much easier to talk about character and language, because you aren’t just thinking, ‘Who is that?', 'Is this a comedy?' and 'Where is this going?'.  Oh, and also Shakespeare's audiences knew the ending of the plays before they watched them, because they were famous and popular stories. And, there were several version of the same story by different writers.

To teach the plot, I always do the 'instant' version of the play. The instant ‘Macbeth’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘Henry V’ have all become a part of my teaching. Simply, the class act out the whole of the play in a lesson. Most people, I should think use this technique. It is brilliant. The teacher is the narrator. They read a simplified overview of the play, while students act out a ‘dumb show’ version and read out quotes from the play. Easy to make, and a great lesson.

At this point, students will know some key names, key events and a rough idea of the plot. The best starting point for exploring the text further. Then, it is the fight with the language. My lovely friend Gwen has blogged about using insults as a way into language, which is another great way to start. I tend to focus on words first. I once participated in a workshop with the RSC and they gave us a great little approach to looking at the language. It is mirrored by recent blog here.  Simply, you take key words from a scene and look at them in isolation to the rest of the language. Students then predict what the scene is about and what the character / s might be saying.  Furthermore, it makes for some fun when you give students a particular word and they have to say it, or find an action for it, or even act it out. Here's an example from 'Julius Caesar'.

 

Looking at the words in isolation has really helped me in the teaching of Shakespeare, as the focus is on the meaning from the start and we are exploring what is going on together. Plus, it makes reading the scene easier as it builds in the recognition of words. Also, it helps students to see if the character uses the word ‘kill’, it might mean that he is angry or plotting to murder someone. Therefore, they do not need to know things word for word, but just have a gist of what is going on

Then, the class watch me annotate a scene and copy what I have written on the board. Only joking! No, I do this in a different way. I get students to do some sticking and gluing.

In groups, I give students an A3 extract to focus on. They are then given different sheets of paper and they have to cut them out and stick them to the extract. Through the sticking of the bits of paper, students develop their understanding, knowledge and ability to analyse the language.  They do the analysis in stages. Each stage involves a different coloured sheet of paper. Each group works at a different pace. Some faster than others. I stand at the front of the class and they can only move onto the next stage, when they have completed the previous step.

Step 1: What is going on? Plot
Students match up plot points.
 

 

Step 2: What are they saying? Modern English

Students match up modern English to the equivilant in the text.

Step 3: How does the writer show us what the character is thinking or feeling? Language.

Students match up langauge points.

 

Step 4: Themes

 

Yep, there is nothing for themes as this is where I want students to be independent with their analysis. Hopefully, by this time students will feel confident enough to spot lines and phrases linking to a particular theme. I get them to highlight where they see evidence of a particular theme.

The Final Product:

The final product is used in two ways. First, I test students on things they have discovered in the next lesson by giving them a clean copy and they have to annotate it with what they can remember. Or, they write down what they think is relevant from the sheet on their own sheet.


I don’t do this all the time and I don’t do it for every extract, scene or page, but I do it a few times to build student’s confidence at digging deep and exploring Shakespeare’s language. It helps me to train students to approach the text in a way that isn’t too reliant on the teacher explaining things all the time, which is the danger with Shakespeare sometimes. Also, it is a nice bit of group work too.

 

Alas, poor Yorick, I have to go now.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Xris32