week+of+oct+6+and+8+(for+lit+class)

October 6

Of Mice and Men continued; "lenses" for reading lit. or using lit. theories TLA chapter 10 Returning Unit Proposal Memos Returning to OMaM timelines and takeaways from last Thursday (what were the points on our timeline?) Here are the takeaways we came up with on Thursday: Hope is fragile.  Closer to the possibility, the harder the fall.  Change happens when hope is at extreme high or low.  Hope is directly related to your perception of your ability to control your future.

3. In small groups: "reader-response," "marxist," "feminist," "biographical/historical/new historical criticism" - wearing one of these lenses, look at the critical moments in OMaM. The critical moments are those on our timeline when there is a pronounced change. How would someone wearing your group's lens "see" these critical moments? 

4. In your small group, prepare a brief handout that you might offer 9th grade students who are reading Of Mice and Men. The purpose of this handout is to make visible what they would need to know (facts, vocabulary, literary terms) in order to read Of Mice and Men wearing your literary lens. In other words, this is a kind of study guide that helps to highlight what you are going to be asking them to pay attention to when they read this text.

5. For our purposes in this class, I want us to see if there are any changes or distinctions between the groups. That is, does the "reader response group," for instance, include different terms, facts, vocabulary, etc. than the "Marxist" group? If so, how? If not, why not?

October 8 Woman Hollering Creek

1. Assignment sheets and time lines for each of the courses (found on the Course Syllabus and Major Assignments tab on the left side of this page)

2. Previewing the Literary Analysis Study Guide - rough draft is next Tuesday


 * G - genre = study guide for your students (you can use a class you work in or observe now OR you can use the class you're considering for your unit plan)
 * A - audience = your students
 * P - purpose = to identify the key literary concepts that you might highlight and emphasize in your class in order to help your students know what concepts they need to know and be able to use
 * S - situation =
 * For this course, Engl 481/581, this study guide provides an opportunity for you to explore and explain how you might approach teaching literature and literary analysis.
 * For your students, this study guide provides you with a chance to be explicit about the literary concepts that you might highlight, examples from texts that they will be reading, and resources where they might find additional help in understanding the concepts or see additional examples.

We will be looking at an example generously provided by Debra Smith who teaches 12th grade English at Meridian High School.

3. //Woman Hollering Creek// and Questioning Circles

Questioning Circle examples found [|here]and [|here]

Procedural or learning goals -- I want students to be able to .... (reading strategies)
 * to recognize patterns
 * to determine importance (big ideas v. small details)
 * to make connections
 * to predict
 * to visualize
 * etc....

Conceptual goals -- I want students to know ... (literary concepts)
 * archetypes
 * stereotypes
 * symbols
 * allegorical structures
 * theme
 * metaphor
 * character development
 * mood/tone
 * setting
 * genre features
 * time period features
 * etc...

The key question is based on how the conceptual goals connect or support the learning goals (and vice versa)