October 11th, 2012
At my co-op school, WMCI, my high school mentoring english teacher (who I will refer to as Mr.X) is continuously stressing for his students to actively participate in "Deeper Reading". To achieve this, Mr. X works especially hard on framing the text by providing an accurate historical background of when the author wrote the book, as well as current events that are still relevent to the literature's issues and themes. He feels that this method provides a perspective for students to begin to comprehend the text, and to possibly even view it from a different lens's perspective. Mr. X understands that most of these students are reading the assigned text for the first time, and since he has read them and analyzed them a trillion times, he can help give them the tools to develop their own deeper understandings for the books.
He encorporated some various approaches and activities that Kelly Gallagher suggested to use to frame the text in his book Deeper Reading. Mr. X had the class participate in a large group discussion in which he exercised the use of a character chart- encouraging each of the students to contribute to the deeper development of some of To Kill A Mockingbird's essential characters- Scout, Jem, Atticus, Boo Radley, Calpurnia, the Ewell family, and Aunt Alexandra. From this chart the students were able to connect the historical context of the years when the book was being written (early 1950's-1960: the era of the American civil rights movement), to the attitudes and actions of the characters throughout the book.
Another activity that he had his students try, was to each pick out one "significant" passage from the book. They may have simply liked the particular excerpt, considered it to be well-written, or possibly have associated it with a critical concept or theme in the novel. Once they had chosen a passage they had to read it outloud in front of the class and discuss its relevance to the grand scheme of the novel. This method really encouraged and forced the students to develop a deeper reading of the book, past the basic plot that is seen and only taken for face value. After completing this activity, the conversation maturely escalated towards the controversy surrounding the events of the book, how the students felt about racism today, and if there was any way to eliminate racism in the future. This type of critical reflection unconsciously fostered these youth to look at the novel through a Marxist, Alternative Social Class lens.
I really liked Mr. X’s strategy of getting the students to pick out a passage from the novel – what a great way to get the students to really pick apart the text. It is also a good way to gage what the students see as interesting, or important to the novel as a whole. It also gives them freedom to focus on something they want to look more into. It is also a good way to see where their comprehension level is at so you can see the areas you need to work on for the class instead of only seeing it after an essay, or test. That is great that teachers are finding ways to make To Kill A Mockingbird relevant to today’s society. His method seems to make students aware of the connection between the racism in the novel to racism in the world today. Showing students that even though things have came a long way since the 50’s, there is still a long way to go and that they as individuals can make a difference as we strive to make the world a better place for all.
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