Level 2»3: From engaged to exploratory reading
Transition 3.1 | From enthusiastic to extending reading interests | |
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Focus | Broadening student | |
Goals | Teacher activities | Student activities |
Broaden one’s knowledge and understanding of the world by reading. | Offer texts that throw a new light on subjects the students are interested in (for example, Second World War, Greek Myths, new media). Encourage students to use literature for searching more in-depth knowledge of subjects, and help them choose books. Work with other teachers in order to integrate reading with other subjects such as history, geography, foreign languages, etc. |
Explore books that fit specific interests and use these to reflect on the subject. Read non-fiction on the same subject as well. Present and discuss view of the subject, also referring to new insights and what students may have learned. |
Explore and reflect upon ethical and moral issues that arise from texts. | Promote discussions in class about the moral dilemmas arising from the texts. Select suitable extracts from texts and encourage students to talk about them. Approach the dilemmas from different perspectives. |
Reflect upon and discuss moral issues in the books; take a standpoint. |
Define the topics that stimulate the student to read a book. | Encourage students to give a personal response to what they read – why they liked or disliked a certain book in relation to the experiences or knowledge it provided. | Place personal response to the book in the context of one’s knowledge of the world and self. |
Broadening interest in different genres. | Schedule students’ presentations about what they have read. Broaden the scope of reading and guide the students towards new genres. Ask about reading experiences in order to clarify the students’ criteria for choosing books and to establish reading aims. |
Read popular genres (adventure, fantasy, diary, etc.) and give a presentation to peers. Explore and explain experiences with different literary genres recommended by the teacher or peers (growing-up/ adolescence novel, allegoric narrative, etc.). Reflect on special or new experiences during the reading process. |
Develop an interest in new titles and developments in youth literature. | Show interest in recent literature for teenagers and provide information about what is new in this field. | Become familiar with popular contemporary authors from home and abroad (Young Adult, Crossover, Chicklit, etc.). |
Transition 3.2 | From engaging with the story to exploring different layers of meaning | |
Focus | Modelling text exploration | |
Goals | Teacher activities | Student activities |
Develop imagination and learn to read the text closely. | Encourage students to anticipate what is going to happen in different storylines or to fill in the gaps in the text. | Anticipate the story development based on the information the text offers. Re-structure the storyline if the narrative is built on flashbacks or time-shifts. |
Reflect critically on character behaviour. | Ask students to take on the character’s shoes and express their opinion on this. | Speak or write about one’s own reaction in the same situation. |
Reconstruct the development of a character. | Help students place the development of the characters on a chronological axis, which includes their relationships with others. | Reflect on the characters’ personalities; follow their development by looking at their actions and thoughts, as well as their relationships with others. |
Recognize the role of narrative techniques. | Draw on students’ knowledge of narrative techniques as used in the visual media, such as films, TV series, comic strips and games. Provide texts that explicitly illustrate the effect of narrative techniques. |
Give examples of how narrative techniques are used in familiar audiovisual media. Explore the function and effect of flashbacks, foreshadowing and time-shifts in texts. Recognize narrative techniques in literary texts and reflect on their purpose and effect. |
Experiment with different narrative techniques. | Offer creative tasks that provide an understanding of narrative techniques (e.g. open ending, switching perspective, flashback, etc.). Evaluate students’ products in terms of the effects of narrative techniques. |
Experiment with different narrative techniques by writing narratives and adapting them to other media (e.g. films, comic strips) to see the effect. |
Deal with complex phrases. | Provide strategies to process complex phrases, e.g. by demonstrating what experienced readers do when facing difficult texts: re-reading a phrase, establish relations between main and sub clause, look for pronouns and what they refer to, re-phrase the whole phrase; make use of the think-aloud-method to demonstrate. | Take time to process complex phrases and become aware of textual complexities; use suitable strategies as demonstrated by teacher. |