Just the Right Mentor Text: Bringing the CCSS to Life

As I wrote last week, we changed our novel reading unit into a fantasy unit in order to more neatly implement the Common Core Reading Standards. We are now about half way through it, and I am noticing something big: my kids are finding the ideas in the more rigorous standards to be understandable and applicable to their own novels. Whew! In fact, they are kind-of looking at me like, "What's the big deal?"

Which brought me to another realization: With the right mentor text, complex ideas become comprehensible. OK, this idea is not entirely new to me, but as I venture into these new standards that I have to wrestle with first before I can expect my eighth graders to grasp, having the right text in hand has made a huge difference. 

cover from Amazon.com

We are using Rodman Philbrick's The Last Book in the Universe as our mentor text. Originally, I chose it because: 1) I'd read it a couple of years before and remembered that I enjoyed it, 2) it is a fairly slim novel compared to most YA fantasy and dystopian books these days, and 3) the chapters are short-- between 3 and 6 pages usually, which makes for about a 10-minute read aloud. Then I reread it once we had planned out the revised unit, and all of a sudden, examples of the standards were popping out everywhere! As long as the students found the story engaging, I thought I was golden.

The first chapters of the book take a lot of work. This surprised me because it is leveled at a guided reading level W and a Lexile of 740-- for our kids, this indicated a pretty easy read. But what neither of those levels reflect is all the contextualizing students have to do with both setting and dialect. Told from the main character, Spaz's, first person point of view, Philbrick uses a lot of slang terms as he describes his dystopian world: he lives in the "Urb" which is ruled by "Bangers" and people escape from reality by "probing", but there is another utopian place called "Eden" where the "prooves" live. Hoo boy! Fortunately, Philbrick is very good about explaining new words through context or direct definitions. And fortunately for teaching the CCSS literature and language standards, this is the exact kind of work we need to be doing: analyzing the author's use of word choice, including connotations, allusions, and figurative language, to create meaning and tone.

The Last Book in the Universe focuses on two main characters: Spaz, a 14-year-old homeless orphan living under the protection of one of the ruling gangs, and Ryter, an old "gummy" who lives near "the Edge" and owns nothing but a stack of papers that constitute the book he is writing. They strike a classic friendship of mentor and mentee as they go on a quest to visit Spaz's foster sister before she dies. Philbrick writes the dialogue for these two characters in contrasting ways; while Spaz uses a lot of street slang and short sentences, Ryter uses complete, complex sentences with academic words and literary allusions. This is perfect for the CCSS standard for examining how dialogue reveals characters, moves the plot forward, and provokes decisions. Their roles and the plot structure also fit nicely into the standard that examines how contemporary literature uses archetypes from traditional literature and "renders them new." We had a lively discussion yesterday about who the hero, mentor, innocent youth, and villain were in the story, as well as the archetype of situations such as The Fall and The Quest. 

But the best part of using this book as the mentor text? "Are we going to have read aloud today, Ms. Pohl?" "Can we gather in the reading corner?" "Will we finish this book? Please?" And when my answer is "Yes" to any and all of those, I hear a resounding, "Yessssssss!!!" back. 

Despite my interruptions for think alouds and turn-and-talks, my students are hanging on every word, analyzing as well as enjoying, empathizing for the characters and making predictions. Through modeling and active engagement using The Last Book in the Universe, students are seeing how the abstract ideas of purposeful author's craft and language analysis work, and then they apply them to their own fantasy novels. Having just the right mentor text has brought the standards to life!

Re-visioning the Novel Unit for CCSS Implementation

We are implementing the Common Core Reading Standards this year, which has caused some major revision of units—and not just revision as in add a bit of this here and a bit of that there, but re-vision as in totally re-thinking how to approach our units. We rewrote our novel unit so that it shifted from a social justice theme inquiry to a fantasy genre focus. We are basing the fantasy unit on the Teacher’s College Grade 8 Reading Units of Study from 2011 (still hoping new reading units will come out for middle school this year).

There are some major shifts in our new unit because of the CCSS Reading standards, many more shifts than we had to make in our writing units last year. Here are a few that stand out and how we dealt with them.

R.8.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

            We decided to keep the social justice thematic questions from the previous unit, because they work with fantasy as well: 

• To what extent does power or the lack of power affect an individual? 
• When should an individual stand up for what s/he believes in and what is the best way to do this? 
• How do subtle issues of gender, race, class, and power function in society? 

These questions analyzing “power and resistance” became the theme to track. We introduced a new technology tool, Lucidcharts, as a way to track characters, setting, and plot across the book. Lucidcharts is part of the Google suite of applications, so the flowcharts and other graphic organizers that students develop can be shared with others in their Book Club. As the group moves through the book, they can collaboratively add on to their Charts and use them as talking points during their discussions.

R.8.5 Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.

R.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.

image from amazon.com

image from Gareth Hines wesbiste

            We are working with these two standards together. Fantasy novels, including science fiction dystopian stories, draw upon a long literary tradition. We are using a model text, The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick, to introduce these ideas. This book has classic literary character types: hero, mentor, sidekick, damsel in distress, as well as structure: a quest. We will have students look for similar character types and plot structures in their books. The model text also draws upon The Odyssey for some of its plot events: people who escape into a dream world (Lotus Eaters), a character who is “blinded” in his one “eye” (Cyclops), a band of boys who act like animals (Circe’s Island), a gang of beautiful women who are merciless (the Furies), a journey via a Pipe that used to carry water (Odysseus’ journey across the sea).  Over the course of the unit, we will present other traditional stories, such as Hercules, and ask students to compare their stories to the characters and structures of the traditional ones. Rich discussions in Book Clubs will bring forth the analysis portions of these standards as students make connections between their book and the traditional tales.

R.8.7 Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

            This seems like a “stand-alone” standard to me, and I question why the authors of the CCSS deemed this important enough to include in its “top 10” reading standards. All of the other reading standards are applicable to a variety of texts and genres, and in multiple units and  lessons. I supposed it’s a nod to the importance of media literacy in the 21st century; however, it still seems like a “one off” lesson to me.  Nevertheless, it is a reading standard and so we must address it. While planning, I drew heavily upon Christy Rush-Levine's article on the Choice Literacy site, "Embracing Standards in Creative Ways."

movie produced by Learning Corporation of America, 1982

Since our novel unit uses a Book Club structure, we have six different books going, and not all of them have a film version. Neither does our model text, so we needed to approach this one a little differently (see—one-off!). We decided to linger with the model text we used in our recently completed Literary Essay unit: “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. Fortunately, there was an old film version of the story made in the 1980s. It deviated quite a bit from the plot of the original story, including extending the ending, which shifted the theme. Before watching the film, we did a quick look at some of the “director’s choices” available while making a film. Using A Quick Guide for Beginners: Movie Aesthetics by StopMo Wiki, we went over some film-making moves like focus, frame, flux, and sound, and thought about how authors also try to use those same moves but with words. Next, students made a quick t-chart with Same and Different so they could take notes as they watched the movie. They also pulled out the story so it was in front of them.

As we watched the movie, I stopped at the end of the exposition--which was very different, and we discussed why the directed added so many school scenes and whether the essence of the story was still coming through.  I stopped at the climax, and we discussed how the addition of a character allowed for the main character to say all that “inner thinking” aloud. And at the end, I asked whether students felt the film version, which was very different than the written version, stayed true to the story and why.

It was a rich lesson, and fun for the students. And now I can “tick” it off my standards list.

The other five reading standards are also being addressed, but they didn't take too much shifting. Of course we are asking for text evidence to support their interpretations. Of course we are looking at author's craft and noticing things like allusions, irony, and suspense. Of course we are noticing how dialogue and plot events move the story forward. These are things that we addressed, maybe not to this level or specificity, in past reading units. But the four above took a lot of thinking and rewriting to incorporate into our novel unit. The unit is more rigorous because of these, and it is exciting to read fantasy with new eyes. 

Does anyone else think the text vs. film standard is a stand-alone standard? Are there good resources to draw on for explaining "themes, patterns of events, or character types" from traditional literature? I'm in new territory here, and any suggestions are welcome!