Racing against catastrophe: a webquest for English I teachers

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“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

H.G. Wells

If, as Wells observed, human history is a race between education and catastrophe, the ability to read effectively may be education’s ultimate weapon. As a teacher, you have the responsibility and the opportunity to help students build the skills and obtain the knowledge that one day may save the world. As with most WebQuests, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to develop understanding of a topic and apply it to a serious problem. In this case, the problem is one English Language Arts teachers face every day.

Students of the 21st century are bombarded with texts from all fronts — school, film, television, radio, Internet, advertisements, etc. Literacy research addresses the trend by increasingly referring to the multi-literacies that students need to develop. The 1999 Standard Course of Study incorporates these as “print and non-print texts,” and English teachers are responsible for teaching students to deal with both competently.

Yet at the same time, politicians and the media decry the flat or falling reading scores; teachers complain of students who are not interested in reading; and researchers note the increasing numbers of students who “read” without understanding the words on the page.

Additionally, many English teachers face the challenge of helping students make connections between classic books and their contemporary lives. Although teachers generally recognize that students learn best when they can relate to the material studied, according to the responses to a recent informal survey of works studied in high school classes, teachers continue to focus on works that were taught decades ago. Available materials, budget constraints, community and parental expectations, and concerns for cultural literacy create a lively debate along side initiatives to make student encounters with reading more contemporary and multi-cultural.

High school teachers often think that students should know how to read before they get to 9th grade. When faced with comprehension problems, teachers sometimes become frustrated, feeling that they do not have the training to solve these problems. In actuality, good teachers of all subjects can do more to foster reading development than they may at first believe, and the bonus is that the very techniques that foster reading development also help students learn the content.

This Webquest will familiarize you with learning strategies that scaffold the meaning-making process as students read. Although it was written for English I teachers, teachers of other courses and disciplines could easily adapt it by using different content with the strategies explored.

The Task

“There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.” —Isaac Disraeli

Working through the activities in this WebQuest, you will become familiar with learning strategies that scaffold the meaning-making process as students read. You will have a chance to

• Explore research-based strategies for increasing reading comprehension
• Discover resources to supplement your teaching of the four most commonly taught works in English I
• Create activities that incorporate good reading strategies into reading of informational support materials
• Try out your creation with your students
• Reflect on the efficacy of the activity for engaging students with the text

This WebQuest is designed for either individuals or teams of teachers. In either case, you will each want to explore the resources about strategies.

If you are working on your own, plan to select a literary work and strategy to try first and then return to other works and/or strategies at a later date.

If you are working with a team, each member should select a different strategy (or set of strategies) to explore and share with the other members of the team. Teams may wish to focus on different informational and literary works, or they may wish to try different strategies with the same works.

Alternately, teams might select members to become the expert in resources on one work and create activities using a variety of strategies with that one work.

The Process

Step 1: Reading about reading

“The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.” —Christopher Morley

Every ninth grade teacher has encountered students who could “read” by saying the words aloud, yet had no idea about the meaning of the words read. By the time students get to high school, few have decoding problems. Instead, their needs are primarily for comprehension skills.

In fact, our ability to make meaning continues to grow and improve as we develop as adults and face different types of texts. For example, how many of us easily comprehend such texts as tax forms, credit card agreements, computer programming instructions, or even theoretical articles with lots of statistics?

As lifelong learners, we are all developing readers, so our first step is to explore sites that explain different strategies for increasing reading comprehension. Explore these two sites and begin to note some strategies that could be used with your students and your content.

• Reading Quest: Making Sense in Social Studies As the title suggests, this site focuses on social studies; however, it provides sound pedagogy for teachers in all disciplines — and it’s engaging as well. Begin here for background and strategies.
• All America Reads. Based on Kylene Beers’ work with adolescent readers, this site offers more detailed strategies (with applied examples) for reading and understanding texts. (Explore other pages on this site if you are interested in this new on-line project that will focus on a different work each year.)

After your exploration, spend some time reflecting on the various strategies. Think about how the Before, During, and After reading strategies help students engage with the text. Then complete the attached Reading Strategy Analysis Chart in which you reflect on the commonalties in the Before, During, and After reading strategies on these sites. (The chart will open in a new window.)

Step 2: Another day!

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” —Jessamyn West

The next step involves investigating supplemental resources to enhance student understanding and appreciation of the four works most commonly taught in English I classrooms across the state. These sites are a compendium of resources. As you explore them, look for informational texts that might enhance the study of the literary work. Choose one title to begin your exploration. (Each page will open in a new window.)

• Romeo and Juliet
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Odyssey
• Great Expectations

Step 3: Create an activity

“The greatest sign of success for the teacher…is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” —Maria Montessori

Now that you’ve found an informational text that you’d like to incorporate into your literary unit, think about which reading strategies might help your students engage with this text and encourage them to make connections to the literary work. Design a lesson that uses at least one strategy to support students’ reading. Remember the commonalties you found in the strategies as you plan.

If you are currently teaching this work, try the lesson out with your students. Observe ways in which the strategies help your students fit the new material into their prior knowledge. If you aren’t currently working with students on the work, try the lesson yourself and produce the products you’ve asked of the students. Are there places where you reached a roadblock? If so, look for ways to smooth the way for your students.

Step 4: Reflect

“To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” —Edmund Burke

For learning to be internalized, there must be an opportunity to synthesize what we learn. We often give students the opportunity to do this synthesis and evaluation on a test. The final test of your learning will happen in your classroom, but taking some time to reflect will make it easier to use what you’ve encountered in this WebQuest. Use the questions in this Reflection Guide to jump-start your synthesis of the material you’ve encountered and analysis of ways it can help your students. (The guide will open in a new window.)

Self-assessment

“We will be victorious if we have not forgotten how to learn.” —Rosa Luxemburg

Of course, all of you made straight A’s, but exactly where on the A continuum do you fall? This rubric should help you think about ways you want to grow as a teacher.

Conclusion

“The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” —Malcolm S.Forbes

This WebQuest is just a little taste of the many resources that you can use to help students develop as readers. Not only are there many resources on the Internet, but many great professional educators have much to contribute. We hope you’ll continue to explore ways to make English classes more engaging and effective. Try some of these for starters:

• National Research Center for English Learning and Achievement
• National Council of Teachers of English
• Reading Apprenticeship

In the race between education and catastrophe, we may not have yet saved the world, but now we hope you’ve come to see that supporting student reading is not a “Mission Impossible.”

Credits & References

Thanks to:

• AllAmericaReads Organization
• Carla Beard, The Web English Teacher
• Durham Public Schools Middle School Reading Specialists for the use of their picture
• Barbara Flanagan at LDOnline
• Folger Shakespeare Library
• Fox Movies
• Rebecca Hanneman, author of “Birth of To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Hero’s Journey
• Raymond Jones, Wake Forest University for ReadingQuest.org
• George P. Landry, The Victorian Web
• Library of Congress — American Memory Collection
• National Council of Teachers of English
• National Research Center for English Language Arts Achievement
• ThinkQuest Organization
• Schools of California Online Resources for Educators (SCORE) Project
• Scott Thomason, Samuel F.B. Morse High School
• Strategic Literacy Initiative at WestEd
• The WebQuest Page
• Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute