How to teach: English - Chris Curtis 2019

Model thinking
How to teach students to analyse texts effectively

Our thought processes are internalised so we need to be explicit about them, or they seem a magical mystery to students. Possibly we should be pantomime in our approach. Now, where is that quotation? It’s behind you.

How do I model the thinking? There are several ways:

1 My thinking monologue. I talk while I write and, with the aid of a PowerPoint or a visualiser, I show students what I’ve written.

The question is asking me to look at the presentation of women, but I think the story is more interested in how women behave towards men, so I think I must also look at the way men are presented, and I’ll use them in the comparison. Now, I am going to start with my theory. William Shakespeare presents women as a binary of weak and strong in Much Ado About Nothing yet presents men as equal.

Of course, sir sounds like a nutcase, but he is showcasing the way in which we think. We don’t really think in a logical sequence. We jump, skip, flip and backflip between disparate ideas. Mid-sentence we’ll have a brainwave or find that one sentence jogs something else three paragraphs back. We all accept the stream of consciousness narrative in fiction, yet we promote a rigid, logical and chronological order when exploring the thought processes involved in analytical writing.

2 Ask the audience — a collective approach to writing. You write on the board and metaphorically phone a friend for ideas.

Look! I have used the word ’weak’ twice in this sentence — can anybody think of a different word I could use instead?

The key thing is getting students to write out the paragraphs when you’ve completed them. The main reason for this is muscle memory and practice. How can we expect students to develop their proficiency at analysing text if they aren’t getting used to writing in this style? Plus, it means students will have an example to refer to.

3 Model with concrete examples.

I am forever photocopying good examples of students’ work. I have a folder full of them and use them all the time. Give the class an example and get them to write in that style about their text. A lot of time is spent on sentence starters but, actually, what is more important is the expression and construction of an idea. I have seen endless sheets of connectives or discourse markers and all they do is ensure students use plenty of connectives — much like how people use fairy lights on their house at Christmas, it ends up in a gaudy mess. Students use them without care or consideration. A good analytical paragraph will probably only use one discourse marker and that will often be the word ’however’. Some paragraphs will not have any explicit markers. Not every paragraph needs to start with a connective and it is rare that they should. Ideas need to breathe and they can’t if a student is continually flipping between different ones because the teacher has advised them to pepper their essay with subordinating conjunctions.

Give students an example and get them to emulate it. The end result will have to be independent, but the journey can be supported in a number of ways. An example of the style to follow can be better than a set formula. A student can then copy words, phrases, lines or sentence constructions rather than using a word list. An example shows context. They see how different constructions link to the surrounding words and how they fit in with the syntax and the flow of ideas. All too often, students use a phrase like ’on the other hand’ when there hasn’t been a first hand to start with: it was on a list. Writing isn’t as simple as we try to make it seem. Just add a word here and it will be good. Just use a PEE paragraph and you’ll analyse in detail. This isn’t the case. Writing is far more complex than we’d like to believe and students need to see examples in order to emulate them.

4 Do it in steps.

a What is your idea? Students write a sentence.

b How does the writer show this? Students write down a piece of evidence, such as a quotation or an example from the text.

c Why does the writer do this? Students write down an explanation of their idea.

This is how it looks.

What is your idea?

Charles Dickens explores how we aren’t born cruel but the experiences we have in life teach us to be cruel.

How does the writer show this?

Through the characters of Fred and Scrooge.

Why does the writer do this?

Dickens uses the contrast between the characters to highlight that it isn’t natural for Ebenezer Scrooge to be unkind; his nephew is a kind, warm-hearted character, suggesting to us that cruelty isn’t in the family’s nature. Scrooge became cruel as a result of his experiences rather than it being a natural part of him. This provides us with a sense of hope for Scrooge to be redeemed: negative experiences have made him cruel, so positive experiences may make him kind.

This is an approach I have borrowed from Louisa Enstone.⁵ She uses this instead of the dreaded PEE structure and, for me, it works much better with less able writers. There are various ways to do this, and it can be easily adapted for students’ different needs. Students can be given the what as a ready-made sentence and they have to find the how and the why.

Shakespeare presents love as undefinable and constantly changing.

Shakespeare presents parents as rigid and unmoveable in the play.

Shakespeare presents adults as people governed by their selfish needs rather than the desire to make a better world.

Another way to do this is to provide students with several different, disconnected examples of whats, hows and whys and they have to match up the correct ones.

1 C. Dickens, Great Expectations (Project Gutenberg ebook edition, 2008 [1867]), ch 8. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1400/1400-h/1400-h.htm.

2 A. Tharby, English teaching and the problem with knowledge, Reflecting English [blog] (26 October 2014). Available at: https://reflectingenglish.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/english-teaching-and-the-problem-with-knowledge/.

3 I have placed a number of these interpretation lists on my blog, which you are welcome to use. C. Curtis, Revision cards, Learning from My Mistakes [blog] (4 January 2018). Available at: http://learningfrommymistakesenglish.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/revision-cards.html.

4 M. Roberts, A quick word retrieval practice for single word quotations, Mark Roberts Teach [blog] (25 November 2017). Available at: https://markrobertsteach.wordpress.com/2017/11/25/a-quick-word-retrieval-practice-for-single-word-quotations/.

5 Find her on Twitter @englishlulu.