Can You Relate?

Graphic Organizers, Strategies, and Literature in the Middle School

Helping middle school students relate to literature and therefore to life is one of the challenges faced every day by middle school language arts teachers. The use of graphic organizers and story maps has been most helpful in getting students to be able to use these strategies.

Students enjoy predicting by trying to match wits with authors as they read. When I teach the poem "Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier, we begin by brainstorming what it means to be a hero. Then students chart the names, beliefs, and actions taken of contemporary, historical, and fictional characters that they consider heroes. After reading the poem, they see if any of their predictions about heroes are true of Barbara.

Before reading the short story "The Landlady" by Roald Dahl, students have fun jotting down questions and predictions of what might happen based on the many clues offered in the story. The fun comes when Dahl outwits them, and their predictions turn out to be incorrect.

There are computer programs with ready-made graphic organizers I use to help with visualizing and summarizing. Before students read the short story "The Treasure of Lemon Brown" by Walter Dean Myers, I have them create a Venn diagram that investigates the topics: I value…Adults value…. We all value…. After reading, the task is to compare the diagram to one they create based on the characters in the story.

Summarizing really helps the middle school reader relate to the literature being read. We read "Broken Chain" by Gary Soto. I use a graphic organizer by Inspiration to help students organize a brief summary. Using the organizer, each student then relates orally what happened, who the main characters are, the sequence of events, and how the main problem is finally solved. For students who struggle getting started, try first thoughts to help get them started. "Alfonso wanted…but…so…"

One of the easiest and least time-consuming methods of using any of these strategies is to simply have students keep a journal handy. (I store each class set in a plastic shoebox.) Readers relate by an ongoing dialogue with the text. They do this by writing down questions, predictions, main points for summarization, and even visualizations of what is going through their minds. By learning to use these strategies, readers can relate to literature.

David Burgess
7^th-8^th grade Language Arts teacher
New Castle, Indiana

Reflective Questions:

1. Which of the graphic organizers and strategies David Burgess teaches to his middle school literature class are familiar to you? Were you taught to use them in school? Have you read about them? Would you use them yourself before reading literature? Consider the way Burgess teaches literature with the way your were taught in literature classes. Talk about the similarities and the differences and draw some conclusions.
   
   
2. Discuss each of the ideas Burgess presents and how they would or would not work equally well with nonfiction. Which how they would or would not work with reading textbooks?