Looking for Patterns

Pattern created at http://www.visualthesaurus.com

Call me crazy, but I don’t think we have yet begun to realise the full significance of recognising ‘patterns’ in learning across the curriculum. So much so in fact, that one of my favoured Seven Reading Strategies for exploring a text, whether the text is written, spoken or visual, is Looking for Patterns. Where once, as a young English teacher, I would often spend time creating a set of close reading questions to try to elicit the main points from the study of a text, or to start a discussion, now I would do it quite differently. One of the strategies I would use is simply to ask students, working in pairs or groups, to identify any patterns they can find, and begin the discussion from there (*note that this is only the start of the discussion, not an end in itself). In that way, the students are not immediately playing the ‘guess what’s in the teacher’s head’ game,and the questions raised are ‘real’ questions, in the sense that the learners genuinely want answers to them.

The patterns identified will usually include elements of the plot (if there is one), structure, elements of grammar, layout, use of graphics etc. Some will focus on language patterns, the repeated use of particular words, images or symbols, and the recognition of common themes in a text or group of texts. So whether you have set out to teach an aspect of language, or structure, or author’s purpose and viewpoint, you are in a very real sense teaching these things because you have been asked to, and the difference is tangible.

Robert Louis Stevenson – From a Railway Carriage – poem

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One of the most obvious contexts for this kind of approach is when studying poetry. Ask students to read and listen to this classic poem, From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson – listening is important since many of the patterns are aural – and write down as many patterns as they can find. Now use their findings to explore the significance  of the patterns, their contribution to the whole text and the overall effect in terms of the writer’s purpose. By learning this simple strategy, and using it regularly to compare and contrast different texts, students begin the journey to becoming more sophisticated readers, with a growing understanding of the concept of ‘genre’, which, after all, is simply the study of patterns in literature.

It isn’t only in the study of literature that patterns are important however: patterns in number, musical notation and in art immediately spring to mind. I was also intrigued to find this link recently to a fantastic resource called Mapping History, a site created by the University of Oregon. Thanks to Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers for bringing it to my attention, and for the following insight:

“Some of my favourite social studies lesson plans included having students use maps to analyze data and identify patterns in history.” Richard Byrne

It stikes me that the ability to recognise patterns is an essential element of reading, and of learning, regardless of the curriculum area or context, but as always of course I would love to hear from you on whether, and how you think it might apply in your own particular area.

The Power of Fiction and The Storytelling Animal

As a former English teacher, I have often argued on the blog and elsewhere that the English curriculum in schools offers a distorted syllabus, in which non-fiction is heavily outweighed by fiction texts – no doubt reflecting the fact that most practitioners have degrees in English Literature – and that there needs to be a re-balancing to reflect more accurately the texts with which we are surrounded in daily life. Time and again however, my attention is drawn to the importance of storytelling and the need to understand ourselves and the world through the medium of story.

The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall

In The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall of Washington and Jefferson College in the USA, explains how stories shape and define us as human beings, arguing that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems, just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. The theory is that storytelling has evolved, like other behaviours, to ensure our survival.

“The constant firing of our neurons in response to fictional stimuli strengthens and refines the neural pathways that lead to skilful negotiation of life’s problems. From this point of view, we are attracted to fiction, not because of an evolutionary glitch, but because fiction is, on the whole, good for us. This is because human life, especially social life, is intensely complicated and the stakes are high. Fiction allows our brains to practice (sic) reacting to the kinds of challenges that are, and always were, most crucial to our success as a species.”

But isn’t fiction our ‘escapism’, you might argue. Surely it’s in fiction, whether it be in a good novel or the latest Dr Who series, that we find our escape from the problems of everyday life? Well yes, and no. According to Gottschall the nature of the stories we tell betrays their true purpose.

“There is a paradox in fiction that was first noticed by Aristotle in The Poetics. We are drawn to fiction because fiction gives us pleasure. But most of what is in fiction is deeply unpleasant: threat, death, despair, anxiety, Sturm and Drang. Take a look at the carnage on the fiction bestseller lists – the massacres, murders, and rapes. Look at classic literature: Oedipus stabbing out his eyes in disgust; Medea slaughtering her children; Shakespeare’s stage strewn with runny corpses. Heavy stuff. But even the lighter stuff is organised around problems, and readers are riveted by their concern over how it will all turn out.”

On the morality of stories, or whether stories have a moral purpose, Gottschall is adamant. When addressing the dire warnings of social commentators from Plato onwards that fiction corrodes

The good guy usually wins

morality, especially in the young, his conviction is that they were entirely wrong, and he prefers to accept that, with some exceptions, the most popular story forms are still structured around ‘poetic justice’: the good guy usually does win out in the end.

“As with sacred myths, ordinary stories – from TV shows to fairy tales – steep us all in the same powerful norms and values. They relentlessly stigmatise antisocial behaviour and just as relentlessly celebrate prosocial behaviour. We learn by association that if we are more like protagonists, we will be more apt to reap the typical rewards of protagonists (for instance, love, social advancement, and other happy endings) and less likely to reap the rewards of antagonists (for instance, death and disastrous loss of social standing). Humans live great chunks of their lives inside fictional stories – in worlds where goodness is generally endorsed and rewarded and badness is condemned and punished. These patterns don’t just reflect a moralistic bias in human psychology, they seem to reinforce it.”

Developing this theme, Gottschall cites the Dutch scholar Jemeljan Hakemulder, who in his book The Moral Laboratory, reviewed dozens of scientific studies which indicated that fiction has positive effects on the reader’s moral development and sense of empathy. Other studies show that fiction reinforces our belief that life rewards the virtuous and punishes the vicious. Even though this is patently not the case, for a society to function at all it is necessary for people to believe in justice.

The notion of empathy, a core feature of works of fiction, is taken up in this TED talk by Jessica Wise, who argues that the importance of fiction is that it has the power ‘to change a person’s point of view’. I think the short film would make a perfect starter for discussion in any English classroom.

Jessica Wise- How fiction can change reality

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Reading By Numbers

The English Education Secretary Michael Gove caused huge controversy this week (not for the first time) when he boldly proclaimed that every 11 year-old should be reading 50 books a year. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume he meant ‘wouldn’t it be wonderful if all 11 year-olds read 50 books a year’. The problem is that he has no idea how to bring that about, or even how to begin to encourage such a scenario, and being part of a government determined to close public libraries certainly isn’t going to help. The clue to his thinking is in the word ‘should’ and in the arbitrary choice of 50 as a target number of books. Is it based on the notion of one book per week with two weeks off for good behaviour? The ‘should’ of course is based on a model of education which is centred on instruction, telling young people what is good for them, rather than fostering a real love of reading, which takes time, dedication, a fairly detailed knowledge of the individual child’s likes and needs, and a love of reading on the part of the teacher.

If anyone with access to Mr Gove happens to read this post, perhaps next time you see him you could lean over and whisper in his ear the title of The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. Were he to add this to his reading list – assuming he himself reads at least 50 books a year – he might begin to understand the effort and dedication it takes on the part of those teachers who are already developing young readers and pay them a bit more respect. However, if he is determined to turn young people off reading for life simply by imposing targets, here are a few more pieces of advice he might give any teacher trying to create reluctant readers:-

•Don’t ever talk about books

•Keep books out of sight to prevent theft

•Make sure books are well-worn and unattractive (see above)

•Never read aloud to children

•Make sure the furniture is hard and uncomfortable and all fluorescent lights are on

•Always have the class reading the same book at the same pace

•Make it clear that comics and graphic novels are not ‘proper reading’

•Prepare plenty of worksheets and insist that they write a book review every time they finish a book

•Never ask kids about their hobbies and interests

•Don’t allow them to bring their own books to school

See also Kenny Pieper’s excellent blogpost Things To Do In Ten Minutes

Edwin Morgan 1920-2010

I just heard the sad news of the death of  Edwin Morgan, Scotland’s first Poet Laureate and last survivor of that iconic group of seven who revived our reputation as a centre for literature and the arts in the middle years of the twentieth century -

Edwin Morgan aged 89. February 2010. Photo by Alex Boyd

McDiarmid, Garioch, MacCaig, Crichton Smith, Mackay Brown, Sorley MacLean, and of course Morgan himself. Names to strike fear into the defence of any poetic opposition lineup.

The first time I met Edwin Morgan was when I was in my second year at Glasgow University and he became my English tutor. In my youthful ignorance I had no idea of course of his own significance as a poet, nor of his growing international reputation, but his tolerance of my ignorance of literature, and life in general, was a measure of the extent of his humanity. In years to come, like many other English teachers, I was to draw extensively on his hugely imaginative and wide-ranging poetic canon for classroom material – it never failed to engage the young people to whom it was introduced or to provoke a response, even from the least likely members of the class.

The next and only other time I met him was many years later. I had been invited by a couple of friends to Mauchline Burns Club‘s annual celebration of the life of Robert Burns, and Morgan was the guest speaker. After delivering a particularly erudite, and some might argue controversial, Immortal Memory, he was thanked by the chair and invited to deliver one of his own poems. Again, eschewing the easy option, given that the audience consisted largely of men brought up on a diet of whisky, haggis and rhyming couplets, he chose to recite The Loch Ness Monster’s Song, prompting one inebriated listener to exclaim, ‘Ca’ that f*****g poetry?’

I’m sure the man of letters didn’t hear it, but if he had, I’m equally sure it would have produced a wry smile, for the true mark of the man was not in the poetry but in himself.

The Loch Ness Monster’s Song

Sssnnnwhuf ff fll ?

Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl ?

Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.

Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl-

gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.

Hovoplodok-doplodovok-plovodokot-doplodokosh ?

Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok !

Zgra kra gka fok !

Grof grawff gahf ?

Gombl mbl bl-

blm plm,

blm plm,

blm plm,

blp.

50 Best Blogs for Literacy Teachers

I was surprised and delighted yesterday to be contacted by Samantha Miller of Online University Reviews in America, to tell me that The Literacy Adviser had been included in their 50 Best Blogs for Literacy Teachers. I’ve had a look at the other forty-nine and selected a few of them to give you a flavour of the exalted company which I am more than happy to be keeping. Blogging from outside the USA, which let’s face it is quite a big place, makes the inclusion on the list that bit more special.

Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day : Every day, Larry Ferlazzo blogs websites of particular interest to the ESL, ELL, and EFL communities, making it an excellent and indispensible resource.

 PainInTheEnglish.com : This very delightful blog explores “the gray areas of the English language,” shedding light on the subjective, perpetually changing nature of human speech.

 Grammar Girl : Mignon Fogarty’s extremely popular blog and podcast at Quick and Dirty Tips answers extremely common grammar questions as well as those pertaining to some of the more esoteric corners of the language.

 Language Log : Teachers and students alike who harbour a love of grammar, the history of communication, phonetics, and other related topics simply must read over (and bookmark!) Language Log.

 The Grammarphobia Blog : Both the blog and the surrounding website make for an excellent reference for teachers and students alike who find themselves baffled by some of the oddities in the English language.

 The Punctuator! : With punctuation being one of the most confounding elements of any language for anyone, it pays to understand all the whats, whys, and hows behind the marks.

 Literacy is Priceless : Bon Education founder Anna Batchelder blends together her love of technology and teaching literacy to offer teachers an excellent, comprehensive resource on promoting reading and writing.

 huffenglish.com : Another blog on the intersection between technology and education, focusing its energy and resources on issues regarding how they apply to teaching English.

 Free Technology for Teachers : Although Free Technology for Teachers targets educators in most subjects, there is enough here to engage and interest those emphasizing literacy to warrant its inclusion on the list.

 The Elegant Variation : The Elegant Variation exists as one of the top literary criticism blogs on the web, helping visitors learn how to hone and apply their reading and comprehension skills

 A Year of Reading : Two seasoned veteran teachers – each with over 20 years of experience under their belts – blog about their thoughts regarding the children’s and young adult books they encounter along the way.

 The Book Bench : Indulge in The New Yorker’s highly literate look at the world of reading and writing and the ways in which it shapes society for better or for worse.

 Flashlight Worthy : Flashlight Worthy, though not structured like a traditional blog, fills a definite niche in the online literature community. Any parents, teachers, students, or bibliophiles looking for reads that fit their needs and wants can easily immerse themselves amongst the listings containing hundreds of specialized recommendations.

View the whole list of 50 here.

A blog is only as good as the extent of the networks you create of course, and this particular blog would be much poorer without the steady stream of ideas from those I follow on Twitter, and the blogs I look at on a regular basis, which are listed under the heading ‘Blogroll’ at the bottom of the right-hand panel.

There Was a Lad Was Born in Kyle

Two hundred and fifty-one years ago today, there was born in Ayrshire a literary figure who would come to be celebrated in some of the most far-flung corners of the world, but not always given the recognition he deserves in his own country. Today, Burns’ Suppers will be held across the globe, by and for exiled Scots and others, for whom the poems and songs of Robert Burns  are some of the best expressions of love, lust, frustration, patriotism, brotherhood, hypocricy, injustice and human frailty ever written. Jeremy Paxman dismissed his work as ‘dross’, Bob Dylan cited his poems – and in particular ‘My Love’s Like a Red, Red Rose’ - as his main source of inspiration, while it is believed that Abraham Lincoln was able to recite many of them off by heart. As far as heroes go, never was there a more obvious candidate for a big screen biopic, yet it is still to materialise. Consider how dramatic these two scenes, described by Catherine Carswell in her 1930s biography, might look if you were the director. The first describes the night of Robert’s birth and the second the funeral of his father William.

1759

“The night of the birth coincided with a violent storm of wind and rain, through which the expectant father had to fight his way and ride the swollen Slaphouse ford for the midwife. It was one of those births about which legends are told: but the present narrative is not concerned with legends. The facts are enough. On 26 January – the morning after the birth – William, in spite of the weather, brought the parish minister from Ayr, and assembled for the baptism the needful witnesses, one of whom was his neighbour Tennant, a man younger than himself but already twice married and very fruitful. There was no custom to explain this haste. It was simply that William could not bear to wait one unnecessary hour for what he saw as the consummation of his life. The ceremony was performed in the kitchen, Agnes handing the infant to its father from the box bed, and he, after the Scottish fashion, holding it in his arms to be sprinkled, and uttering his vows aloud…

Day after day the gale continued. Along that coast such a wind could blow from the Atlantic that sometimes it uncovered the dead in their shallow, sandy graves. In this case however, it was the newborn that it exposed. For ere dawn on the tenth day a gable of the cottage fell and laid the kitchen open to the elements. William had to carry his family through the wet and roaring darkness to the nearest house where hospitality could be sought without loss of dignity – for in a land of large families and two-roomed dwellings it is no small favour to ask for a bed. Then in the inclement morning he went back alone, and set himself to repair the fault the west wind had discovered in his home.”

1784

“On the Sabbath evening the middle-aged and elderly women crowded into Lochlie’s kitchen to witness the coffining, finger William’s winding sheet – made from wool which according to custom his wife had spun in the first year of their married life – and enjoy tea and bannocks. Tea, though now drunk daily by the gentry, was still a luxury to villagers, and was especially appropriated to funerals. On the Monday the men came up in a body. Many were merely poor or curious folk who had no connection with Tarbolton but never missed a funeral if they could help it. When all had been in to the house by relays to eat and drink and take stock of the deceased’s possessions, the coffin, preceded by the beadle with his bell, was brought out, the stragglers fell off, and the procession, consisting entirely of men, formed up. The presence of the minister had preserved decorum among the mourners, and kept the proceedings from becoming, as they were apt to do, over-festive. Further, as William had wished to be buried at Alloway kirkyard within the walls that he had repaired, the bearers and true followers – distinguished by their muslin ‘weepers’ – had the sobering distance of twenty miles to cover. The coffin was tied to long poles slipped through the stirrups of two saddled farm ponies which walked tandem.

 

It was a busy day for Agnes. She had now to prepare a substantial meal for the faithful hungry ones who should later return from the graveside. But withered and bent as she was, none could do this sort of thing better than she, and today she had her two grown daughters to help her as well as Bell. This was something to be thankful for, as Lizzie Paton was sick and looking blue beneath the eyes. Her mistress knew well enough what ailed the girl. She hoped her husband had died without noticing anything. He would have taken it to heart. She herself was not unduly put about. Such things came to pass and they were vexing. But Robin was a good-hearted lad. He would marry the girl when her time came, if not before.”

Read Immortal Memory Robert Burns

Listen to Burns’ most famous poems

Reading Aloud – Not Only in New York

In recent workshops and presentations to teachers, both primary and secondary, I have suggested the importance of reading aloud in the development of literacy skills. To older readers, this will not exactly come as a startling revelation, but I believe that in recent years – probably the past couple of decades – we have largely abandoned the practice as soon as young learners are deemed to be ‘able to read’, or what a good friend of mine has described as competent at ‘barking at print.’

Admittedly, in those wonderful halcyon days when I was learning in primary school along with my forty-one fellow students, being asked to read aloud could be an embarrassing, and sometimes even humiliating, experience for some. It’s little wonder then that daily ritual of reading round the class has largely been abandoned (hasn’t it?).
Unfortunately, I fear that in rightly protecting the sensitivities of young people we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and forgotten the importance of a strategy which even as mature, developed readers, we often use when faced with a text which we find challenging, or which has been written especially to be spoken – think Shakespeare, or Dylan Thomas or Laurie Lee.

So reading aloud should not be seen simply as a way of demonstrating an ability to ‘say the words’ but should be recognised as an important strategy in developing comprehension and higher order reading skills, as well as a celebration of the joys of language, and it should be encouraged at all ages! Recently I came across a programme on Teachers’ TV which does just that. It is presented by John Scieszka, author of The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs* among other things. I have included a short extract from the film, in which he talks about reading for fun, the importance of graphic novels, ‘reading’ pictures, embracing new technologies and the value of reading to your kids and having them read to you. You can see the full half-hour programme by clicking here.

RANY2

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*The True Story of the Three Little Pigs is a good example of a classic story given a modern twist. Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes is another one which appeals to young people. Updating with a humorous take, or setting a familiar story in a different time or location can be a creative writing challenge which young people respond well to.

Snow White and the Seven Reading Strategies 2

Reflecting on a very enjoyable seminar in sunny – yes literally – Edinburgh on Saturday. There was an excellent turnout for a Saturday morning, proving yet again that if teachers feel that they have an opportunity to learn something new or hear a different slant on learning and teaching they will seek it out, even if it means giving up some of their leisure time. There was a real buzz in the room, and it wasn’t entirely down to the air conditioning system, as delegates wrestled with the reading strategies and were asked to re-think the whole notion of literacy, reading and texts in a society where electronic media are becoming the norm, rather than the exception. To paraphrase David Warlick, this isn’t about using or embedding technology, it’s about re-defining literacy.

The morning was made all the more enjoyable for me by the presence of my good friends Mike Coulter of Digital Agency, who came along to take some photos, and Dave Terron, an English teacher at Elgin Academy, who spoke about his work in school with Inanimate Alice ,Samorost and Machinarium, as well as providing an excellent starter sheet for participants. Thanks to both of them for their contributions. Thanks also to Mike for the Flickr slideshow. You can see more of his photo sets by clicking here. You can see more of my photo sets by clcking on any of the photographs under My Photos in the other column.

Sticking to the Plot

I’ve been working on a seminar for teachers called “Snow White and the Seven Reading Strategies”, which is an exploration of the processes we automatically engage in as sophisticated readers, but which are not always made explicit to developing readers. It’s my contention that if they were, and if they were rehearsed often enough, they would provide young readers with an understanding of why reading is so important and how it relates to their development in the world. Central to this view is the notion that “reading” applies to all forms of text – written, audio, visual or digital – and that in order to understand how we read, we need first to come to an understanding of why we read, and why we tell stories. Which, as it happens, is the sub-title of Christopher Booker’s amazing study of books and reading, The Seven Basic Plots.

It is a hugely ambitious task, and some would argue that it fails in its ultimate goal, which is to convince us that every successful story ever told or written or filmed can be categorised under one of only seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster; Rags to Riches; The Quest; Voyage and Return; Comedy; Tragedy and Rebirth. However, whether you end up agreeing with Booker or not, it is a fascinating 700-page journey through the history of story-telling.

If you want to know what the key elements of each of the plots are, but don’t particularly want to read the book, here is a summary:

One -  Overcoming the Monster

“The realm of storytelling contains nothing stranger or more spectacular than this terrifying, life-threatening, seemingly all-powerful monster whom the hero must confront in a fight to the death.”

Genres: War, Hollywood Western, Thriller, Science Fiction

Plot Structure:

• Anticipation stage (newspaper report etc)
• Dream stage (still a remote threat)
• Frustration stage (enormity of task)
• Nightmare stage (all seems doomed)
• Miraculous Escape (and death of the monster)

Examples: Greek myths (Perseus/Medusa, Theseus and the Minotaur etc); Frankenstein; Dracula; The Magnificent Seven; Jurassic Park; Jaws; The Three Musketeers; The Bond stories; Star Wars; War of the Worlds; Quatermass and the Pit; The Towering Inferno; Fairy Tales inc Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk.

Two – Rags to Riches

“Again and again in the storytelling of the world we come across a certain image which seems to hold a peculiar fascination for us. We see an ordinary, insignificant person, dismissed by everyone as of little account, who suddenly steps to the centre of the stage, revealed to be someone quite exceptional.”

Common features:

• we meet the hero or heroine when they are still very young – the story is about “growing up”
• they are at the bottom of the heap – often the youngest child
• they are usually overshadowed by a “dark figure” or dominant character (wicked stepmother, jealous rival etc) who fails to see the true qualities of the main character because of their own egocentricity

Plot Structure:-

The story tends to fall into two distinct stages, separated by a central crisis, where in Part One there is an initial rise in the hero’s fortunes, showing a glimpse of what might be possible, when a crisis occurs which seems to snatch away all hope of a happy ending, before, in Part Two, the hero is unwittingly prepared for their final reversal of fortune, emergence into the light and glorious state of completeness.

Familiar Stages of Plot:

•  Initial wretchedness and the “call”
•  Out into the world – initial success
•  The central crisis
•  Independence and final ordeal
•  Final union, completion and fulfilment

Examples: The Ugly Duckling; My Fair Lady; Dick Whittington, Superman; David Copperfield; Cinderella; The Gold Rush; Jane Eyre.

Three – The Quest

“No type of story is more instantly recognizable to us than a Quest. Far away, we learn, there is some priceless goal, worth any effort to achieve: a treasure; a promised land; something of infinite value. From the moment the hero learns of this prize, the need to set out on a long, hazardous journey to reach it becomes the most important thing to him in the world.”

Common Features:

Unlike other kinds of stories, the hero is usually accompanied by one or more friends who may be -

• a large number of anonymous helpers ( or army)
• an alter-ego or close friend (Hamlet/Horatio)
• a foil or opposite of the hero
• a group whose various characteristics complement each other and add up to “the whole”

In addition to all the negative figures the hero and his companions meet on the journey, they also meet (and are helped by) others, usually in the form of “an old man” and “a young woman”.

NB. One of the most surprising things about the Quest plot is that the journey only makes up half the story. The entire second half of The Odyssey for example describes what follows when Odysseus arrives incognito back on his island to find his kingdom in near total disarray.

 Plot Structure:

• The Call – the hero receives a sign that he must make a long and difficult journey to save a community/country/planet etc
• The Journey – the hero and his companions set out across hostile terrain and face a series of life-threatening ordeals (these usually fall into one of four categories – monsters, temptations, the “deadly opposites” or journey to the underworld)
• Arrival and Frustration – the hero arrives within sight of his goal but a new set of obstacles presents itself
• The Final Ordeals – the hero has to undergo a final series of tests (often 3) to prove he is worthy of the prize
• The Goal – after a last “thrilling escape from death” the treasure, or the princess, or the goal is won

As with’ Overcoming the Monster’ and’ Rags to Riches’, the hero of ‘The Quest’ begins with a sense of constriction, experiences a sense of enlargement as he moves out into the world, faces a final, more serious sense of constriction in the final ordeal, before becoming liberated and overthrowing the dark forces and reaching a state of light or fulfilment.

Examples: Homer’s Odyssey; Pilgrim’s Progress; Treasure Island; Lord of the Rings; Raiders of the Lost Ark; Watership Down; Around the World in Eighty Days

Four – Voyage and Return

 “The essence of the Voyage and Return story is that its hero or heroine (or the central group of characters) travel out of their familiar, everyday, “normal” surroundings into another world completely cut off from the first, where everything seems disconcertingly abnormal. At first the strangeness of this new world, with its freaks and marvels, may seem diverting, even exhilarating, if also highly perplexing. But gradually a shadow intrudes. The hero or heroine feels increasingly threatened, even trapped, until eventually (usually by way of a “thrilling escape”) they are released from the abnormal world and can return to the safety of the familiar world where they began.”

Common Features:

Voyage and Return stories tend to fall into two categories; stories which describe a journey to a distant land beyond the known world, and those which describe a journey to a magical or imaginary world closer to home (often children’s stories).

NB. A variation of the above is the “social Voyage and Return” where the journey takes the hero or heroine into a different social milieu (eg Waugh’s Decline and Fall or Brideshead Revisited; Greene’s The Third Man; L P Hartley’s The Go-Between).

Plot Structure:

• Anticipation stage – the “fall” into other world (through sleepiness, boredom, recklessness etc)
• Initial Fascination or Dream stage – hero is initially curious
• Frustration stage – mood of adventure changes to one of frustration, difficulty and oppression
• Nightmare stage – serious threat to hero’s survival
• Thrilling Escape and Return – how have they learned from the experience?

Examples: Alice in Wonderland; Goldilocks and the Three Bears; The Time Machine; Gone with the Wind; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; The Wizard of Oz; Lord of the Flies; Robinson Crusoe; Journey to the Centre of the Earth; Gulliver’s Travels.

Five – Comedy

“Comedy is a very special kind of story. It isn’t simply any kind of story which is funny. Some very funny stories have quite different kinds of plots….but what it is that shapes the plot of Comedy, that provides the common bond between say, a Marx Brothers film and a play by Shakespeare, an American musical and a novel by Jane Austen, a Mozart opera and a story by P G Wodehouse, requires a little unraveling…”

“What we are looking at when confronted by a fully developed Comedy is not unlike a jigsaw puzzle. By the time a jigsaw is complete, it seems obvious that there is only one way it could have ended up, with each piece in its proper place and fitting perfectly together with all the others. In Comedy, the key to bringing this to light is the process of ‘recognition’…”

“The essence of Comedy is always that some redeeming truth has to be brought out of the shadows into the light.”

Plot Structure:

• We see a world where people have passed under a shadow of confusion, uncertainty and frustration, and are shut off from one another
• The confusion gets worse until the pressure of darkness is at its most acute
• Finally, with the coming to light of things not previously recognised, perceptions are dramatically changed. The shadows are dispelled, the situation is miraculously transformed and the little world is brought together in a state of joyful union.

Examples: Shakespeare’s Comedies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Twelfth Night; The Merchant of Venice etc); The Marriage of Figero; Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; War and Peace; The Importance of Being Earnest; Marx Brothers; Some Like it Hot; Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Six – Tragedy

“Sooner or later, in any attempt to explore the deeper patterns which shape story-telling, we are brought up against one central, overwhelming fact. This is the way in which, through all the millions of stories thrown up by the human imagination, just two endings have far outweighed all others. Either it ends with a man and a woman united in love. Or it ends in a death.”

Plot Structure:

• Anticipation stage – the hero is in some way incomplete or infulfilled
• Dream stage – for a while things seem to go improbably well
• Frustration stage – almost imperceptibly things start to go wrong
• Nightmare stage – things are slipping seriously out of the hero’s control. He has a mounting sense of threat and despair
• Destruction and Death Wish stage – the hero is destroyed, either by forces he has aroused against him or by some final act of violence

Examples: Greek myth of Icarus; Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde; Lolita; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Bonnie and Clyde; Shakespeare’s Tragedies (Romeo and Juliet; Macbeth; King Lear etc)

Seven – Rebirth

“A hero or heroine falls under a dark spell, which eventually traps them in some wintry state, akin to a living death: physical or spiritual imprisonment, sleep, sickness or some other form of enchantment. For a long time they languish in this frozen condition. Then a miraculous act of redemption takes place, focused on a particular figure who helps to liberate the hero or heroine from imprisonment. From the depths of darkness they are brought up into glorious light.”

Plot Structure:

• A young hero or heroine falls under the shadow of the dark power
• For a while everything seems to go reasonably well; the threat may even seem to have receded
• Eventually it returns again in full force, until the hero or heroine is seen imprisoned in the state of living death
• This continues for a long time, when it seems that the dark power has completely triumphed
• Finally comes the miraculous redemption either, where the imprisoned figure is a heroine, by the hero, or where it is the hero, by a young woman or a child

The power of the Rebirth story is in the contrast between the condition of the hero or heroine in their frozen or imprisoned state and the moment when the liberation begins.

 Common/Contrasting Imagery

Coldness/Warmth      Hardness/Softness          Despair/Hope

Immobility/Movement      Constriction/Liberation

Sleep/Awakening     Darkness/Light      Sickness/ Health    Decay/Growth

Isolation/Conjoining      Torment/ Happiness      Lack of love/Love

Examples: Sleeping Beauty; Snow White; The Frog Prince; Beauty and the Beast; The Snow Queen; A Christmas Carol; Crime and Punishment; The Secret Garden

So there you have it. Can you think of any stories which don’t come in to one or more of these categories? Incidentally, the reason we tell stories is covered in the second half of the book and is a whole new blog post. I’m sure I’ll get round to it.

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Had a really enjoyable day yesterday at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where I was taking part in a panel discussion, and making a presentation on Technology and Literacy. My co-presenters were Judy Robertson, a computer scientist at Heriot-Watt University, and Lili Wilkinson, an Australian cyber-journalist (no, I had never heard of it either) and the session was chaired by Joy Court of CILIP. The subtext for the seminar was, “Can video games, the internet and other ICT applications help young people engage with literature?”

Judy spoke about her work on the Adventure Author project and about storymaking through computer game design, while Lili took us into the fascinating world of www.insideadog.com.au , a website which promotes young adult literature, highlights Australian writers and their work, and generally engages young people in the world of books. The name incidentally comes from the Groucho Marx quote, “Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend, inside a dog it’s too dark to read.”

For my part, I was wrestling with the notion of engaging young people with literature, and how this related to technology and literacy. Engaging with literature is certainly “a good thing”, but literature and literacy are two different animals. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here is a slightly abridged and adapted version of my presentation. Some of the references will be familiar to you if you are a regular visitor to the blog, but I make no apologies for referencing them again.

“In her wonderfully clever but very readable book  about the development of the reading brain, Proust and the Squid, American professor Maryanne Wolf tells the story of how Socrates, in the 5^th Century BC, called on all his rhetorical skills to fight against the acquisition of literacy and the introduction of the Greek alphabet, believing passionately that the written word posed a serious threat to society.

His concerns had three aspects. First, he contended that oral and written words play very different roles in an individual’s intellectual life. Secondly, he regarded the fact that the written word reduced the role of memory as catastrophic, and finally he warned that oral language had a unique role in the development of morality and virtue in society. In other words, he felt that writing was just plain bad and was likely to lead to the end of civilisation.

Professor Wolf sees clear parallels between Socrates’ resistance to that  transition from an oral to a written culture, and the shift that we are currently witnessing  from a written tradition to one that is increasingly driven by visual images and massive streams of digital information.

 (It should be remembered of course, that we wouldn’t know any of this but for the fact that his words were being recorded in writing by that young rascal Plato, who obviously knew a thing or two about the future).

So the nature of literacy is changing. Reading is no longer simply about reading words and sentences, or even books; it’s about reading other codes as well, particularly the codes of still and moving images. And of course, it’s about reading and creating multi-modal texts, texts which combine words and pictures and sound.

In attempting to redefine literacy for the new century, Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence  has it as “the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language, and the range of texts, which society values and finds useful.”

There is at least one reference to “society” too many there for my liking, but you have to commend the attempt to recognize that literacy is a much broader concept than it was even twenty years ago.

So what part then does, or should, technology play in developing this new literacy?

I’m inclined to agree with Marc Prensky, the American learning and technology expert, author of Games-Based Learning and Don’t Bother me Mom, I’m Learning, when he says “the role of technology in our classrooms is to support the new teaching paradigm”, a paradigm which he describes as the shift from the old pedagogy of teachers “telling” or “talking” or “lecturing”, to the new pedagogy of young people teaching themselves with the guidance of the teacher, a combination of “student-centred learning”, “problem-based learning” and “case-based learning”.

Prensky argues that “if we can agree that the role of technology in our classrooms is to support the “new” pedagogy…..then we can all move much more quickly down the road of reaching that goal. But if every person continues to talk about the role of technology in a different way, it will take us a whole lot longer.”

 That description of the new teaching paradigm may bring a bit of colour to your cheeks, especially if you are a teacher, but the key message is clear – technology is a means of supporting learning, it is not an end in itself.

The question posed in the programme for this event was “Can video games, the internet and other applications help young people engage with literature?” The answer of course is YES. Games like Myst, Samorost and Neverwinter Nights, to name but three, provide exciting, stimulating, and imaginative contexts in which young people learn to solve problems, work collaboratively and think creatively. They have the potential to transport young people into the kinds of worlds which they might also encounter in literature (think of the world of Narnia for instance). More than that, the games allow them to collaborate to create the imaginary world and the narrative for themselves, and to explore the meaning and the rules of genre, which encourages them to look for more, and so on.

However, not only do the games encourage comparisons with literature, and provide introductions to more traditional written texts, they are perfectly valid texts in themselves, if we accept the broad definition of “text” as “the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated.”

Technology can also broaden opportunities and help to eliminate social inequalities. For young people who for various reasons are unable to go very far from their immediate environment, it can bring the world to them. It can give them access to people and events they would not otherwise be able to take advantage of.

GLOW is the world’s first national intranet for education. Funded by the Sottish Government and managed by Learning and Teaching Scotland, it connects learners and teachers in a number of ways. Glow Learn is a Virtual Learning Environment which includes tools to share, organize and search for digital resources and courses, monitor student progress and provide learners with access to structured content – it can be used at any time and from any location which has internet access. Potentially, for example, it could provide the ideal solution in THE EXTREMELY UNLIKELY EVENT THAT ANY KIND OF PANDEMIC HEALTH ISSUE SHOULD CAUSE THE CLOSURE OF OUR SCHOOLS.

The Glow Meet facility is a web conferencing tool which allows people to interact using video, audio and a shared whiteboard space.  Dr Mel Gibson’s presentation, Visual Literacy, Learning and Graphic Novels was relayed live from this venue last Thursday, not only allowing a wider audience to hear the presentation, but allowing them to ask questions and take part in the discussion as well.

 So I believe that far from being in opposition, technology and literacy are mutually supportive. I also believe that the reason literature matters so much to us lies in the importance of narrative. It is through constructing our own narrative, and reading other people’s narratives, that we come to understand who we are in the world and how we relate to everyone else.

Video games (computer games?), the internet and new Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networking tools make it easier to share, and enthuse, and engage young people with the traditional literature which we all know and love, but sometimes it is the computer game, or the film, or the graphic novel, which provides the narrative and which is every bit as valid a text as the book.

Finally, to return to Socrates for a moment, I suppose if we are entering a new era in the development of language and literacy, we need to have a new alphabet.

Now repeat after me: A is for Apple, B is for Blogger, C is for Cooliris, D is for Delicious…………………