Textual Arrangements: Reading across Texts Essay

There are numerous texts that can be used in the class to improve a reader’s understanding. As (Hartman & Hartman, 2003) explained in his article, good readers are able to relate and connect ideas from a variety of reading experiences. For this reason, I find that exposing my students to a variety of texts makes them more able to see how texts fit together in place. This point of view is also supported by Phil Hunsberger, in an article in which he suggested that students learn better if they are able to have a connection with the material they are reading. Where by, this connection process enables students to increasing their learning and understanding ability.

A textual arrangement that I found to be very powerful for this particular topic is the ‘complementary’ aspect. As (Hartman & Hartman, 2003) explained, the process students’ use in comprehension is not only fueled by the texts used in reading but also by their own experiences. For this reason, various students can make a textual connection based on the experience they received from a visit to a place that can be related to the text, from prior knowledge gained from earlier classes, from dinner conversations with relatives or the media. Therefore, exposing students to a variety of texts heightens and stimulates their memory, in the process-increasing their learning and understanding ability as is required for each reading texts and the educational goals. Since humans are able to relate more to materials that have a focus on their interest areas, I will make use of three particular texts that will make a connection to the social studies lesson as detailed by the State of Texas and that of Texas folklore. The areas of interest in these texts are vocabulary, conflict, main idea, summarizing, climax, context clues, sequencing and identification of the plot.

The three texts discussed in this educational reading plan are based on two texts by Tomie de Paola “The Legend of Bluebonnet” and “The Legend of Indian Paintbrush” and S.E. Schlosser (1992) text “The Day Pecos Bill Rode Old Twister”. The first text is an Indian folklore that is based on Indian culture and discusses how bluebonnets came into existence. The main character the text focuses on is the little girl called “She-Who-Is-Alone”. The text talks of how she parted with the doll her mother had made for her and how she finally became a hero in her society. The suggestion put forward by this text is that the little girl threw her doll into a fire as a form of a ritual made to please the rain gods of her tribe. Following this sacrifice, the rains fell and made beautiful blue flowers to grow, thereby, turning her into a local hero.

The second text “The Legend: Indian Paintbrush” is an Indian folklore that is able to rhyme with contemporary topics about Texas. The story in the text is based on the character of a little boy by the name, Little Gopher, who according to their traditions did not have enough warrior-like abilities. Though the little boy had these shortcomings and despite the traditional limitations placed on him from his lack of abilities, he focused on being the best artist. His focus on art led him to create the most beautiful sunsets as he could possible do. Therefore, when he left behind the brushes after painting, they sprouted into beautiful flowers. The third text is S.E. Schlosser’s which has a similarity to Texan folklore as told during the cowboy days. This article is further placed in time using Texan phrases that make the text complementary. A close look reveals that the three texts under review fall in the middle of the linguistic and the semiotic matrix, as well as the informational matrix. The three texts were selected taking into consideration the goals of the Texas State that were intended to be accomplished in the reading class. The State of Texas goals that are being fulfilled in the three texts involve language art skills, social studies as are discussed in the following sections. In each section, each goal is detailed and corresponding inter, intra or extra textual questions are asked.

1. 1. The first goal is the history goal that states that the student should be able to understand the origin, differences and similarities of American Indians in North America and Texas before the exploration of the Europeans. Under this, several questions can be asked as:

1. The student is expected to explain the origins of American Indians in North America and Texas.
2. Identify American Indians groups in North America and Texas before the European exploration like Karankawa, Jumano, Lipan Apache and Caddo.
3. The student is expected to describe the regions where American Indians lived and point out those American Indian groups that still live in Texas like the Alabama Coushatta, Kickapoo and Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo.

2. 2. The second goal, states that students will be able to understand the effects of the exploration and colonization in North America and Texas.
   3. They should be able to identify what motivated the European to settle and explore in North America and Texas.
   4. The student is expected to read, comprehend literary text. Within this fourth goal, the student is expected to understand, conclude and infer the structure of poetry and give evidence to support this ability from the text. The student is expected to explain how the structural elements like meter, stanzas, rhyme, line breaks relate to form like free verse and lyrical poetry.
   5. They should also be able to understand, conclude and infer on the structure and rudiments of drama. In addition, they should also give evidence from the drama and text as expected of reading, comprehension abilities of students.
   6. The student is expected to understand, conclude and infer from the composition and the rudiments of fiction. At the same time they should support their understanding of the texts with evidence drawn from reading and the comprehension of text and fiction. The inter, intra, extra textual questions asked in this goal are;

1. Sequence, summarize the plot of the main event and explain the influence of these on future events.
2. Describe the interaction that exists between the characters taking into consideration the relationship and changes they undergo.
3. Identify if the main speaker is first or third person.
   7. The last goal is based on the reading and comprehension of literary non fiction text. Here, students are expected to understand, infer and conclude on various structural features from non-fictional writings. In addition, they are supposed to give evidence to support their understanding of the text. Moreover, they are also supposed to give similarities and differences between the characters’ experiences and events in fictional work and real work in an author’s autobiography.

These goals will be taken into consideration in addition to the needs of the English Language Learner and for the gifted and special need learner. Lesson plans will include the interests of the three student groups from the third and sixth grades, with lessons being online or read as group work. I will concentrate on questions that include cause and effect since I will be concentrating on social studies skills.

Reference

Hartman, D.K. and Hartman, J.A. (2003). Reading across Texts: Expanding the Role of the Reader. The reading teacher journal, 47(3), pp202-205.