Using Aesthetic Response to Assist with

Content Area Learning

By: Judy M. Stephenson

 Aesthetic Response

For some students, content area material is very hard to comprehend. Why is that so?  According to Rosenblatt (1988), there are two different kinds of reading: aesthetic and efferent. Aesthetic is what we do for pleasure, and efferent is generally informational and gets the job done. Content area material is mainly informational.  It comprises unfamiliar topics, factual materials, and uncommon structural formats (Harvey, 1998). Imagine if students could learn strategies to make this kind of reading more pleasurable.  Not surprisingly, Spink (1997) discovered that older children did not make any personal meaning or take pleasure from the content area subject reading. However, he found that when he combined strategies for both purposes for reading, and included an aesthetic approach to instruction, he obtained the desired result.

It was this thought that helped me and my daughter during her struggle with her fourth grade US history unit on explorers and, eventually, my fifth grader students.

Readers who were successful and responded aesthetically to content material were taught to do the following: visual imagery, extend and hypothesize, and relate feelings and associations (Cox & Many, 1992).

Visual imagery is when the reader is taught to make movies in their mind as they read (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Many theorists will agree that visual images can be helpful when storing information in the long-term memory (Ormrod, 1999). Providing children with visual aids is a helpful supplement to verbal material. When working with my daughter, Jessica, we would read a passage on explorers, then instead of writing notes, she would draw to retell a page. Sometimes, I would draw a semantic map to explain the different traits of the settlers. Using the globe and Atlas gave her another visualization to support her learning. In doing this, the reader often goes beyond the image and puts himself or herself in the picture as well (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Jessica would imagine to be Pocahontas and role-play her life when the ship came over.

Extending and hypothesizing involve the reader in predicting, inferring, and questioning. Prediction skills can be used by the reader to preview and use the features of the text that will activate their schema and determine the purpose for reading. Predictions can also be used by the teacher to assess what students are likely to comprehend while reading. Inferring is a life skill that is beneficial to have. It is also known as reading between the lines. This is a personal achievement as it relies on prior knowledge and experiences. One reader’s interpretation of the situation may be different from another. Questioning is another important technique used in reading as Harvey and Goudvis state (2000), “Questions are the master keys to understanding. Questions clarify confusion…questions propel us forward and take us deeper into reading” (p. 81). I found I had to do a lot of modeling in this area for Jessica. Her interpretation of the skill of questioning was to be able to reproduce a fact when asked a question. She had no idea that these were curiosities or concerns that she could have throughout the reading.

Relating feelings and associations, also known as connections, is a very important aspect of comprehending and understanding the text aesthetically. Examples of connections are: text to text, text to self, and text to world (Keene & Zimmermann, 1997). Reading connections can be thought of in six categories: a) text to text: does this remind the reader of another story, song, or movie, b) text to self: has this ever happened to the reader before, c) text to world: does the reader know of this happening to someone else, d) the reader puts self in character’s shoes, e) the reader judges the character, and f) were there any feelings that emerged while reading. This was my biggest helper to tackle the history textbook. Jessica related the information to other books she had read or movies and shows she watched. She was able to criticize certain explorers (and political leaders) and empathized with the people in those harsh times.

Comprehension is a social process. Therefore, I feel that even with all of these excellent strategies, children need a chance to be able to discuss their thoughts and feelings. This way, they also benefit from the perspectives of other readers.

Putting Theory into Practice with Fifth Graders

At the time I was helping my daughter, I was also working with struggling fifth graders. I had twelve of them in a pull-out situation for forty minutes every day. My job was not to cover the same material but give them strategies to help make the classroom material easier to comprehend. My goal was to teach these strategies while intertwining fiction and non-fiction books. Taking note of the success with Jessica, I set out to try these strategies with my fifth grade students a unit on Immigration.

The demographics of my school included affluent populations of Jewish, Asian, and American families. The majority of the children at the school, as well as their parents, were born in America, so their knowledge of immigration was limited. Two of the students in my group happened to be brand new to America, and I myself was an immigrant.

Day One

The first thing I wanted to do was to give the students an anticipation guide. This guide would inform me of their opinions or schema of immigration and immigrants. The next task was to use a KWL chart (Ogle, 1987). KWL stands for what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned. These are useful to activate student’s prior knowledge, but it also was helpful in guiding my teaching and choice of topics. We did this on a large piece of chart paper so we could continually refer to it and add as we learned. This also was an effective way to generate student involvement. I was hoping that the conversation would involve their experiences.

At this point, I showed students some of the books we would be using for the unit, and I gave them a chance to preview the selections (see Children’s References for titles).

Day Two

I wanted to assess students ability to write a personal reflection. This was imperative as I had my suspicions that this group did not know how to respond personally. I read a story called Leaving my Country. I did not tell the students that I wrote this and that it was based on a true story. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted a true reaction, not a statement towards me, as the writer. I also wanted to teach them that when they judge and personalize a passage, their writing and comprehension would improve. I explained that a reflection is a reaction to the story. I also informed students that they would be expected to read it to the class (this lets them know that I will not be the only audience). While the students were writing, I also wrote a reflection. I did this every time I expected them to write, and I also shared my writing. This not only modeled good writing, but it also let students see that I was not apprehensive to do the task or share with the group.

As they shared their responses, I recorded them on a large sheet of chart paper. Some had criticized the act of giving away the dog, others did not think it was too hard to get a job here. I explained that good readers also make these connections as they read, and we would be practicing these strategies as we read our books on immigration.

I then told them that I was the author of the story and immediately they wanted answers to their questions. I held them in suspense by letting them know that they may discover their answers by reading the other books on immigration.

As soon as I had set the ground work for the involvement of their aesthetic responses, it was time to get into real literature. I wanted to tackle a historical fiction book and be able to practice the aesthetic strategies. This would make the introduction to the content area text on immigration easier to handle. They would have some background knowledge, attach personal meaning to the stories, and have some comprehension skills to help them with the non fiction books.

Day Three

The students were introduced to the book called The Tenement Writer by Ben Sonders. We read the introduction on the inside of the book that talks about immigrants in general. Any new information was added to the L (learned) column on our large KWL chart. At this time, I found that the students began to get more comfortable with sharing in front of their peers. We had established the manners of good listeners and discussed in depth the importance of freedom of opinion, as long as that opinion could be justified. Students were also asked to take out their journals and write a prediction to tell what they thought the story was about. There was not a lot of information to go on at this point, but I wanted them to think about it. We shared our predictions, and then I introduced the first chapter. This is where I wanted students to learn how to visualize what was being read. This chapter was about Anzia, a Jewish girl, who was required to stand guard at a window to watch for soldiers. Her mother was in the kitchen boiling potatoes and her father was teaching Hebrew prayers to his students (which he was not supposed to be doing). I stopped at this point and asked the students to draw what they saw in their minds. I only gave them a few minutes. I call this “Quick Draw McGraw.” Their job was to describe and show their picture to the class. Then I explained that this is called visualizing or imaging, and good readers do this as they read. I then went on to read the next section and stopped at a point where Anzia had left her guard spot and swiped a potato off the table. I then have students write another prediction of what they think will happen next, and we share it. I left the last part of the chapter for the next day. I remind students that when they read, or I read to them, they should make a movie in their mind and think about what will happen next. These two skills of predicting and visualizing are highly beneficial for comprehension (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).

Day Four

We began this day by summarizing and synthesizing the previous day’s reading. I then introduced the skill of inferring. For this I used the book Good Dog Carl by Alexandra Day. This is a picture book that shows certain adventures that take place when a mother leaves the dog in charge of watching the baby. This book allows the reader to infer what had happened in between the pictured pages. This is a great way to let students know that the book will not always say what happens, so the students need to use the clues and any background knowledge to figure it out. (This book encourages discussion and opinion and, in the past, children have condemned the mother for leaving the baby alone with the dog.) I then refer to the first part of the chapter we read in The Tenement Writer. The story does not say that the soldiers came as soon as Anzia left her guard post and it was her fault, but we inferred what had happened. At this point, I asked students if they had any questions about the rest of the chapter. I recorded these on the board. As I finished reading the chapter, we reviewed the previous strategies of visualizing and predicting. Now they were ready for the next one: questioning. This is where much modeling was needed. They were not aware of what good questions sound like. Good questions or thick questions encourage discussions rather than one word answers (Daniels, 1994). They usually begin with why or how and often involve an opinion for an answer. This is also where I was trying to have students think aloud while they were reading or listening.

Day Five

After the review of the previous chapters, I wanted to introduce students to the last three connections: text to text, text to self, and text to world. Again, this needed much modeling. We went over examples of others books they read on the topic, or movies (An American Tale), and the new boy in their class who came from Peru shared stories. At this point, I wanted to give students  a chance to practice these strategies while they read the next chapter. I gave them sticky notes to use whenever they had a prediction, thought, question, or connection. I wanted them to be aware of what they were doing (metacognition)while reading.

We continued with several more lessons while we were reading the book. Some days we shared what was happening while we were reading, on others days we just wrote reflections. This also assisted with their writing ability, just by giving them a chance to write. Some days I read, and on other days they read. If they read silently first, then I could have them pick a passage to read aloud to the group. This also let me do a running record of a hundred words or so to analyze their reading process.

 It was time to show them once again the non-fiction picture books they were able to choose from. I let them decide on a book and what project they wanted to present upon completion. This way, I was interested in process, not just the final outcome.

Conclusion

For these students, reading had always been a challenge. Most of them assumed that reading was just saying the words. My daughter Jessica was not relating to or remembering any information in her content area texts until the information had meaning for her through connections. By teaching and modeling these strategies, as well as giving students lots of practice in using them, they became better aesthetic readers with fiction and non-fiction material. Their comprehension skills improved, and the best part was that their attitudes had become more positive toward reading and writing!

For sample lesson plans and copies of materials used, please contact Faith Wallace, editor of the Literacy Lens at fwallace@gsu.edu.

Work Cited

Cox, C., & Many, J. (1992). Toward an understanding of the aesthetic response to literature. Language Arts, 69, 28-33.

Daniels, H. (1994). Literature circles: Voice and choice in the student-centered classroom. York, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. (2001). Guiding readers and writers grades 3-6: Teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Harvey, S. (1998). Nonfiction matters: Reading, writing, and research in grades 3-8. York, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding. York, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Keene, E., & Zimmermann, S. (1997). Mosaic of thought: Teaching comprehension in a reader’s workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

McMahon, S., Raphael, T. (1997). The book club connection: Literacy learning and classroom talk. New York, NY: International Reading Association.

Ogle, D. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher, 39, 564-570.

Ormrod, J. (1999). Human Learning. (3rd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Rhodes, L., & Shanklin, N. (1993). Windows into literacy: assessing learners K-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rosenblatt, L. (1988). Writing and reading: The transactional theory. Champaign, IL: Center for the Study of Reading, Technical Report No. 416.

Spink, J (1997). The aesthetics of informational reading. In N. Karolides (Ed.), Reader response in elementary classrooms. (pp. 279-297). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Children’s References

Bunting, E. (1988). How many days to America? New York, NY: Clarion.

Bunting, E. (1999). A picnic in October. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.

Freedman, R. (1980). Immigrant kids. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Kroll, S. (1995). Ellis Island: Doorway to freedom. New York, NY: Holiday House.

Lawlor, V. (1995). I was dreaming to come to America. New York, NY: Viking.

Levine, E. (1993). If your name was changed at Ellis Island. New York, NY: Scholastic.       

Owens, T. (1997). Ellis Island. New York, NY: Rosen Publishing Group Inc.

Polacco, P. (1988). The keeping quilt. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Reef, C. (1991). Ellis Island. New York, NY: Dillon Press.

Say, A. (1993). Grandfather’s Journey. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Sonder, B. (1993). The Tenement writer: An immigrant’s story. New York, NY: Steck-Vaughnh.