The title of this blog is a question I asked myself when looking at lists of literary response strategies, which on their surface looked simplistic. I admit that this was a precursory glance, but even after digging I feel that almost any learning strategy used in teaching could fall under this category if there was a teacher librarian or university researcher around. I imagine to anyone else they are never referred to in this way.
But my beef is not the rebranding of teaching or learning strategies, or the countless hours and money going into research ensuring they do in fact work for literature analysis. My question is rather around the depth needed for a rigorous literature response strategy.
Take book bento boxes for example: still images of a small number of items to represent meaning derived from a text (Yung, 2020). Is that… it? Perhaps layered within the next step of annotations of each item included in the box or links to external sources of information (Highfill & Kloos, 2017, Kloss, 2016). Is that enough? Is more needed to successfully have engaged in a literary response?
Coming from a background of a subject area that is constantly demanding evidenced arguments from factual sources, these strategies (boxed or not) can sometimes feel like the start of what I would normally pursue in student understanding within a unit of work. I am left feeling in an uncomfortable position where I cannot commit to saying, a discussion, annotation, a video clip etc are enough to show a high quality or deep understanding of issues covered in subjects like the sciences or humanities. My gut tells me that you just keep going and integrate further activities that layer upon these initial discoveries by connecting the literature and to the factual evidence. You ask students to show that the story they enjoyed has a place or basis in the contemporary world. I elevate and extend my students understanding of a text that opens the door to their understanding of complex issues (Haven, 2007) through building their confidence and connecting to increasingly concrete ideas where they can build more sophisticated responses that are more easily assessed (Bales & Saint-John, 2020). That sounds like it’s getting close enough.
References
Bales, J. & Saint-John, L. (2020, January). Book bento boxes: creative reading response. Scan, 39(3), 2-9. https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/media/documents/vol-39/39-3.pdf
Haven, K. F. (2007). Story proof: The science behind the startling power of story. ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Highfill, L. & Kloos, R. (2017). #BookBento HyperDoc Original [Google slides]. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FggkSwPyKx4YW1VlD9UB1b9FbfDBdQvEz93D2JgYUl4/edit#slide=id.p
Kloss, K. (2016, May 3). Book bento is every bookwork’s dream come true. Elle Decor. https://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/fun-at-home/news/a8635/book-bento-instagram-account/
Yung, M. (2020, November 9). Book bentos: my first attempt. ELA brave and true by Marilyn Yung. https://elabraveandtrue.com/2020/11/09/book-bentos-my-first-attempt/
