Learning Together
Annotated Bibliography
The annotated bibliography supports my inquiry about character development in a story. Students will be analyzing how characters develop by looking at the text as well as utilizing theater techniques in the classroom.
The article by Dorthy J. Leal written in November 1999 presented the question “What character messages are being sent to students through literature?”. Leal looked at how schools play more of a role in students' moral development through character education and the importance of students learning critical analysis and authentic assessment of their individual learning. The author wanted to understand how characters' traits are communicated through stories. They focused on eight different character traits that appeared in 76 Newbery Medal books. The author analyzed the character traits by analyzing themes and a character’s actions by tracking the number of times specific character traits appeared in the story using a tracker. Through this initial study, they discovered that this tracking could easily be replicated in the classroom, after providing students with the required academic language and modeling how students will track the data. Students discussed with their groups and then were brought together for a class discussion. The author notes that this is a time-consuming activity but it engages students in the literature and critical thinking. This activity additionally provides students agency and ownership over their own learning.
This study relates to my inquiry as it analyzes characteristics and character traits within a story. While this study additionally looked at how we can use analysis of character traits in authentic assessments, the study points out that it is through this student engagement with the text that students were able to make connections and actively engage with the text. Within my inquiry, I would like to use the identification of characters and character traits as an assessment for student understanding of a text. The role that classroom discussion plays into their research and the intersection of demonstrating understanding through verbal assessment, as well as character trackers, is similar to the data collection I am planning to use in my inquiry. While this is not a focus for my inquiry, the fact that this study additionally addresses the importance of learning and identifying character traits in relation to students' moral development is important to overall social-emotional learning that can take place within schools.
Batchelor et al.’s study associates with my inquiry topic because it deals with issues of inclusion and identity within minority groups. The authors begin by explaining how as of 2013, students who identify with the LGBTQ community still face hostilities and harassment while at school. However, when schools embedded an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, students reported feeling less unsafe. While Batchelor et al.’s study focus on incorporating LGBTQ literature in general, they discuss how newer YA literature addresses the themes in LGBTQ literature while including more diverse and inclusive characters. Research on LGBTQ YA contemporary literature is neglected, and the authors want to show how it can “create experiences that advocate positive feelings for students” (Batchelor et al. 2018, p. 32). I have seen many of my high school students at my long-term placement devour YA literature and develop relationships and understandings with the characters they are reading. Remembering that students in secondary school are figuring out their identities, teachers should use the curriculum to provide a variety of characters to serve as models.
This study was conducted by Deborah J. Gascon and published in the Spring of 2019. In the study, Gascon looked at how the lack of engagement impacted student comprehension and their attitudes toward classic literature. Gascon’s main focus was to use drama techniques to help students read closely and develop empathy skills through drama techniques. Gascon used quantitative and qualitative data including pretest and posttest assessments, Likert scales, and reflective journals to assess comprehension, attitudes, and perceptions of empathy related to the use of drama pedagogy. To help determine the effectiveness of the method that was used and provide a reflection on the drama pedagogy that was used, Gascon used an action research methodology. Her research showed that the drama techniques used increased comprehension and improved students' attitudes towards studying Shakespeare and was a key factor in creating a more open classroom for discussions.
This study is clearly relevant because Gascon’s research shows how a drama pedagogy and practices can increase student engagement in the text. Her study focuses more on classic literature but lends an important argument as to how the activities I will use in my classroom will increase comprehension, engagement, and even empathy with my students. This study shows how a student classroom can create a community that promotes collaborative learning and engages students in whole-body learning. Additionally, she addresses the conjunction of active learning and closes reading skills with English language learners, which I have a high population of in my classroom. While her study focuses on Shakespeare’s Othello and other classic literature, her research is conclusive in the increase in close reading skills and empathy with students. These two skills are essential to students learning character traits and development.
Donna Sayers Adomat conducted this qualitative study in the Spring of 2012. In this study, Andomat demonstrated how drama can help students develop a deeper understanding of characters and literature. This study took place with two first-grade classes over a seventh-month period. The author is a reading specialist and worked with the teacher in whole class and small group reading aloud and introduced a new theater technique once a week. In their research, they focused primarily on the process and story drama techniques where they use issues, themes characters, mood, conflict, or spirit of the story to explore the drama that takes place in the story.
This article is relevant to my inquiry because it studied the topic I am focusing on in my research. While this study works with lower elementary school students and had the additional support of an extra educator in the classroom, this study still provides evidence that these techniques can increase students' comprehension of literature overall. The techniques that were used allowed students to explore the characters' feelings and take a different perspective on the novel's concept. Similarly to our techniques, the techniques used by Adomat and her partner teacher showed that students were able to immerse themselves into the character and understand the broader implications and themes within the text. This study helps support my inquiry focus on theater techniques assisting students to better understand character traits the thus further their understanding of the overall text.
This study conducted by Stacey N. Skoning analyzed the benefits of using dance and creative movements to increase student understanding and comprehension for students with a variety of learning needs. Her analysis looks at how we can Rudolf Laban’s work on movement analysis, and anecdotal evidence can create learning advantages for all students including those with learning disabilities, emotional disorders, attention deficit disorder, cognitive disabilities, and gifts and talents. Working with student teachers, Skoning had outstanding results in helping students with learning and cognitive disabilities access and engage with the content in regular education classrooms. This ultimately helped create a more inclusive classroom when teachers incorporate kinesthetic intelligence into their teaching practices. This research served as a jumping-off point for other teachers to further investigate these practices in assessments and comprehension.
This research is relevant to my inquiry because it shows how even incorporating some movement in the classroom can increase comprehension. Skoning and her colleagues discovered that incorporating movement activities, including dance, showed an increase in comprehension of characters, plot, and overall comprehension of novels for students with learning and cognitive disabilities in her fourth and fifth-grade classes. Not only are the ages of her students close to my sixth-grade focus class but many of my students demonstrate difficulty with comprehension of the literature we read in the classroom. Her research does not go to the extent I was initially hoping for, but she provides excellent vignettes of how even just incorporating movement in the classroom can increase student engagement and joy with the subject matter. Her anecdotal data shows that providing students with these open-ended kinetic learning opportunities allows them to be creative, taking on classroom roles they otherwise might not have. Additionally, she provides a movement rubric that is well constructed to assess students on their comprehension of character within the dance assessment.
In this six-week study Susan Keehn, Janis Harmon, and Alan Shoho looked at the impact of a Readers Theater Program on an eighth-grade class. The focus group was a group of 36 students from two different classes a Title 1 South Texas middle school, one class participating in Readers Theater and the other serving as a control class. A majority of the students were identified as reading below grade level and had no prior experience with theater. Keehn et. al focused their research on five questions which included looking at student participation, comprehension, and vocabulary development. Over the six weeks, they looked at six short stories which were read aloud as a class before students would work in pairs to analyze the scripts. Their findings showed that the students who participated in the readers' theater showed significant improvement in vocabulary, comprehension, reading ability, and fluency. Keehn et. al’s study showed that Readers Theater proved to be a promising reading intervention while also maintaining student engagement and interest.
The study that Keehn et. al conducted on their middle school students relates to the overall idea that I am focusing on in my inquiry. Keehn et. al answers the basic question of how theater, specifically Readers Theater, can help improve students’ comprehension of a piece of literature. The age group, eighth-grade students, is closer to my focus class of sixth graders than many of the other studies I researched and a majority of my students are reading below grade level. Keehn et. al not only focused on comprehension and vocabulary development but on participation as well. The engagement and student participation increased among the Readers Theater students while also significantly increasing reading ability and fluency. These two areas were intriguing because I work with a large English Learner population and see this as an area of difficulty for my students. To maintain student engagement, group leader teachers would encourage readers to engage in expressive readings of the scripts to help students get into different characters’ perspectives. This characterization, which is what my inquiry focuses on, allowed students to not only explore the text but their own character as well. By reading the characters in the short stories, students were able to explore the text from different perspectives, deepening their comprehension while increasing their vocabulary, fluency, and reading ability.
In this study Brittany M. Brewer and Allison Phillippe look at how teaching students to comprehend characters in stories can assist in their ability to take the perspective of others and develop students' social and emotional skills. Brewer and Phillippe worked with a diverse group of elementary school students in small groups to make inferences about characters' thoughts, motivations, and emotions. Within the small groups, students were encouraged to take on the perspective of a specific character through role-play and reading from the characters’ perspective. Their research showed that acting out the characters and collaborating with the community not only allows students to understand the characters and honors students' voices. Brewer and Phillippe look further at the social-emotional learning benefits of this practice.
Brewer and Phillippe’s research is relevant to my topic because it analyzes how perspective-taking improves narrative comprehension and actively engages students in whole self-learning. Their research looks at the ways in which allowing students to play out the characters provides them with ways to comprehend characters and narrative. The way the researchers engaged students in deep character discussions disguised as role-play is similar to the discussions we have with students after they engage in ALA activities. Both of the techniques used by the researchers and the ALA practices help to place the students in the characters’ perspectives of the characters to deepen comprehension of texts. This study additionally looks at the impact these reading comprehension skills have on students' social-emotional learning. It allows students to explore their own experiences, conflicts, and emotions while exploring the character's experiences. While SEL practices are not my focus, it is important that students develop these skills alongside their literary comprehension.