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During my high school education, one of the first things I learned about reading and writing about literature was that there is only one valid interpretation of a novel-the interpretation of the teacher. I did not always have the same opinions or responses to the situations in the novel as my teacher, but I learned to abandon my views and adopt the "right" one quickly. After all, the grade was the thing. Fortunately, my experience in school did not negate my love of reading, but I never looked forward to reading the books on the school reading list. Now that I am a teacher, I remember my high school experience, and my primary goal in the classroom is to introduce my students to the text and let them walk freely through the novel without following me around the pages. My unit plan on teaching Lord of the Flies is one of my favorites, simply because I sit back and watch my students "fall in love" with the novel without me, their teacher.
While developing this unit, I asked myself several questions: How do I grab my students' attention? How do I pique their interest? How do I engage them in the novel? How do I help a class of eighteen eighth graders make meaning of the text? I decided to combine two theories I encountered in college-Alan Purves's reader response theory (I realize he is not the father of this theory, but my first taste of reader response was served by his book, How Porcupines Make Love III) and Peggy O'Brien's advice from her English journal article on teaching Shakespeare, "Get them out of their seats!" (42) The two ideas together were destined to help students "love" literature.
Introducing the Novel without the Book
How often do we begin reading a new book by doing just that ... reading the book? We give students copies of the novel and open to the first page, expecting all of them to be as enticed as we were by the opening paragraphs. How often do we read the first chapter aloud to students, hoping our enthusiasm will engage all of them? We can have high expectations of our students, but we can't expect them to delve into a...