Pytash: Chapter 4 How Stories Work

I liked that the book outlines how the literary elements provide an organizing framework to understand a story:

• "Who?" leads readers to characters
• "Where?" and "When?" to setting
• "What?" "Why?" and "How?" to plot
• "So what?" to the author's purpose and theme

I think these elements help students to think about these thing specifically and separately. When they might think of talking about the book using different leveled questions, this might help them to understand and separately them. 

 

The book mentions that The Call of the Wild is a difficult and challenging text that requires much of the teachers help. I remember reading this book in 7th grade, but I'm not sure my teacher did the best job because it was really hard for me and good thought don't come when I think about the book. I do specifically remember learning the the pyramid (66) and even though this was confusing at the time, I think it helped me to understand things a little better. 

I think one of the most important ideas in this chapter is, "If 'what ends up in a learner's memory is not simply the material present--it is the product of what the learner thought about when he or she encountered the material,' then books that demand hard thinking on the part of a reader are more likely to be remembered than those students breeze through." I think this is important because we are torn between teaching canonical literature and young adult literature. I am all for pairing the two because, like this said students are going to benefit from thinking when they read more difficult book, but I also believe they can learn many things from Y.A. Literature as well.