Entering Into The Classroom : Understanding Of Literary Elements

As a college student, I don’t enjoy group work. I am the student that dominates the group and does almost all of the work, establishing group times to talk about what needs to be done, and making sure that attendance is mandatory

Beautiful imagery laced amidst a wondrous storyline, accompanied by memorable and lovable characters are all elements pertaining to enjoyable works of fiction. Tales that keep one up late into the night forever reading just “one more page” forever propelling the intrinsic imagination for a novel enthusiast. Yet, at times there are deeper meanings hidden between the lines. Symbols, analogies, and latent parallels all connecting to real life events and situations being portrayed by the author. Using literary theory can bring a more profound understanding of the reading material at hand, as well as unique insight as to what the author was feeling or intending to portray at the time of writing.

For this class project, I think my group worked well together on the assignments. We all saw we had responsibilities and were expected to do our own parts for each assignment we worked on. For each assignment, we would split it equally among us and used a tool called Google Docs so we were each on our own computers but working together on one file. Google Docs really made the process easier with reviewing all the information and having it all in one file. If any questions came up we had a group text to communicate when we weren’t on campus grounds for class.

Working in a group to achieve a high quality group project can be one of people’s most difficult school experiences. Working in a group is tough because there is often someone who does not pull their own weight. “There are five stages to group development, adjourning, forming, storming, performing, and norming” (John & Wiley pg 166). Christine’s group from the Case Study the Forgotten Group Member is in between the Storming and Norming Stages. The Storming Stage “is dealing with tensions and defining group tasks,” while the Norming Stage is dealing with high emotionality and tension among the group members” (John & Wiley pg. 166). Christine and her group could have had better

We read How to Read Literature like a professor over the summer. This book wasn’t anything like the other two required readings; instead, it provided me with a glimpse into the thought process and mind of a Literature Major. The reading was informative and provided me with a plethora of new ways of helping analyze books and stories. Compared to what I knew before, this new accumulation of knowledge provided me with much more freedom while reading other books. Though there were many chapters which presented a new concept/idea to analyzing a story, the concepts that caught my eye were the symbolism of certain objects or events, the borrowing of ideas from older stories (intertextuality), and the meaning of weather and the seasons.

Small groups require active teaching with much teacher guidance or involvement. Small groups can teach the context better than a larger group, allowing for no child to be struggling and left behind. Reading, math and science can benefit from small group interaction. Each student has a chance to be heard, voice his opinion or conclusion, get a response from the teacher and the other group participants, and close the gap for error. The key for successful learning is when the teacher involves himself and gets excited about what the children are to be taught. This is also true in group study as

How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss how your appreciation of your summer reading novel was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.

We particularly focused on analyzing symbols and imagery as a way to explore some of the themes in the novel. Students also read nonfiction articles about the youth and violence in school to further deepen the understanding of the teenage culture.

First, working with a group can be quite difficult as it leaves you being suspicious of other people abilities because not only you are working with them as a group but their performance also affects your performance as a student in the subject which will be subjected to review and analysis. The group that I was working with was quite the amusing people to be with, and the reason was that everyone knew exactly what they would be doing and we started to talk about how we would approach the issue we were tasked for and how we would be able to not only understand but also be able to express our point of view on the subject to the people who were going to view our message, but the subject was quite hard to express through non-verbal communication so the group were almost stuck to finding out a way which we would be able to approach this kind of problem in a way that would be optimal and easily understandable. The last issue we faced was managing our time. The project required all of us to be present to be able to perform the task but having everyone available at the same time can be quite hard and it is the most common issue when it comes to group presentation and that is managing our time. The group had to talk with everyone to ask everyone if they would be available at this time of day and if that is acceptable to everyone and make sure that there are no issues regarding the subject. Finally,

Understanding how memory, patterns, and symbols all work together in literary works will help you to better appreciate what you are reading. Memory helps us to link one story to another, letting us have a better connection to characters and events, since we’ve already seen characters and events that are, in some aspects, similar. Symbols let us better understand what the real theme is; is The Lord of the Flies really only about a bunch of stranded boys who starts to killing each other, while a pig’s head watches? No, understanding that each of the boys(and the pig’s head) represent a symbol helps you get to the message the author is trying to tell you. Patterns helps us figure out which details are important and which are not so much important, so we’re not as bogged down with every detail of a story instead of the story itself

An educator needs to build upon the students' knowledge by giving some background information on the topic or title. Building background knowledge is the act of providing information or experiences to the students prior to reading the story.

When we as a class looked deeper into the text we found the pain and suffering the characters went trough in the stories. In the novels we read in class we found the theme of suffering deep inside the characters.

Memory, symbol, and pattern are tools that professors use to analyze literature and draw connections—furthering their understanding of what they are reading. An awareness of patterns makes it easier to read more complicated literature because books fall into similar patterns and become more recognizable and easier to breakdown. If the reader determines the patterns, routines, and archetypes at work in the background of the story, then the complicated plot becomes a little simpler to understand. A great example of this is the play Into the Woods. Into the Woods is a crazy mismatch of multiple fairy tales—the first half of the play is all of the positive aspects of these fairy tales, and the second half of the play is doomsday

Using symbolism in a story can help the reader get an idea of the feeling or mood of a book.

Develop a procedure for the student(s) to ask for help: Because it might be hard for the student to ask questions during the large group setting, develop a procedure for them to signal if they need assistance. Blocking out a time in the day to offer the student assistance without the anxiety, loudness, and/or craziness of the regular classroom setting could also be an