Using Developmental Characteristics to Guide Book Selection
I think any English teacher worth his/her beans understands the importance of providing relatable material to students, but I have never checked into the specific developmental patterns of the kids who I teach. Sacks recommends A Sympathetic Understanding of the Child: Birth to Sixteen (1995) by David Elkind as a starting point to understanding students' patterns of behaviors, needs, interests, and conflicts according to their age.
Sacks provides an extensive list of developmental characteristics and a list of adolescent literature that tie into each characteristic. I've included an example of one of Sacks' list for adolescents of 12-15 years.
- Developmental Characteristic: Negotiating distance from their parents. They begin to see their parents as people and think critically about them while still being quite dependent on them for basic needs, approval, and affection.
- Theme: "Parents are people, too", identity, independence
- Book Titles (for suggested grade levels):
- Nobody's Family is Going to Change, by Louise Fitzhugh (6-8)
- The Dream Bearer, Walter Dean Myers (6-8)
- The Rock and the River, by Kekla Magoon (7-8)
- The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, by Nancy Farmer (7-8)
- Somewhere in the Darkness, by Walter Dean Myers (6-8)
Selecting Texts that Offer Mirrors and Windows
I've never heard the phrase "mirrors and windows." It was created by teacher Emily Style (1988) who argues that strong curriculum should provide "mirrors", or material in which students can see themselves, and "windows", material that allows students to experience characters and situations remarkably different from their own, illustrating the universality of the human experience.
Sacks recommends starting the year with literature that serves as a mirror and progressing to literature that serves as a window. In my own teaching, I've understood the importance of starting out the year with a unit of high interest, but I've never considered selecting the curriculum through the "mirrors and windows" lens.
Creating Connected Reading Experiences
I've lamented the lack of "connectedness" in some of my units of instruction, so I appreciate the strong emphasis Sacks places on providing students the opportunity to encounter the same thematic ideas. In the 8th grade curriculum map she provides, the thematic focus throughout the entire year is identity although there are variations in the focus. In one novel study, her students focus on identity and its relationship to home and neighborhood, and then in a following study, her students focus on the extent to which family, race, and culture impact identity.
In most curriculum maps I've seen, there is one theme per unit. For example, all of the materials tie into identity for that particular unit of study, and then the next unit of study shifts to a different focus such as coming-of-age or oppression or friendship. I've never taught with one theme, such as identity, weaved throughout the entire year, but I think the suggestion makes a lot of sense, and I could certainly understand how it would lend to deeper understanding and learning. However, I would see myself relying heavily on resources such as the lists of novels and themes that Sacks provides because identifying variations of a theme and finding correlating novels would be all-consuming. I'd be reading around the clock, chucking books across the room in exasperation when I reached page 128 and realized it wasn't going to work, and spending WAAAAAYYYYY too much money on Amazon Kindle. Not only could this be detrimental to living room walls and my wallet, but there is serious risk of husband suffering, too. Are there any other resources such as Sacks' lists that come recommended for finding novels that tie into a particular theme?
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