Connect Life and Literature with Nonfiction Text Sets

This week I gave a little tweak to a long-standing literature unit and transformed the lesson. It’s strategy I have used in other units, but just hadn’t gotten around to finding the resources for this one. This is the key: using text sets of articles, blogs, and infographics can incorporate nonfiction, deepen students’ understanding of themes, connect disciplines, and heighten purpose in literature study.

First, I pick a concept that shows up both in the work of literature we’re studying and in the lives and world of my students. Years ago I got the idea from Linda Christensen’s Teaching for Joy and Justice: Reimagining the Language Arts Classroom to incorporate the concepts of perpetrator, victim, bystander, and ally into my 10th grade unit on Alan Paton’s classic novel of South Africa, Cry, the Beloved Country. (By the way: If you’re looking for ways to make your language arts classroom touch the lives of the children in it I highly recommend Christensen’s book.) In the past, I’ve introduced the concepts myself with a brief lecture-type mini lesson and then had students identify characters in the novel who fall within those categories—and hopefully extend the discussion to examples in their experience and the world around. 

This year, I took it a step further, giving students 4 readings to jigsaw to find their own answers the question “How does this reading deepen your understanding of perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and allies and how they relate to the breaking and restoring of shalom in Cry, the Beloved Country and in your life and world today.” 

I must say, I was helped by the fact that, unbeknownst to me, 10th graders had talked about bystanders in Health the previous year. When they came in and saw the definition for “bystander” projected on the board, they immediately registered recognition. I briefly feared my whole lesson would be redundant, but after discussing their understanding, realized that they had the perfect foundation from which to launch into my lesson. (I love discovering these cross-disciplinary connections!)

I asked groups of 4 to have each member choose one of 4 readings, meet first with the person from each of the other groups who had chosen that reading in order to discuss what to take back to their home groups regarding the prompt. Here are the readings, and a hint of what I’d hoped they’d get:

• “The Bystander Effect.” A brief article explaining bystander effect, some associated studies, the assumed cause of responsibility diffusion, and a suggestion for how to overcome it if you are a victim: make eye contact with an individual bystander and specifically ask that individual for help.
• “Bystander Do’s and Dont’s.” A one-page poster with practical advice. 
• “The White Man in That Photo.” The story of a white Australian track star who protested with 2 black Americans in the 62 Olympics, and spent the rest of his life blackballed in Australian sports. (We won’t always be heroes for being allies…)
• “To the Non-Racist White People: Please Just Be the First.” A black man’s story of harassment on a Portland train—yes, both racial harassment and the bystander effect do still happen today in America.

Discussions were so much better than they have been in the past, after just my explanation. One of the best was about the “Bystander Do’s and Dont’s.” My international school students realized the audience was US-based and asked excellent questions: “Is this true in Japan, too? Why and why not?” This lead to a discussion of the similarities and differences of bullying in Japan.

I love it when I am reminded that even with almost 30 years of experience, I can still make exciting discoveries and revisions in my teaching. What’s something new you’re trying? Or how do you use text sets to incorporate nonfiction, deepen students’ understanding of themes, connect disciplines, and heighten purpose in literature study?