The Bubble Map Was Just the Beginning

A recent American Literature assessment involved students using a bubble map as the first step of a character analysis assignment. The assessment extended the student's thinking beyond the bubble map to first a creative product and then to a written reflection.

Here is the description of the assessment from the student direction sheet:

Goals of the assessment:

• To demonstrate a sophisticated, in-depth understanding of the relationship between character motivation and themes in The Great Gatsby.
• To apply contemporary modes of expression to this novel of the 1920s.
• To flex your creative muscles. This is your opportunity to express your ideas in a creative format.
  

Final Work Product:

You will create either character recipes, Facebook pages, postcard secrets, or web logs for three of the main characters in The Great Gatsby. Your creative representations of the characters should reflect in-depth analysis of each character’s development throughout the course of the novel. Consider how these characters have or have not achieved the American Dream. Make sure you do not focus all of your efforts on creativity at the expense of meaningful analysis.

You must complete the following pre-writing preparation:

1. Select three main characters from The Great Gatsby.
2. For each character, create a bubble map with at least 10 adjectives that describe your character. Consider social, emotional, psychological and physical aspects of the character.
3. In the frame, for each adjective, provide a description of events or forces from the text that help to shape the character. Include at least 5 direct passages from the novel. For longer passages you may cite the beginning phrase and last phrase of the passage along with the page number.
   
   

Next, choose one of the following options for a final product:

Option 1: Character Recipe Cards

Writing the Recipe:
For each character, create a “recipe” that combines your character traits and bakes them into your character. The list of ingredients should include the character’s traits, and baking instructions should show how the plot events help shape the character. You must use at least 5 vivid, concrete verbs in baking instructions.

Revising: Stir. Add ingredients. Checks to make sure instructions are clear and in logical order. Stir some more and check appropriateness of verbs in baking instructions. Also, proofread recipe for spelling errors. Once you have it completely right, prepare your recipe for publication.

Publication:
Write out the complete recipe on a 4 x 6 note card. Decorate the card with symbols and images appropriate for this character.

Sample Recipe: Tragic Romeo Rolls

1 cup passion
½ cup anger
5 tablespoons love
1 teaspoon regret
2 pints confusion
3 pinches of family feuding
¼ cup revenge
4 drops blood red food coloring

Directions:
Gather all ingredients. Start with passion and love and mix family feuding deep into the middle of it. Beat until well blended. Heat the ½ cup of anger until it comes to a boil. Pour into the mixture. Next add the ¼ cup of revenge and stir until clumpy. Then stir confusion throughout the mixture. Pour into baking tins. Set oven at a searing 450 degrees. Bake overnight. After baking, top with seasoned regret, stain red with food coloring.

Result: One confused, and ultimately regretful, young lover.

Serves: Two wretched families who eventually learn to eat “Tragic Romeo Rolls” and “Passionate Juliet Cobbler” peacefully together.


Option 2: Facebook pages

For each character, create a Facebook page. As you create your page for each character, remember that you are trying to show your insights into this character’s development throughout the novel. Your page should portray an accurate overall representation of what this character would do, say, or think. What are the crucial conflicts and ethical dilemmas that this character faces?

Your pages need to show careful consideration of character motivation, relationships, and conflicts. Think about elements that will highlight personality well. Also think about appropriate symbolic images that you may wish to include.

Format these appropriately, either by creating the pages online and printing them or mimicking the format in your written work.


Option 3: Character Postcard secrets

Check out the website http://www.postsecrets.com/ (Warning: There are some very provocative confessions on this website.) This is a website that allows real people to offer confessions and secrets anonymously. Your mission is to create a postcard secret for three of the main characters in The Great Gatsby. Each postcard must include images and text.
Here are the rules, as detailed on the Post Secret website: “Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, betrayal, desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything—as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.”

Create a 4 x 6 postcard but stick to one secret per card. Choose secrets that fit the characters as developed in the novel and that are appropriate for a classroom setting. Put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard. Be brief, legible, and creative. On the back of each postcard, write a paragraph, from the perspective of the character, that explains how or why the confession of this secret is vital to your existence. Using passages from the novel would strengthen these paragraphs.

Option 4: Character Blogs

Create a blog that includes a dialogue among at least 3 of the main characters in The Great Gatsby. You should write from the first-person perspective of the characters. Your blog should include images and formatting that shows your understanding of deeper motivations and dilemmas.

Each character must offer at least two, 1-2 paragraph long entries to the blog. So, you will have at least six entries in your blog. You may pose different questions that relate to important issues throughout the book, or use the blog to allow a character to offer thoughts not revealed in Fitzgerald’s text. How might the characters react to current events of 2008?

Be creative; however, first and foremost, make sure that your entries are true to the characters’ motivations, actions, and language throughout the novel. Your blog entries may include direct passages from the text incorporated into the characters’ comments; make sure not to let these dominate the entries.


Written Reflection

Once you have created your items, you must also complete the following reflection on the creations:

Write a one to two page (typed, double-spaced) reflection that answers the following questions:
How does the creative creation for each character demonstrate an analytical perspective on the character? What thoughts or ideas are revealed through each creation? Connect these creations to specific aspects of the text, using examples and/or cited quotations as support. You may wish to consider themes revolving around the American dream, rebellion, or other significant ideas the novel raises.

Thinking Maps and Drama

This past semester English 10 teachers used Thinking Maps to help students with their reading comprehension in the two plays studied--Arthur Miller's All My Sons and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

One successful comprehension check involved students completing a multi-flow map at the end of each act of All of My Sons. Students analysed the causes and effects of the main conflict of each act and were able to build the next act's multi-flow onto the previous one. In other words, the effects of Act 1's conflict became the causes for the conflict in Act 2. This compound multi-flow is similar to the change over time continuous multi-flow that works for analyzing historical events.

The English 10 Shakespeare unit was shortened this year to fit into the 12 days between winter break and the end of the semester, so teachers did not have the time to repeat the continuous multi-flow process with Much Ado About Nothing. However, when I teach Othello this spring with my seniors in World Literature, I will have the students create the continuous multi-flow so that they see how the dramatic structure builds in Shakespeare. Traditionally, I have taught Shakespeare with the triangle dramatic structure of exposition (Act 1), rising action (Act 2), climax (Act 3), falling action (Act 4), and resolution (Act 5). With the continuous multi-flow, I will still be able to use those dramatic structure terms by labeling the appropriate section of the multi-flow map.

My hope is that students will see how Shakespeare builds his drama from one act to the next. The multi-flow map is also a great tool for discussing themes, so students should be able to see how Shakespeare's theme development is closely tied to the dramatic structure.

Logistically, I will have students build the continuous multi-flow in their notebooks and as a whole class on long sheets of construction paper. Since I teach three sections of World Literature, I will be able to roll up those sheets after each hour and un-roll the next hour's multi-flow.

The bubble map has also been used successfully with both English 10 dramas this year. Students were able to describe characters and find textual support for their adjectives. Sarah Jarrett recently used the bubble map as an assessment after Act 2 of Much Ado About Nothing, and here's her reflection on the assignment:

"The character bubble map assessment worked very well with my
sophomores. They were focused, were forced to work specifically with the
text, and came up with some great descriptors for the characters. I also
think it helped them feel more confident about their knowledge of the
characters."

Writing and Thinking

Jane Buckner in David Hyerle's Student Successes with Thinking Maps states that "writing is actually thinking written down." Buckner makes this claim because she believes that many educators feel "writing is just talk written down" (page 78).


That statement equating thinking and writing started me on my quest to explore writing connections in the books that I had received from NUA. Although I had used or seen many of the strategies modeled, I had not scanned the books with a "writing and thinking" lens. I got some great ideas that I could pass on to teachers who had specific questions about teaching writing. Below is a summary of my findings:


Student Successes in Thinking Maps


Buckner's chapter in Student Successes in Thinking Maps called “Empowering Students from Thinking to Writing” specifically addresses how to help students write a non-plagiarized, authentic research paper. Buckner advocates the use of the tree map or flee map for note taking. English 10 teachers had great luck with the flee map last year during the research paper unit to help students organize their research findings before writing their paper.

In addition to tree or flee maps for note taking, Buckner states that teachers can help students with disorganized papers through a process of “reverse mapping.” Basically, students cut apart their paper and try to fit their sentences into a flee map. Reverse mapping also allows students to see any holes that they have in their paper.



Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement


Denise Nessel’s book, Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement, has a wealth of writing strategies. Here is the briefest of summaries of writing-relevant chapters:


Cubing (p. 39): Chapter 5 describes this strategy which allows students to think about a topic from multiple perspectives (describe, compare/contrast, associate, analyze, apply, and argue for/against). This strategy increases students' fluency on a topic and helps them learn the cognitive clues that are often used in essay questions.

Freewriting (p. 67): Chapter 9 discusses a long-time favorite strategy for English teachers that involves students writing for a sustained period of time without stopping. This technique is a great tool for generating ideas and overcoming writer's block.

I-Search Reporting (p. 81): Chapter 12 includes a number of follow-up questions that teachers can ask students to make research paper topics relevant to their lives by having students formulate questions that are related to their concerns and pursuits.

Imitation Writing (p. 87): Chapter 13 outlines this strategy which involves taking a known work or famous quotation and substituting words while maintaining the text's structure.

Journal and Learning Logs (p. 101): Chapter 15 includes a number of journal writing prompts not only for English teachers but also for math, social studies, and science logs.

Key Word Notes (p. 109): Chapter 16 details this strategy that many Edina teachers use for lectures, readings, films and classroom discussions. Key Word Notes is a quick and efficient information gathering strategy if students need to write an essay after a reading selection as part of an exam. To learn about more applications of this strategy, click on "Key Word Notes" under "NUA Topics Discussed on This Blog."

Paraphrasing (p. 141): Chapter 21 discusses how teachers should start students with paraphrasing of texts that students can’t copy—e.g. videos, the teacher reading aloud. Then students can progress to reading, putting down the text, and taking notes.

Saturation Reporting (p. 171): Chapter 27 discusses this eye witness written report based on intense observations of a certain location and/or event. These reports become detailed, sensory descriptions.

Writing Frames (p. 187): Chapter 30 of Nessel's book summarizes the strategy of using frames (text structures with blanks to be filled in) that is detailed in Writing as Learning by Andrew and Evelyn Rothstein.

Sample Descriptive Writing Lesson: On p. 171, Nessel outlines a writing lesson that incorporates a number of strategies previously mentioned in her book.

Thinking Maps: Tools for Learning


David Hyerle's Thinking Maps binder has many ideas for prewriting and essay organization. The "Teaching" section of the binder shows how each map can be used for prewriting an essay, and an essay prompt is included. Also, pages 3-17 and 3-24 have writing starter patterns.

If students learn cognitive clues in essay questions, they will be able to select the appropriate Thinking Map for organizing their ideas. For example, Thinking Maps are associated with the following expository text structures:


1) sequence is flow map

2) double bubble is compare and contrast

3) multi-flow is cause and effect

4) circle map or bubble map for describing

5) problem/solution involves multiple maps (circle map to define, double bubble to compare to possible solutions)


Writing as Learning

Andrew Rothstein, Evelyn Rothstein and Gerald Lauber's book Writing as Learning includes a number of strategies to assist with writing across the curriculum. The book discusses how the A to Z Taxonomy can be used both to engage students and to help them organize their ideas for writing. Chapter 7 "Profiles and Frames: Organize Your Writing" and Chapter 9 "Reasons, Causes, Results--The Basis of the Essay" appear to be the most relevant chapters to assist teachers with high school essay writing.

Thinking Maps in Art of Film

Rachel Tholen's Art of Film students, mostly seniors, used Thinking Maps to review the Westerns that they had studied in class prior to the Western unit exam. Students selected three maps to complete and present to the class. Rachel said the final discussion day with the map presentations went very well.


Rachel gave her students the following possible maps and tasks:


Circle map: Define the elements of the Western genre, typical characters or one aspect of the film.


Bubble map: Describe the film, a character or the genre.


Double Bubble Map: Compare and contrast two films, two characters within a film, two main characters from different films, or two directors' styles.


Tree Map: List details about the literary, dramatic and cinematic elements of a film and in the frame comment on their effects on the viewer.

Brace Map: Break down the setting of a film into its subparts. In the frame, answer the question: How does the director use set direction to enhance theme?

Flow Map: Sequence the main events of the film and include important substages of that event.

Multi-Flow Map: Analyze the causes and effects of a main conflict in the movie. The frame should answer the question: How do cinematic elements enhance conflict?

Bridge Map: What analogies can you make between this movie's characters and events and pop culture of other films and books?

Multiple Maps for Deeper Meaning

As the culminating U.S. History project, Ruth Mary has her students go through a complete problem solving process using thinking maps. Students pick a problem that they think the world is facing, like AIDS or environmental issues, and they work through the maps to come to a solution.

The steps in the process are described on page 4-21 in the Thinking Maps: Tools for Learning blue binder.

The problem definition stage involves creating a circle map to define the problem and a bubble map to describe the attributes of the problem.

The collect and organize data stage involves the students classifying details that they found during the research process in a tree map.

The brainstorm solutions/options stage has students brainstorm possible solutions to problem with a circle map and then use a flow map to prioritize options.

The evaluate consequences stage has students create a multi-flow map for each possible solution to analyze the causes and effects.

In the choose a solution stage students complete a double bubble map that compares and contrasts the two best solution possibilities, and then their final solution is expressed in a bridge map to make an analogy for better understanding.