My sophomore year,
on the first day of a modern American literature class, the professor, clad in
a black turtleneck and tweed blazer, proudly announced to us that there were
only two plots in all of writing: “A man
returns from a long journey, and a man embarks upon a long journey.” Strangely
enough, I was still required to attend class after this moment of spontaneous
enlightenment.
While it isn’t
really that simple in real life, the concept of Plot, isn’t exactly rocket science. Defined simply, Plot is the series of events in a story
that define the Conflict, Climax and Conclusion of a story. Because a
well-executed plot is seamless in nature, we will often enjoy a good story but
never stop to consider the basic elements that comprise it. Nor do we need to
be aware of all this. After years of middle school English, freshman readings
of Shakespeare and hours in the dorm room pouring over the Cliff Notes to Moby Dick, a good deal of the mechanics
of literature has become ingrained into our subconscious or just plain
repressed.
We are at a
pivotal era in education today where, after many years of accelerating basic
skills, a national paradox has emerged where students are reading at an earlier
age but consistently falling short, even on the post-graduate level, in reading
comprehension and effective written communication. To make a long story short,
–and more on this in the future- it’s my opinion that we are sacrificing full
comprehension of grade-level books for the opportunity to have our children
wade through titles of a more advanced level. While it is always a good idea to
challenge students with more advanced reading, we must also make sure that our
children are fully capable of dissecting and internalizing every aspect of a
book that they can easily decode. Yes, we can teach reading at an earlier level
than we were taught; but are we going about it in the right manner?
In the midst of
all this, we nationally fail to capitalize on the opportunity to challenge a
very natural and instinctive skill in even our toddlers: their ability
comprehend the abstract depths of stories where the plot is easily understood.
Yet while children
are capable of understanding the plots and conflicts in stories, we must
enforce this skill to the point where identification becomes second nature. At
an early age, asking questions like “What
decision does Arthur have to make?” or “Looks
like Mike Mulligan’s got a problem. What should he do?” train children to
think in terms of conflict and resolution. Telling kids before sitting down to
read that you’re going to be looking for the problem in the story helps teach
them to approach stories on a critical level and allows them to be more
involved in the story itself. All this can be done at a preschool level before
decoding even begins.
At Walden,
teaching the terminology behind the skills is also very important. Because
critical thought and reading comprehension are parts of a self-directed
process, the earlier students are made aware of specific terms, the earlier
that process can begin to take root. Teaching early reading as only recognizing
words on a page is only half the job. If we want our children truly
comprehending and expressing their ideas in writing, we have to start now by
teaching them what to look for when they recognize those words. Across the
nation, this may mean students read more books where the words are easily
decoded, but our expectations of what they understand about those words are
beyond what we are accustomed to expect from them.