Jago Ch 7- Literature, Knowledge, and the High School Graduate

* This chapter was inspiring with how to teach towards high schoolers who are ready to graduate.  I like how Jago believes that in order for students to meet benchmarks and be successful, they need to practice literary analysis throughout school, not just high school. I never really had to write letters to characters, but I see this often in classrooms.  I never understood how this got students to really learn and comprehend what they were reading.  I believe that through analysis students are able to learn more, make better connections, and grow through the text.  Making an  analysis doesn't have to be just for the English classroom. Many people have to analyze a situation and through analyzing a text, students may/can be more successful with analyzing literature. 

* I like how Jago teaches Julius Caesar. Comparing the two speeches gets students to analyze the text and learn more about the specific characters. Students can have different opinions as to what each speech means about a character, but students then can learn from each others' ideas. A quote I really liked in this section is on page 154.  Jago says, "Yet the recognition of rhetorical devices has value and, with scaffolding from teacher and peers, most students can produce an essay that demonstrates an emerging understanding of the speeches' structures" (Jago 154). By analyzing the text of the speeches students were then able to use the different literary elements to write an essay to reflect what they learned.  I think this is a great strategy to get students to write and reflect what they know.  

* I am an essay test kind of girl.  I like how Jago says that multiple choice questions about character identification and true and false doesn't truly measure comprehension of the text. I agree because I may know a character and what a character did, but if I can't relate to the text, analyze the significance of a character, make connections, use literary terms to define certain characteristics of a character, etc, then I may not fully comprehend the story.  I like the questions she provided for the Julius Caesar test allowing students to answer five of the nine questions.  This way students can write what they learned and through the essay comprehension of the text will show. I like how students can volunteer to answer the questions once the test has been passed back.  Students can learn from each other and add more to what they wrote, or understand why they missed certain points.