Reading Worksheets Can Make Literature Come Alive

Often in my classroom I have found that my students hated reading, especially when faced with dreaded dittoes. One way I got students past this automatic aversion to reading worksheets is to use ones that are meaningful. Another is to ask them to use critical thinking skills, and create reading worksheets that make the literature come alive. Both these techniques can help reading worksheets enrich a learning experience. 

One of the first things that I do is create assessments for the concepts I would like students to learn, and then map out the worksheets that can be used with each of these topics. By doing it this way students can see the alignment and know that the worksheets can assist them when it comes time to take the assessments. For example, during our characterization unit, students had to create a character sketch using examples of direct and indirect characterization, and the worksheet we used in class had a chart that students had to complete. The chart made students use critical analysis because they had to interpret how the text revealed the personality of the character. That is a huge difference between a worksheet that makes literature come alive and a ditto that focuses on simple recall.

Another way that a reading worksheet can make literature come alive is using an anticipation guide format. I create a series of statements about a reading and ask students if they thought the statements were true or false before they read a piece of literature. I then would have students read the text.  After the reading, I then had students go back and re-evaluate their answers and decide if they were correct. I also added another row to the statements that had the students find textual evidence to prove their answers. This made them interact with the text so that they were critically responding to the text and made the literature become a living, breathing entity because the students had to interact with it.

A third way to make literature come alive using worksheets is to use a format that gives students ownership: dialectical journals. This is a format whereby students create a T chart either on a formal worksheet or on a piece of loose-leaf. On the left they record a quote from the piece of literature that they are reading and on the right they record their reaction to or interpretation of the text.  They have ownership because they get to choose the quote and then record their own reaction. The last step that makes the worksheets exciting for students is when I have students collaborate by sharing their ideas with the class instead of simply collecting the dittoes and then moving on to another activity.

Reading Worksheets:

Lessons of the Indian Epics: The Ramayana

Students read the The Ramayan, the Indian epic poem depicting the actions of Rama and Sita and examine it for lessons it teaches about proper behavior. They also examine the epic hero cycle and examine it for how it fits that cycle and compares it to other epic hero stories.

“El Ramo Azul”

This unit plan allows students in a Level III, IV, or V Spanish class to read a short story by Octavio Paz in three sections.  The teacher has broken the story down and provides background knowledge, as well as pre-reading and post-reading strategies.  There is a summative assessment that asks students to synthesize their knowledge of vocabulary and the questions about the sections into a question about Mexican identity.

American Frontier

Students read a series of 19^th century American short stories and novel excerpts. They characterize the lives of the real frontier people, and draw conclusions about the positive and negative aspects of their lives. They find examples from the literature to support their beliefs and use these examples in an essay to categorize the author’s vision as realistic or romantic.