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Critical Thinking and Critical Literacy

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 Critical Thinking and Critical Literacy
Charles Temple, Ph.D.
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Geneva, New York 14456 USA
Temple@hws.edu
and
The Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Project
www.rwctic.org
and
CODE Canada
www.codecan.org

(From, Temple, C., D. Ogle, A. Crawford, and P. Freppon (2010). All children read, 3rd edition.
New York: Pearson. This is copyrighted material and cannot be republished without the
permission of Pearson Education).

Vignette
Midge Burns’ combined class of second and third graders have just finished listening to her read
Marianna Meyers’ version of Beauty and the Beast.
“I’m wondering about something,” says Mrs. Burns. Second grader Connie smiles. It is April of
the year, and Connie knows Mrs. Burns always begins an interesting discussion with those words.
“Suppose Beauty had been ugly. Do you think the Beast should have married her?”
“That would be sort of no fair if he wouldn’t,” says Abigail, looking unsure.
“What do you mean?” asks Mrs. Burns.
“I mean, the Beast shouldn’t expect Beauty to love him if he’s not willing to love her… I
mean…”
“They’re both ugly, so they should get along,” says Daniel.
“I think there’s a slightly moral to the story,” says Michael.
“And what’s that?” asks Mrs. Burns.
“I think it’s saying ‘Don’t judge the book by the outside…’”
“Don’t judge the book by its cover,” Phillip clarifies.
“That’s right,” says Connie. “They called her Beauty, but that just meant she was kind and gentle
and she looked out for other people. ‘Cause you don’t marry people just ‘cause they look good.”
“Then let me ask you something else,” continues Midge Burns. “Suppose Beauty had been a boy
in this story, and the Beast had been a girl.” (A whoop goes up from the children).
“That would be a problem,” says Laurinda.
“Why is that?” asks Mrs. Burns.
“I saw it on TV that the girls asked boys to the prom. I don’t think that’s right. Besides, suppose
the woman in the story was older than the man?” Laurinda clearly looks troubled.
“Why do we care?” demands Michael. “We don’t know how old Beauty or the Beast is. The
story doesn’t say. But you should be free to marry whoever you want.”
“My Mom says it’s not OK for a girl to ask a boy to marry her. That’s what my Mom says. I’m
not sure if that’s true,” says Harriet.
“It doesn’t matter,” repeats Michael. “But I’ll tell you what bothers me. In these stories, the guy
marries this woman he doesn’t even know.”
“That’s true. And I wish the woman would say, ‘How can I marry you? I don’t even know you. I
don’t even know what your attitude is,’” says Connie.
“I know,” says Harriet. “In these stories, the people are marrying complete strangers. They don’t
even know if they change their underwear...”

What Do Critical Thinkers Do?

In this example Midge Burns is inviting her students to practice critical thinking.
We know that she’s encouraging critical thinking because of several things she does:
• Her questions take a critical attitude. Not only do they stem from the assumption that students
are capable of coming up with their own responses but they also imply that the meanings
suggested by the text can be scrutinized and challenged, and possibly rejected in favor of better
ideas.
• Her way of conducting the discussion shares the responsibility for making meaning. She
spreads responsibility for making meaning by expecting the students to provide ideas. And while
she sometimes says things to help students express themselves more clearly, she doesn’t put
herself in the position of the evaluator of their ideas, or as the authority on the meaning.
• She treats the meaning-making as a social activity. She encourages students to interact with
each other, sometimes to build on each other’s ideas and other times to critique them, but at all
times to work toward more sophisticated thinking.
• She has thought hard about the text herself. She has examined the text for the issues it raises
that might be important to the students and the attitudes and assumptions it conveys. Even
though she doesn’t plan to share her own insights, she has constructed a general idea of ways the
discussion might go.

The students are thinking critically, too. We can see that because they:
• Offer up with insights and not just recycled facts. They are aiming to think through what the
text might mean, and what they can do with the meaning.
• They behave as if they feel free to question and to doubt. They don’t passively accept the
suggestions made by the text.
• They follow the ramifications of ideas. They “try ideas on for size” in real life, and they make
connections to other things they have read and heard.
• They offer support for their assertions. They can find evidence in the text or in reality to
support their claims.
• They listen carefully to each other and build on each others’ ideas. They don’t just passively
agree, though; they are willing to question each other’s assertions, and venture alternatives.

Defining Critical Thinking. Philosophers usually define critical thinking as a process of reasoning
and reflecting that is done in order to decide what to believe or what course of action to take. Critical
thinking is usually done in response to something--a problem in real experience, something we read, or
an argument we hear (Fisher, 2001). But a philosopher’s definition can miss a lot of what children and
teachers do when they think critically in classrooms. Young critical thinkers like those in Midge Burns’
class do several things well. They--
• read or watch or listen as if the meaning of the text were the starting point in their pursuit of
greater awareness and not the end point. They ask not only “What does the text mean?” but
 “What can I do with the meaning?”
• make meaning, by constructing interpretations of what they hear and read, and supporting those
interpretations with evidence from the text.
• use reading and discussions of reading as opportunities to know what their classmates think,
even joining their ideas with those of others to create more sophisticated insights.
• look below the surface of texts, and use their knowledge of literary structures and genres as they
construct meaning and venture interpretations.
• hold texts up to scrutiny, sometimes questioning their messages and the purposes of those behind
the messages;
.
Defining Critical Literacy. Critical literacy happens when readers examine the social, political
and cultural purposes and values that the texts reflect. Critical readers may ask who is behind the
text, and why the argument is being made. They may ask whose voices are missing from the text.
They may “talk back” to the text, and construct different readings of it. Then they are becoming
“text critics” (Freebody & Luke 1990). Critical readers learn that texts are powerful as tools to
influence readers. That is why teachers like Midge Burns help students examine the unstated value
messages behind texts.
The importance of developing students’ stance as “text critics” has become all the more urgent
with the growth of the internet as a source of communication and information. The electronic texts
that come to us through the Internet are quite different in one important respect from materials that is
usually encountered in print. Book, magazines, and newspapers are more often than not are
accountable for what they publish, and are screened for accuracy before they are released to the
public. Texts on the Internet are mostly unedited and, while they may look “authoritative,” they are
often filled with strongly biased and misleading information. As Leu and his associates explain,
Whereas critical evaluation is important when reading offline information, it is
perhaps more important online, where anyone can publish anything; knowing the
stance and bias of an author become paramount to comprehension and learning.
Determining this in online contexts requires new comprehension skills and
strategies. For example, knowing which links take you to information about who
created the information at a site (and actually choosing to follow these links)
becomes important. So too, is knowing how to check the reliability of information
with other information at other sites. Students do not always possess these skills.
In one study (Leu, et. al, 2007), 47 out of 53 higher performing online readers in
7th grade believed a site designed to be a hoax was reliable (Save the Endangered
Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/), despite that
most students indicated in an interview that they did not believe everything they
read online. Moreover, when told the site was a hoax, a number of students
insisted it provided accurate and reliable information. (Leu, et al, 2009, p.4)

Thinking Critically About Texts.

Even preschool children encounter messages that try to persuade them of things. Saturday
morning television shows abound with advertisements to make children want to buy things.
Children shower arguments on each other, sometimes primitive, sometimes not. Although some
adults might wish to hold off on discussing persuasive messages with children—especially
dishonest messages—more and more teachers are deciding that children should learn to
understand and—if necessary—to protect themselves from such messages in the elementary
grades. In the rest of this chapter, we will first take a broad view of how texts work—beginning
with narratives, then going on to informational and persuasive texts, and finally considering what
happens when students read several texts on the same topic, sometimes even texts from different
genres. Then we will present teaching strategies for guiding students’ reading and thinking
about different kinds of texts for different purposes. Some of the strategies may encourage
critical thinking; others may encourage critical literacy. In this chapter, as in real classrooms, we
will often mix the two.

Looking Closely at the Structure of Literature.

Even the most familiar story such as “Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Jack and the
Beanstalk” may be influencing young readers’ and listeners’ attitudes and beliefs in subtle way.
Here we will pay attention to two kinds of influence fictional texts make on readers. The first
point to make is that fictional texts often relate symbolically to people and actions in the real
world. A single text, or more likely, a collection of texts, may have the effect of conveying
certain attitudes toward groups of people, certain actions, or certain values. The second point is
that the structure of a particular text may lead the reader toward a certain attitude toward
characters and events, and these same attitudes may carry over into readers’ beliefs about the real
world.

The Web of Narrative and “The Way It Is”.

Anthropologists sometimes look at the many stories or other texts that are circulated in a
society and note that they constitute a common story, a sort of web of narrative. This may be
called the mythos: whether it is a story or a series of stories, or even a series of advertisements or
a string of video games, the collection of texts become familiar and understandable because they
say the same things again and again. The mythos may consciously or unconsciously relate to a
kind of logic of “the way things are.” Anthropologists sometimes call this unspoken
understanding of the social order the logos, a tacit understanding of “how things are” and “how
things work.” For example, traditional fairy tales spin a narrative web that portrays males as
active heroes who go on quests, and females as passive creatures who wait to be rescued, and
become prizes to be won by the bold masculine heroes. Male heroes often strive aggressively or
violently against those that are cast as foes. Females use extreme kindness and self-denial to
achieve—not their goals, because in traditional stories females are often punished if they have
goals—but to have things turn out well.
Although they are “just stories,” through much repetition the web of narrative normalizes
a certain understanding of “the way things are” In traditional stories told in European and
American culture, “the way things are” is that only aggressive males and self-denying females
have things turn out well. The winners, usually males, are solitary figures who triumph over
others, and have no sympathy for those who stand in their way.
Of course the mythos—that is, traditional Western stories taken as a whole--teaches a
logos that may be far out of touch with society as it is today. For instance, can you imagine
having a class of boys and girls--or teaching in a school faculty of men and women-- who
behaved that way? This is a big reason children need to think critically about stories.

Dramatic roles.
Looking more closely at the structure of individual narratives shows how a story shapes
readers’ reactions to it. From experience hearing and reading stories and watching media, readers
construct what has been called a story grammar (Stein and Glenn, 1979; Mandler and Johnson,
1977): a set of rules that help them make sense of who is doing what and what the actions mean.
One version of a story grammar assigns roles to characters (Souriau, 1955; Temple,
Martinez, and Yokota, 2003). A character in a story may be the hero or the protagonist, the
person whose needs give rise to the actions in the story and with whom readers most strongly
sympathize. Another character may serve as a rival, a person against whom the hero competes to
get what he wants. Yet another character may be the helper, who supports the hero. Readers
sense who is playing what role, and their loyalties are directed accordingly: they cheer the hero
(and may forgive his aggression), they spurn the rival (and may give him little sympathy), and
they appreciate the efforts of the helper (but don’t give her much consideration beyond what she
does for the hero).
Authors don’t often tell readers who is playing what role—readers intuit those judgments
themselves. But once readers do assign characters to roles, their affections may be strongly
shaped: once we decide that Jack is the hero of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” we cheer him through
his adventures, and may forgive his thievery, and even murder. Once we cast the giant as the
rival, we don’t much sympathize with him, even as he is robbed and killed. And once we think of
the giant’s wife as a hero, we don’t give her another thought once she has helped Jack for the last
time.

Characters as Stand-ins for Other People. Characters in stories have special meanings for us
in our own lives. For example, we can say the story of “Cinderella” is about what happens when
a deserving but overshadowed young person like competes for recognition against over
privileged people like Cinderella’s haughty stepsisters. Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie
is about what happens when a troubled child (Opal) who is searching for community reaches out
to the people around her, who are also suffering and lonely, but powerless in their isolation.
Cinderella and Opal are like many other people we know. We speak of “Cinderella”
sports teams, who have these same attributes of being deserving but overlooked until one day
they burst into glory. And many a youngest child, feeling that other siblings get all the breaks,
has identified with Cinderella. Opal in Because of Winn Dixie reminds us of Maniac Magee (in
Louis Sachar’s book by that name) because Maniac, too, is a kid who lacks a normal support
group and who ultimately creates community. In real life they both remind us a little bit of other
peacemakers, like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King. But they also remind us of some
children in dysfunctional families, who must do more than their fair share to make things right
for the others in their surroundings.
The dynamics of identifying characters with other characters works like this. We look at
characters in stories horizontally and vertically. We look horizontally at the relationships
between characters, and once we see who occupies the slots in those relationships, we look
vertically at categories of people like that. The horizontal dimension is akin to the grammar of a
sentence, and the vertical dimension is akin to the parts of speech.
This brings us back to the question of how stories have meaning for us. We can ask, of
“Cinderella,” when do we feel overlooked and underappreciated? What do we do at those times
to find relief? Especially if we don’t have fairy godmothers? And doubly especially if we don’t
want to wait for a prince to come calling? We recognize the problem presented in these stories
and see if we find part of ourselves in those problems. Then we critique the solutions offered by
the stories. If we don’t buy the story’s solution, then we can decide upon a better one.
General Strategies to Encourage Discussion and Debate
In this section are several teaching strategies that encourage discussions to lead students
into critical thinking and

The Discussion Web. The discussion web is a cooperative learning activity that involves all
students in deep discussions of readings. The discussion web proceeds with the following steps:
1. The teacher prepares a thoughtful binary question -- a question that can be
answered “yes” or “no” with support. For example, in discussing “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a
binary discussion question might be “Was Jack right to steal from the giant?” For Louis Sachar’s
book Holes, the question might be “Did Stanley succeed in the end because of his personal
qualities, such as being strong and good, or was it because the luck of his family finally
changed?”
2. The teacher asks pairs of students to prepare a discussion web chart that looks like
the one shown below. Those pairs of students take four or five minutes to think up and list three
reasons each that support both sides of the argument.

Would it have been better if Ivan had never taken the seal skin in the first place?
Yes! He shouldn’t have taken it! No! On balance, things worked out better than
they would have if he hadn’t taken it.
1.____________________________ 1.____________________________
2. ___________________________ 2. ___________________________
3. ___________________________ 3. ___________________________
Our Conclusion:

3. Next each pair of students joins another pair. They review the answers they had
on both sides of the issue and add to each other’s list. Then they argue the issue through until
they reach a conclusion, that is, a position they agree on, with a list of reasons that support it.
4. At the conclusion of the lesson, the teacher calls on several groups of four to give
brief reports of their position and the reasons that support it. The teacher can invite groups to
debate each other if they took different sides of the argument.

Debates. With students in third grade and up, it is often useful to follow the discussion web
activity with a debate. The purpose of the debate is not to declare winners and losers, but to help
the students practice making claims and defending them with reasons, even when others defend
different claims. Working with claims, reasons, and arguments and debating ideas without
attacking people -- these are key elements in critical thinking.
To have a debate, you need a binary question -- that is, a question that has a yes/no answer (since
the discussion web we saw above also uses binary questions, you can follow the discussion web
with a debate). Here are the steps:
 1. Think of a question you think will truly divide the students’ opinions, and put the
question on the chalkboard for all to see. If you are not sure the question will divide the students
roughly equally, ask for a show of hands on each side of the issue before going forward.
2. Give students an opportunity to think about the question and discuss it freely.
3. Ask students to divide up: Those who believe one answer to the question is right
should go stand along the wall on one side of the room; and those who think the other is right
should stand along the wall on the other side. Those who are truly undecided (that is, after
thinking about it, they believe that both sides are partially right or neither side is right) should
stand along the middle wall.
4. Explain or review the two ground rules:
a. Don’t be rude to each other. (You might have to explain and demonstrate what
this means.)
b. If you hear an argument that makes you want to change your mind, walk to the
other side (or to the middle). Here is a hint to the teacher: As the debate proceeds, you can model
the behavior of changing sides with a pantomime, by looking thoughtful for a moment after
someone offers a good argument and moving to that student’s side.
5. Give the students on each side three or four minutes to put their heads together
and decide why they are on that side. Ask them to come up with a sentence that states their
position. Then ask them to appoint someone to say that sentence.
6. Begin the debate by asking one person from each side (including the undecided
group) to state that group’s position.
7. Invite anyone on any team to say things (counterarguments or rebuttals) in
response to what the other team has said or give more reasons in support of their own side.
8. Monitor the activity to make sure the tone stays away from negative attacks. Ask
for clarification. Offer an idea or two as necessary from the devil’s advocate position. Change
sides. Encourage the students to change sides if they are persuaded to.
9. When the debate has proceeded for ten or fifteen minutes, ask each side to
summarize what they have said.
10. You may follow the debate with a writing activity: Ask each student to write
down what he or she believes about the issue and why.

Value Line. A cooperative learning activity that is an extension of the debate procedure is the
value line (Kagan, 1991). The value line is well suited for questions that have more than two
good answers and students might have a range of answers along a continuum. Here are the steps:
1. Pose a question to the students on which answers may vary along a continuum.
For example, after reading Beverly Cleary’s Ramona and Her Father, you might ask the
children, “Do you think Ramona’s parents really understand her?”
2. Give the students three minutes to consider the question alone and write down
their answers.
3. Now stand on one side of the room and announce that you represent one pole, or
extreme position, on the argument. You might say, “Yes, I think Ramona’s parents understand
her perfectly, 100 percent of the time.” Invite a student to stand at the other end of the room to
represent the other pole of the argument. The student might say, “No, I don’t think Ramona’s
parents understand her. Not at all. Never.”
4. Now invite the students to line up between the two of you in places along the
imaginary value line between the two poles of the argument. Each stands at a point in the line
that reflects his or her position on the question. Remind the students to compare their views with
those of the students immediately around them to make sure they are all standing in the right
spots. After hearing others’ answers, some students might elect to move one way or another
along the value line.
5. Students may continue to discuss their responses with the students on either side
of them.
6. Identify three or four clusters of students who seem to represent different views
on the question. Invite them to prepare a statement of their position and to share it with the whole
group.
7. As an option, the formed line may be folded in the middle so that students with
more divergent views may debate their responses.
8. You might want to follow this exercise with a writing opportunity in which
students write down what they think about the issue and why. In this way, the value line serves
as a rehearsal for writing an argumentative or persuasive essay.

Creative Dialogue
Based on the work of Paolo Freire, Alma Flor Ada and Isabel Campoy (1998) developed
the Creative Dialogue as a way of having students investigate issues in a story, and relate them to
their own lives. “Creative” is used in the sense of “constructive,” emphasizing the student’s
activity of constructing meaning from a story. Creative Dialogue can be used with first grade
children up through middle school and beyond.
Many works of fiction have implications for ways students should understand and live
their own lives. Teachers need means of exploring the implications of the stories, and how
students’ might use the meanings.
Creative Dialogue can be done with a whole class, but a group size of no more than 12-15
can allow for better participation by each student. Creative Dialogue needs a told or written story
to discuss. The story should have relevance for the children’s lives, and directly or indirectly
raise issues that will be important to them. The activity usually takes 20 to 30 minutes or longer.
To carry out the Creative Dialogue activity, find a text that raises an important issue from
the children’s lives. The story may be contemporary or classical—it may be a folktale. The
important thing is that it should raise an issue or a theme that can lead to a lively discussion.
The teacher prepares questions ahead of time for discussion. Questions for the Creative
Dialogue are asked on four levels. The authors of this method insist that each level of question be
used one after another, since there is a natural progression to them. The four levels of questions
are presented in the table below [See Figure 9.8]. As the teacher leads the discussion, the format
may follow other formats described in this chapter, such as Shared Inquiry or Socratic Seminar.
Remember that the teacher’s role in the Creative Dialogue is to encourage participation. This is a
time for personal storytelling, reflection, and decision-making on the student’s part. The
teacher’s role is to be a friendly and respectful host and facilitator.

As a follow up to the Creative Dialogue discussion, students may write in their journals
about their own goals and resolutions. The class may have further discussions and instruction to
help the students act on the ideas that arise during the Creative Dialogue (See below):
 Creative Dialogue on Four Levels

Level Purpose Typical questions include--

Descriptive Questions at the What do you like or not like about the story?
Level descriptive level are How would you describe _____? (one of the main
meant to get the characters in the story)
important points of Why do you think that ______ (main character) made that
the story on the table decision?
so they can be What do you think is the major difficulty that _____ (main
discussed by the character) faces? Why is that so hard for him or her?
group. Why do you think that ______ (main character) changed
during the course of the story?
What do you think that this story is about, and why?
What do you see as the moral or teaching of this story?
Personal At this next level the Do you know of (have you seen, felt, or experienced)
Interpretive students should relate something like this in your own life?
Level the story to their own Have you ever seen (done, felt, thought, wanted)
experiences, and something similar?
ways of seeing the How is what you saw (did, felt, thought, wanted) different
world. We want to from what happened in the story?
make the connections What would you have done (said, thought) if you were in
as personal as that person’s place?
possible, because we How might someone in your family responded?
want the children to
see the relevance of
reading to their own
lives, and also see the
classroom as a place
that is friendly to
them as persons.
Critical Level At this level the Why do you think this decision is or is not fair?
students go back to Why do you think this was or was not a good decision?
the story, and look Why would this be a fair decision in all circumstances?
more deeply into it. In what circumstances might it not be a fair decision?
They entertain Who benefits by this decision, and how do they benefit?
alternative actions, What do you think will be the results of this decision?
and make decisions What alternatives do you see to this decision?
about those actions What might have been the consequences if the character
that derive from their had chosen an alternative course of action?
own values.
Creative, Here, say Ada and What kinds of problems in your own life do you want to
Transform- Campoy, “…our goal solve, like ______ (main character) in the story?
ative Level is to develop What can you do to make your dreams and wishes come
children’s critical true, like ______ (main character) did in the story?
awareness so that In what ways do you want to cooperate with others, just
they are able to make like _______ (main characters) worked together to reach
decisions that will their goals?
 enrich their own lives What kind of help from others do you want to ask for in
and improve the your own life, like ________ ( main character) asked for
world around them.” help?
“[T]he purpose of the What do you want to do in your own life when you have
dialogue is to help feelings like ________ (main character) did?
children think about In what ways can you help others, the way that _______
the aspects of their ( main character) helped others in the story?
lives that they can
improve, and to
encourage them to
make decisions with
that purpose in
mind.”

Strategies That Unpack the Structures of Narratives

Following Dramatic Roles. As French drama critic Etienne Souriau (1955) pointed out many
years ago, a large part of the way we understand characters in stories is by the symbolic roles
they play in the plot. That is because, whether we are watching sports or reading fiction, it is
normal for us to cheer the hero, boo the rival, and have a warm place in our hearts for the trusty
helper. Authors of stories wittingly or unwittingly use these propensities to shape the reader’s
reactions to characters: assigning one the role of protagonist or main character, another the role
of helper, and another the role of rival or enemy.
Making children aware of the roles characters play in stories can help them interpret the
stories and, eventually, to better understand how stories work. Following are common roles that
occur in stories:

The hero is the person whose desires and needs drive the story forward. In “Jack and the
Beanstalk,” to use that story as an example, the hero is Jack.

The goal is the hero’s main need or desire. In “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Jack’s goal
seems to be to get money or to get some independence and not be thought of as a dolt.

The rival is the person who stands between the hero and her or his goal. The rival in
“Jack and the Beanstalk” is certainly the giant.

The helper is a person or persons in a story who helps the hero achieve his or her goal. In
“Jack and the Beanstalk,” there are a couple of candidates for the helper: the mysterious old man
who sells him the beans and the giant’s own wife.
 The teacher can use dramatic roles in several ways to think about stories. One way is to
have students nominate candidates for each of the roles and discuss their choices in small groups
or as a class. These discussions can become lively, because not all role assignments are obvious.
Is the helper in “Jack and the Beanstalk” the mysterious old man or the giant’s wife? If it is the
giant’s wife (and the giant is the rival), why should she help the person who is striving against
her husband? Is Jack’s goal to obey his mother, to get money, to satisfy his curiosity, or to prove
himself? Or is it all of these things? Discussing these issues takes students deep into the story.
Another way of using dramatic roles is to help students take different perspectives on a
story. The teacher does this by asking students to take a character who seems to be playing one
role and ask how the story would seem if we imagined that character playing a different role. For
example, in “Jack and the Beanstalk,” suppose the giant’s wife were the hero; that is, suppose we
saw things from her perspective. What is her goal? Who is her rival? Exploring these questions
can lead to some very interesting discussions of stories and exercises the comprehension
strategies of inferring and interpreting.

Exploring the Hero Cycle

Many myths, religious legends and folktales from the Western tradition follow the Hero
Cycle or Monomyth structure we described on pages 000-000. Many contemporary heroic tales
also closely follow the pattern: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Is Rising, Harry
Potter, The Prydain Trilogy, The Golden Compass (maybe), and many others. The original Star
Wars film was expressly written to fit the pattern of the Hero Cycle. The Canadian critic,
Northrop Frye, argued that all (Western) literature shares a common genealogy, and that
contemporary stories reflect themes and structures from older ones. To the extent that is true, it
can be an interesting exercise to compare stories children are reading to the Hero Cycle.
 We suggest that you introduce the Hero Cycle by having the students read and discuss
several relatively short stories that follow the pattern fairly closely. One might be “Jack and the
Beanstalk.” Others might be novels such as Because of Winn Dixie, Maniac Magee, and Holes.

The Hero cycle.

Stories abound of people who start out under-appreciated, and then are challenged to do
something that requires strength and courage and that benefits other people, and reach some
triumphant state by the end of the story. Holes, Hoot!, Because of Winn Dixie, Harry Potter, and
The Lord of the Rings follow this pattern. Joseph Campbell wrote a famous description of this
kind of plot in his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (2008). The plots of many hero
stories are so similar, wrote Campbell, that they are telling the same story: the monomyth, or
hero cycle.
Campbell’s monomyth begins with an unlikely hero (not yet recognized as such) who
resides at home, neglected, under-appreciated by those around.
The hero hears a call to adventure. Sometimes it literally is a call, as when the hero is
sent on a quest to find something that will eliminate a threat and restore order at home (Think of
The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Sometimes the quest is more figurative—the hero
must survive an ordeal and develop his own strength (as in Hatchet) or restore his family’s
reputation (as in Holes), or bring harmony to a community (as in Because of Winn Dixie).
The hero must cross a threshold into a special place where the full range of her or his
powers may be at play, a place that Campbell calls the land of adventure. The threshold may be
impossible to cross—in myths and folktales, it will take magical aid for the passage to be
possible. The hero may face and pass tests in order to gain (sometimes magical) assistance from
a helper in order to cross this threshold. In “Jack and the Beanstalk” something of a joke is made
of these tests, but they are enough to win magical aid for Jack in the form of beans from the
helper, the strange little man that Jack meets on his way to market. Crossing the threshold into
the land of adventure is serious business, though. In “Jack,” had it not been for those magical
beans, no other-worldly beanstalk would have bridged the distance between earth and the sky,
just as few people idly make their way into Narnia, or NeverNeverland, or Oz, or Hogwarts.
Once the hero has made it over into the land of adventure, he or she goes through a death-
like experience. Campbell likens this to descending into the belly of the whale, recalling the
story of Jonah from the Old Testament. Here a person’s childlike self dies away so the adult can
be born. When the young protagonist of the hero story emerges from the belly of the whale, he or
she has adult-like powers. In “Jack and the Beanstalk” perhaps the Belly of the Whale is the
copper cooking pot where he hides from the giant. The Belly of the Whale in “Hansel and
Gretel” may be the witch’s house.
The hero must prove himself or herself against a stern father figure. Is the young person
capable of being taken seriously as a hero? Only the ultimate test against the supreme authority
figure will make decide the question. Campbell called this competition with the authority figure
father atonement.
At the height of the journey, the hero seeks a prize, a magic potion, a key that will have
some benefit to those who are waiting back on earth. The hero must win it or steal it, in a move
that Campbell calls the elixir theft. In older stories and those derived from them the elixir,
which means “medicine,” is often an actual item—the Holy Grail, the Golden Fleece, the magic
hen and magic harp, the Firebird; or the sorcerer’s stone, or the Rings. In modern stories it may
be something more abstract, like harmony and engagement among the people of Naomi, Florida,
in Because of Winn Dixie.
Following the theft of the elixir the hero often has to make a dramatic escape or flight
from the father figure, back across the threshold from the land of adventure into the real world,
where the hero once again finds himself or herself at home. But, of course, when the hero is at
home at the end of the story, unlike the beginning—when the hero was all unrecognized
potential, the hero is now a fully developed human being, with all of her or his talents expressed
to their fullest.

[Insert Figure 9.1, diagram of the Hero Cycle, about here]

What value does knowledge of the monomyth have to those of us who want to discuss literature
with children? The monomyth provides a ready means of comparing stories, to make text-to-text
comparisons. It provides a way to compare current TV and video heroes like the popular power
rangers and Japanese magna heroes to those from literature. It also helps us question the basic
assumptions of how the stories unfold: Why is the character a male in most classical tales?
What about Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters? Do individuals have to take these journeys alone?
============================================
 Figure 9.1

After reading and discussing each story, construct a “Language Chart” (Roser and
Hoffman) graphic organizer like the one shown below.
Figure 9.9
“Jack and the Maniac Magee Holes Because of
Beanstalk” Winn Dixie
Character in
the beginning
Challenge
Great struggle
Achievement
Character at
the End
 Use it to record summaries of the discussions of each story. Discuss the patterns that the
stories have in common, too. These questions can help organize a discussion of the pattern:
1. How were all of these heroes at the beginning of their stories? What did those heroes
think of themselves then? How did others think of them?
2. How were those heroes at the end of their stories? In what ways did they change?
3. What qualities did the heroes show in order to meet their challenges successfully? Why
were they the one who had those qualities?
4. What did the heroes win? Why were these things important?
5. Why do you suppose older people told younger people stories like these, generation after
generation after generation?
6. How might these patterns play out in your own lives? How will you be a hero? What
talents and qualities will you develop that are uniquely yours to help you succeed? What
challenges might you face to prove your worth? What might you achieve that will be
worthwhile to others?

Once the students have a clear sense of the Hero Cycle pattern, you can discuss other works
that fit is more indirectly, or don’t fit it at all. For an example of the latter, it is striking to
examine African American tales like “Wiley and the Hairy Man,” “The TailyPo,” and “Barney
McCabe,” as well as Afro-Caribbean tales like the “Anansi” stories, that differ from the pattern
in that the characters are no better off in the end than they were in the beginning.
Contemporary realistic stories tend not to pit their characters against such daunting
challenges as do the folk tales, nor do they win such exaggerated rewards. Nonetheless, the
characters face important social and psychological challenges, and achieve rewards that matter in
their lives. Psychological critics such as Bruno Bettelheim (1975) and Maria Von Franz (1996)
argue that these amount to the same thing, since the challenges and rewards of the folk and fairy
tales were symbolic of the social and psychological challenges that are named as such in
contemporary literature.

Behavior and Rewards. People who worry about violence in the media point to the number of
violent acts that not only go unpunished, and how many times those acts win for the perpetrators
what they wanted. Critics correctly worry that this is a formula for influencing viewers:
“The characters commit X deed, and get what they want.
Therefore, young viewer, you should commit X deed to get what you want.”

But there is a more subtle formula at work in literature that children read, especially the
traditional literature, where different kinds of characters get different results for different kinds
of actions.
In stories like “Cinderella” or “Beauty and the Beast,” for example, it is clear that men
get different rewards from women for the same actions. Consider the chart below:

Male Actively sought what Got what they

they wanted? wanted?
Beauty No No Yes
Beauty’s sisters No Yes No
Beast Yes Yes Yes
Cinderella No No Yes
 Cinderella’s sisters No Yes No
Cinderella’s prince Yes Yes Yes
Sleeping Beauty No No Yes
Sleeping Beauty’s Prince Yes Yes Yes
Snow White No No Yes
Snow White’s stepmother No Yes No
Snow White’s prince Yes Yes Yes

You get the idea. The “yes-yes-yes’s” are all successful: they’re the males who go after
what they want. So are the “No-no-yes’s:” they’re they females who don’t go after what they
want. The ones who fail, and who are often horribly punished, are the “No-yes-no’s:” the
females who go after what they want. That’s a no-no in Western folktales.
Constructing a chart like this with students can be a helpful exercise—but only if there is
plenty of time for the students to question whether these patterns make sense in their own lives.

Reading for Structured Opposites. A useful way of interpreting stories is to look for their
contrasts, ask what things are similarly contrasted in other stories, and then find parallel contrasts
and tensions in our own lives (Levi Strauss, 1970) A method for doing that is called reading for
structured opposites. A folktale works very well for introducing this method and could be taught
like this:
1. Ask the students to think of the two characters in the story they are reading who
are most unlike each other or most opposed to each other. For example, if the story is “Jack and
the Beanstalk,” the two characters might be Jack and the giant.
2. Write the names of those two characters at the heads of two columns (see Figure
9.11). Ask the students to come up with contrasting descriptive words about those two
characters. That is, ask for a word that describes one character; then ask for an opposite word
that describes the other character.
To take “Jack and the Beanstalk,” those might be Jack and the giant, obviously. Let’s
begin with Jack and the giant. What words would we use to describe each of them?
Jack The giant
Young Old
Poor Rich
Small Huge
“Plucky” Dull
Seems weak Seems strong
“On his way up” “Over the hill”

Each of these columns—a bundle of features with a name at the top—can be called a category.
We will do more with the categories in a moment.
The dynamics between these characters can be called a relationship. In this case, it’s a
relationship of rivalry—Jack wants what the giant has, and the giant wants to keep what he has
and eliminate Jack as a threat (eat him, if possible).
Now who else do we know who could occupy the same category with Jack, or occupy
the other category with the giant—paradigms which are partially defined by their relationship
with the other—in this case, the rivalry of the young, poor, under-privileged one who is on his
way up, and the older, bigger, richer one who is desperately clinging on to his or her privilege?
We will nominate a few and write them in the outer columns to the left of Jack and to the right of
the giant.

Others like Jack Jack The giant Others like the giant
David Young Old Goliath
Marty Poor Rich Judd Travers
Peter Pan Small Huge Captain Hook
Robin Hood “Plucky” Dull Sheriff of Nottingham
Seems weak Seems strong
“On his way up” “Over the hill”
 It now seems that Jack and the giant are actually more than mere characters in a story.
They are bundles of features with names attached—characters who remind us of other characters.
Who are other candidates who share these paradigms, and occupy the same categories with each
other?

Others like Others like Jack The giant Others like Others like the
Jack in real life Jack in the the giant in giant in real life
arts the arts
Serfs David Young Old Goliath Nobles
Slaves Marty Poor Rich Judd Travers Owners
People Peter Pan Small Huge Captain Hook Tyrants
Workers Robin Hood “Plucky” Dull Sheriff of Sweatshop
Seems Seems Nottingham managers
Children weak strong Bullies
“On his “Over the
way up” hill”
There. You may have noticed that in exploring the contrasted characters and their
characteristics in this story—in both their categories and their relationships—we have explored
text-to-text relationships and text-to-life relationships.

Socratic Seminar
With students in late elementary and middle school, nearly any topic to be interpreted or
explored from different points of view can be used in the Socratic Seminar. The purpose of the
Socratic Seminar is to empower students to conduct discussions on their own. The teacher
provides a structure that usually leads to successful discussions, but after modeling the process
by leading the first few discussions the students are the ones who ask the questions and conduct
the discussion. A Socratic Seminar is not a debate. The ideas offered do not compete with each
other. Rather, they often build on each other to reach a mutually constructed and deeper
understanding of an issue. Asking good questions and developing ideas in concert with others is
good practice in active learning and critical thinking. Taking responsibility for preparing the
questions and conducting the discussion intensifies the experience for the students.
Socratic Seminars are done with the whole class. If the group is larger than twelve (and it
usually is) a fishbowl arrangement is used. That is, between eight and twelve students sit in a
circle conducting the discussion, and the other students array themselves around that group, close
enough to can hear the discussion.
The Socratic Seminar requires no particular resources other than a text or a topic that
students can discuss. It helps if the seating is treated flexibly: that is, either the chairs are moved
into a circle, or students sit so they can face each other in a circle. The seminar itself usually
takes 40 minutes. Twenty minutes or more will be needed to introduce the idea, and then
students will need time to prepare for the seminar.
To conduct the Socratic Seminar, the teacher first immerses students in an interesting
topic. The topic can come from literature, social studies, art, science, or any topic of which there
are layers of understanding, different interpretations, or diverse implications. One of the easiest
ways to introduce the Socratic Seminar is to discuss a piece of literature that the whole class has
read. A seminar is also productive mid-way through a unit of study where students have acquired
a significant amount of information on a topic or theme.
The teacher prepares the students to formulate questions for discussion. The Socratic
Seminar requires that everyone discuss good questions. Eventually, students may formulate the
questions, but for the first couple of sessions the teacher may prepare them, and use his or her
questions to model for the students the kinds of questions that are preferred. A suggested
approach to formulating questions worthy of deep discussion is Grant Wiggins’ and Jay
McTighe’s concept of essential questions Wiggins and McTighe, 2005). Essential questions
usually:
Lead into the heart of a topic and its controversies
Invite many answers from different perspectives
Invite rethinking old knowledge in a new light
Lead to discovery and "uncoverage" vs. "coverage"
Encourage deeper interest in the subject; students keep on questioning
Are framed in a provocative and enticing style.

In practical terms, you may use the set of suggestions listed in the box below:

A Socratic Seminar is a time to have a good discussion. To have a good discussion, you
bring up things you are curious about, things you think are important. To have an even better
discussion, you ask your classmates questions—but real questions—questions you don’t know
the answer to. Those can serve as guidelines. To prepare for a Socratic Seminar, you should plan
some real questions—that ask about things you are interested in, that you think are important.
And the questions should be real in the sense that you don’t already know the answers (“Read
my mind” questions are not allowed!)

Often these questions point in either of two directions, as we see below:

Questions that focus in Questions that focus out

(on the article or topic)
1.If the question is about a story, you can
ask about:
A character’s motives (“Why did she
agree to do that?”)
The relationships between characters
(“Do you think he is a good influence on
her?”)
What is going to happen (if we haven’t
finished reading it yet)
Why the author wrote the story (“What
did this author want us to see or to
understand?”)
What the action had to do with the setting
(“Can you picture this story happening
anywhere else? Why not?”)
(to the world outside the text or topic of
study)
If the question is about a story, you can
ask about:
Whether the characters made good
choices? (“Would you have done what he
did? What is another way to solve that
problem?”)
Whether the behavior pictured in this
story should serve as a model for us in
real life (“Is that the way boys should
really behave with girls? Suppose she
was your sister?”)
The consequences of the actions (“What
do you supposed happened to each one of
those characters after the story was
over?”)
Why the author used certain words, or a About connections to other stories and to
certain style of writing (“Why do you real life (“What other stories does this
think the author said it that way?”) remind us of? Who or what does this
Something the author has done remind us of in real life?”)
particularly well (“What do you think is
the best feature of this story?”) 2.If it is an informational topic or work
of non-fiction, you might ask
2.If it is an informational topic or work of Do we think this is true? How do we
non-fiction, you might ask know?
What are we learning from this that we What is the most important idea
didn’t know before? If we believe what this text says, what
Is this argument convincing? What other should we do?
points of view have we learned about?
Is there more to be said about this topic?
The teacher explains the ground rules for the seminar. One set of suggestions are these:
Be prepared to participate
Don’t raise hands—just find a good time to speak and jump right in
Invite others in the circle into the discussion
Refer to the texts or other resources that have been studied
You comments should be appropriate, respectful, and focused
Listen to and build on one another’s comments
Be sure it’s OK with others before you introduce a new question

Ground rules are introduced at the beginning of a seminar. It is best if the group is
reminded of them often. If a student does an excellent job of adhering to a ground rule, the
teacher may point that out, since positive reinforcements will make students feel more
responsible than criticisms will.
Participating students (between eight and twelve of them) sit in a circle. The other
students gather around what is called the “fishbowl” (so called because their discussion will be
observed by the others—see the next section for instructions).
The teacher may invite a student to throw out a question and ask the other students to
respond. The other students share their thoughts about the question, and also refer both to each
other’s answers and to the material being discussed.
When the responses to a question seem to have run their course, another student may
raise a new question, or an aspect of an old one. It is considered polite for that student to ask if
anyone had more to say about the previous question first, and to wait for any more responses
before rasing a new question.
After the teacher gives the signal (usually after five minutes) students who are observing
from outside the group may “tap into” the group. That is, one student at a time approaches a
student in the circle, and taps that student gently on the elbow. Then the new student takes that
student’s place in the discussion group. The new student should respond first to what the group
has been talking about before introducing a new question. From time to time the teacher can
invite a student to sum up the positions that have been heard, and ask if there are more ideas.
Following the Socratic Seminar students are asked to evaluate their participation. They
can be asked to write responses to questions such as:
What did you learn from this seminar?
How did you feel about this seminar?
How would you evaluate your own participation in this seminar?
What can improve your participation in the next seminar?

The teacher “debriefs” the discussion by reviewing the ideas and arguments that came to
light. Or she may ask each student to write a journal entry or a personal --- essay, writing down
what he believes about the issue and why.
To future Socratic Seminars, students can be asked to bring “Entry Sheets,” on which
they have written at least three questions for the others to answer, as well as their own thoughts
on those questions. Another device for structuring the seminar will be to pass out small pieces of
paper to each student, have them write their name and their class period on it, and having them
write a short entry each time they offer a question or a response to one. These can be given to the
teacher at the end of the class period to keep track of the students’ participation.
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