When I started to teach high school English, I noticed that my students needed help in remembering the basic features used to describe and analyze a work of literature. They enjoyed a little acronym I had developed in university: I.M.P.A.C.T. (impact, medium, plot, atmosphere, character, and theme).
I showed them how to use the acronym to order their ideas about a reading, including writing the initials beside key examples in a text. At the end of a chapter, one could gather all the “P”s, for instance, and describe the sequence of the plot. At the level of analysis, I later taught more complex notions arising out of the basic initials. For example, after understanding sequence or development of events, students could see more clearly the plot’s structure, including such notions as rising action, crisis, climax, and dénouement.
I hope you enjoy this second evoke-a-gram, and see its possibilities for designing a unit on literary study. Again my questions, like the diagram elements, are deliberately general, vague, and ambiguous:
- What is the relationship between the three columns of this diagram, and between the elements within each column?
- How are the headings “Features,” Description” and Analysis” helpful in suggesting a progression of knowledge and skill?
- How are the terms used in each initial’s row helpful in suggesting a progression of knowledge and skill?
- Do you agree with the terms used in each row and column? What terms might you use instead in your work with different groups of students?
- Why is the term “Impact” first in this diagram? Is the term useful to describe and analyze a reader’s response?
- What terms seem to apply a) to the reader’s response and b) to the writer’s intention?
- What is confusing about this diagram? What is clear?
- How is the quotation by Romain Rolland relevant to this diagram?
- Based on what you think this diagram is about, how would you apply your understanding to educational practice?
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