4th Grade

Novel - Holes by Louis Sachar explores various themes about cultural background, race, and community. Helps build empathy and understanding for people of different backgrounds, particularly "juvenile delinquents" who may be "counted out" from having a proper chance to engage with society.

6th Grade

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse offers a potentially fun, but still educational, opportunity for students to analyze the different perspectives of each character and write about how their particular universe/world affected their choices, decisions, and outcomes.

10th-11th Grade

Novel - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely taught at this age level due to its ability to facilitate a deeper appreciation for author technique, literary choices, and the representation of theme. It also provides valuable context for the changing world of the twentieth century just before the Great Depression, a topic commonly covered in American history around this age.

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Texts That Open Doors

Whenever it comes to curating a classroom experience, a teacher needs to maintain a focus on meaningfulness. Meaningfulness is something that arises out of a student's worldview--it is influenced by the patterns they have witnessed growing up, acquired through their culture, or, potentially, been burdened with by circumstance. Therefore, a teacher needs to be on the constant lookout for insights into their students and classes in order to use this information to better understand what content they provide in class has the greatest potential for meaningfulness.

I believe the content I have recommended here has a good chance of generally being "meaningful" because it includes a wide range of potential interests, academically relevant content, and enjoyable material that reaches students where they are.

For my first example, Holes is a well-liked book by Louis Sachar for many reasons: the writing includes simple, short, but poignant sentences. The main character, Stanley, is a considerate person who is always thinking about how other people feel before he makes a choice. Through following Stanley's analysis of other characters, students can internalize his view: "Before I judge someone, even if they are apparently treating me poorly, it might have something to do with something that happened to them." Stanley never judges, and he is always ready to give others the benefit of the doubt, which is an excellent virtue to instill in young people, all while telling a fun and accessible story.

My next recommendation is one that will hopefully engage students in a fun, practical way that still offers some academic rigor. Sixth graders can sometimes be difficult to engage, especially when something is "overtly" academic. Using a film that is enjoyable and naturally includes several different perspectives would be a great way to analyze where and how worldviews form. I don't think it would be appropriate to watch the whole film in class; perhaps it could be assigned as homework, with specific clips or moments in the movie being thoughtfully selected prior to class to discuss and use for assignments, particularly examining where worldview comes from and how it impacts character choice and consequence.

My last recommendation may not be as immediately accessible to all students, since it follows a young adult in a world from the past, though the intention is that it will be relevant to other academic subjects being taught at the time. It would offer strong insight into the world at the turn of industrialization, technological advancement, and the "old world" meeting the "new world." Assignments could include analysis of Nick Carraway, Gatsby, or Tom Buchanan. For example, one interesting question to examine is whether Nick is truly a "reliable" narrator. It also offers a chance to examine scenes and descriptions of the city of New York and how "old money" meets "new money" in a changing world. Lastly, it gives a sort of "first-person perspective" on various topics or events relevant to the historical units that may be taught at the same time.

I started by talking about meaningfulness in the classroom, but something that is perhaps important for the educator to also consider...is what they themselves consider meaningful. I selected this list purely because I thought I would enjoy teaching it. The educator in the room is, in fact, the first point of contact for students in creating an enriching, educational, and meaningful learning environment. To put it another way, a teacher's own excitement about the content they are teaching is reflected proportionally in their students. A teacher who is uninterested in the topic will lead to uninteresting lessons and disengaged students. So, by being interested in the content myself, I feel confident in my ability to design lessons around motifs, interesting author choices, and character experiences in order to inform our own worldview and consideration of a diverse world. In short, using this list would make it easy for me to create fun, engaging, and interesting lessons that expose students to meaningful literacy development.