In Search of Story Structure:
Teaching Readers Cognitive Strategies for Story
Comprehension
Teaching readers
cognitive strategies for using graphic organizers,
answering questions, and analyzing story structure
produces gains in text understanding. Though there
are a number of derivations of these strategies
that can be used in various disciplines to gain
content learning, story structure in particular
contains some uniquely "language arts/literature"
attributes that make it a fitting instructional
focus for reading teachers. As good fortune would
have it, the use of graphic organizers and question
answering support and enrich the strategies we
employ in teaching and learning story structure.
Teaching
and learning with graphic organizers and question
answering strategies
We use graphic organizers and answer
questions in order to achieve another result
such as learning domain-specific (e.g., subject-
or content-specific) concepts, making sense of
processes and procedures, clarifying meanings
and connections in literature and text passages,
and so forth. Though a reader must recognize a
type of question or know what a "graphic
organizer" is (i.e., know one when
he sees one)—a form of declarative
knowledge—the real value results from being
able to skillfully organize information and construct
meaning in a graphic format or locate answers
or inferential clues to questions posed about
a text. These abilities constitute procedural
understandings. Through proper instruction
in using cognitive strategies that involve graphic
organizers and question answering, readers become
proficient at independently selecting and employing
these strategies in order to better understand
text—one of the cornerstones
of reading comprehension. We commonly see
these strategies used with content-specific text
or concepts (e.g., science or history), and this
makes good sense. In fact, teaching reading in
the content areas is not new—it was the prevalent
manner in which text comprehension was actively
taught (and researched) prior to 1980. These content-specific
applications still constitute a high percentage
of the findings indicating improved text comprehension
due to instruction in cognitive strategies. The
use of the cognitive strategies involving graphical
organizers and question answering are no exception
to that general rule—they usually represent
efforts in "reading to learn." These
strategies can, however, contribute a great
deal to the realm of "learning to read."
Story
structure as literature-focused instruction in
cognitive strategies
Story structure—how stories and plots are
organized—involves a unique set of understandings
and abilities that are conducive to understanding
and deriving meaning from literature. These understandings
and abilities, as the terms connote, are both
declarative and procedural. To really benefit
from reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, for
instance, the reader must understand the
setting of the story and the purpose and reasons
for the storyteller's viewpoints and attitudes
(among other things), and she must also be
able to go about dissecting and analyzing
the story in order to form a basis for these understandings.
This appears to be a vast undertaking (and it
is apparent to many that a serious dissection
of Hamlet is a fitting enterprise at the
college level). However, instruction in story
structure, and the learning a reader derives as
a result, is highly adaptable and transferable—a
worthy goal. While it is important that the text
chosen for learning story structure be developmentally
appropriate (it doesn't have to be Hamlet,
but neither does it have to be Little Red Riding
Hood), the cognitive strategies involved in
learning story structure have nevertheless proven
themselves effective with below level readers
in grades ranging from 3 through 6 (National Reading
Panel [NRP], 2000) (see the synopsis of findings
in Just
the Data at the end of this article). Two
of these studies in story structure accepted for
NRP-review even reported a transfer of success
to standardized achievement tests, something very
few studies overall could report with any scientific
veracity. In addition to offering a set of cognitive
challenges that are at once within reach of average
and below average readers, other keys to the success
of story structure instruction seem to lie in
the nature of the engagement of the teacher and
readers together with the story, and in its unique
affinity to integration with other successful
forms of text comprehension instruction (e.g.,
use of graphic organizers, question answering)
involving teaching and learning of cognitive strategies.
Interaction and
engagement with stories spells motivation and
interest
When selected with care, stories provide an exceptional
context for engaging readers with the types of
problems that are faced by real people, and with
the problem solving that naturally follows. Through
stories, readers can vicariously experience situations
in which they could not hope, or wish, to be personally
involved. Through these experiences, readers are
drawn into asking and seeking answers to questions
of who, what, when, where, and why. The situation
is conducive to interaction between teachers and
students—there are necessary discussions,
and the opportunities for lively conversation
that provides teachers with a multitude of openings
through which to teach cognitive strategies. The
teacher or parent facilitating instruction is
essential to the success of story structure instruction,
as she is with most successful reading comprehension
strategies. The instructor assists students in
acquiring the knowledge and in learning the procedures
needed to understand and identify the story content
and the manner in which the story is organized.
Understanding of the episodic content—setting,
events, characters, outcomes—helps students
to understand the who, what, where, when, and
why of stories, as well as what happened in the
story. So, how do we get from here to there?
An
evidence-based rationale for integrating instruction
in cognitive reading strategies
Research findings suggest that successful instruction
in the organization and content of a story—story
structure instruction—is largely driven by
two other categories of instruction: question
answering, and graphic organizers. Of the studies
included in the National Reading Panel's review
(2000), studies indicated a high success rate
for both categories of text comprehension when
used as an independent intervention or in conjunction
with another strategy (see Just
the Data). Two other results of the data analyses
were noteworthy: first, graphic organizers, question
answering strategies, or both, were used in almost
every case where story structure instruction resulted
in significant learning gains; and second, the
most resoundingly successful strategy was the
integrated use of multiple strategies. By the
evidence, we can assume that the most effective
approach for teaching readers to analyze and understand
the stories they read is one that integrates use
of graphic organizers and question answering strategies.
A symphony of strategies:
Teaching and learning story structure through
use of graphic organizers and question answering
As you teach reader(s) to explore story structure,
instruction in the use of graphic organizers and
question answering strategies both provide an
invaluable benefit. In addition to helping students
acquire tools they will use for years to come,
using graphic organizers directly involves students
in examining story ideas and relationships among
those ideas that are both linear and nonlinear
(e.g., timeline and semantic story maps, respectively).
Certain task-specific organizers that lend
themselves precisely to improved understanding
of story structure also serve a distinct purpose.
Main-idea, rising action, and problem-action-result
maps are all examples of effective task-specific
organizers. Question answering strategies serve
as the natural accompaniment to graphic organizers,
helping readers learn to identify story components
and glean important story content which in turn
informs the details that are organized in a graphic.
An
integrated instructional approach requires that
the cognitive strategies we teach readers for
using graphic organizers and for answering questions
support our instruction toward learning story
structure. The following diagram represents cognitive
strategies teachers can model that are effective
with students and that enhance and align with
the objectives of story structure instruction.
Figure
1. Strategies for using graphic organizers
and question answering in support of learning
story structure.
Teaching so that
readers learn strategies, staying focused on the
goal, and the benefits of comprehension monitoring
Strategies for teaching strategies... It's easy
to become confused, or at least tongue-tied. With
a little thought the good instructor grasps the
idea, but the reality of transferring that to
a real classroom with young readers can abruptly
bring us face-to-face with the stark contrast
between what is known and what can be easily done
instructionally with children. Yet, the learning
objectives call for the young reader to understand
the appropriate cognitive strategies that work
for her and use those strategies effectively.
Anything less and the central learning objectives
are not being met. When the whirlwind hits (i.e.,
the bell ringing to send the kids to class), it
helps to work with an additional set of approaches
that keeps the rest in proper instructional focus.
As luck would have it, another category of cognitive
strategy instruction serves that role nicely.
Comprehension monitoring focuses directly on meta-cognition—the
self-awareness of the reader. We have alluded
to it throughout. Often referred to meta-cognitive
awareness, it is evidenced when readers indicate
that they are aware of the strategies and story
understandings with which they are experiencing
difficulty, and that they have developed or adopted
and know how to use procedures that help them
to overcome these problems. It does not happen
overnight, and the lack of attention it is given
in standards and learning expectations across
states, provinces, and nations does not make it
any easier. However, with time and quality instruction,
students can and do learn to select and employ
the best strategy at the right time, for their
own needs and according to their own learning
style. And, evidence indicates it happens—in
isolation and as yet another piece to a multiple
strategies approach—and is transferable to
other situations with students as early as third
grade. The following figure provides a synthesized
set of proven strategies for keeping focus with
the end objective of independent text comprehension.
Figure
2. Effective procedures for implementing
comprehension monitoring instruction.
You
may be interested
in The
Cornerstones of Reading Comprehension: Teaching
for Vocabulary and Text Understanding.
http://www.designedinstruction.com/learningleads/reading-vocabulary-text.html
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