I’m going to keep this brief today. (You’re welcome.) I know homeschooling keeps you busy and sometimes we just need the information to get on with business.
I came across this video lesson from Ted Ed on finding deeper meaning in literature. It’s short (only 4 minutes) and to the point. I don’t know about other teens, but when it comes to instructional videos, short & sweet packs more punch with my boys.
In the video, the process of digging deeper is summarized with two main ideas: practicing insight & acknowledging complexity. That sounds like a good compass to get someone started. And you know how I like a compass.
I took teacher notes as I listened and typed up an outline (Type A personalities can only recover so far.) so I can reference back to it as we work through our novels. Click on the link for a pdf of my notes: Mining Lit for Deeper Meaning
We’re currently working through Rooted in Language’s Plot Arc lesson found in their Annotating Literary Elements guide, and the points made in this video of fishing out small moments and lining them up to find deeper meaning dovetails perfectly with the plot arc lesson.
We even found the idea of acknowledging complexity helpful when discussing my son’s direction in his latest argumentative essay. Avoiding generalizations (they weaken an argument), demonstrating an understanding of the complicated nature of his topic. All good points he needed to consider with his essay.
Not only did we find this information helpful with our literature studies, it’s also relevant to high school level essays too.
