For readers, writers, and lovers of words, a dialectical journal is a great idea. We like nothing more than to muse about what moves us. For non-readers and reluctant writers, nothing could be worse. Yet, teachers are still tasked with the obligation to teach students to think about, connect to, and write about the books we force students to read.
With this conundrum in mind, I streamlined the dialectical journal into slides with guiding questions. Although I designed these for use while reading The Great Gatsby, the slide journal can be tweaked for use with any text.
Benefits of the Slide Journal
- They still allow for freedom of thought and interpretation.
- They can be used as a pre-write for a literary analysis essay.
- They are easy to tweak depending on your desired focus.
- They are quick to grade.
- They can cut down on plagiarism.
How to Use the Slide Journal
First, I have to confess that I am a huge The Great Gatsby fan. Every year, I find more and more to love about it. In the past, I have fallen into the trap of trying to teach everything I know about it. Most of these students will read it only once. I want them to GET IT! What I have discovered, however, is that when we try to share everything WE know about a text, the less THEY will know once they are done studying it. Our job, especially when it comes to higher-level readers, is to facilitate the discovery of the text.
The slide journal is not intended to be the be-all and end-all of your Gatsby study. Instead, it is meant to be a tool for students to discover elements of the text and comment on them. For example, this year’s overarching question asked what kind of story is Gatsby. Is it a love story, a coming-of-age story, or is it the story of America?
Using Google slides, I instruct students to consider the question and search for evidence to support each option. Students then create their own slideshow responses.
Notice on the instruction slide that I do not direct students to create anything fancy. If they label their slides, they have met the criteria. Often, however, students end up beautifying their slides or at least color-coding them. This extra effort shows interest in the story and pride in their work. That’s a bonus!
If you did the math, you know that students will end up creating 27 slides. I promise you, that’s not a problem. Having students respond in slides makes the grading very quick–much easier than reading handwriting squished onto a paper copy of a table or chart.
The next slide offers a student response example:
How does it cut down on plagiarism?
One tip is to have students tag quotes in their books with color-coded sticky notes outside of class. Reserve a few minutes at the beginning of the hour for students to fill in the slides during class. It’s pretty easy to see who is trying to use SparkNotes.
Other Uses:
The slide journal works well with other topics as well, such as quotes to support a theme or characterization. Symbolism and color imagery would work, too. For non-fiction texts, students can journal claims and evidence.
I’ve included some samples at the end of this blog that cover social issues in Gatsby and motifs in Gatsby. You’ll also find a couple of student samples.
I hope you enjoy the slide journals and that you and your students find them useful. Please let me know how it goes. I would love to see how you personalize this tool for your classroom.
Read On!
I can see how I can adapt this to work with my 5th graders during our novel studies. Thank you!