Representign up and down arrows as characters

They also sometimes use the words вЂњupвЂќ and вЂњdownвЂќ as shorthand for вЂњpositiveвЂќ and вЂњnegative.вЂќ Hence, вЂњup-down-both-why,вЂќ or UDBW. When teachers introduce this approach, they often ask students to imagine a continuum with positive on one side, negative on the other, and combinations in the middle:ДЇormally, this strategy is called affective evaluation, but teachers and students have come to call it вЂњup-down-both-whyвЂќ because in practice, people often draw up and down arrows or make вЂњthumbs upвЂќ and вЂњthumbs downвЂќ gestures to communicate their evaluations. Then, ask yourself why it seems that way. The strategy works like this: First, read with an eye toward text that seems especially positive, negative, or both. When students use this approach, they are more likely to build connotations and symbolic meaning, evaluate characters, and reflect on big ideas about how the world is or how it should be (Eva-Wood, 2004 Levine & Horton, 2013 Levine, 2014).

Readers draw on their initial feelings-in particular, negative and positive responses to texts-and use them as a jumping-off point for interpretive reading. It is designed to help bring the heart back to literary reading and move students from conventional summary and literal sense-making to rich, thoughtful interpretation. The strategy described here- Up-Down-Both-Why- puts everyday feeling front and center in the process of literary interpretation. As a result, students often perceive literary reading as an exercise in summarizing or focusing on surface-level meaning.Д«ut in their everyday, out-of-school lives, students can be passionate interpreters of all sorts of literary texts, from stories and poems to movies and songs. Standardized exams, for example, generally ask students about symbols and central ideas, but do not ask students to consider their own emotional responses.

Unfortunately, our current teaching climate often doesnвЂ™t make a lot of room for feeling in literary reading. In your everyday reading life, you might hate a certain character, feel disgusted by violent imagery, cry at the end of a book, or be outraged or frustrated by an authorвЂ™s racism or sexism. Sponsored by Kialo Edu and National Geographic Education Listen to the interview with Sarah Levine:

Representign up and down arrows as characters