Running Head: JOURNAL #3 READING SKILLS: DEVELOPING LITERARY CHARACTER UNDERSTANDING 1

Journal #3 Reading Skills: Developing Literary Character Understanding as in Barry Gilmores Superman Is Dead: How We Help Students Make Sense of Literary Characters Alexi Swank Seton Hill University

JOURNAL #3 READING SKILLS: DEVELOPING LITERARY CHARACTER UNDERSTANDING

A) In his article Superman Is Dead: How We Help Students Make Sense of Literary Characters, Barry Gilmore discusses how often students have difficulty relating to characters in literary novels while they have no lack of sympathy for those of the mass media. One such student Gilmore uses as an example he names Christopher, and this boy has a strong affiliation for giving someone down to the smallest minutiae, the detailed biography of every Marvel and DC comic book character, Hogwarts resident, or Jedi Knight ever to grace a page or screen (Gilmore, 2012 pp. 27) but shies away from understanding any of the characters in his classroom novels. This student was able to comprehend only one literary novel several years ago, and that was Lord of the Flies. Gilmore tells the reader that there is a series of questions that need to be presented to both the student and the teacher in order for the students to grasp the concept of academic empathy toward fictional figures. These questions are open-ended so as to encourage guid[ing] discussion not toward right answers but toward fuller understanding of our reading (Gilmore, 2012 pp. 28). These questions are as follows: 1) Why do we care about literary characters? 2) How do we care about literary characters? 3) How do we express our understanding of characters? In the first question, Gilmore addresses the difference between feeling sympathetic toward fiction as a genre and fiction as a character. He states that it is difficult to fully understand why one student adore[s] Holden Caulfield and another despise[s] him (Gilmore, 2012 pp. 28), but that if one considers that readers reach to fiction to quell a need for social interaction in the form of gossip, it is easier to understand why we feel for these characters. The second question takes a look at the way in which we as readers respond to the characters, using another

JOURNAL #3 READING SKILLS: DEVELOPING LITERARY CHARACTER UNDERSTANDING

authors popular comparison through thinking about how readers care about Harry Potter over how they care about Dumbledore (Gilmore, 2012 pp. 29). Through the third question, Gilmore shows us that students need frameworks for understanding [literary characters] (Gilmore, 2012 pp. 31), and the way that we as teachers do this is by incorporating classroom activities and exercises for students to see expression of characters as both a means to understand and identify with and analyze the role that a character has in a piece of literature. B) The controlling point of this article is to demonstrate a method with which students can be guided in their academic studies of literary characters while still allowing them to have their own opinions and emotions toward the figures. Gilmore presents three questions to assisting students in their understanding of characters: Why do we care about literary characters, how do we care about literary characters, and how do we express our understanding of characters? C) This article has a very important and interesting topic to discuss that I am almost positive any teacher would agree with. Here we are not only reassured that character comprehension is necessary on many levels, but we are also given questions that allow us the opportunity to guide our students through this difficult process. I certainly am curious to see if I can use these questions successfully in the classroom, and I am hoping to do that this semester in my secondary practicum. The questions covered of Why, How, and Expression of Understanding are a unique way of approaching a topic that many college students let alone secondary students have a great deal of problems facing.

JOURNAL #3 READING SKILLS: DEVELOPING LITERARY CHARACTER UNDERSTANDING D) One very vital part of understanding characters and finding a way to tie into a students empathy of a character we have actually discussed in class, and that is reader

response criticism. Since reader response is based off of the interpretive community, it is safe to say that the students are the community to which any work of literature in the classroom is referring. In reader response criticism, scholars take a look at how the text itself interacts with the reader and the writer. First, it looks from what the writer puts into the text, and then, it looks from the angle of the reader encountering the text. Interpretation is all about what the reader has to say about the meaning of the text. When looking at character analysis, this is possibly the most important part. How do we get students to think on the level of academia rather than on a personal I like/dont like this book opinion? It is certainly difficult, but with the incorporation of Gilmores questions, we as educators have a basis on which to form our students scholarly approach to literature.

References Gilmore, B. (2012, September). Superman Is Dead: How We Help Students Make Sense of Literary Characters. English Journal, 102(1), 27-33. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/journals/ej/issues/v102-1