Differentiating Difficult Texts for Struggling Readers

By Sarah Miller

I think Hamlet is the most amazing piece of literature ever written.  I don’t expect everyone to agree, but I do anticipate that teachers can relate to how wonderful it is teaching something you truly love.  With my busy schedule as Dean of Student and Family Support, I only get to teach one class a year, and it’s a 9-week course studying Hamlet.  It’s glorious.  Problem is, students walk in to my class not feeling confident enough, not being skilled enough, not thinking they’re interested enough to do the work.  Some students pretend they don’t care, some just arrived in Boston from El Salvador, some try so hard to overcome their low reading levels, some are overcoming life circumstances I can’t imagine and all are in class together.  What’s a teacher to do?  How will they learn to love this story if they don’t get it? How will they gain confidence?  How will they think deeply about literature? 

Relax.  They can do Shakespeare.  Below are some simple steps that will help every teacher who ever wanted to tackle a dynamic and complex piece of literature reach all students.  They can not only DO Shakespeare, but they might just love it, too.

STEP 1: Find an expert to help you; you don’t have to figure this out alone.
Start by reading Deeper Reading: Comprehending Difficult Texts (4-12) by: Kelly Gallagher.  This book became my manual for helping students to “get it” when their skills were too low to allow them to just “get it”. 

He highlights independent reading strategies that allow students of all levels to ask questions at various points along Bloom’s Taxonomy.  He also highlights pre-reading strategies that engage struggling readers early, allowing them to buy-in to the text without even opening the book.  For example, he highlights an “anticipation guide” to be used before reading tough texts.  This allows students to make judgments based on themes and values before knowing how these themes and values relate to the overall story.  All students love this activity because ALL teenagers have opinions.  For higher-level readers, they can begin to anticipate and predict how these themes might relate.  For strugglers, these guides plant the seed for future revelation.

”Imagine a classroom where there are less redirections, forceful interactions and complaining students desperate for your help.  Your best classroom management
tool is a well-differentiated classroom.” – Sarah Miller

I was fortunate enough to find an expert in differentiation in my school.  A science teacher at my school, Patricia Deo, levels her entire class in three ways: Basic, Challenge, and Honors.  Students can pass by completing the Basic level work but completing Honors work gets a student an ‘A’.  She consulted with me weekly by either observing class or looking at my handouts and helped me differentiate them.  Sometimes, it was as simple as giving a word bank for ESL students, presenting an example answer for struggling students in the first answer blank, or adding a challenging column for high level students.  For example, on one handout wherein students were asked to think about the internal and external pressures for each character in Hamlet, students were presented with 3 different worksheets. 

Strugglers were asked to simply identify the pressures and determine if these pressures were in conflict.  More capable students were asked to not only identify and determine, but they were also asked to support their assertions with actual text and quotes.  My most advanced students, those about to enter college (all of our humanities classes are heterogeneously mixed), were asked to identify, determine, support, and they were also asked to advise the character on how s/he should handle this difficult situation.  This type of differentiation allows for a challenge across the board in a very diverse class with very different skill levels.  All of the students are working with the same text, the same Shakespeare, but all are working at their current level.  The goal in my class was that each student would be challenged.  Sometimes this meant that someone who started at one level would move forward to a higher level as the course progressed.

STEP 2: Realize that more prep means more learning and less stress.
It is a truism that differentiating a classroom takes a lot more prep time than just teaching to the middle.  Indisputable, undeniable fact.  However, what you gain in planning and prep, you also gain in student achievement and growth. 

Further, when students are engaged and feel attended to, classroom management is a pleasure.  Imagine a classroom where there are less redirections, forceful interactions and complaining students desperate for your help.  Your best classroom management tool is a well-differentiated classroom.  Students perform best with low-anxiety and organization.  Differentiation provides the students with that.

STEP 3: Diagnose your students.
This final step might be obvious.  In order to do the differentiation well, you must know your students and their academic levels.  For humanities classes, I suggest NOT relying on the anecdotes of other teachers, siblings of these students or guesswork.  There are two things that will help you truly diagnose your students in a literature class:

• A writing sample- I suggest getting them to write a letter to you on the first day about themselves.  I give them pointed questions and tell them exactly how long it should be.  This allows you to see who can write easily and how well they can organize their thoughts.  IT will also let you see general grammar and any immediate dysgraphia or other writing problems.  Likely, these things are indicators of a student’s history with reading and writing (though, of course, we’ve all taught high-level readers that write horribly…they’re merely indicators). 
• A survey about their experiences with humanities in school- I ask the following questions and demand honesty, which they’ll likely give you:
• Do you like to read?
• How often do you read on your own?
• Do you like to write? 
• Have you ever had a good reading or writing teacher?
• If yes, what did this person do that was great? If no, what are some things teachers do that don’t help you learn?
• Have you ever had a class you loved? What was it?
• What’s the worst class you’ve taken? What made it bad?
• What are qualities of a good teacher in your eyes?
• What are qualities of a good student in your eyes? 

**(The answers to these last two questions become out classroom expectations: A good teacher is…A good student is…and these are the “rules” of the room)

Most students will tell you immediately how they feel.  When they do, you can anticipate anxieties and other issues that might arise in your relationship with them or with their relationships with the literature.  These surveys are tremendously informative. 

Good luck!  Making a commitment to help your students as individuals is one of the best commitments you can make as a teacher, and it will yield the most results. 

Sarah Miller is the Dean of Student and Family Support at Phoenix Charter Academy.