A Model for Teaching Literary Analysis using Systemic Functional Grammar

This article introduces an approach that middle-school teachers can follow to help their students carry out linguistic-based literary analyses. As an example, it draws on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to show how J.K. Rowling used language to characterize Hermione as an intelligent female in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Using a simplified SFG analysis, the authors show how teachers can help students find and use language data that can support their intuition about characters or can uncover other patterns in the text. This type of SFG analysis approach can be particularly useful for English language learners and struggling readers as it provides students with useful tools for text analysis. Disciplines Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education | Educational Methods | Language and Literacy Education Comments This article is published as McCrocklin, S., & Slater, T. (2017). A model for teaching literature using systemic functional grammar. Texas Journal of Literacy Education, 5 (1), 81-96. Posted with permission. This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/engl_pubs/120 Texas Journal of Literacy Education | Volume 5, Issue 1 | Summer 2017 A MODEL FOR TEACHING LITERARY ANALYSIS USING SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR SHANNON MCCROCKLIN AND TAMMY SLATER ABSTRACT This article introduces an approach that middle-school teachers can follow to help their students carry out linguistic-based literary analyses. As an example, it draws on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to show how J.K. Rowling used language to characterize Hermione as an intelligent female in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Using a simplified SFG analysis, the authors show how teachers can help students find and use language data that can support their intuition about characters or can uncover other patterns in the text. This type of SFG analysis approach can be particularly useful for English language learners and struggling readers as it provides students with useful tools for text analysis.This article introduces an approach that middle-school teachers can follow to help their students carry out linguistic-based literary analyses. As an example, it draws on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to show how J.K. Rowling used language to characterize Hermione as an intelligent female in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Using a simplified SFG analysis, the authors show how teachers can help students find and use language data that can support their intuition about characters or can uncover other patterns in the text. This type of SFG analysis approach can be particularly useful for English language learners and struggling readers as it provides students with useful tools for text analysis. INTRODUCTION s students advance through the grade levels, they are expected to move from simply summarizing works of literature to studying texts critically. Critical analysis of text requires an application of sophisticated literary knowledge along with well-developed literacy skills. Learning to uncover what is important in a literary text and then to argue one’s opinions using explicit evidence can be difficult tasks no matter what level of English proficiency a student is at. However, learning to do this type of text analysis is important, particularly as students prepare to move to high school and beyond. This move from enjoying to studying literature as well as the written genres students must learn about so they can reflect it can be daunting for many students. This move is even more complicated for English language learners (ELLs), who due to incomplete knowledge of the English language (Dutro, Levy, & Moore, 2012) as well as limited cultural knowledge (Carter, 2014), may struggle to draw appropriate conclusions about literature. Teachers of middle-school students are charged with both helping students determine what is important in a text and developing their ability to argue and support ideas. Students must learn that “a text is a complex of patterns, and each pattern carries meaning” (Cummings & Simmons, 1983, p. 87). Cummings and Simmons argued that when introducing students to literature, teachers must foster students’ “intuitive sense for what is important,” while also teaching them to locate and explain the causes of their “intuition in the text” (p. xv). Teachers may pose questions to assist students with identifying important aspects of the literature being read. For example, a teacher might ask students questions to prompt them with identifying and articulating their intuitions. However, these types of questions may be too challenging for students who are in the early stages of learning to study literature; they may not know how to find evidence of these aspects once the questions are asked. For example, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, many students are likely to be able to pick up intuitively, even from a leisurely reading, that Hermione is a A