Response Journal for The Giver by Lois Lowry

Teachers Help Middle School Students Develop Active Reading Skills

Dec 13, 2009 Thadra Petkus

Literature Response Journal -Ostillac

Response journals are a wonderful way to promote active reading with middle school students. Here's how teachers can guide students' writing about Lowry's The Giver.

Middle school reading teachers face the ongoing challenge of promoting active reading strategies with their students. While the first step involves helping students understand how active reading will improve their overall reading comprehension, the next essential task is providing ample practice for students to hone these skills. When students maintain an ongoing response journal, they regularly employ active reading strategies.

Create a Response Journal

A response journal provides a user-friendly format for students to document their questions, observations and connections with any text they are reading. Since journals serve as reading assistance tools, they should be assessed for content and ideas rather than grammar or other writing skills.

Literature response journals are especially effective when students use them to respond to a longer work, such as the novel, The Giver. Teachers may want to set some parameters for students creating response journals. They may ask students to write an entry at definite points in their reading, such as the following.

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• three entries for the entire novel, one after chapter seven, one after chapter fifteen, and one after chapter twenty-two
• five entries total during five significant moments in the novel as defined by students
• one entry after every chapter

Teachers can determine the numbers of entries necessary for students to meet the goals of their classroom.

Ask Questions to Connect With Text

Students often have more questions than comments when they first start reading a novel. Response journals provide a venue for students to ask questions which they can revisit and answer as they progress through the novel. Some questions students may ask in their response journals while they read the first few chapters of The Giver include the following.

• I wonder why there are so many rules in Jonas's society.
• Why is Jonas's family called a unit instead of, simply, a family?
• Why can't mothers in Jonas's community give birth to their own children?

As students begin to ask more questions as they read a long work of fiction, they will naturally seek out answers to satisfy their curiosity. This questioning instills in readers a deeper level of motivation to continue reading.

Read on 

• Individual Student Project For Lowry's The Giver
• Teach Vocabulary in Context With The Giver
• The Giver Vocabulary List Chapters One to Seven

Make Observations While Reading

Response journals should encourage students to make observations about what they read. They can comment on plot, applied literary elements, or characterization. Some observations students may make as they progress through The Giver include the following.

• An insight I've gained about this story is that most community members seem to feel all these rules are necessary.
• I liked that Jonas's father decided to take Gabriel home with him for addtional nurturing.
• I can't understand why no one except for Jonas questions where people go when they are released.

Students should be encouraged to make as many observations as possible as they read. This will facilitate deeper understanding and help clarify confusing points as well as enhance their understanding of vocabulary in The Giver. Since there are no right or wrong answers for a response journal, students should jot down whatever thoughts come to mind.

Make Connections About the Novel

Students should try to make connections between Jonas's community and their own. They can also make connections to Jonas's feelings. Some types of connections students can make with the text are as follows.

• I sympathized with Jonas when he felt nervous about being selected as the receiver of memories.
• When I was singled out on stage one time, I was scared and confused just like Jonas.
• If I were Jonas, I would have tried to escape my community before age twelve.
• My little sister sometimes acts like Lily because she asks so many questions.

When students make connections with The Giver, they are internalizing their reading experience and developing intrinsic motivation for further reading.

Students who regularly use response journals improve their overall reading comprehension and deepen their love of reading. Students can independently interact with the text by asking questions, making observations and making connections about The Giver. Together, these ideas will help students become better active readers.

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Houghton Mifflin: New York, New York. 1993.

Read more at Suite101: Response Journal for The Giver by Lois Lowry: Teachers Help Middle School Students Develop Active Reading Skills http://www.suite101.com/content/response-journal-for-the-giver-by-lois-lowry-a179534#ixzz18zyxUpEs