Paideia High School/Ways and Whys of Reading

The Ways and Whys of Reading is a Paideia Unit Plan. These guidelines address teachers for the purpose of guiding instruction. See Paideia Learning Plan for the student's point of view.

Column One
Column One teaching and learning should make up about 10% to 15% of the total scheduled instructional time. It is didactic in nature and uses teacher lectures, text books or other didactic instructional materials, and questioning appropriate to this mode of education. Teaching in this mode encompasses of three facets: Exoridium, Interpretation, and Erudition.

Exordium
"The Ways and Whys of Reading," by Mortimer Adler Is introductory material to the Gateway to the Great Books, a ten book set of short pieces.

Oral Presentation

 * Hand out hard copy of the work, explain who the author is and why he wrote the book.
 * Take students over to the book case, show them the great books set and the gateway set. Talk about the differences between the sets and when/why they were written.

Written Presentation

 * This work has been recorded in-house and is stored both on the district server and on flash drive for the use of students who need an audio copy of the work.
 * The only copy I have been able to find is that in volume one of the Gateway to the Great Books.
 * This work is still under copyright.

Interpretation of  or 
In textual interpretation, the teacher didactically presents the author's key terms in the stage of Interpretation of Words and Terms. In addition, the teacher anticipates unfamiliar general vocabulary. These words and terms are given didactically, either orally or in writing, or both, but the task of interpreting is a Column Two skill of learning that the teacher must coach. Consequently, the purpose of this Column One stage is merely to point out key terms and potentially unfamiliar terms. The student must learn how to interpret. Again, this planning can be adapted to other kinds of works.

Interpretation of Key Terms
The key terms are those few words or phrases the author uses in unique, special, or important ways. . In the Column Two stage, students are coached both to find these key terms and to "unlock" them on their own. This skill is essential to analytical reading. In this Column One stage, however, the teacher points out a list of such terms. Students should understand that this listing is not necessarily exhaustive. In addition, the teacher provides students with a handful of these terms worked out in detail for consideration; it should consist of about three to five terms.
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General Vocabulary
The teacher may anticipate general unfamiliar vocabulary and point out the more difficult words either orally or in writing or both. However, defining words using context, a dictionary, or a knowlegable friend or adult (including the teacher) is a Column Two skill that must be coached. Teachers must help students build good habits of knowing the meanings of words. Dictionaries, in both electronic and book form must be available, and students must be taught how to use them. They must also be taught how to ask for definitions--a perfectly acceptible life skill commonly used by demanding readers!


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Note: If the teacher points out words in anticipation of their potential difficulty, this should be done in context by giving citations or electronically highlighting the words.

Interpretation of Sentences
One point of didactic interpretation at the level of interpreting sentences is to use grammar to get at the author's meaning. As with interpreting words and terms, this level of interpretation is also a Column Two skill that must be coached. Consequently, at the Column One didactic level, a teacher should choose a handful of the most difficult sentences in the text for demonstration. The teacher will always unlock the grammar of a few important and more difficult sentences for students independent of whether these sentences are key premeses to an argument. As appropriate to the text, a teacher should also consider demonstrating the grammar of sentences that work together as propositions in the author's most important arguments.

Another important point is to demonstrate the meter and prosody in both poetry and prose texts. This aim is in great danger of being completely overlooked or forgotten in a world where oral reading is not nearly as common as it once was. Nevertheless, great speechs often succeed in part because the author understands prosody. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and King's I Have a Dream serve as striking examples. The teacher should select sentences or versus to demonstrate both meter and rhythm.


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Interpretation of Passages
At the level of passages, the full trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) come into play. First, a teacher should choose one or two of the author's most important arguments for a demonstration of how to use logic as a key to interpreting a text. Next, the teacher should select several passages to demonstrate how they conform (or not) to rhetorical, poetical, and sylistic rules. These rules, of course, must be didactically taught as prerequisites to interpretation of texts.


 * <Argument>: <demonstration of both the grammar of the sentences comprising premeses and of the concluding proposition along with the logic of the argument followed by an explanation of how the arguments help to unravel the author's meaning>
 * <Passage Illustrating Rhetorical Rules>: <demonstration of the rhetorical rules and their value in the success of the author's purpose>
 * <Passage Illustrating Poetical Rules>: <demonstration of the poetical rules and their value in the success of the author's purpose>
 * <Passage Illustration Stylistic Rules>: <demonstration of the stylistic rules and their value in the success of the author's purpose>

Erudition
Erudition refers to all manner of background information assumed by or necessary to understanding or fully appreciating the text.

<Note that these categories are presented alphabetically for ease of organization>

Anthropological References

 * <information relevant to anthropological issues and discoveries--include citations--delete if not used>

Antiquarian References

 * <information about references to things no longer commonly understood because of their situation in ages past--include citations--delete if not used>

Biographical References

 * <information about the author--always include>
 * <information about other textual references to important people--include citations--delete if not used>

Cultural References

 * <information and links to cultural references--include citations--delete if not used>

Historical References

 * <information and links to historical references--include citations--delete if not used>

Religious References

 * <information and links to religious references--include citations--delete if not used>

Column Two
Column Two teaching consists of coaching. This mode of instruction aims at helping students to form habitual skills in the language, scientific, and fine arts. Thus, a teacher must correct students as they practice listening, speaking, reading, writing, observing with the senses unaided, observing with the aid of scientific apparatus, measuring, estimating, calculating, and exercising dexterity in the musical and visual arts. Each of these arts in turn rely upon the aquisition of fine and gross motor, imagination, and memory skills. These rules for developing Paideia Unit Plans address teachers. For their counterpart written for students, see Paideia Learning Plan.

Column Two learning comprises 65% to 75% of scheduled learning time. It's chief charactaristic is student activity. Students must be practicing some skill or skills while the teacher corrects him or her. While athletic coaching is an obvious example of this type of instruction, debate coaching, directing a drama, art instruction, and piano lessons also represent coaching. In order to coach well, a teacher must have a repertoire of activities carefully designed to exercised desired skills. Additionally, the teacher must have a clear idea of how to correct the skills as students practice them to ensure their habitual formation.

Listening Skills

 * <information relevant to listening for grammatical, logical, rhetorical, poetical, and stylistic elements of the work--include citations--delete if not used>

Reading Skills

 * First read through--direct students to read all headings and try to figure out how he is organizing this work.


 * Second reading--direct students to read straight through, pencil in hand, and mark the text. Pay particular attention to main points, and things they don't understand. Don't linger over things that they aren't clear about, just mark them, note any questions they have, then move on.

Break this up into sections--have students read one a day, then discuss each section the next day. Ask students to share what they have marked, and why. Define words that they ask about, and look at context clues for key words. Take the opportunity to identify, and more importantly, have students identify which words are vital to understanding the author's point, and which ones aren't.

After reading the section titled: Some Rules for Reading, have students each construct a list of his rules in this section. In class, compile a class list, based on the students' notes. Put this on a poster and hang it in the room.


 * Third reading after seminar, used as the basis for a writing assignment.

Writing Skills

 * <Choose phrases from text and express them in different ways>
 * <Reconstruct a previously disarranged passage from the text>
 * <Compose verses or lines in imitation of the author>
 * <Change a passage or poem of one kind into another kind>
 * <Imitate a passage>
 * <Write a composition imitating the author>
 * <Translate sentences or passages into Latin or another language>

Seminar Question Writing Guidelines
The following table serves to guide teachers in understanding the types of questions that guide good seminars and how to write them. Good seminars follow the general structure given by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren in their classic How to Read a Book published by Simon & Schuster in 1972. Column one gives the four main questions that a demanding reader should ask of any book. These questions guide the types of questions and the purpose of each type used in good seminars. The last column serves to illustrate questions that might be asked of The Declaration of Independence, The Gettysburg Address, or Hamlet. This table could be easily adapted for any work of fine art like a painting or a musical score.

Specific Seminars
“The Ways and Whys of Reading” Seminar Questions first conducted September 2012

Bring in poster of rules for reading derived from the text by the students in class. Begin the seminar with a review of the rules for a good conversation, as defined by the class before we started seminars, and a quick review of their personal and/or group goals for this seminar.

What is the book (work) about as a whole?
In writing out the rules in the section titled, “Some Rules for Reading” you listed the following rules. Rule number X is “Determine what problem the author is trying to solve.”

What problem is Adler trying to solve? Why does he want to solve it? Does he? Why or why not?

What is being said in detail and how?
Adler says that you must “come to terms with an author” by determining what are the most important words or phrases that the author uses in a work.

What is the most important word in this work? Why is it important? What does he mean when he uses that word/phrase?

Does the most important word vary from section to section? What is it for each section? (In 2012 we used Four Colors only—tried to get them beyond the literal meaning of the heading to the true import of the colors in the section.)

Is the work true, in whole or part?
In paragraph 61, Adler says, “Marking a book is not an act of mutilation, but one of love.” What does he mean by this? Is he correct? Why or why not?

In paragraph 63, Adler defines “intellectual ownership.” Does he convince you? Why or why not?

Adler contends that in order to grow intellectually, we must read “above our head” do you agree? Why or why not? Does this apply to other areas as well? Why or why not? Did not have enough time for this one in this first seminar.

What of it?
Look at our rules for reading based on this text:

Which rule do you think is most important? Which one will help you the most? Is it the same as the one you thought was most important? Why or why not?