Teaching Symbolism to Middle & High School Students

While symbolism is a higher level concept that some students can struggle with, it is also such an engaging concept to teach because symbolism is all around us: in songs, movies, commercials and on posters and billboards. I detailed the many ways I introduce and reinforce symbolism in this previous blog post and you can find even more ideas below.

Build Students' Background Knowledge
Symbolism can be a fun literary conversation, but students don't always understand the concept. To ensure that students are able to analyze symbols, you will want to explain colors, everyday gestures, common symbols, intangible symbols, and weather. With these tips for talking about symbolism, teachers can find a successful way for talking about symbolism with secondary students. You can read more about these tips here and as extra help, I've included a free download of 101 activities for literary analysis. . . with an entire section devoted to symbolism.
*Recommended by Lauralee, Language Arts Classroom

Play Symbolic Pictionary
Before playing the game, you will need to create a slideshow with an abstract noun on each slide (you could also use concrete nouns, specially people or places). Some ideas include determination, power, speed, intelligence, violence, and peace. To play, first break your students up into teams and make sure each team has drawing supplies (whiteboard and markers, paper and crayons, etc). Once a word is revealed, teams begin discussing and drawing a possible symbol. After the allotted amount of team, each team reveals the image that they have drawn and points are awarded. You can read more about the rules of play here.

Introduce The Symbolic Arc To Create Layers Of Understanding
The first arch of the symbolism arc is filled with an object's concrete details (what is looks, smells, sounds, tastes, feels like). The second arch of the symbolism arc is filled with an object's abstract traits, the associations we make with the object because of society, culture, tradition, etc. In the third and final arch of the symbolism arc, students make connections between the concrete details and the abstract traits to determine a possible symbolic meaning. You can read more about this strategy here.

Use Music Videos To Look For Symbolism
Before students dig into printed texts to look for symbolism, start them off with symbols they can actually see. While there are so many choices for music videos, it is often best to use something students are already familiar with (and obviously school appropriate), Musical numbers from Disney movies work well. This blog post from Lit LearnAct describes using "Let It Go" from Frozen to note important objects, describe their purpose or function, and then consider a possible symbolic meaning.

Keep An Eye Out For Objects Of Importance
When you do begin to look for symbols in printed texts have students look for references to concrete objects, especially objects named in titles, and consider whether they could be symbols. Students should also pay special attention to objects or places that are repeated or described in detail. When analyzing a short story or part of a novel or play, assign each student or group of students a page number and ask them to list any objects mentioned. Ask students to share out what they found to create a class list, tallying the number of times an object is mentioned. Beginning with the most frequent mention work down the list discussing the meaning this object might carry with it.

Teaching Literary Elements: Symbolism

As the saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words, so it's no wonder so many authors incorporate symbolism into their writing. The visual nature of symbolism also makes it a fun concept to teach to students.

Whether you are teaching this as a new concept for your students, diving in deeper, or just reviewing the basics, you'll find activities and resources below that will benefit all levels of students.

Terms to Teach
At the start of my teaching career, I taught primarily ninth grade students at an urban, Title 1 high school. My students came from a variety of K-8 schools, which meant they came with varying English Language Arts experiences. To ensure that all of my students started high school with a strong foundation in the literary elements, I found it best to give direct instruction followed by ample opportunities to apply terms and practice skills.

During my direct instruction, I introduced students to the following terms: personal symbols, public symbols, symbolism, and allegory. Under the category of public symbols, I show students that symbols can have multiple meanings and they can represent people, events, concrete things, and abstract ideas. Many of my students were unaccustomed to taking notes so I provided them with a guided note taking template. This three column sheet provided a structured space for the term, definition, and examples.

Activities for Reinforcement
Before applying these newly learned terms to a short story or novel, I like to give my students opportunities to practice using shorter texts or media. For symbolism, using short video clips provides great visual reinforcement. In this playlist, I have collected a variety of videos "exposing" the origins of different symbols, how some symbols have changed their meaning over time, symbols hidden in well known logos, etc. I may only use one of two of these videos each time I teach symbolism, but they definitely help to spark student interest and open their eyes up to how prevalently symbols are used.

Another way I reinforce symbolism is by using a menu of activities based on Bloom's Taxonomy. Students choose activities from four different section of the menu: knowledge and comprehension, application and analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students examine examples of public symbols and can use their knowledge to complete tasks such as designing a flag with a new symbol for their school.

If I'm in the midst of a novel or short story, an activity that is fun to use with any text is creating word art. It's a great activity for any grade level and can be used to reinforce the ideas of character and symbolism. This activity can be done during or after reading with any short story or novel. Students brainstorm words to describe and associated with a character of choice, select an object to represent the character or his/her traits, and then create that object using the words they brainstormed. You can read more about the activity and see examples here.

Incorporating Movement and Hands-on Activities
A fun introductory lesson to symbolism is creating a personal crest. I provide students with a crest template as well as the meanings of common symbols and colors. I ask students to select colors and symbols that represent them and then show students a sample crest to help them brainstorm additional ideas. I usually make students do a rough sketch or at least brainstorm a list of the symbols and colors they are going to use before handing out the crest template for their final product. After designing their crests, students write a short paragraph of explaining their choice of symbols and colors. If time allows, I'll have students present their crests to their peers. This activity could also be used as a beginning of the year activity for students to express who they are and decorate their new classroom. Students could also create crests to represent characters or individuals in a novel, short story, or nonfiction text.

To demonstrate to students how powerful symbols can be, I incorporate a lesson on some of the propaganda posters used by Nazi Germany during World War II and the Holocaust. I select ten posters to print and hang around my classroom so that students can walk around and examine them. To begin, students infer the meaning of each poster by matching each poster with its correct English translation using the visual clues in the posters. After students have correctly matched the posters to their translations, they begin to identify patterns in the portrayals of the German people versus the Jews. Finally, students analyze symbols and color symbolism used in the posters. By the end of the lesson, students are able to see how the Nazi party to spread and preserve the basic ideas of Nazism and to dehumanize “inferior" groups.

Texts to Read
My favorite short story, "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst, is a perfect choice for teaching symbolism as the author’s use of symbolism is clear, yet multi-layered. The story is also full of beautiful imagery that contrasts the heartbreaking end to the relationship between the two brothers. I remember reading it as a ninth grade student and was delighted to find it in the literature anthology I used as a ninth grade teacher. It’s a great text for examining foreshadowing and can also be used to introduce allegory by discussing the author’s attitude toward war.

 
If you don't want to run the risk of crying in front or (or with) your students, "Through the Tunnel" by Doris Lessing, is another great choice. The main character struggles against himself, his mother, other boys, and forces of nature. Like most young people, the main character wrestles with being viewed as a child when he wants to be treated like a young adult. This coming of age story is full of imagery and symbolism, and also great for teaching the different types of conflict.

Creative Application
Once students seem comfortable with the terms or if students need a challenge, I introduce students to a digital break out, "Symbols of a Well-Read Student" for additional practice. A digital break out is an online scavenger hunt-like game where players use teamwork and critical thinking to solve a series of challenging puzzles in order to open a series of locks.

In this break out, students are hoping their current English teacher will recommend them for the advanced course next year, but she will only recommend students she considers to be "well-read" and has a list of five book titles students must read before she'll recommend them. Here's the catch; she won't directly tell students what the five book titles are. Instead, since they've just finished up a unit on symbolism, they'll have to use their knowledge of symbols and interact with a variety of text and media to figure out the titles of the books on the list.

In addition to needing content knowledge to successfully complete the game, break outs require students to think critically, communicate, collaborate, and use creativity. I also love break outs because they provide students with many opportunities to fail and try again. Every unsuccessful attempt to open a lock forces them to reexamine their information and their thinking.

Assessment
While many of the activities described above allow students to show their understanding of skills and terms, as a summative assessment I use a set of text-based assessments, each with a reading passage and 10 multiple choice questions or 7 multiple choice questions and a short written response, to assess my students’ knowledge of symbolism. 

The variety of passages and text complexity levels allows me to retest students as needed and make accommodations for struggling readers. The variety was also helpful in the years that I had classes whose eyes tended to wander during quizzes or tests.

You can find all of my resources for teaching symbolism here.

Word Art: A Creative Lesson on Characterization & Symbolism

The inspiration for this project came from seeing an image of the mockingjay pin from The Hunger Games created out of words. My students were reading The Hunger Games at the time and I wanted to have them create something similar. I looked at sites like Wordle and Tagxedo, which let you create word clouds, but neither had the flexibility in shapes that I was looking for, so this project ended up being no-tech.

Students first selected their favorite character from the novel and brainstormed words to describe and associated with that character. During this brainstorming, you may want to remind students of the different methods of characterization: direct characterization and indirect characterization through appearance, actions, thoughts and feelings, dialogue, and other characters’ comments. I encourage students to use as much language from the text as possible.

From this brainstorming, an object that would serve as an appropriate symbol may arise. For example, in The Hunger Games, Peeta was a baker so a loaf of bread would be an obvious symbol to use for him. I’ve also used this activity with Of Mice and Men, and a red dress would be an obvious symbol for Curly’s wife.

You may want to encourage students to think a little deeper and choose a symbol that is representative of the character’s traits. For example, in Of Mice and Men, Lennie is very curious, so a question mark might be used as a symbol for him or George is the more intelligent one in the pair, so a brain might be used as a symbol for him.

Once students have selected an appropriate symbol, they will use the words that they brainstormed to create the image. I encourage students to do a rough draft first so they can play with the layout of the words. I find it easiest for them to lightly sketch out the lines of their drawing and then place the words on top. Some words may need to be larger or smaller than others. If needed, I allow students to repeat words. 

When students complete their final draft, I encourage them to use different colors for their words to help create the image. If they are going to color anything else, have them do light shading so that the words can all still be read.

You'll be surprised with the creativity of your students and even "non-artistic" students will enjoy this activity. If you try it out with your students, I'd love to see what they come up with!

You can find all of my Of Mice and Men resources, including the activity described above, here.

End of the Year Project Idea: Literary Theme Park

At the end of one school year, my principal announced that she wanted to see us all engaged in project based learning. It was the new buzz word, though not as popular as it is now, and despite having final units and weeks planned, we were now supposed to add a project into the mix. 

My students had just wrapped up reading and acting out Romeo and Juliet.

 And now we were engaged in a mini-argument essay on teenagers and their decision making capabilities. Finals were soon approaching. 

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do, but I knew I wanted it to be fun and engaging. My students had just struggled through Shakespeare and were courageous enough to read and act in front of their peers. Now they were still working hard, crafting an argument essay. I also knew I wanted to connect the project to the final. I didn't want my students to be stressing over a final project and a final exam.

I am not sure where the idea came from but I decided to create a project centered around a literary theme park (with emphasis on theme). The rides could connect to events in the plot, shops and eateries could connect to characters, the theme of the park could connect to a theme in the play, etc. But would my ninth grade students be into it? Sometime the ideas I thought were awesome, they didn't quite share my opinion.

But they loved this! The first step was to review the plot of the play using this tragedy cycle graphic organizer.

After I checked off their plot as complete and correct, students moved on to planning their rides,  attractions, shops, food, souvenirs, etc. using this outline.

I showed students a very simplistic sample park layout, but you could also show students real maps of amusement parks, historical parks, or nature parks. Just make sure the map has a key on it and you draw attention to that.

Once I checked off their outline for completion, students were free to begin the poster with the map of their amusement park. What they came up with was amazing! Here are just a few:

I also had the students present so they could share their parks with their peers. This was low pressure, even for students who don't like to speak in class.

While I used this project with Romeo and Juliet, you could use it with any story, novel, or play. Assign your students your most recent text or let them pick a favorite from the year to focus on. History teachers could adapt this to focus on a historical event or time period covered. Science teachers could focus on a concept or unit. Grab this free resource by clicking on the image below.

Enjoy your final days of school!