After reading Act IV of Hamlet, I provided students with cards at their table for discussion, Students settled into reading and discussion, but I noticed one group of four not engaging in the work and staring into space. When I asked if they felt stuck or needed additional help, one girl quickly said, “When are you going to tell us what this play means?”

As English teachers, we are not the gatekeepers of the hidden meanings of texts but rather equippers and cheerleaders for students as they learn to making meaning and interpret texts on their own.

One of the core values of my classroom is to help students embrace frustration in learning. No one likes to be uncomfortable or feel like they don’t have a good grasp of what’s going on – especially in front of your peers, but students never get better at reading by reading the same level of texts over and over. In the classroom, we too often we settle for comfortable reading or the path of least resistance, but students must read more difficult texts in order to grow as a reader. It’s important to note that difficulty may be determined in different ways – more difficult topics and themes, difficult syntax and diction, difficult narration such as an unreliable narrator or multiple narrators, or difficult structure are a few examples. But the goal is to push our students to grow as readers and thinkers.

Building a culture that encourages students to engage in productive struggle requires intentionality in big and small ways. Here are some things that guide my thinking as I encourage students to engage in the productive struggle of learning. 

1 – Shift from plot-based to skill-based instruction

In the last decade of teaching, I have made a full shift from plot-oriented to skill-focused lessons. The text is a tool that provides students opportunities  to develop their thinking and learn how to make meaning of the text for themselves. What’s happening in the story is merely the starting point for the real work of thinking. For a day-by-day look of skill-based lessons in AP Lit (I also do this in my on-level classes), my daily lessons can be found here. 

2 – State the purpose for reading the text

If students (people in general I suppose) know why they are being asked to do something, they are more likely to engage with the work. This is true in the classroom and probably the reason behind learning targets (which have gotten way out of hand imo). I begin each lesson with a quick explanation of the why of our day’s work. Sometimes this takes 30 seconds, if we’re starting a novel or play, I might spend 5 minutes on it, and I’ve found this not only helps focus students but gets more buy-in for the work. 

3 – Chunk the text into smaller parts when reading particularly difficult texts

This seems so elementary to say, yet I find myself not employing this strategy enough. There have been times when students have checked in saying that completely did not understand the reading. This is where I can 1 – rant about attention spans, not “giving it your all,” or just buckle down and reread (which sometimes this is honestly what needs to happen) OR I can 2 – pull a passage, narrow the focus, and ask them to reread in class. Sometimes this is a chapter, a portion of a chapter, a paragraph, and yes even sometimes we narrow to the sentence level there’s particularly complicated syntax. This may require me to ask what is the subject in this sentence, what is the action in this sentence, then start adding on clauses and phrases to see what they add to the meaning of the subject. Or it may require students to think about what the verbs used with the main character reveal. Sometimes a pass or two at a particularly challenging passage can open up different levels of understanding and be a breakthrough for pushing through a period of frustion. 

4 – Model a portion – but not all – of thinking on a passage

Modeling is definitely important to show students how to approach a text, what questions to ask, and even what we glean from a text. I recently did this with “The Story of an Hour” – the first text we worked with in AP Lit. After students worked on annotations, I showed them mine then specifically talked through my thoughts on paragraphs 4 and 5, and then I stopped and let them unpack the rest of the story. This was enough to model the detail of analysis that I was looking for without falling into the trap of explaining the entire story to them. 

5 – Commit to slowing down

I am not great at the slow game. There’s so much to cover and so little time. Building in think time is hard but necessary. Whether this be wait time after a question (seriously – reword and reask questions but don’t rob students of the time they need to think through a question by jumping in with an answer to because the silence is uncomfortable) or building in uninterrupted time for unpacking important scenes or interpreting poetry, teachers must schedule time for the rolling around of thoughts and ideas and give time for them to come to fruition. Thinking is hard work and cannot be rushed!

6 – Provide open questions to generate thinking – 

Too often questions that are asked while reading are closed and do not require deep thinking. I have started using the questions in the AP Lit Course and Exam Description (beginning on p. 123) for questions. They are built around skills so they can easily be applied to any text. For example, the questions for contrasting characters are 

• How do comparable traits of two or more characters contrast? 
• What do the differing traits between characters reveal about them individually, their relationships with one another, and their relationships with other characters? 
• How does considering the significance of contrast between characters contribute to meaning in the text?

These questions are a quick and easy way to push students to deeper thinking – and they’re already written!

7 – Provide low-stakes opportunities for students to work through difficult texts

This is self-explanatory. The only thing I will add is don’t use grades in a punitive way when students are being asked to grow in their thinking and learning. 

8 –  Add a metacognitive component to the task

Not only should students be thinking about a text, but students should also be thinking about their thinking and reading. I often talk to students about how to read, how to think, and give them opportunities to answer questions about these things. For example,

How was your experience reading this novella? (see pic)

What was the hardest part of last night’s reading? What made it difficult? How did you adjust reading to get through this portion of the text?

What is one reading strategy you have used successfully?

9 – Allow students to generate insights and questions 

Even though I have a skill identified or learning goal established before the lesson, I typically let student insight lead in our lesson. The most common questions we initially discuss after reading a text are

What did you notice? Why do you think it’s important?

What line stands out to you in this poem? What sentence stands out in this passage? Why?

I start here because this gets students to pay attention to what they notice, and often what stands out to us as readers is where we start making meaning of the text. This makes the text less of a guessing game of what the teacher wants the student to glean from the text and more of an invitation for the to pay attention to their thoughts and ideas. Activities such as removing punctuation from prose and asking students where they would add punctuation and why, having students solve poem puzzles, or having students divide poems into stanzas provide organic opportunities for students to share insights about texts without having to guide them to an interpretation. 

10 – Encourage, encourage, encourage

I often use the example of going to the gym when I talk to my students about reading. When I put a heavier amount of weight on the bar for the first time, I struggle. My arms shake on the last few reps, and I have to mentally talk myself into sticking out the set. However, if I keep lifting at this weight, my body adjusts within a few weeks, and I will once again need heavier weight. The repeated struggle yields gain. The same is true with learning; once pathways for learning in our brains are established, we experience better retention, transfer, and even a dopamine hit per say to do this more often.

Struggling in the classroom is not bad but good because the struggle is often the opporunity for growth. We need to reframe frustration to productive struggle and normalize the feeling of uneasiness while learning and growing in reading.

Susan Barber teaches AP® English Literature and Lit Comp III at Midtown High School in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the coauthor of The Norton Guide to AP^® Literature: Writing & Skills (2022) and 100% Engagement: 33 Lessons to Promote Participation, Beat Boredom, and Deepen Learning in the ELA Classroom. Susan is most proud of the work she does on a daily basis in E216 and never tires of the beauty and chaos of the classroom.