1. Finding Meaning in a Text
Making Connections
Finding Meaning in a Text
Distribute three sticky notes to each student.
Clipart from
Lisa Huff ©2007

2. Three Types of Connections
TS Text to Self
TT Text to Text
TW Text to World
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3. Text to Self How does the reading relate to you personally?
Characters similar to you or your friends?
Setting remind you of a place you’ve been?
Plot remind you of something in your own life?
Situations remind you of similar situations you’ve experienced?
Have students write “TS” in small letters atop one of the sticky notes.

4. Text to Text Does the reading remind you of another text?
Are characters similar to characters in another book or movie?
Are settings similar to settings in other stories?
Are there similar situations/plots to a book, story, poem, or movie you’ve read or seen?
Have students write “TT” in small letters atop one of the sticky notes.

5. Text to World How does the reading relate to larger world issues?
Is the reading similar to current events?
Does the reading remind you of historical events?
Does the reading remind you of societal issues, problems, controversies?
Have students write “TW” in small letters atop one of the sticky notes. Read aloud a short passage, having them record three connections on the sticky notes. Allow students to share connections in small groups. Then, on a big chart of paper or on the board, have each group share some of their connections with the whole class, recording them.

6. Making Insightful Connections
Don’t settle for “Shallow Hal” connections.
Dig DEEP for “Onion” ideas: meaningful connections that lead to discussion of BIG IDEAS.
Before showing the next slide, show the clip from Shrek where Shrek is discussing with donkey how ogres have layers (just after Shrek sets out on his quest to rescue the princess). Discuss with students how ogres having layers like onions is like a text having layers.
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7. The Shrek Factor “Ogres are like onions. They have layers.”
To discover the “real” Shrek, you have to peel beyond the one dimensional surface
past his funny-looking ears, big clumsy hands, and ugly green skin.
to his complex character: loving, compassionate, loyal, humorous,

8. Peel the Layers of a Text
Layer One Literal Questions
Fact based, knowledge, comprehension level questions (Who, What, When, Where questions)
Require you to recall information given in text
Answers are found in the text or other available sources

9. Layer Two Interpretation Questions
Text-bound questions that require analysis, synthesis, and evaluation
Reader has to put together information from different parts of the text to answer
You can’t find the answers by recalling one specific passage

10. Layer Three Beyond-the-Text Questions (Open-ended)
Require you to apply knowledge gained in text to new situations
Reader has to put together information from the text and information from his own thinking to answer
“Why,” “How,” and “What do you think” questions
Lead to discussions of other issues and concepts related to the text
Have students work in small groups to pose three questions about the read aloud text and label the question type.

11. Search for the ONIONS Ask INSIGHTFUL questions
Peel past the layer one questions
Dig through layers two and especially layer three
Make MEANINGFUL connections
Text to Self (TS)
Text to Text (TT)
Text to World (TW)

12. Making Connections Gives Meaning
“I do believe that the power of fiction lies in the fact that it is a narrative, that it tells a story, big or small, for it is through stories that we are best able to recognize ourselves and learn about who we are and might be” (Adler).

13. “This is what comes to us in great books—moments of knowing, in an essential way, what love is, or who we are, or of what value life is, or answers to the questions we forever burn to answer but cannot. One of the most essential of all the big questions is "how ought we to live?" This question is essential to much of the worlds great literature” (Adler).