Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Like a Grade 10 Critic: Literature, Information and Shakespeare

Extending Understanding: Meaningful Connections to Self, Other Texts and the World

1.5About 65 minutes

Learning goals

I can make text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world connections.
I can turn a surface connection into one that deepens my understanding.
I can explain how my own background influences how I read a text.
I can use structures from texts I've read to understand a new text.

Words to know

connection
A link between a text and your experience, another text or the world.

text-to-self
A connection to your own knowledge, experience or feelings.

text-to-text
A connection to another text, including its form or structure.

text-to-world
A connection to events, issues, history or communities.

lens
The background and viewpoint a reader brings to a text.

interpretation
A reader's explanation of what a text means, supported by evidence.

ambiguous
Open to more than one meaning.

Hook: the song that hits differently

Have you ever heard a song for the tenth time and suddenly understood it, because something happened in your life? The song didn't change. You did. Readers bring their experiences, other texts they know and the world they live in to everything they read. Used well, these connections deepen understanding. Used carelessly, they pull you away from the text.

Remember from Grade 9

In Grade 9 you connected and synthesized ideas across texts. In Grade 10 the expectation is to extend your understanding: every connection must help you explain the text better, including how your own background shapes the way you read a character or poem.

Three kinds of connections

Text-to-self: links to your own knowledge, experience and insights. I chose my courses for next year and worried I'd chosen wrong.
Text-to-text: links to other books, poems, films, songs, even the structure of texts you know. This has the same circular shape as a story that ends where it began.
Text-to-world: links to history, current events, communities and issues. Ontario students choose Grade 11 courses that can open or close pathways.

Surface connections versus meaningful ones

A surface connection only notices a similarity: There's a forest in the poem, and I've been in a forest. A meaningful connection explains how the link changes or deepens your understanding of the text: Having to choose between two good options for next year helps me understand why the speaker stood "long" before deciding, and why the speaker still thinks about it.

Use this test: So what? If your connection can't answer so what does that show about the text?, keep thinking.

Connections spread out from the text to yourself, other texts and the world. Arrows go both ways: a meaningful connection always comes back to the text and helps explain it.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916; public domain)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Words to know: diverged = split apart; wanted wear = needed (lacked) walking on; trodden = walked on; hence = from now.

The poem's two roads. Both details on the right describe the road the speaker took. In stanza 2 the speaker says the roads were about the same, but in the last stanza imagines telling the story as if they took the road less traveled by.

Worked example

Let's turn surface connections into meaningful ones

Make one connection of each kind to The Road Not Taken, and use the So what? test to deepen each.

Text-to-self (surface): I've had to make choices. So what? When I chose between a hockey team and a part-time job, both choices seemed equally good, just like the roads that were 'really about the same'. I still tell the story as if one was obviously right. That helps me see that the speaker may be inventing the difference later, in that 'sigh'.
Text-to-text: the structure of the poem moves from the present choice to an imagined future retelling. That reminds me of stories narrated by an older person looking back. In those, the narrator's memory shapes the story. So I should ask whether the speaker's final claim is a fact or a polished memory.
Text-to-world: Graduation speeches often quote 'I took the one less traveled by' to praise being different. So what? The poem itself says the roads were equal, so the popular reading misses Frost's irony. The world's use of the poem shows how a line can be taken out of context.
Check: each connection ends with a new idea about the poem, not just about me or the world.

Meaningful connections: (self) equal choices get retold as if one was clearly better; (text) a narrator looking back reshapes the story; (world) the famous line is often quoted out of context.

How your background shapes your reading

The curriculum also asks you to explain how something in your own experience or background has influenced your understanding. Two readers can respond differently, and both can be valid if they are grounded in the text. A student who has moved between countries might read the poem as a choice of home, language or identity. A student who has never had much choice might find the poem's freedom unrealistic. Naming your lens makes your reading more honest and helps you notice what you might be missing.

Just for fun

A modern version: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I... checked the map app, which said both would take eleven minutes. Turns out the app agrees with Frost: they were really about the same.

Hands-on activity

Mock interview: ages and ages hence

You need: a partner (a family member is perfect), a phone to record if a grown-up says it's okay (optional), and the poem.

One person plays an interviewer; the other plays the poem's speaker, now old, ages and ages hence.
The interviewer asks at least four questions, for example: Were the roads really different? Why the sigh? Do you regret the other road? Would you tell the story the same way to your grandchildren?
The speaker must answer using words from the poem at least twice.
Swap roles. Then each person writes one meaningful connection (self, text or world) that the interview made them think of.

What to look for: answers that stay true to the poem (really about the same, with a sigh), and a written connection that passes the So what? test.

Your turn

Name the three kinds of connections.

What is the So what? test?

Quote the lines that show the two roads were about equal.

Why might the speaker say they will tell this story with a sigh?

Turn this into a meaningful connection: My cousin had to choose a university.

What does diverged mean?

More practice: warm-up

Who wrote The Road Not Taken, and when was it published?

A connection to a news story is which kind?

How many stanzas does the poem have?

Which road does the speaker say, at the end, that they took?

What does hence mean in ages and ages hence?

More practice: on your own

Explain the contradiction between stanzas 2 and 4.

Make a text-to-text connection between the poem and The Rink Keeper (Lesson 3) and explain it.

Why can two readers make different but valid interpretations of the same poem?

Why is I kept the first for another day! followed by I doubted if I should ever come back?

Explain how recalling the structure of a text you've read before can help with a new one.

Challenge

Write a paragraph explaining how your own background influences your reading of the poem. Include one quotation and one limitation of your lens.

Many people read the poem as advice to be different. Using a text-to-world connection and the poem's evidence, evaluate this reading.

Write three interview questions that would help someone make a meaningful text-to-self connection to the poem, and explain why each works.

Check your understanding

Quiz

A text-to-world connection links a text to...

Which is a meaningful connection?

In stanza 2, the roads are described as...

Why does the speaker doubt they will ever come back?

The So what? test checks whether a connection...

Why can different interpretations of a poem both be valid?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: ENG2D Reading 1.5: extending understanding of texts by making appropriate connections to personal knowledge, experience and insights; other texts; and the world, including recalling familiar text structures and explaining how one's own background influences interpretation.

How to help at home:

Read the poem aloud together and share a choice from your own life that felt like two equal roads.
When your teen makes a connection, ask "So what does that show about the text?"
Try the mock interview: it's fun and gets reluctant talkers going.

Common difficulties:

Surface connections (I've been in a forest too). Push for the link back to meaning.
Drifting away into a personal story that never returns to the text.
Missing the irony of the famous last stanza; reread stanza 2 together.

Facts used: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in August 1915 and was collected in Mountain Interval (1916); the text quoted is the 1916 book version; Frost died in 1963, so the poem is in the public domain in Canada. The full text is quoted here. Frost is widely reported to have said the poem partly teased his friend, the English poet Edward Thomas, about his habit of regretting whichever path they took on walks; this is mentioned only in this note.