Research to Expand Our Universe

Super Readers Research!

Super readers flex lots of different muscles. One of these muscles is research. Research can strengthen readers’ understanding of a text but also allow them to flex and show off those muscles just for fun.

Exercises for your research muscles:

1. Dictionary Dips: Look up unfamiliar words and names of people and/or places to find out their meaning
2. Biography Squats: Read about the author’s life (in a biography, obituary, interview, or article)
3. Author Isolations: Read other work by the author (primary sources such as essays, prose, poetry, diaries, journals, letters)
4. Commentary Cheers: Read commentary/reviews and criticism on the book
5. Freestyle Cool Down: Go with the flow and let research take you on an interesting journey of discovering cool and interesting facts, photos, links, stories, etc.
6. (NEW!) Background Curls: Learn about the historical, cultural, and/or societal background of the setting/time period in which the book takes place or was written. For instance, if you are reading Maus by Art Spiegelman, read about the Holocaust.
7. (NEW!) Allusion Hunt: Writers often allude to or mention real songs, titles of movies or books, artists, politicians, musicians, other important people, etc. Sometimes these allusions are directly or indirectly mentioned. Try to pick up on them and look them up. It's kind of like doing a treasure hunt. Hidden among all these sentences, you can discover some really cool things! For instance, in Freak the Mighty, there are many allusions to King Arthur; this can lead you to read the original stories about this character.

General tips:

• Choose your sources carefully. Use reputable, trustworthy ones. Wikipedia is a good starting place but it is not serious research. It’s amateurish. However, the links can guide you to serious sources.
• Make use of external links, works cited/references, indexes, appendices, search engines, etc. to help you find related sources.
• Go to the library. Ask librarians for help.
• When writing with sources, be sure to cite them! Otherwise, you will get sucked into the dark side of plagiarism.
• Use research to make all of your writing, whether they be reading responses, blog posts, essays, stories, etc. more interesting and precise.

ACTIVITY: Read the following entry I wrote based on my research of Charlotte’s Web. Then, do at least two of the above research exercises and write an entry about what you learned about your book based on your research. Be sure to cite your sources and include hyperlinks.

Using Research to Expand my Understanding of Charlotte’s Web

To deepen my understanding of Charlotte’s Web, I started off with The Annotated Charlotte’s Web edited by Peter F. Neumeyer who takes reading this classic children’s book and turns it into an extreme sport. Neumeyer includes the entire original text, writes detailed, annotated footnotes in the margins of almost every page, and adds several appendices of supplementary material. He includes White’s drawings and notes on spiders which he used to create Charlotte’s character and other related essays.

I read one of White’s essays, “Pigs and Spiders” included in the appendix of Neumeyer’s book. Here I learned how some of the themes in Charlotte’s Web reflect White’s experience. In this essay, White states: “A farm is a particular problem for a man who likes animals, because the fate of most livestock is that they are murdered by their benefactors. The creatures may live serenely but they end violently, and the odor of doom hangs about them always.” This conflict is subtly present throughout this book. Wilbur is saved from slaughter in the beginning of the book, and though he still lives in the end, we understand that it is still possible that he will be turned into bacon. Wilbur’s salvation must be a relief to White; he must have enjoyed creating this utopia for these farm animals. In this same essay, he writes, “the theme of Charlotte’s Web is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect.”

Another essay by White that shows how his life connected to the book is “The Death of a Pig”. This essay is mainly about a spring pig on his farm that became ill and eventually died. It shows how deeply he cared about his animals. When the pig became ill, he did everything he could to save it, even administering enemas for it. He also described the depression he felt as the pig became more ill and eventually died. Regarding the burial of the pig, he writes: “Everything about this last scene seemed overwritten – the dismal sky, the shabby woods, the imminence of rain, the worm (legendary bedfellow of the dead), the apple (conventional garnish of a pig).” This reminded me of many parts of the chapter titled “Loneliness” where the rain symbolizes Wilbur’s sadness and the apple tree that Wilbur first lived under.

I expanded my research by going on the Internet. I read an obituary about White (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0711.html). I agree with William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, who said: “E. B. White was a great essayist, a supreme stylist. His literary style was as pure as any in our language. It was singular, colloquial, clear, unforced, thoroughly American and utterly beautiful.” Charlotte’s Web is a great example of his precise and specific writing style and of White’s sensitivity and love for rural, American life.

In my Google search, I also came across this link to an interesting article/appreciation of Charlotte: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93263496. Here, the author, Melissa Block, begins by telling a story of a spider she grew fond of in the outdoor shower of her house in Cape Cod. She goes on to show her appreciation of Charlotte A. Cavatica. She writes: “I've read Charlotte's Web many times, first as a child, now as a parent. And each time, it seems I find some new dimension, another side of Charlotte I hadn't appreciated before. Her sarcasm; her pride; her wit.” I have read this as a child and now as a teacher and parent. And each time I read it, I also find some new dimension of the entire book that I hadn’t appreciated before.