Proving the Supernatural: Spiderman and Beowulf

FLHS English Department: Emily Ball, Dave Elliott, Kristin Elliott, Carrie Heimlich, Lisa McAllister, Kim Thiel

“Not a sufficient explanation.”

“How does this prove your point?”

“What’s your reason for using this example?”

“How does this quote connect to your main idea?”

Whether teaching ninth grade English or advanced placement courses, each member of our high school English department had written comments like this on student papers hundreds of times. Explaining how evidence proves a point and connects back to the main idea represents one of the more difficult skills for students to grasp in the English language arts curriculum. Our team decided to invest some time and energy in tackling this challenge and experimenting with ways to help students improve. 

For our first research lesson, we directed our attention to the British Literature course and a lesson on Beowulf where students wrote a paper comparing and contrasting Beowulf with another popular heroic figure.

We hoped to see a high percentage of students identify relevant quotes or examples and write effective topic sentences and conclusions that focus on the main idea. The team anticipated that students would struggle most with explaining how quotes and examples prove a point, using varied transitions, and balancing analysis with equal emphasis on both characters. We agreed that if at least half of the students showed progress in these more difficult areas that would be a positive outcome for this first writing sample.

Spiderman and Beowulf on Trial

The team constructed a lesson where we placed Beowulf and Spiderman on trial and assigned students the responsibility of proving that each character possessed supernatural abilities. By using a trial process the team hoped to introduce a familiar example of how evidence is used that would help students visualize and understand why forming an argument based on evidence is important. In addition, we believed the trial context would require students to provide an explanation of evidence that could stand up to the scrutiny of the judge and peers. The point of the trial was to place the evidence on trial not Beowulf or Spiderman. Our group also hoped that asking students to prove a specific crime and having them bring in evidence, might help students make a clear connection between the evidence and position, while also establishing a balance in emphasis on both characters.

After staging the trial, we placed students in groups with assigned roles (recorder, arguer, transitioner) to construct comparison/contrast paragraphs and provided the groups with a color-coded paragraph structure to help them check for the key criteria each paragraph should include.

Results from the “Trial”

We examined preliminary results in student writing from the in-class group activity by selecting two high, six medium, and two low-scoring students to follow as representative cases. Nearly all of these case study students successfully opened their paragraphs with a strong topic sentence focused on the supernatural qualities of these epic heroes and concluded the paragraph by linking back to the main idea. All of the case study students also included relevant quotes or examples for both Beowulf and Spiderman.

For the more challenging criteria (explanations, transitions, and balance) there were also signs of progress. Students’ writing exceeded the team’s initial expectations with 60% of the students successfully substantiating their points by explaining how the selected quotes or examples for the epic heroes demonstrated qualities beyond what a normal human could accomplish. Ninety percent of the students used correct and varied transitions, and all students wrote balanced paragraphs with equal emphasis on both characters.

Teaching and Learning Insights

These results suggest that, at least in the context of a collaborative writing assignment, a majority of the students were able to write successful comparison/contrast paragraphs meeting the criteria we identified. While there was still substantial room for improvement, many more than anticipated were able to provide an explanation for the selected quote or example. Our classroom observations and initial reflections on the lesson point to several pivotal aspects of the lesson that likely contributed to these results.

One of the keys during the mock trial was having the moderator (teacher) and judge (guest administrator) continually scrutinize students’ explanations for evidence as they attempted to prove the characters had supernatural powers. This marked the importance of substantiating the link and proving the point. It also modeled for students the kind of questions they need to ask themselves when writing their own paragraphs. The judge and moderator used lines such as, “What’s supernatural about that? How is that different from a typical human being?  What kind of situation/context would make that supernatural?

Another critical aspect of the lesson was assigning roles during the group paragraph writing, including the roles of arguer and transitioner. The arguer helped sustain the emphasis modeled in the trial for scrutinizing evidence and substantiating the link. One lesson observer captured a student asking, “Is that a sound argument?” Another student prompted the group with a reminder, “We need to explain the quote now.”  In a similar fashion, the students playing the role of transitioner held the group accountable for including effective transitions throughout the paragraph which students otherwise frequently neglect.

Tying all this together was the color-coded paragraph structure. When combined with other lesson elements, this structure helped remind students to explain evidence and substantiate claims and provided clear direction on how to incorporate that explanation for an effective comparison/contrast paragraph.

Going forward, the British Literature teachers plan to sustain emphasis on the assigned roles and help students adopt the mindset of these roles as part of their own internal dialogue for writing and revising papers. The team will monitor progress with this course and these case study students by reviewing several copies of the final essay later in the semester. In the meantime, our whole department will continue to study ways of helping students explain evidence through additional research lessons in other courses. We anticipate more findings and insights to come and hopefully more comments on student papers such as,

“Very thorough and convincing explanation!”

“Clearly links back to your main point!”

“Well supported argument!”