Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW #1

Literature Review #1
Daniel Coffin
Concordia University, Nebraska

Submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for EDUC 630
September 24th, 2016

Literature Review #1

LITERATURE REVIEW #1

Thinking back to my own experiences as a student, I can remember a number of times

when I crammed information in marathon all-nighter sessions, only to regurgitate it the following
morning. The test completed and the task accomplished, the information learned would
gradually fade over time, beginning almost immediately after walking out of the classroom. This
cycle of cram, purge, and repeat typified my high school career, but it wasnt until I became a
teacher that I better understood why this cycle happened the way it did and how I might help
break that cycle for my own students.
According the constructivist model of epistemology, learners learn not by acquiring
information from another, more knowledgeable source, but by actively constructing it in order to
make sense of their surroundings (Gash, 2015, p. 9). Any sort of learning which does not involve
the active participation of the learner in creating meaning is likely to be ephemeral and not last. It
stands to reason, then, that the most durable form of understanding in the realm of literacy
learning would be a technique which calls upon readers and writers to create an artifact of their
understanding of a text.
When I think back to the stories I know and love the best, they were, without exception,
the ones that drove me, by virtue of how much they affected me emotionally or intellectually, to
respond to them with a creation of my own. When I loved The Hobbit, I wrote my own imitation
fantasy epic. When I thrilled to Harlan Ellisons essays, I wrote my own screeds about my own
petty annoyances. When I was blown away by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., I tried to write about my own
life through a science-fiction lens. In each case, I was taking apart something I loved and making
it anew according to my understanding of it. Certainly my creations lacked the artistry of the
originals, but someone assessing them could have easily noted my influences and how they left
their mark on my psyche and my work.

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Gambrell, Koskinen, and Kapinus study reviews the efficacy of retelling practice as
measured by the scores of fourth-grade students on cued-recall questions related to a selection
four sessions following reading the text.; their findings indicated that practice in retelling
correlated with significant improvements in both the quality (accuracy and detail) and quantity
(length) of retellings not just in proficient readers, but in non-proficient readers as well (1991, p.
356). They suggest that this effect is due to the fact that the process of retelling requires a reader
to deconstruct a text and then reconstruct it in their own words, reflecting upon the text and
making distinctions between the text itself, the meaning conveyed by the text, and the authors
purpose for writing (Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinus, 1991, p. 356-357).
This basic idea can be formulated in a number of ways in a classroom. First, of course, is
the traditional book report, which incorporates a basic summary of plot and character. In a
movie-themed unit of study for my students, I had them create not only a script treatment (a
fairly standard retelling) but also generate a movie poster (which implies not only a visual but
also a verbal formulation of theme). Booktalks are also an effective retelling technique for
students who are reticent to respond to a text in writing. This should be considered as an
effective accommodation for students who struggle to compose in print but are nonetheless eager
to respond. Students can respond to the text not only by recounting plot events, but by critiquing
the authors development of character or plot or use of figurative language.
This article is meaningful because retelling as an instructional technique seems to
naturally support and correspond to the ways by which we as humans gain any kind of
meaningful and persistent knowledge. Students should be scaffolded and encouraged in their
efforts to reformulate what they have read in their own words so that they can retell it to others.

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The research would suggest that retelling is one of the fundamental reading comprehension
strategies which should form the core of any reading instructional program.

References

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Gambrell, L.B., Koskinen, P.S., & Kapinus, B.A. (1991). Retelling and the reading
comprehension of proficient and less-proficient readers. Journal of Educational Research,
84(6), 356-362.
Gash, H. (2015). Knowledge construction: A paradigm shift. New Directions for Teaching &
Learning, 2015(143), p. 5-23.