More on the Mixed Sequence

So let's examine what is happening in the mixed sequence from The Red Pony.

 Examining Level 1 and Level 2 Connections in the Sequence

Level 1: Then Jody stood and watched the pony, and he saw things he had never noticed about any other horse.

*Note that Steinbeck explains what kind of things with a simple sentence/clause. 

I think the point here for depth is that clauses inside of sentences can be tools for writers to add depth through explanation and examples. The clause explains HOW one adds the explanation. 

*the prepositional phrase adds depth here by explaining which one - comparing the red pony to all the other horses.

Writers need to know that prepositional phrases are forms of adding depth through description. Prepositional phrases used like this one also help the reader to make connections and distinctions to and between other ideas.

In this level, I highlighted "things he never noticed" because Level 2 modifies this phrase. Everything in level 2 gives depth and explanation to this phrase. Notice that the sentence continues, and creates a kind of list of what Jody notices. 

*Here, the phrases form a kind of list that give examples of the things that Jody notices. 

Here's the text again in case you can't see the picture well: 

                           Level 2: the sleek, sliding flank muscles and the cords of the buttocks, which flexed like a closing fist, and the shine the sun put on the red coat.

In Level 1, I highlighted "things he never noticed" because Level 2 modifies this phrase. 

Everything in level 2 gives depth and explanation to this phrase.  

(Not sure what is happening with the alignment of the text here. But who really cares? Just ignore the centered text. Ain't nobody got time for wigged out technology.)

I didn't take a picture of it, but notice the simile "like a closing fist" that gives an example of the verb "flexed." This gives the reader an image of how the cords on the buttocks look. The simile is used to add depth! Craft = depth. 

Back to Level 2 and Level 3. 

Noden classifies the next sequence like this: 

Level 1: Having seen horses all his life, Jody had never looked at them very closely before.
            Level 2: But now he noticed the moving ears which gave expression and even inflection of                 expression to the face.
            Level 2: The pony talked with his ears.
            Level 2: You could tell exactly how he felt about everything by the way his ears pointed.

*All of the Level two additions zoom into the way Jody looks at the horse. They all show the examples of the close examination. 

The first Level 2 example shows how Jody's examination focuses on what the pony's ears are doing in terms of expression and inflection. The second Level 2 example is a restatement of the first sentence. Steinbeck names what the expression and inflection are doing for the pony through personification! Yet another literary device used to create depth. The last Level 2 modifier explains how Jody interprets what he sees. 

In thinking about how I would name, or list, the strategies of depth here, I'd create a chart that had these items: lists and examples, actions/movement, restatement, personification, interpretation. These are all explicit craft moves that a writer can make in creating depth. 

Examining Level 3: 

Here's how Noden classified the sentences: 

 Level 2: You could tell exactly how he felt about everything by the way his ears pointed.
                         Level 3: Sometimes they were stiff and uptight and sometimes lax and sagging.
                         Level 3: They went back when he was angry or fearful, and forward when he was                                                          anxious and curious and pleased; and their exact position indicated which emotion he                                         had.

*All of the previous Level 2 sentences focused on the ears. The Level 3 examples again form a kind of list with specific examples that illustrate different scenarios. 

The first Level 3 examples "stiff and uptight" and "lax and sagging" describe which direction the ears are pointing. The second Level 3 description gives specific scenarios of the directions the ears move and the way Jody interprets them. 

Listing the moves a writer would make to create depth: imagine scenarios, give interpretations, use adjectives, use terms for direction and emotion. 

So look at this! Steinbeck uses a dependent clause to explain how! Dependent clauses are a tool for creating depth. Items in a series are also used to give depth. Think of the authentic discussions you could have about commas here.

In fact, that's something that I like about all of this visual examination. We have a real reason to use the grammar terms: all in context of why we have the terms in the first place! Grammar terms only exist because we need words to talk about what our writing is doing to the reader. (Kind of a Rosenblatt grammarian connection here, I guess. If you get this reference, you are definitely my kind of Reading geek. You probably like Vygotsky too.)

Adding Depth through a Grammar of Passages: A Mixed Sequence

I need to work on other stuff. Here's a preview:

Source: Noden, Image Grammar, page 117-118


"Then Jody stood and watched the pony, and he saw things he had never notices about any other horse, the sleek, sliding flank muscles and the cords of the buttocks, which flexed like a closing fist, and the shine the sun put on the red coat. Having seen horses all his life, Jody had never looked at them very closely before. But now he noticed the moving ears which gave expression and even inflection of expression to the face. The pony talked with his ears. You could tell exactly how he felt about everything by the way his ears pointed. Sometimes they were stiff and uptight and sometimes lax and sagging. They went back when he was angry of fearful, and forward when he was anxious and curious and pleased; and their exact position indicated with emotion he had. Steinbeck, The Red Pony, 1973, 25.

Noden sets the levels like this:

Level 1: Then Jody stood and watched the pony, and he saw things he had never noticed about any other horse.
            Level 2: the sleek, sliding flank muscles and the cords of the buttocks, which flexed like a closing fist, and the shine the sun put on the red coat.
Level 1: Having seen horses all his life, Jody had never looked at them very closely before.
            Level 2: But now he noticed the moving ears which gave expression and even inflection of                 expression to the face.
            Level 2: The pony talked with his ears.
            Level 2: You could tell exactly how he felt about everything by the way his ears pointed.
                         Level 3: Sometimes they were stiff and uptight and sometimes lax and sagging.
                         Level 3: They went back when he was angry or fearful, and forward when he was                                anxious and curious and pleased; and their exact position indicated which emotion he                          had.

Interesting. Right? More later. 

Understanding Depth through a Grammar of Passages: A Subordinate Sequence

I just LOVE me some Harry Noden. But I think people (me included) got so hung up on the brush strokes and the imitation that we forgot to look at the other chapters. Check out Chapter 6: Toward a Grammar of Passages: linking Images Beyond the Sentence.

Key Point: I think the work he does here gives a concrete way of thinking about how we want students to create depth in their writing through the way they structure their ideas, how they use parts of speech and literary devices to modify meaning, and how sentence structures modify and expand central ideas.

Be sure to look at the charts Noden has on pages 116-119. These are almost diagrams of how arguments are structured in terms of how ideas modify each other in a hierarchy of development.

Hypothesis: I think that the kind of depth TEA seeks on the rubric for STAAR writing implies, but never fully defines what depth looks like. If we can examine key texts (published authors) for how depth is created, I think we will find the same components in papers that score well for development.

Method: We'll examine a sentence from Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" using the method described by Noden on page 115 and 116. Then we'll examine a paragraph from Steinbeck's "The Red Pony" as described by Noden on page 117-118. (I'll do this in a second post. This one is too long.) I'll lay out the sentences with images and then define what is going on in terms of modification and layers of depth.

"Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pound of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle sheathed over a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior" (Bradbury, 1968, 210).

Noden breaks it down into levels of depth like this:

Level 1: Each lower leg was a piston,
             Level 2: a thousand pounds of white bone,
                          Level 3: sunk in thick ropes of muscle
                                       Level 4: sheathed over a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible                                                              warrior.

(Christensen calls this a subordinate sequence. Noden shared Figure 6-3, pg 115)

Note that each step modifies, or describes the level above it. It is a logical progression, leading you to a conclusion by showing you only a piece at a time. It's like Bradbury zooms in with an MRI to the bone and slowly pulls outward to the skin, leaving us with an image that builds from the inside to the outside. But I think there is more going on here that we can name for explicit focus.

It reminds me of what dyslexic kids need. Some kids will be fine without explicit instruction. But some kids need the direct phonics work to help them see what does not come naturally to them.

Check out the first level: 

*The metaphor adds depth because it adds a nuanced meaning that can be interpreted by the reader.

We ask kids to write include specific literary devices in their writing. I've seen some rubrics that ask students to specifically include x number of brushstrokes, x number of similes. When I conference with kids about these elements, they are just sticking them in any ole place just to check that off the list of requirements. They are not doing any thinking about WHY they need to include that detail and what it does for the meaning they wish to convey. Meaningless drivel. 

Now, I'm not sure what Bradbury is describing here. Doesn't really matter. In fact, it's probably better that way. He uses a metaphor to describe the leg. Why? A piston is a piece of an engine; a machine. Already, I see that whatever is being described here is massive, powerful, strong, fast and pressurized. 

*The adjectives add depth because they tell which one and what kind about the central idea.

The adjectives are also modifying - adding depth. Which legs? The adjective tells me. It sends my mental eye to a specific place: down. That "each lower" leg is the piston emphasizes the image of the piston. I imagine them going up and down, knees rising, feet or hooves pounding. 

Zoom in to the Focus of the Second Level

Notice that I have written "leg" on yellow and have circled it. This reminds me of Peter Elbow's strategy called Looping. Leg is the "center of grabbity" (sic.). The next level modifies, or references the leg. 

*The next phrase "a thousand pounds of white bone points back to "leg." 

Let's examine this further than the levels. 

If we are to be very specific about zooming into the exact image, the focus is on "pounds." Bradbury continues the connection of describing the heft and weight of a machine first instead of the flesh. 

* The image of "pounds" points back to, modifies, "leg." 

But Bradbury goes deeper. He makes a connection back to the flesh. The prepositional phrase "of white bone" tells what kind of pounds are described. He reminds us that the focus of the image is on the contrast of how the flesh appears to be a machine but is really alive. This contrast emphasizes the central idea of the power of this living being. 

*The prepositional adds depth by emphasizing the contrast, which is the central idea and purpose of the sentence.

Zoom into the focus of the third level: 

*The next phrase, "sunk in thick ropes of muscle" tell where the "pounds" are located.

Notice that I used blue for pounds and muscle and then the same color for the next level phrase. This allows me to see the progression of depth and the levels that Noden labeled in his chart. 

*Notice here that the phrase add depth in the same way as the previous phrase. It's a kind of rhetorical parallel structure. The phrase tells where and how about the pounds described in the previous level. 

*The first prepositional phrase "in thick ropes" adds depth because it tells where the pounds are sunk. *The second prepositional phrase "of muscle" adds depth because it tells what kind of ropes and again emphasizes the contrast between living and  nonliving. 

The image created here emphasizes the nonliving aspect again. But it also creates the image of the living muscles ribbed and thickly twisted like multi-strand ropes, knowing that these cover the living pounds of pistons in the leg. 

Zoom into the focus of the fourth level

*This phrase, "sheathed over a gleam of pebbled skin" deepens the image by extending the verb of "sunk" that tells how and where about the bone to the verb "sheathed" that brings the image back to the leg. 

*The prepositional phrases parallel the structure again by emphasizing the mechanical first and then modifying it with the physical. "Of pebbled skin" explains the previous prepositional object "gleam." 

*The prepositional phrase, "over a gleam" adds depth by pointing to where and to what is "sheathed." "Of pebbled skin" adds depth because it tells what kind of gleam is achieved.

Zoom into the Fifth Level: 

Noden kept the levels at four. But look what happens here. The simile is used as an additional phrase that modifies the gleam of the skin. Notice the use of colors to indicate the connection. 

*The simile is an embedded layer of meaning and depth because the entire phrase modifies the "gleam" and "skin." In addition, the contrast between the mechanical and the physical continues with "mail" and "warrior." 

*The simile modifies, adds depth to, "gleam" by making a comparison. 

Bradbury didn't stick that in there because he had a checklist. He wrote it to leave you with a powerful image that clearly shows the impact of his central focus. 

Zoom Out to See the Depth: 

*THIS is what I think TEA means by one kind of depth. Note: There are many different constructions. This is just one: the subordinate sequence. Nobody needs to memorize that term, per say, any more than we need to memorize parts of speech. But we DO need to be able to name and describe what the words are doing in terms of communicating meaning. 

I think the critical thing to do with students here is to NAME what it is each level is doing to help create meaning...especially the nuanced, well-crafted meaning they must deconstruct in their reading and the well-developed pieces they must compose to convey their ideas effectively.  For this sentence, I would try to help students name the ideas that I have marked with an asterisk * under each image. I would also focus on what those constructions did in conveying the overall message. 

WHY did Bradbury do this? 

*Bradury's focus and central image for each section emphasizes the mechanical first and then connects to the contrasting physical image. He does this for a reason: to show the reader that the leg is powerful rather than telling the reader that the leg is powerful. 

In the same way, we tell kids to write with depth. But how do we show them what that looks like? 

Do you agree that Noden is on to something here that we need to look at more closely?

Share your thinking. Share what your kids think. Seriously. In the comments. 

Guided Reading Cuing Cards for Strategies

When my mom retired from teaching, I inherited a bonanza of reading support materials. In the stash, there were these cute little cards that seem to work with every kid that I know. They were made from purple dittos and got blurrier each year as I made copies, lost originals, and so on. My sweet secretary, Tara Franklin just took the old yukky black and white copies and updated them in Publisher. She did a great job.

Note: The cards do not indicate a sequence of instruction.

Cuing Cards 

Resources for Guided Reading

Here are the resources that you need to make this folder. 

Happy Guided Reading!