Literature Discussion Guide

The Common Elements of Fiction Tool: The Story Chart 

A key to understanding literature lies in recognizing its structure. All stories are composed of five basic elements: Setting, Characters, Conflict, Plot, and Theme. All stories have these components, even the children’s stories. The elements of fiction are easily perceived in children’s literature, even for the children themselves. Children’s stories are therefore powerful tools for explaining the elements of fiction to students of all ages. Once grasped, an understanding of these elements may then be applied with great results to the works of the masters.

The Socratic Method Tool: The Socratic List 

Class literary presentations in class will highlight asking questions in the context of a discussion of literature. The pedagogical technique of asking questions is often called the Socratic Method after Socrates, the Greek philosopher who made it famous. A Socratic discussion provides the element of discovery. 

Socratic discussions foster the realization of information and ideas through the process of thinking through well placed questions. In this way, participants are best poised to take possession of the ideas themselves. 

The Socratic method allows the instruction in literature to be at the service of larger ideological goals, because the curriculum doesn’t claim to tell readers what to think about literature. This job is left to the facilitator, regardless of personal convictions about the book, or pre-conceived ideas of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Learning the techniques of understanding this method of literary analysis, facilitates an informed discussion of literature from the standpoint of a Catholic worldview. 

Third, and perhaps most importantly, it highlights the essential element of education, which is acquiring the skill and habit of learning how to think. The Socratic method does not begin with answers; it begins with questions. Participants are therefore never told what to think before they have a chance to develop their own powers of observation, deduction, and evaluation. In this way, the Socratic method encourages good reading. 

The Socratic List provides an easy, step-by-step method for studying literature. It is the means by which we may all learn to be profound thinkers. Familiarity with these questions gained by long, consistent use will make the understanding of difficult works easy – and this familiarity can be gained early on. Because the elements of fiction are the same for children’s stories as for adult stories, the questions used to identify them are the same as well. Young readers may therefore learn real literary analysis at their own reading levels. 

It is not necessary to be a college graduate with a literature major or to understand the most technical intricacies of literary interpretation and analysis to participate in Adler’s “Great Conversation;” it is only necessary to know which questions to ask – of yourself, and of your students. 

Individual questions on the Socratic List are arranged in order of increasing complexity. Generally, the first question for a particular structural element or stylistic device corresponds to the grammar stage of understanding (roughly grades 1 – 6); as such, it will ask for a re-telling of details or a simple description of characteristics. 

The next questions are aimed at logic level students (grades 7 – 9, for example) and will ask the students to explain the relationship between story elements, draw cause and effect connections between events, and account for significant changes. 

Finally, rhetoric level questions (aimed at high school students) will demand that the students understand and interact with the worldview of the author, identify and discuss major themes of the work, and evaluate the author’s treatment of them. 

The Socratic List is designed to stimulate the class  discussion of literature. Individual writing assignments will follow.

Level 1 – Knowledge (Remember facts from the book)

1. Recall the setting (time and place)

2. Name and describe the characters.

3. Retell the story/plot

Level 2 – Comprehension (Understand what’s going on in the story)

1. Why do the characters act in certain ways or say certain things? (What are the character’s motivations?)

2. What do you think will happen next in the story?

3. What is the main conflict? (Man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self)

4. What is the climax and resolution?

5. What are the main themes?

6. What message is the author trying to convey? Or, what is the moral of the story?

Level 3 – Application (Make use of the knowledge gleaned from the book. Apply the book to your own life)

1. Based on descriptions in the book, draw the characters or draw a map of the setting.

2. Which character do you relate to the most? Which character is most like you? Why?

3. If you were a character in the book, what would you do about a specific situation in the book? Or, how would you solve the conflict?

Level 4 – Analysis (Analyse literary techniques and characters, etc.)

1. What literary techniques do you observe? (ie. metaphors, symbolism, foreshadowing, alliteration, onomonopia, irony, sentence fragments, imagery, etc.) Give specific examples. What effects do they produce?

2. Compare and contrast the main character to another character in the book or to another character in a similar book.

3. What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the main characters? Give evidence.

4. Compare and contrast the book to another book by the same author or another book of the same genre/time period/theme.

Level 5 – Synthesis (Use the facts/story and the components you have analyzed to create new theories/ideas/solutions etc.)

1. If you were the author, how would you change the ending of the story?

2. Write a short sequel or prequel to the story; be sure to imitate the author’s writing style and use some of his/her literary techniques. (By the way, imitation in writing can be a lot of fun!)

3. Write a letter to one of the characters in the book, praising him for a heroic deed, advising and encouraging him, or admonishing him.

Level 6 – Evaluation (Judge the value of the book based on specific criteria and give reasons for your evaluation.)

1. Evaluate the author’s writing style. Is it effective and interesting? Why or why not?

2. Are the illustrations effective in bringing the story to life? Why or why not?

3. Is this book significant? Is it relevant to today’s readers? Why or why not?

4. Do you recommend the book? If so, who would you recommend it to? Why or why not?

5. If the book is a classic, what do you think made it a classic? (Classic in the sense of it being widely read over generations) 

6. Are the illustrations effective in bringing the story to life? Why or why not?

7. Is this book significant? Is it relevant to today’s readers? Why or why not?

8. Do you recommend the book? If so, who would you recommend it to? Why or why not?