Should I choose this template?
Allusions are everywhere, from sports broadcasts to remakes. But not all students have the right set of references to find or understand the allusions in the sources they’re working with.
Are there allusions in literary works that your students are reading that they struggle to identify? Do you want to support them as they learn more about both familiar and unfamiliar allusions in their reading? The Allusions network template helps students to:
- identify allusions to and between works they have read
- to understand how literary works are influenced by each other and are influencing other literary works.
When should I use this template?
Anytime you want students to build a set of references because you are working with sources that have unfamiliar references that connect to other readings.
What sources work best?
Sources that are influenced by something else or have lots of references that students need to track.
- The Looking Glass Wars is built on the framework from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
- Shakespeare plays often use biblical references
- Percy Jackson uses Greek mythology as its starting point.
What’s the investment in time and effort for this network?
Time: two class periods. One to get students used to the network as they identify and enter allusions and their sources. The second class period provides time to revise/add additional allusions and discuss the patterns students see in the allusions they entered.
Teacher support: Teachers will need to
- understand the basics of Net.Create (node and edge entry). See this basic-data-entry video!
- how to use one network filter (the “Ego” filter). See this Ego-filter video!
How should I use this template?
Network Details: What should my students and I be tracking?
Nodes (things being connected)
- Allusion: The allusion itself. A quote that has a built in reference to something else. For example, Alyss in The Looking Glass Wars complaining that her name had been spelled wrong, as Alice.
- Example: The reference. If our allusion is Alyss complaining about her misspelling,, then we’d enter “Alice in Alice in Wonderland”
- Audience: The audience who would understand either the Allusion or the Example. One audience for Alice in Wonderland would be “People in 19th-century England”
Edges (connection types)
- Builds on: We’d use “Builds On” to connect the Alyss Looking Glass Wars node to the Alice Wonderland node.
- Relates to: We’d use “Relates To” to connect the People in 19th-century England node to the Alice Wonderland node.
What learning goals does this template support?
- Disciplinary goals
- State-standard-aligned goals
- What kinds of student identity are present?
What data literacy outcomes does this template support?
Data is information that was collected and organized for a reason.
With allusions, we’re transforming unstructured data from several sources–the text with allusions, the original allusion, and our knowledge of the audiences who will understand either–into a structure set of connections.
We can then look for patterns in the resulting data that help us understand:
- what sources are most common when working with allusions in literature
- who authors think of as common audiences for allusions
- which allusions student audiences are likely to need help understanding better
Note that these pattern-discovery questions are both data-oriented and ELA-oriented. You’ll find that a lot of the ELA lessons you teach have a lot of overlap with data-literacy principles.
Resources for classroom use
Teacher Resources
- Classroom management recommendations
- Network-analysis learning Resources
- Simple Net.Create documentation
- Videos of new node/edge, table sorting, filters, etc.
- 5-moves-to-make video
- 1-pager lesson plan
- “Good questions to ask” guide for teachers
- What network-data moves (viz, tables, filters) to use as network gets big
Student Handouts
- “Good questions to ask” guide for teachers
More about this item
Dublin Core
