ESL students now comprise a substantial proportion of the college population enrolled in developmental/remedial English programs (Crandall). In order to attain their academic goals, these students need to improve proficiency in the four basic language skills, (i.e., reading, writing, listening, and speaking) as quickly as possible. Teachers of college-level ESL students are faced daily with maximizing students' progress in these language skills, and at the same time, with keeping students motivated and interested in the lessons. In this paper, I will describe, step-by-step, a classroom-tested multimedia-based approach to teaching the short story, "Flowers for Algernon," by Daniel Keyes. The approach described may be used to teach "Flowers for Algernon" as a work of literature per se, or as part of a discipline-oriented ESL course using material drawn from the subject area, psychology, as the medium of English language instruction.1 I have used this approach with both intermediate and advanced ESL classes with very positive results. The multimedia-based approach incorporates a variety of learning activities that are meaning-driven, student-centered, and unintimidating. The activities used encourage students to take an active role in learning, to engage in self-monitoring, to make guesses in their search for meaning, and to communicate in the second language.
The short story, "Flowers for Algernon," is about a developmentally disabled man who is chosen for an experimental operation which results in his becoming a genius. The main character, Charlie Gordon, keeps a journal of his progress throughout the story. Like Charlie, my ESL students will also keep a journal in which they describe their thoughts and feelings, as well as their progress in English, as they read, listen, speak, and write throughout this lesson. Thus, by describing analogous experiences, students become more deeply involved not only with the characters in the story, but also with the English language itself.
The second prereading exercise presents the students with a list of psychological references and terms which provides them not only with some of the new words they will encounter in this story, but also with some new ideas and concepts. They will be required to use these references and terms in subsequent reading comprehension, writing, and vocabulary development exercises over the course of the lesson.
A writing exercise asks students to edit the first entry of Charlie Gordon's journal. ESL students now have a chance to correct someone else's writing and to test their knowledge of spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and grammar. This exercise also helps students to develop insights into finding and correcting errors in their own writing by prompting them to take an active role in learning and to monitor their own work. Finally, the correction exercise provides students with a general introduction to the story.
In the second stage of the lesson, students are assigned to read the short story for homework. After students have read the story at home, they complete several different comprehension exercises in class. First, students are given a short, multiple-choice reading comprehension exercise which provides a quick indication of how well they have understood the story and the characters.
Next, they are given a writing assignment that asks them to connect Charlie's experiences with their own. Several times in the story, Charlie must take a number of tests which cause him great anxiety. The writing assignment asks students to relate their own experiences with test taking and to compare them with Charlie Gordon's. This writing exercise encourages students to tap into the emotions they feel when they have to take an important test. The exercise also helps students to identify and "to bond" with Charlie's character.
The next series of exercises focus on vocabulary development. A vocabulary building exercise requires students to complete sentences by choosing words taken from the story. Students then work together in small groups to complete a crossword puzzle using the words from the vocabulary building exercise. Students remain in these small groups for the final vocabulary exercise, which consists of a letter written by Charlie Gordon to Dr. Strauss. Students are provided with prefixes, suffixes, and roots, which when correctly combined, make up the words in the letter. Students do this exercise without the aid of the story. After they have completed the sentences in this exercise, students use the syllables provided to form and define additional, new words used in the story, but not in the exercise. ESL students find these vocabulary building exercises, especially the crossword puzzle, to be a great deal of fun. They enjoy having the opportunity to practice vocabulary in the context of the story and to share their knowledge with their classmates.
Finally, students do a character analysis of Charlie Gordon, focusing on how he changes throughout the story. They list the individual factors which led to each of the changes in Charlie's character. This character analysis also asks students to describe what they have learned about the developmentally disabled from this story. They then use this information to write an essay on the topic, "How did Charlie fit into society before and after his operation?"
As a follow-up to the reading of "Flowers for Algernon", students view the movie, "Bill" (Stuart and Page), a true story about a developmentally disabled man who spent 47 years in a mental institution. They also watch an episode of the ABC television series, "Life Goes On" (Wylly and Jameson), which describes the attitudes toward and handling of developmentally disabled children in two different families.
The short story, "Flowers for Algernon," and the films, "Bill" and "Life Goes On," present three different attitudes toward the developmentally disabled. In the final writing assignment for this lesson, the students compare and contrast how people feel about and deal with the developmentally disabled characters in each of the three stories.
Overall, they said that this lesson not only had helped them to improve their English language skills, but had also taught them something about an important issue in society and education. For many of them, the issue of the developmentally disabled was a new one, but for some it was one with which they had personal experience. The topic always encouraged class discussion because each of the students was moved by some aspect of the story. Moreover, their discussion of the problems of the developmentally disabled led them to a more general discussion of the issue of discrimination against any people who are different.
Daniel Keye's Link updated March 7, 2000