Jago Chapter 4- How Stories Work

I was pleased to see that Jago used Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” on pages 63-65. This is the text that I randomly selected for our Canonical Wiki Assignment. Without knowledge and use of literary elements, the story is kind of dull. The story would be pointless unless the reader takes into account what “the call of the wild” means metaphorically and symbolically. It is pertinent to the story to understand why the author used Buck’s point of view, in order to understand the story.

I agree with Jago when she says that “The Call of the Wild” is a “difficult, challenging text.” However, I also agree that if the instructor provides scaffolding and guidance during the reading of this text, paying “critical attention to the elements of literature,” students will understand and even like this novel.

I think that I will adhere to Jago’s suggestion to keep the list of literary elements displayed in the classroom. Jago says: “Seeing the words daily helps students accept them as the natural language of literature study” (Jago 68). If students know and employ the words in their reading, discussions would be phenomenal and the students would comprehend and evaluate the text on a deeper level.

Also, I liked how Jago used Freytag’s Pyramid. Jago states: “Charting the course of the story can help students see how they are reading, unfamiliar as the characters and setting may at first seem, actually conforms to a pattern they know well” (67).