Foreshadowing is an easy skill to teach but taking it to the level needed for standards-based teaching is something that needs to be checked periodically. Just simply looking for the clues doesn’t make the deeper understanding of the character’s motives or actions comprehended. When asking students question stems, take the question higher than, “What does this foreshadow?” by asking the following after reading the book or midway through the book:
In “The Outsiders” by Hinton, chapter 2 the reader hears the narrator start to compare/contrast the Socs against the Greasers. Midway in the next chapter we will see more of that in the discussion between the characters. A quote from the scene includes, “We aren’t in the same class. Just don’t forget that some of us watch the sunset too.” This quote helps the reader to infer that in the end, we are all the same inside. What does this foreshadow in relation to the events that happen after the knife-fight in chapter 4?
Whoa! That’s a lot of question. And it more than just foreshadowing. It’s inference, drawing conclusions, setting, quote analysis, etc. The students have to have so many other skills to understand this type of question. How do I even begin to tackle teaching a question like that?
First, post the definitions of the other skills on the wall. Briefly go over then and remind students that math problem solving isn’t always solved in one step and neither is deep thinking problem solving. Once you’ve inferred the missing knowledge, analyzed what the quote (dialogue in this case) means, made a note of the setting since it is pointed out in the words said by the character, and drawn conclusions on all that, then the student can begin to look for what this foreshadows later in the text. Answer: We are all the same underneath, rich or poor, Soc or Greaser. We all bleed. We all die.
ELA On The Move 