Incorporating Social and Emotional Learning in Literature Classes

From The Marshall Memo #439

“Discipline problems, poor interpersonal relationships, and poor academic achievement are interrelated,” say Zipora Shechtman and Mary Abu Yaman (professor and doctoral student at Haifa University) in this American Educational Research Journal article. Social and emotional learning (SEL), designed to improve students’ self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making, is usually taught as a separate curriculum. Shechtman and Yaman wondered if integrating SEL with academic content would boost academic and behavioral outcomes. 

In this article, they describe their experiment teaching SEL content through literature with fifth and sixth graders in 12 schools. In the experimental classrooms, teachers included three elements:

• Informative – The facts and knowledge contained in the piece of literature;
• Conceptual – Higher abstract thinking integrating these facts and information into broad concepts and understanding;
• Valuing – Relating the facts and concepts to students’ social and emotional lives, trying to make meaning of the knowledge.

In control classes, students had only the informational and conceptual content. 

One of the six lessons focused on Aesop’s tale, “The Fox and the Crow.” In this story, a fox sees a crow flying with a piece of cheese in its beak. The fox wants the cheese, and when the crow lands on a tree branch, the fox sits underneath and starts a conversation, flattering the crow. The crow likes the fox’s patter, and asked for a song, opens its beak, dropping the cheese. As the fox enjoys his meal, he tells the crow, “Never trust a flatterer.” 

On the informational level, students identified the characters, their traits, and the sequence of events. On the conceptual level, they learned about flattery, the need for approval, cheating, and how all this affects other people. On the affective level, teachers drew students out on how it feels to get approval or be deprived of it and how peers’ perceptions affect them and their behavior. Students gave examples of cheating and being cheated, how it happened, and how they felt about it, as well as feelings of remorse and changes they might want to make in their own behavior. Teachers explored these issues through individual student writing and group activities and sharing.

What were the results? Students in SEL-incorporating classrooms did significantly better than control-class students in content knowledge, motivation to learn, perceived classroom climate, positive behavior (and a reduction in negative behavior), understanding and communication among classmates, and group cohesion. Why? Shechtman and Yaman believe it’s because these students were engaged at the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral level. “As content becomes personalized,” they say, “it may become more interesting and more effectively internalized. Such processes include revealing personal information and disclosure of emotions, which are known to improve the group climate and sense of cohesiveness… In a positive climate, students are more motivated to make an effort and are more engaged in the material presented… The more frequent the positive behavior, and especially the less frequent the negative behavior, the greater the chance not only to develop a positive climate but also to spend more time on teaching and learning.” 

“SEL As a Component of a Literature Class to Improve Relationships, Behavior, Motivation, and Content Knowledge” by Zipora Shechtman and Mary Abu Yaman in American Educational Research Journal, June 2012 (Vol. 49, #3, p. 546-567), 

http://aer.sagepub.com/content/49/3/546.abstract?rss=1; Shechtman can be reached at ziporas@construct.haifa.ac.il.