Foreshadowing: How to Teach It

What good does it do your students to be able to recognize literary devices? Isn’t it enough to read and enjoy a story without having to analyze it to pieces?

These are good and fair questions, and sometimes what your students will need most is to just read a book and enjoy it without having to write about it or even discuss it with others.

But there is real value in learning to recognize literary devices. First off, your students will learn the language of literature. For instance, the more they know about symbolism, the more they will enjoy finding it in what they need. They’ll feel as if they’ve cracked the code. And in a very real way, they will have done just that.

Secondly, they’ll learn how to use literary devices in their own writing. Their writing will become more powerful when they can employ imagery, irony, alliteration, and other devices that convey their ideas in clear and poignant ways.
In this post, we’ll talk about foreshadowing and how you can help your students to recognize it when they see it.

Use Films as Examples of Foreshadowing
Instead of simply explaining foreshadowing to your students, why not show them an example from a favorite film?

Foreshadowing is frequently used in television and film to increase suspense and interest. For instance, you could show them the scene in Jurassic Park when the main characters are descending into the valley. Dr. Grant discovers that he has two female ends to his seatbelt, and he can’t figure out how to fasten it.

Eventually, he ties the seatbelts together to make them work. How does this scene foreshadow what will happen later on in the movie? Details become more interesting when you look for and find meaningful details.

Here’s another one: In That Thing You Do, Jimmy and Lenny go to the appliance store early in the movie to see their friend Guy Patterson, who becomes the drummer in their band. As they watch one of the televisions in the store, Lenny says, “My grandma and I watched this. Three weeks, we’ve been watching it and last week, she realizes there’s strings. They’re puppets.” Jimmy says, “Yeah, they’re marionettes. That’s what they are.” Anyone who is familiar with the rest of the movie knows that these characters end up being puppets for the record producers and managers who co-opt the young band for their own purposes. It takes them much longer than three weeks to see the puppet strings that entangle them.

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Foreshadowing = A Crystal Ball
Some kids (and adults) are tempted to read the last page of a novel when the conflict and tension heat up. You can explain to your students that finding the foreshadowing in a story is like using a crystal ball to see the future–you don’t even have to skip ahead to the last page to get a glimpse of the ending.
Good readers like to make guesses about what will happen later on in the book and then find out if they were correct.

Many authors leave clues in their writing like breadcrumbs for readers to follow. As readers find these breadcrumbs, they become like detectives, sifting through evidence to come to conclusions. Not only is this exercise highly satisfying, but it also helps to develop analytical thinking skills.

Looking for Patterns
Sometimes, foreshadowing is used in a methodical and direct way. Take The Storytellers by Laurisa White Reyes, for example. In this novel, an older woman tells stories about her parents to the young protagonist. As the story proceeds, it becomes clear that the older woman’s stories foreshadow events that will happen to the young listener. After a few of these episodes, readers start to watch the pattern closely to see if the story will continue to follow the arc of the foreshadowing.

Tolman Hall has released a literature unit study for The Storytellers. You can learn more about foreshadowing and many other literary devices through this unit study as well as other Tolman Hall curriculum guides.

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