Appleman, Chapter 7 - From Study Guides to Poststructuralism

Although this chapter does not discuss a specific theory and doesn't look at specific classroom practices, it's a useful read for future teachers. The twist of this chapter is that literary theories are not only transformative for students, they are transformative for teachers as well. Of course we already know that teaching changes us – but Appleman is making a very specific claim here. Instead of being changed by the experience of teaching, literary theory changes us because it brings into question are very methods of teaching. While Appleman cautions against thinking of literary theory as a magic snake oil cure-all (128), she is definitely promoting a change in pedagogy. If a teacher is changed by teaching literary theory, then soon a whole school, then an entire district can be changed by it. Is Appleman proposing a new academic movement?

I was particularly struck by Martha's discussion about moving – both from one house to another and from one school district to another. She implies that she was a hypocrite because she was asking students to release themselves from their conceptual worlds, while she was still stuck in her own (127). It's hard for me to imagine someone living in the same neighborhood as an adult that she group up in, but I've lived in ten different cities and have gone through several career changes, so I may not be coming from the same point of reference. However, I can see the importance of living the life you preach. Students don't like their teachers to be phonies.

If the true importance of literary theory is its transformative nature – its ability to allow students to read the world differently and change their lives accordingly – then teachers better be willing to be transformed in the same sorts of ways. Otherwise, literary theory can only be applied to the texts students read in school and literature will once again lose its relevance.

Appleman, Chapter 6 - Deconstruction

I almost didn't assign this chapter. I was thinking that, of all the literary theories we could discuss in this class, as secondary teachers you would least likely use deconstruction. This may have been due to personal biases I've had against this theory. Like Barnet, I have felt the “irritating arrogance in some deconstructive criticism” (103). I've at times found it difficult to see what it has to offer the high school classroom. I like to think of theory as a way for students to garner more meaning from text. To me deconstruction meant showing how all text is meaningless.

This chapter has changed my mind somewhat. I see now that deconstruction can be about making meaning, although the meaning will be contradictory to other meanings depending on the reader's focus. This is not reader response, however. According to Appleman, it is the sophistication of the reader that will determine the meaning gathered. It is this point that still bothers me about deconstruction: the idea that there are levels of sophistication to reading. I don't want to be in a position to tell one of my students that her reading is naïve because she is buying what the author is selling and another of my students that her reading is sophisticated because she is a resistant reader (102). I have a hard enough time getting students interested in literature without making them feel stupid because they don't “get it.”

I am excited about the prospect of deconstruction teaching students to break out of their binary mode of thinking. I wish I could teach this to some adults I know as well. The whole “you're either with us or you're against” mindset is not only narrow-minded, it is destructive as well. It is an overly masculine way of thinking that does not allow for the nuances of our lives that make up reality. Politicians are punished by their opponents when they see both sides of the issue – or worse yet, that there may be a third choice. Our media finds it easier to boil down all issues to two sides. Is it any wonder that adolescents pick up on this way of thinking? If deconstruction offers a way out of this trap, then I am all for it.

Finally, I was intrigued by the story at the end of the chapter of the students who went through a meltdown after learning about deconstruction. Evidently, this theory does more than dismantle the text on page – it dismantles the text of our lives as well. Rachel, one of “the beautiful people,” according to Appleman, had her whole life figured out. She was satisfied with her comfortable life thus far and was looking forward to more comfort at the University of Michigan. There were no clouds in her sky. I am impressed that learning deconstruction allowed her to see through her life's own illusions. While I feel for her because of this sudden sense of disembodiment she must have felt, I argue that this was probably one of the most important moments of her life. It is good to be forced into a position of questioning your own life. This incident happened almost ten years ago now. I would be interested to meet this Rachel and see if her life is truly different because of this terrifying moment of realization. Appleman offers this incident as a word of warning, but I take it as evidence that deconstruction is a useful theory to be employed in the secondary classroom.

PAKZOO at Papa Pete's - Monday, October 29th

Webb, Chapter 3 - Gendering the Curriculum

Webb, Chapter Three – Genderizing the Curriculum: A Personal Journey

If feminist theory is going to become more mainstream in the secondary classroom, it is going to have to start with the canon. While female authors are more prominent in today's anthologies, especially with poetry and short fiction, they are still noticeably absent from the novels and plays being read. While we can't turn back time and change the root causes of these absences, we can discuss the reasons today. Discussions about canons can be as illuminating for students as discussions on the texts themselves. At the very least the misperception that we don't read female authors of a period because there weren't any female authors in that period needs to be disabused.

Webb mentions that his students failed to find the relevance of Woolf's A Room of One's Own to their own lives (35). While I agree with his students that the rights of women are far improved today over Woof's time, that shouldn't be the end of the discussion. We need to guide students towards finding relevance. There are parallels that can be drawn to today's society. Women are still objectified; women still face spousal abuse; women are still the victims of workplace harassment; women are still discouraged from certain subjects of study and career choices.

One thing that Webb makes apparent in this chapter is the need to conflate literary theories to truly understand a given text. Webb gives the example of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (43). In order to truly understand Janie's perspective and actions, you have to read her as an African American woman, not just an African American. Her gender has as much, if not more, to do with her situation and her responses to her situation as her race.

I'm glad this chapter also tackles gay and lesbian studies. While it can be argued that women are approaching true equality in the United States, being homosexual in this country is still extremely problematic, with legal discrimination and even violence still prevalent. While it would be easier (and perhaps safer) to ignore this topic in our language arts classrooms, we would be doing a grave disservice to our students to do so. To quote the focus teacher Trisha, “Teachers who just keep quiet [are] helping their gay/lesbian students find their way to suicide” (46). Webb has some good advice on how to prepare students, parents, and administrators for dealing with controversial topics. I wish gay and lesbian studies wasn't considered a controversial topic.

Appleman, Chapter 5 - A Lens of One's Own

Appleman, Chapter 5, A Lens of One's Own: Of Yellow Wallpaper and Beautiful Little Fools

Like Marxist literary theory, there are a lot of negative misconceptions about feminism. Even some women fear calling themselves feminists because of the societal implications behind the word. Ignoring for this discussion the causes behind the vilification of feminists, it is important to be able to show why feminist theory is important and useful in language arts instruction. Appleman does a good job in this chapter of explaining not only how feminist theory can be used in the classroom, but rationalizing why it should be used. She has excellent answer to those who worry about teachers trying to “transform” their students to a certain political belief: “the point is to help adolescent readers read texts and worlds more carefully as they become aware of the ideologies within which both are inscribed” (76). Learning a literary theory is not about becoming indoctrinated in that theory. Instead, by learning a theory such as feminism, you are able to read the world differently. Most importantly, using feminism as a lens does not necessitate that everyone be of one mind. Two people can view a subject through a feminist lens and come to two different conclusion.

I liked how Appleman broke feminist theory into four dimensions: 1) the reading of female characters, 2) the gender of the author, 3) the text within a feminist framework, and 4) the reading of a gendered world (77). I think these dimensions could get garbled and confused without explicitly separating them. Appleman stresses that ultimately, what is most important is how student read the world (87), and I am on board with that opinion. If we are creating world citizens, than the ability to analyze a text is meaningless if it does not lead to being able to analyze the world as well.

I keep asking myself whether I am cynical or is Appleman naïve? I find students are incredibly astute when it comes to giving teachers the answers they want. In the student response examples in this chapter, the students were asked to give a “traditional” and a “feminist” response to certain literary characters (e.g. Daisy in the Great Gatsby and Ophelia in Hamlet) and real life events (e.g. The Miss America Pageant and media coverage of the U.S. women's Olympic hockey team). To me, the traditional responses sounded far more authentic than the feminist responses. The feminist responses were text book, complete with all the expected jargon. The classroom dialogue, on the other hand, sounded much more sincere, as if the students really believed what they were saying. If our goal is authentic student response and not role-playing, how do we frame our exercises to make them safe for honest response?

More unintentional federal irony

This photo has been circulating through some of the education forums I belong to.

It's a pretty accurate depiction of the true results of No Child Left Behind.

Here's a question - is it also an accurate depiction of the true intent behind No Child Left Behind?

The Big Poets Anonymous K-Zoo Announcement

Poets Anonymous Kalamazoo is growing! Starting in November, PAKZOO will begin to produce up to SIX SHOWS EVERY MONTH in venues all across Kalamazoo and beyond. No longer will PAKZOO be confined to one venue, or one kind of show. PAKZOO is dedicating itself to providing a greater diversity in audiences, hosts, talent, and tastes than has ever been attempted before in Kalamazoo. Now whether you prefer the competitive, raucous circus of poetry that is poetry slam, the intimate, open community of an open mic, or something in between, you'll find a home in the PAKZOO event lineup.

Get a taste of what's to come on Monday, October 29th, at Papa Pete's from 8:00 to 10:00 P.M. We are calling it a Halloween Dress Rehearsal, so bring out those costumes a couple days early and get your money's worth out of them.

Upcoming Poets Anonymous K-Zoo Events:

• Tuesday, October 23 (8:00 to 11:00 P.M.) – Kraftbrau Brewery – Open Mic and Poetry Slam with special feature, Greg Bliss
• Monday, October 29 (8:00 to 10:00 P.M.) – Papa Pete's – Halloween Dress Rehearsal Poetry Slam and Open Mic
• Monday, November 5 (8:00 to 10:00 P.M.) – Papa Pete's – Open Mic Poetry Show hosted by Steve Ashby
• Wednesday, November 7 (8:00 to 10:00) – Dino's Coffee Lounge – Open Mic and Poetry Slam hosted by Todd Bannon
• Monday, November 12 (8:00 to 10:00 P.M.) – Papa Pete's – Open Mic Poetry Show (host TBA)
• Tuesday, November 13 (8:00 to 11:00 P.M.) – Kraftbrau Brewery – Open Mic and Poetry Slam with special feature, Rob C.
• Monday, November 19 (8:00 to 10:00 P.M.) – Papa Pete's – Open Mic Poetry Show (host TBA)
• Monday, November 26 (8:00 to 10:00 P.M.) – Papa Pete's – Open Mic Poetry Show (host TBA)
• Tuesday, November 27 (8:00 to 11:00 P.M.) – Kraftbrau Brewery – Closing the Bar Show – Free night of poetry and memories.

Don't forget to check out the PAKZOO website: www.pakzoo.org. We've just added a new calendar function, so you can keep up with our myriad events.

Webb, Chapter 6 – Huckleberry Finn and the Issue of Race in Today's Classroom

There are really two issues at play in this chapter: censorship and racism in literature. The two issues were inextricably entwined in the incident Webb details. However, it's important to view censorship issues separately from the issues of race surrounding teaching Huckleberry Finn.

As Webb states, educators need the freedom to design their own curriculum in order to teach effectively (109). Interestingly, the school district in question had a uniform curriculum. The books were taken out of the hands of the teachers teaching them across the board. The problem is not that parents and students complained about the text being taught; the problem is that administrators failed to follow their own policies and allowed the situation to escalate.

Most teachers get their ire up when faced with forced censorship. However, we should avoid knee jerk reactions to parents or students complaining about a text we are teaching. We should ask questions and listen to their answers carefully. If someone is offended by a text, we need to understand why, respect his opinion, and then make a decision accordingly.

I am not sure if I would ever teach Huckleberry Finn at this point. This is not a matter of self-censorship. I have no problem teaching controversial texts if there is a point to it. When it comes to this text, however, I have to ask myself what is gained by teaching it. If I am teaching it just because it is controversial and I want my students to unpack its cultural baggage, then why bother teaching literature at all? Cultural studies without literature is sociology.

Huckleberry Finn at best creates a minstrel caricature of an African American man. It does little to contribute positively to today's conversation concerning race (if it ever did). I agree with Webb that still today not enough African American literature is represented in our teaching canon (122). Why then, should we teach a text written by a white man that doesn't even do the job we need it to do? There are far better texts to choose from.

Webb, Chapter 2 - Teaching about Homelessness

Although this chapter on homelessness is not, strictly speaking, Marxist theory, I still like the pairing with Appleman's chapter on the subject. Ultimately, both chapters are concerned with discussions of class. The difference in the approaches is striking, however. Where Appleman presents the theory and shows a classroom example of how it was implemented, Webb builds his chapter around a class he taught. This is a far better example of how theory can be brought to life and made relevant to students.

Too often, academic discussions of literature, even those that use some form of a cultural studies approach, are too removed from the world of the living to be relevant to students. Using homelessness as the theme of the class (as opposed to Marxist theory, for instance) grounds the literature Webb's class was studying in the real world. The students saw homelessness every day; they came to class with preconceived ideas about its causes. Although they may not have formally theorized about it, these students had fit the reality of homelessness into their grand vision of the world.

It is not our jobs as teachers to change our students' minds. We should, however, give them the tools and experiences necessary to view the world in a different way. Ultimately, they walk out of the classroom with the same life philosophies they walked in with, but if those philosophies are now grounded in critical thought, then they are better citizens. I like that literature can aid in that process. Yes, discussions on homelessness allowed students to read books like Oliver Twist in a different light, but I think it's more important that books like Oliver Twist allowed students to read their world in a different light.

One of the concepts that really struck me was the idea of “social fictions” (17). I think I may be reading more into this phrase than Webb intended, but I am immediately beset with the need to look at our world through suspicious eyes. How much of what I am being told by the media, our government, religious doctrines, and social conventions are outright lies? Too much of my young life was spent blindly accepting everything I heard and read as gospel truth. I was comfortable with this condition. It is far more uncomfortable to begin to question every “truth” I was brought up with. And yet, isn't it also freeing?

The social fiction of homelessness is that it is “their” fault, that homelessness is caused by laziness, lack of education, drug use, mental instability (14). This is a far more comfortable view than seeing homelessness as a side-effect of the well-being of others, especially when we are part of that group. We applaud the government of Detroit when it “revitalizes” section of the city by razing old tenements and building new gated communities. We turn away when we see the tenements' ex-tenants slumped against a building. In fact, when Detroit hosts an event like Super Bowl XL, we don't have to see the homeless at all, because they have all been shunted out of the public eye. Teaching literature courses using homelessness as a theme allows students to see the reality of the situation, and perhaps even do something about it.

Appleman, Chapter 4 - Of Grave Diggers and Kings

Appleman, Chapter 4: Of Grave Diggers and Kings: Reading Literature through the Marxist Lens, or, What's Class Got to Do with It?

I don't normally begin a chapter discussion with a critique of the chapter, but I have to say I'm a little disappointed with this one. If this were a new (or worse, pre-service) teacher's first exposure to the concept of using Marxism as a literary theory in the classroom, how would she respond? Would she decide it's not worth her while to attempt using this theory and settle on the more traditional and comfortable New Criticism?

The first half of the chapter is heavily steeped in theory, which normally would be alright so long as the pedagogy section of the chapter was strong enough to allow the reader to see the all important praxis of theory put to use in the classroom. Unfortunately, the pedagogy section of the chapter was weak. I felt the classroom example was really stretching reality.

The teacher in question did not, in my opinion, approach the introduction of Marxist theory into his classroom in an appropriate manner. This is one of those examples where allowing students to discover the theory is better than giving students worksheets as models. The “Key Ideas of Marx” handout (Appendix, Activity 8) was given way too early in the discussion. It forced students to consider Hamlet in a way they weren't quite ready for. I liked some of the exercises on the “Reading Hamlet through a Marxist Lens” handout (Appendix, Activity 9), but some of the questions were too leading. It seems to me that the students felt manipulated by them. What are your two choices as a student when your teacher introduces a new way to read literature? You can go along with the teacher or you can resist him. And some of his students did resist.

It's way too easy in these types of studies to look in from the outside and explain the findings in a way that proves our point. While I agree the teacher in question had his heart in the right place when he attempted to use Marxist theory to nudge his students towards expanding their world view, I fear they were not truly changed by the experience. It looks like his students did nothing more than parrot the responses he expected of them. It's a role students are familiar with and adept at.

Worse for me is the offhanded way the students who resisted are dismissed in this text. Appleman's easy explanation for the student who asked “What does our social status have to do with reading Hamlet?” is that he is “an Ayn Rand fan,” as if that explains away his angry question. She goes on to describe the teacher as unprepared for his students' resistance, but doesn't explain how (or if) he overcame it. If the student asked this question, it is, by the nature of classroom experience, a legitimate one. It means that more discussion needed to take place. The fact that his question may have come from a conservative background is irrelevant. Appleman would have been better served by using a more successful classroom model for this chapter.

What I learned:

• Marxist theory encourages students to see texts as social constructions (i.e. they are not written in a vacuum) (61).
• Marxist theory is a great way to get students to think about the relationship between writer and audience (61).
• Marxist theory trains students to question explicit and implicit ideologies (62).
• Teaching literature is teaching societal values (62). Thus New Criticism can lead to blind submission to the status quo (my opinion).
• Marxist theory breathes new life into texts which may otherwise have lost their relevance in today's world (63).
  
  I appreciate the section at the end of the chapter concerning the challenges with using Marxist literary theory. Appleman mirrors my concerns, especially regarding a confusion between Marxism and Marxist Literary Theory (72). Personally, I find parents to be much more open-minded than they are made out to be. A simple letter home explaining the difference should suffice to prevent any negative reactions from springing up.

MCTE Fall 2007 Conference Review

I hope everyone enjoyed the Fall 2007 MCTE Conference as much as I did. The theme this year was "Composing Communities: Creating and Connecting in the 21st Century," and I can't imagine a much more fitting description of where my head is at in my studies and my interests in teaching. This theme is largely concerned with using new technologies in teaching, of course, but it goes beyond this to include making connections: teacher to teacher connections, teacher to parent connections, public school teacher (practitioner) to college professor (theorist) connections, and educator to general public (including the media and the government) connections. Am I forgetting any? How about teacher to student connections? So many of the problems with education today is a communications disconnect. Every party concerned with education should be working together towards a common goal. Too often the parties are duplicating efforts, or worse, going in different directions.

P.S. I love how English people play with words in titles - for instance the double meaning of "Composing Communities" where "composing" is a verb acting on "communities" and "composing" is an adjective, modifying "communities."

The keynote speaker for the conference was: Kathleen Blake Yancey. Yancey is the President-Elect of the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English). I imagine there is an art to choosing your keynote speaker. Her philosophies have to match up pretty well with the theme of the conference. Of course, speakers will gear their talk towards the theme, but an effective address sets the stage for the rest of the conference, and this would be nearly impossible if there wasn't at least some overlap.

I've heard a number of splendid keynote addresses, including one in which Alfie Kohn led a rallying cry for all Michigan educators to stand up and refuse to give standardized tests to their students. Yancey's address has to rank in my top two or three all time. If you weren't there, there were two slide shows running during the talk. This was not a typical powerpoint lecture. The slides sometimes matched, but usually did not. Although the slides had to do with what Yancey was discussing, she seldom addressed the slides specifically. Usually, they added to her address, but did not stand in for her speaking.

I usually take notes during presentations, but in a lecture sort of way, so I can go back later and glean content for the lecture I may not have internalized. I started taking notes during Yancey's address in the same way, but ended up taking "notes to self" about various projects I am working on (not all of them strictly speaking having to do with my doctoral work). What I ended up with was a virtual to do list created from ideas that struck me while Yancey spoke. Some examples:

• "Remember to include a similar side story of mine about handwriting: when I told my great aunt that I was going to be teaching writing, she couldn't believe it because my handwriting was so poor."
• "Talk to Kevin about this concept for PAKZOO!"
• "How does this all relate to student activism???????"
• "Am I a digital immigrant or a digital native?"

I am also fascinated by how true to life her talk was. While she is speaking about how technologies have changed our educational practices, I am in the audience pulling up and bookmarking websites that she is referencing. This was real time, multimodal learning.

I am anxious to hear about your experiences at the conference as well. I want to compare notes on the sessions I went to and learn about the sessions you attended that I missed. I am especially interested in hearing about the talk entitled "Bridging Science and Language Arts Through Social Justice and Science Fiction." Jennifer Everts was one of my ENGL 4790 students. It sounds like the talk was right up our alley.

In class today, I want to address specifically two sessions I went to: “Teaching Multicultural Literature Through Technology” and "Implementing the New English Language Arts Content
Expectations: High School and Meaningful Standards.” I also want to discuss any of the sessions you found interesting or relevant to what we're working on in 4800. Please bring your thoughts and notes on the conference to class with you!

I hope I will keep seeing you at these conferences as you enter your teaching career. (Remember, you don't have to be a professor to present at MCTE or NCTE .) If you bookmark the following MCTE pages, you can keep up to date on what is happening in our state.

Michigan Council of Teachers of English
MCTE Conferences Page

Webb, Chapter 5 - Shakespeare and the New Multicultural Literacies

I like how this text introduces literary theory within the context of a larger discussion. In this chapter we are introduced to New Historicism and Postcolonial Studies, both theories I am in tune with philosophically, while at the same time feeling I haven't gotten my head completely around. The grey boxed sections are helpful in that regard. More than definitions of the theories, these inserts show us how to bring the theories into our classrooms.

Is everyone taking note of all the literature pairings and suggestions to be found in this text? If you take nothing else away from reading Literature and Lives, I hope you at least keep it as a resource. The suggested readings at the end of each chapter alone make this text a useful teaching tool. Personally, I am feeling guilty I haven't read the Howard Zinn text yet. This is not the first time his A People's History has popped up in my reading. I'll have to make it a priority.

When were the rest of you exposed to The Tempest and how did your instructor approach the text? My first read was as an undergrad. It was part of a Shakespeare class and was not paired with anything. I do remember a postcolonial discussion of the text, but it was delivered lecture style. There was no discovery on the part of the students. To be honest, I wasn't really buying what my professor was selling. I think I may have come to similar conclusions if I had been allowed to think through the process, but as it was, I felt I was force fed a theory that didn't quite fit the play.

Does everyone feel comfortable with introducing some historical texts prior to your students reading the literature itself? Does anyone feel they don't have a strong enough background in history to pull it off? While it is important for a teacher to enter the classroom with a certain level of expertise, do you feel it's ok to learn with your students?

Professional Conference Review

This assignment is also posted on Blackboard.

Either via blog or e-mail, write a one to two page review of a professional conference you attended this semester. (I suggest writing it as a document first and then copying it into your e-mail or blog so you know your length is good and you don't lose your work.)

The format and what you discuss is up to you. One way you may wish to approach it is to discuss each session separately. Some questions you could answer would be: "What did I learn?", "What could I incorporate into my classroom?", "How do these discussions inform/interact with/contradict what I am learning at WMU?"

ENGL 4800 Feed

I've created a feed that bundles all our posts together for easy reading. You can subscribe to this feed: Todd B's ENGL 4800 feed.

Let me know how this works for you.

Map/Directions to the MCTE conference

View Larger Map

From: Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave, Kalamazoo, MI

Drive: 72.4 mi – about 1 hour 16 mins
72.4 mi – about 1 hour 16 mins
1. Head east on W Michigan Ave toward N Dormitory Rd 0.1 mi
2. Turn right at Western Ave 0.1 mi
3. Turn left at Oliver St 433 ft
4. Turn left at I-94-BR/Stadium Dr/US-131-BR
Continue to follow I-94-BR 2.0 mi
8 mins
5. Turn right at I-94-BR/King Hwy/M-96 1.2 mi
2 mins
6. Slight right at I-94-BR E 2.5 mi
4 mins
7. Take the ramp onto I-94 E 27.2 mi
24 mins
8. Take exit 108 for I-69 N toward Lansing 0.5 mi
1 min
9. Continue toward I-69 N 0.4 mi
10. Keep left at the fork to continue toward I-69 N and merge onto I-69 N 36.1 mi
31 mins
11. Take exit 95 to merge onto I-496 E toward Downtown Lansing 1.3 mi
2 mins
12. Take exit 1 for Creyts Rd 0.4 mi
1 min
13. Turn left at S Creyts Rd 0.5 mi
2 mins

To: Sheraton Lansing Hotel
925 South Creyts Road, Lansing, MI 48917

Webb, Chapter - A Course in Contemporary World Literature

Literature and Lives: A Response-Based, Cultural Studies Approach to Teaching English
Allen Carey-Webb

I'm glad I'm reading this text again. It is answering a lot of questions I am having as I'm writing the prospectus to my dissertation and is clearing up some misconceptions I've had. I see now that the Cultural Studies approach to teaching literature is a missing component to my interest in student activism.

As we go out into the world as new teachers, it is too easy to fall back on how we were taught and forget about how we know we should teach. Those language arts textbooks suddenly seem a little too convenient to ignore. Plus many of us may have a prescribed curriculum we have to follow. Using a cultural studies approach may even seem at first to be a little too far removed from "real teaching" of literature.

We need to resist these urges to regress to traditional approaches and conquer our fears of the unknown. In fact, we should not consider cultural studies to be a new approach to teaching literature. Webb is not the first to document the positive affects this approach has had on students.

Why use cultural studies?

1. It fosters critical thinking and encourages activism (8)
2. It exposes students to the lives of people often ignored by the media and the educational system and absent from their daily lives.
3. It is by definition cross-curricular in nature.
4. It creates a stronger connection between students and the literature they are reading.
5. It immerses students in the worlds surrounding their texts.

I like Webb's take on combining the strengths of reader response and cultural studies. I've been struggling with the idea that educators need to remain politically neutral in the classroom in order for true growth to occur and to prevent silencing students who disagree with the teacher. By combining these two approaches, students will feel free to respond to texts, but will have the necessary background to responding intelligently and not out of ignorance.

Campus Poetry Society

We are starting up a new WMU Registered Student Organization called Campus Poetry Society.

If you're interested in performance poetry or slam poetry, you should check it out.

The official Campus Poetry Societry website is here: http://www.pakzoo.org/cps

If you are a WMU student and want to join, e-mail me at tabannon@gmail.com and I will register you. I will need your full name and your wmu e-mail address.

You may still join as a non-voting member even if you are not a WMU student. Please e-mail me with your contact information.

We are not officially recognized as an RSO yet, pending approval of our constitution. Eventually, you should be able to find us on the "Search Organizations" page of the Student Organization Administration Program. Search for us as Campus Poetry Society or CPS. You may access RSO functionality at the WMU Registered Student Organization page: www.rso.wmich.edu/.

Appleman, Chapter 3 - The Lens of Reader Response

I found this chapter comforting because I have a fear of losing some of the purpose of language arts classes if we rely too heavily on reader response theory for our pedagogy. We can't rely solely on one theory in the classroom – especially if that one theory is reader response. This theory, in particular, requires a background in other theories to give it power. Without a true understanding of how texts work, there is a real danger of reader response being nothing more than a reader's emotional reaction to a text.

The response becomes more about the reader and not enough about the text. I am a little troubled by some of Appleman's findings. Her analysis of the response that Mark and Ellen had to Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound does not jive with my feelings that good literature should be universally relevant. Appleman is trying to make the claim that a weakness of reader response is that it assumes that all readers will be able to make a connection with a given text. Obviously, Mark and Ellen had difficulties connecting with this particular text (albeit for different reasons), but too often I find this is an excuse for not reaching for it. Appleman does say that completing reader response diagrams force students to come face to face with the differences they may have with characters in literature they are reading (52). This should be a jumping off point, not an end.

Despite my qualms with Appleman on this point, ultimately I agree with her opinion that students need to be taught with multiple theories. They have greater success if they can put a name to what they are trying to say and if they have specific lenses to look through when analyzing a text.

Appleman, Chapter 2 - Through the Looking Glass

Chapter two is an introduction into the use of multiple perspectives in the classroom. Appleman includes four vignettes as examples.

“My Papa's Waltz” is a great example of teaching through induction. Instead of explaining how poems can be read in different ways, the teacher invited a student to interpret a poem and then read it aloud with that interpretation in mind. The teacher then asked if everyone agreed with that interpretation. When someone disagreed, he asked that student to explain his interpretation and then read the poem aloud using that frame of reference. The class was astounded by the difference in the readings (and perhaps a little uncomfortable). One student wants to know “which is one is right?” (13). This, of course, is what the teacher was hoping would be asked. There is not just one way to read a text. It is possible for two readings to be correct.

The “Little Miss Muffet” vignette was more straight forward. The teacher introduced the idea that the same story could be told from more than one point of view. First he read an essay about the story of Little Miss Muffet from other people's perspectives. He then had the students do the same exercise with famous nursery rhymes. Although the class had fun with it, at least one student failed to see the point of the exercise (15). Appleman describes the teacher's explanation to the class. I am curious if the students found use in this and if they employed this method of analyzing text in other English classes. Was this a one time exercise or a completely new way of looking at literature for them?

Although this chapter gets us towards discovering the use of employing multiple perspectives when analyzing text, I feel a little pulled along, almost as if I am her student and she is using an inductive teaching technique to encourage me to discover the truth on my own. In fact, her approach for convincing me of the value of literary theory in the classroom is akin to how she wants us to introduce it in the classroom: she wants time for theory to make a case for itself before it is fully exposed. I didn't find her tactic to be necessary. After all, she had me at “We live in complicated and dangerous times” (1).

Appleman, Chapter 1 - The Case for Critical Theory in the Classroom

Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents
Deborah Appleman

Appleman makes the case immediately for teaching theory in the classroom, and does so while tackling the naysayers head on. She recognizes the arguments people will have about the practicality of teaching theory when we're struggling to just get students into the classrooms in the first place. How can literary theory apply to the lives of students? Appleman argues that not only will literary theory give students the tools they need to respond analytically to the texts they read in school; it will also give them the tools they need to interpret the “text” of their own lives (2).

Through theory, students will learn new ways of seeing and this will allow them to interact with the world around them in different ways. I like that Appleman continually stresses that what we learn about the written text applies to the living text of the world in the same way. Literary theory gives us a new way to approach multiculturalism.

I found the discussion about New Criticism versus Reader Response theories to be interesting because I was taught with both methods at different times in my career without knowing the name of either. I didn't know that my teachers were applying a literary theory to their pedagogy. Perhaps they were not aware of that either. Truthfully, I liked both methods. I liked searching for the “hidden truth” in a difficult poem and I liked discovering the truth in me that was like the text I was reading. Looking back, it would have been nice to have been given some tools and a language to employ while analyzing and interpreting text.

Appleman concludes the chapter with a statement I'd like to keep clear in my mind as I go through this book: “The purpose of teaching literary theory at the secondary level is not to turn adolescents into critical theorists; rather, it is to encourage adolescents to inhabit theories comfortably enough to construct their own readings and to learn to appreciate the power of multiple perspectives” (9). Theory, then, becomes more than a tool to use or facts to memorize. Theory is a way of seeing or even a way of being.

Wilhelm, Chapter 6 - Expanding Concepts of Reading, Response, and Literature

I can feel Wilhelm's passionate distaste for standardized testing as if the pages of the book itself were red-hot. Although this is not the focus of the chapter, but a jumping off point, I feel it bears some discussion.

Too many teachers sadly shake their head when it comes to standardized testing, but do nothing about it. We need to change the way our country feels about this subject. We've let it go too far already. If we allow standardized testing to determine the funding we receive and to be used as a measure of our success as teachers, then we are agreeing that government officials far removed from education know better than we do how to assess our own students. We need to take this power out of outsiders' hands. This begins by doing our own classroom research. We need to show firsthand proof of the methods that work in our classroom and we need to demonstrate our students' growth and improvement.

A few words on literacy, then. Literacy is more than the ability to read words and make sense of them. Literacy is the ability to interact with text – to have a conversation with it. A good reader is transformed by a good book in some way. Wilhelm takes this idea one step further even and shows that literacy is an interaction with text and an application of that text to the world around us. A successful reader, then, is one who is transformed by a text and then transforms her world as a result. The world should look different after reading a good book; more importantly, it should be different.

Wilhelm, Chapter 5 - Reading Is Seeing

I love the depths of teaching difficulties Wilhelm explores in this book. It would seem that drama would be the cure all to fix all who students who can't read, but no. What about those students who don't want to or can't (?) participate in drama exercises? Can we reach these students as well?

This chapter explores the importance of visualization in the reading process. Successful readers visualize automatically as they are reading. Some students only see words as a series of letters to decode. And yet, these students enjoy reading comic books. They are able to interact with these stories in the way you would expect a successful reader to interact with any piece of literature. The pictures, as visual representations of the text, allow them to enter the world they were reading.

I'd like to stress how important it is here that we begin to redefine what exactly is text. These are the sorts of stories the media and politicians running for office like to seize upon when they talk about the need for education reform. See how education has fallen to the lowest denominator? As educators, we need to be able to defend our positions and our methodologies. In this case, visualization is a gateway to the world of reading, but it is not the end of the road for these students. Once students learn to respond to text via visualization, they learn to use the same practices in their heads as they read.

Wilhelm shows that visualization is a great technique for students of all ability levels because it allows them to respond in very natural ways and then share their responses with each other (138). These responses are very individual and always creative. It allows students to respond without worry of censure or “doing it wrong.”
Finally, as a proponent of teaching to the multiple intelligences, I welcome visualization as another way students can respond to text. I always allow multiple options for unit projects. I feel that one-size-fits-all assessments are not fair to all students because they don't allow students to display their knowledge in the way they are best suited.

Wilhelm, Chapter 4 - Using Drama to Extend the Reader

By now, Wilhelm has shown us what good readers do when reading, but how do we bridge the gap between those who do it right and those who don't do it at all? How do we convince the disenfranchised, the jaded, those who have given up? If a reader needs to participate in a text in order to “get” the text, then teachers need to somehow open that world up those students who have lost their way.

Drama is a great bridge to most of those students because it does everything a reader is supposed to do: it creates an active interest in stories. Drama forces students to think differently about the reading process, converting them from recipients to participants. The three students Wilhelm uses as case studies, although of varying reading abilities, all had the same difficulty understanding that reading requires them to do more than just understand the words they are reading. Before drama, they got nothing more out of the stories they read than the words on the page.

Through the use of various drama techniques (see 100-101), Wilhelm was able to teach his students to put themselves into the shoes of characters in the stories they read. They learned empathy. This ability opened up new dimensions of reading, because they were no longer confined to a single plot line. They could examine scenes from every angle; they could guess what might happen next; they could imagine how the story would have been different under different circumstances; they could extrapolate what occurred in the spaces neglected by the author.

For me, the most important benefit of using drama to teach literature is Wilhelm's students learned to love literature. They would read for pleasure. It's also important to note that his students wanted to be able to respond to literature in their own terms. When Marvin read his first book by himself, he told his teacher “I liked it, and I don't want anybody to ask me any questions about it” (110).

Wilhelm, Chapter 3 - The Dimensions of Reader Response

This chapter is a great primer for the teacher as researcher. Wilhelm uses it as a sort of methodology chapter that leads into his discussion of his findings. As teacher researchers we can use this study as a basis of our own studies.

Teacher Journal – I have used and still use this method, although never as consistently as I should. Writing once a week is better than once a month; writing once a day is better than once a week; writing after every class period is the best we have time for; writing on the fly as something strikes us is the best of all. Journals are great to go back to if you are writing an article about your practices. If you have the time, journals also allow you to change your teaching practices as you go along.

Literary Letters – This practice can be useful if done properly. Students hate nothing more than activities that are a waste of time. Students need to understand upfront the relevance of writing letters to each other about what they just read.

Think-Aloud Protocols – The free response protocol asks students to respond to their reading when something strikes them. There is no specific question they are asking. This is a good practice to get students into as a reading practice. Cued response protocols force students to respond more specifically. This is a good way to get students to write and think more deeply. The two column protocol was designed specifically to make life easier on the researcher. I am not sure if students would get anything more from it than cued response or free response. Visual protocols allowed students to draw their response instead of writing about it. As we see in subsequent chapters, this allows students who have a hard time responding verbally to understand text on a deeper level.

Much of this chapter is devoted to discussing the ten dimensions of reader response that Wilhelm studies. If nothing else, this gives us ten things we should be looking for in our student readers. It also gives us a basis for our own classroom studies. We can look for these characteristics in our students and then figure out how to tweak our instruction to make up for their deficiencies. This chapter exists as “praxis” the place where theory and practice meet.

Wilhelm, Chapter 2 - Looking at Student Reading

We should take note of Wilhelm's discovery that even students who were avid readers did more of their real reading for pleasure at home – not at school or for homework. His students did not expect what was read for school to be engaging or fun. They also felt that what they were expected to find interesting or important about a text was usually not the same as what they found to be interesting or important on their own (26).

Whenever I come across this section on “What makes valid reading,” I misread it to mean what sorts of text are valid reading for students. I definitely have my opinions on this as well. At any rate, I think Rosenblatt's two characteristics are a good starting point: 1) an interpretation cannot be contradicted by the text, and 2) there needs to be textual evidence to support an opinion (27). If we are going to use a reader response pedagogy in our classrooms, then we need to begin with these assertions. Otherwise, our classrooms descend into that “we'll agree to disagree” mode which makes us all a little more than uncomfortable. It will be ok to have 20 different interpretations of the text in the classroom, so long as all 20 interpretations are supported and not contradicted by the text.

I like that Wilhelm begins by seeing what works for students who already enjoy reading. How do these students approach reading that differs from students who don't enjoy reading? Assuming they are receiving the same education, then there is something in their attitude about and how they approach reading that gives them a more enjoyable experience. The three case studies Wilhelm uses all share some common characteristics of good readers including a love of reading and the ability to articulate in a sophisticated way what they read (29-30). There were active, participatory readers. He did not choose these students based on overall academic ability. In fact, one of the students had difficulty in other classes (30).

Although these students didn't think of how they read in terms of reader response theory, the way they read shared much in common with the pedagogy we employ in our classrooms. First, they have a relationship with the author (31). This is a difficult skill to convince students to work on. In fact, the New Critics would frown on this practice. How can you establish a relationship with an author you have never met, who may even be dead? I see their texts as a living manifestation of their minds, however – and in this way, readers are really conversing with the author herself. Second, these students immersed themselves in the worlds of their texts (32). The imaginary wall separating reader from text disappears and they become one. I am immediately reminded of Harry Potter entering Tom Riddle's diary. This is an apt metaphor for what skilled readers do whenever they open a book.

I wonder if we can agree on even a question so simple as what is literature? At the very least, we as teachers have expanded what we consider to be acceptable reading by our students. I do like this definition: “any text that provides a particular reader with a deeply engaging aesthetic experience” (33). We should also be prepared to support texts such as graphic novels when we are called out for “dumbing down the curriculum.” However, it is also important to expand a reader's repertoire beyond the texts he enjoys walking into the classroom. That is part of our job as teachers.

Ultimately, we need to remember that one of our roles as educators is to help create well-rounded citizens who will help contribute to our world and perhaps even make it a better place. What this means to me may be somewhat different than what it meant to our 19th century government, but I maintain that good citizens know more than how to read and interpret texts. Good citizens will be able to employ what they've read in their outside worlds. It is the connection between text and real life that improves us. Good readers already know this – we need to teach the rest of our students the skills needed to make the same moves.