Quotations to Live (Teach) By

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Albert Einstein



Wednesday, October 3, 2007

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.

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