Why am I just now reading Textual Power by Robert Scholes? Why is this not required before actually stepping foot in an English classroom? Now I’m back to feeling like I only play an English teacher on television, an imposter. I’m feeling a bit shortchanged at the moment. I mean, I know I had a lousy high school education, but now I’m wondering how I missed so much as I worked on my undergrad. What would Vygotsky say? You can’t teach an old dog new tricks? My brain was past the perfect point of maximum learning and retention and I missed the boat? I’ll admit I had to do some preliminary reading, as well as in-between reading for clarification, to fully understand Scholes and his arguments on literary theory and teaching literature. I never truly understood what real reading was until recently; I must have always subconsciously pseudo-performed it to some degree, but according to Scholes I was mostly merely comprehending, rather than reading as he defines it. His definition of reading mostly parallels my definition of interpretation, for if we can rewrite an ending or write a text from a different point of view (as he suggests with the particular works of Hemingway), we must be interpreting it somehow. As far as criticism goes, this has been a particularly rough road for me—must be the lack of concreteness that gets in my way. Anyway, I know this is a weakness for me, something I must always work to overcome. Come to think of it, a number of us English teachers had lamented this very problem during a discussion one day. We had never even heard of literary criticism when we were in high school, and we vowed we would not shortchange our students, especially those who are college-bound. Did we all miss the boat?
Again, I’m feeling like there’s so much to learn and too little time to learn it, to make it a part of me. Funny that Scholes mentions Dante, but then admonishes himself for allowing the English teacher in him to go that route. Dante has been on my “to-do” list for quite some time (no smartass comments from you, Ray); it seemed like every time I turned around, something I read had a reference to Dante. I decided about a year and a half-ago that I needed to read Dante so I could fully appreciate so many pieces of “great” literature. But after reading Scholes, do I? Is all that “great” literature really so great? Or have I been convinced it is? So now I’m thinking I still need to finish the Dante I started and add some Hemingway, just to make sure.
But I digress. When it comes to interpretation, it is true that many English teachers (or teachers of literature) are guilty of teaching “the right reading of a text.” When I finally made it into classes where I was encouraged to interpret for myself with no danger of a wrong answer, I felt scared, but liberated. It was so exciting to finally read and have my interpretations taken seriously! But then when I was student teaching, my co-op did that very thing to her students. SHE had the correct reading and all the students had to read the text HER WAY or their answers were wrong. I wanted so badly so speak up, not only to my co-op but to the students who frustratingly tried to interpret the texts through their own lenses, their own cultural codes. Many sort of gave up and just regurgitated what they knew or guessed she wanted to hear or read. Of course, I guess it can be easier this way because then we don’t have to try to understand our students’ thoughts, only control them. Text has so much power, more than I ever imagined before reading Scholes, but can we break from the old school of abuse or misuse? And, again, we face the problem of getting our students to not only think, but to think critically. Where did education go wrong?
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
I just sat through the most infuriating English Department meeting, where I was told that all English instructors teaching the same grade and curriculum level courses have to write and administer identical midterms and finals. Despite the fact that I teach the same grade and level as three other teachers, I do not teach the works dictated by district curriculum in the same order as the others. In fact, I go in the complete opposite order for carefully considered and practiced reasons.
Reading Scholes was like an academic dream in an education fantasy land, where teachers choose pedagogy based on theoretical merit according to the needs of students. It was an orgy of ideas centered on my favorite premise on the purpose of reading, that literature helps us to become critical thinkers of our world, and therefore less susceptible to our world’s attempts at making us victims. Not only am I facing a crisis where my classroom has to look the same as the rest, my materials have to be the same, now my tests have to be the same along with the order in which I teach the material. Where is the adaptation to the needs of the students, their pace, the gaps in their knowledge, and the use of their personal knowledge to enrich the learning process? Where is my orgy of critical thought and mental light bulbs exploding into luminescence, where there was not even a previous awareness of the existence of a light bulb?
As I mopped up the pool of my own saliva after reading of Scholes’ utopian English classroom, where the writer’s and teacher’s perspective were relevant, but secondary to that of the student’s, whose educational experience is designed to enrich their ability to read, interpret, and think critically, on both a literary and cultural scale, I realized that this world was not mine and most likely will never be, at least as long as I cling to the hope of public education. Here, in Scholes’ tiny book, is a potential solution to the seemingly infinite debate on the legitimacy of “the canon’s” academic dominance. It is not the text, but the reader that is the center of literary experience. Applause, Applause, Applause! Though post-secondary education may be ready for such revelations (which is questionable), primary and secondary education is not. As long as we have hegemony and dominant ideologies, culture will always preference the cultural production of the dominant ideology. Though it makes a great deal of sense to have a reader engaged in a text with similar cultural codes as the reader in order to teach the skills needed to further understand the codes of others, dominance was never about bringing the dominated up to the level of those who dominate. Sense has nothing to do with this type of behavior. How are academics and the ‘literate’ world at large to feel superior if everyone can yield power equally?
Therefore, in public education, every test, from now on, will be the same, as the classes will be taught the same, and the classrooms will look the same, the materials used will be the same, and every question must be posed in standard PSSA format. Scholes does not need to fear that individual thinking will become a standard with which students regard text. Educators are working hard to make sure that does not happen.
Reading Scholes was like an academic dream in an education fantasy land, where teachers choose pedagogy based on theoretical merit according to the needs of students. It was an orgy of ideas centered on my favorite premise on the purpose of reading, that literature helps us to become critical thinkers of our world, and therefore less susceptible to our world’s attempts at making us victims. Not only am I facing a crisis where my classroom has to look the same as the rest, my materials have to be the same, now my tests have to be the same along with the order in which I teach the material. Where is the adaptation to the needs of the students, their pace, the gaps in their knowledge, and the use of their personal knowledge to enrich the learning process? Where is my orgy of critical thought and mental light bulbs exploding into luminescence, where there was not even a previous awareness of the existence of a light bulb?
As I mopped up the pool of my own saliva after reading of Scholes’ utopian English classroom, where the writer’s and teacher’s perspective were relevant, but secondary to that of the student’s, whose educational experience is designed to enrich their ability to read, interpret, and think critically, on both a literary and cultural scale, I realized that this world was not mine and most likely will never be, at least as long as I cling to the hope of public education. Here, in Scholes’ tiny book, is a potential solution to the seemingly infinite debate on the legitimacy of “the canon’s” academic dominance. It is not the text, but the reader that is the center of literary experience. Applause, Applause, Applause! Though post-secondary education may be ready for such revelations (which is questionable), primary and secondary education is not. As long as we have hegemony and dominant ideologies, culture will always preference the cultural production of the dominant ideology. Though it makes a great deal of sense to have a reader engaged in a text with similar cultural codes as the reader in order to teach the skills needed to further understand the codes of others, dominance was never about bringing the dominated up to the level of those who dominate. Sense has nothing to do with this type of behavior. How are academics and the ‘literate’ world at large to feel superior if everyone can yield power equally?
Therefore, in public education, every test, from now on, will be the same, as the classes will be taught the same, and the classrooms will look the same, the materials used will be the same, and every question must be posed in standard PSSA format. Scholes does not need to fear that individual thinking will become a standard with which students regard text. Educators are working hard to make sure that does not happen.
Scholes: Intersting and Accessible!
I realized as I read this first chapter that my classroom is often filled with interpretation and far too seldom, criticism. I ask that my students draw meaning from a text, but rarely do I ask them to then stand outside the text and criticize it. Scholes says that, "The way out of our dilemma here is first to perceive reading not simply as consumption but as a productive activity, the making of meaning, in which one is guided by the text one reads, of course, but not simply manipulated by it; and, second, to perceive writing as an activity that is also guided and sustained by prior texts" (8). So, here he says that they can't just be manipulated by it...there can be more. I think this is where criticism comes in, and he gives some good examples of this in Chapter 4. I am constantly asking my students to define the author's purpose, but I rarely go beyond that QUESTION the author's purpose. This would take them one step further in finding their own power in a text.
I enjoyed the section where Scholes questions our roles as literature teachers. He writes, "And they [lit teachers] usually march happily, without questioning their situation as marchers. To step outside the line of march, to scrutinize the device and see it as strange for the fist time--defamiliarized, as the formalists put it--is to become, perforce, a theoretician. This scrutiny may lead to such questions as Where is the march heading? Why? For whose benefit? And what does that device mean, anyway? (11). I couldn't help but think back to Rose and I asked myself if we are just herding our students into that same collegiate hierarchy. Or by asking students not to just interpret, but to criticize, are we creating a kind of literacy that includes questioning another time, place, or moral code....or their own time, place, or moral code, or even this very literacy?
I think Scholes is right about language and manipulation. He says on page 16 that, "In an age of manipulation, when our students are in dire need of critical strength to resist the continuing assaults of all the media, the worst thing we can do is to foster in them an attitude of reverence before texts". I kept thinking about the barrage of newspaper and television ads centering on the presidential campaign. I want the people who inherit this world to understand the denotative and connotative nature of words and to be able to navigate a complicated world filled with words that can be, and sometimes are MEANT to manipulate. This means that texts have to be deconstructed as Scholes does in the six Hemingway stories.
On page 29 Scholes writes that, "A certain amount of interpretation may be necessary to provide the cultural codes implicated in any story". Doesn't this imply a type of literacy that must be shared before a story can be understood?
I liked what Scholes said about interpretation, "The first things to look for are repetitions and oppositions that emerge at the obvious or manifest levels of the text". These indeed can be "implied or repressed". Students often look for pieces of a text that fit together and this often leads to a generalization or oversimplified reading. What if we encourage students to look for what Scholes calls the "binary oppositions"?
For students, especially 17-18 year olds, who are, in my opinion, almost fully cooked, what Scholes says on page 70 is the most important idea in the first four chapters, "The critical project we are embarked upon here consists of finding a stance sufficiently antagonistic to Hemingway's to bring his "untold" presuppositions to light. The act of freeing ourselves from the power of the text depends upon our finding a position outside the assumptions upon which the text is based. Since the text is clearly based upon a pervasive aestheticizing of its world, our antagonistic position must challenge the position of literary art itself". This implies that the student make judgements coming from her own conscience. She must be able to define what lies inside her conscience, i.e. her stand on war, love, courage, or failure, not only to free herself from the text, but also to gain power over it.
I enjoyed the section where Scholes questions our roles as literature teachers. He writes, "And they [lit teachers] usually march happily, without questioning their situation as marchers. To step outside the line of march, to scrutinize the device and see it as strange for the fist time--defamiliarized, as the formalists put it--is to become, perforce, a theoretician. This scrutiny may lead to such questions as Where is the march heading? Why? For whose benefit? And what does that device mean, anyway? (11). I couldn't help but think back to Rose and I asked myself if we are just herding our students into that same collegiate hierarchy. Or by asking students not to just interpret, but to criticize, are we creating a kind of literacy that includes questioning another time, place, or moral code....or their own time, place, or moral code, or even this very literacy?
I think Scholes is right about language and manipulation. He says on page 16 that, "In an age of manipulation, when our students are in dire need of critical strength to resist the continuing assaults of all the media, the worst thing we can do is to foster in them an attitude of reverence before texts". I kept thinking about the barrage of newspaper and television ads centering on the presidential campaign. I want the people who inherit this world to understand the denotative and connotative nature of words and to be able to navigate a complicated world filled with words that can be, and sometimes are MEANT to manipulate. This means that texts have to be deconstructed as Scholes does in the six Hemingway stories.
On page 29 Scholes writes that, "A certain amount of interpretation may be necessary to provide the cultural codes implicated in any story". Doesn't this imply a type of literacy that must be shared before a story can be understood?
I liked what Scholes said about interpretation, "The first things to look for are repetitions and oppositions that emerge at the obvious or manifest levels of the text". These indeed can be "implied or repressed". Students often look for pieces of a text that fit together and this often leads to a generalization or oversimplified reading. What if we encourage students to look for what Scholes calls the "binary oppositions"?
For students, especially 17-18 year olds, who are, in my opinion, almost fully cooked, what Scholes says on page 70 is the most important idea in the first four chapters, "The critical project we are embarked upon here consists of finding a stance sufficiently antagonistic to Hemingway's to bring his "untold" presuppositions to light. The act of freeing ourselves from the power of the text depends upon our finding a position outside the assumptions upon which the text is based. Since the text is clearly based upon a pervasive aestheticizing of its world, our antagonistic position must challenge the position of literary art itself". This implies that the student make judgements coming from her own conscience. She must be able to define what lies inside her conscience, i.e. her stand on war, love, courage, or failure, not only to free herself from the text, but also to gain power over it.
Building on Brecht
First I would like to address Scholes's style as very modern and up-to-date, reader friendly after other academics we have read. His dedication to his aunts and mother addresses the differences in the needs of individuals as they place themselves in their world as they define it (literacy?). Reading Vygosky and Freire seem so difficult and almost alien that one could make the assumption of the importance of their work based solely on the writing style (the whole high culture, low culture issue). Yet, Scholes (and Rose another example) engages and invites peons like myself into the discussion. Next, it is important to understand that being placed in the discussion is important when addressing the literacy needs that allow every member of our society to function and contribute in society. The skills that we need to be included in the conversation as "we" not "them" seems to be at the heart of Scholes's work. He could have written differently, but the fluidity of words in time and place takes on an understandable meaning placed in our NOW. While many of the messages in all our readings repeat the hopes all educators have for education Scholes repeats the concepts in terms for our times. Finally, I agree with Scholes that it is vital to remember Fredric Jameson's battle cry, "Always historicize!"(16).
With everything we read, interpret, and criticize, we chose what to make part of "us". That is the excitement of the positive and the negative of reading critically. Even when we read for pleasure we are interpreting and criticizing. Will we read the book again? Would we recommend it to others? Would we watch a movie based on the book or vice versa, would we read a book based on a movie? What did others think about the book? I qualify the readings as books only because of the manipulation of other texts. Perhaps looking at concrete books will allow students to advance into the reading, interpretation, and criticism of other texts.
Education should be where we are taught, learn, experiment, and share.
Everything we read is about connections for our personal, private, public, and political lives.
Some personal examples of connections I made:
Writing, reading, interpreting, and criticism from Scholes's work rewords Bertolt Brecht essay, Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties. I will paraphrase, reader and writer must have the courage to write(and read) the truth no matter what anyone tries to pawn off on you (reading skill is vital). There must be personal keenness and thinking skills to recognize the truth below the superficial structure of the sentence and recognize the skill some people have with manipulation of the word (interpretation). Most importantly, there must be personal judgement(criticism) to realize who is writing and why and if the writing has value to you and your world.
Another connection that has me pondering is the green dead Christian Christ of Mantegna and the green dead Jewish Jesus of Chagall. Of course there is the choice of Hemingway himself-how do we include and separate the Man from the Writer for ourselves-do we have to every time we read Hemingway?
This returns me to the original concept of reading, interpretation, and criticism that allows us to accept or reject what we want. The textual power that Scholes addresses causes personal reflection for where I place myself in my world. This is where "every meaningful action-...is meaningful only to the extent that it is a sign in some interpretive code (1). Human beings {through interpretation and criticism]make choices to reject, resent, or embrace the action of the word in their world throughpersonal , private, or political influences in the world (I refer once again to Brecht). To paraphrase Scholes, I believe part of the responsibility of those who teach must help students transcend this most manipulative culture and provide historical knowledge that will enable students to interpret and criticize what they are exposed to, being aware that as educators we always make a decision about what is read. That reading can be manipulated itself with methods that encourage research, reflection, and sharing.
I liked his suggestion that a collection of works by the same author are examined rather than anthologies and the use of writers of different genres, genders, and time or place.
One thing I had done with Girl Scouts years ago was after reading The Diary of Anna Frank-They choose 5 quotes from the book and wrote a one paragraph response. Everyone took turns reading one quote to the rest. While we were reading the book we incorporated using disposable cameras to find images that connected or disconnected to what we had read when the story was placed in our present world. We did not have to agree with each other, just explain our "Why?'. Respecting the other view point was always enforced as the girls agreed and disagreed. I tried promoting listening to others as a skill that places value to other points of views.
In the end the decision is personal as the reader accepts or rejects through reading, interpretation, and criticism. After all, each of US and each of THEM have to live in a world where "explicit" and "implicit" words mark the codes of power in our codes of everyday life. As always, I believe education should promote the possibilities and the imagination of students of all ages. We never know who will come into our lives personally, publically, and politically. The least expected person might, through education and the reading, the interpretaion, and the citicism, inspire society to great heights. Ane I like, Jameson believe in order to know where we are and where we are going we must know where we have been!
With everything we read, interpret, and criticize, we chose what to make part of "us". That is the excitement of the positive and the negative of reading critically. Even when we read for pleasure we are interpreting and criticizing. Will we read the book again? Would we recommend it to others? Would we watch a movie based on the book or vice versa, would we read a book based on a movie? What did others think about the book? I qualify the readings as books only because of the manipulation of other texts. Perhaps looking at concrete books will allow students to advance into the reading, interpretation, and criticism of other texts.
Education should be where we are taught, learn, experiment, and share.
Everything we read is about connections for our personal, private, public, and political lives.
Some personal examples of connections I made:
Writing, reading, interpreting, and criticism from Scholes's work rewords Bertolt Brecht essay, Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties. I will paraphrase, reader and writer must have the courage to write(and read) the truth no matter what anyone tries to pawn off on you (reading skill is vital). There must be personal keenness and thinking skills to recognize the truth below the superficial structure of the sentence and recognize the skill some people have with manipulation of the word (interpretation). Most importantly, there must be personal judgement(criticism) to realize who is writing and why and if the writing has value to you and your world.
Another connection that has me pondering is the green dead Christian Christ of Mantegna and the green dead Jewish Jesus of Chagall. Of course there is the choice of Hemingway himself-how do we include and separate the Man from the Writer for ourselves-do we have to every time we read Hemingway?
This returns me to the original concept of reading, interpretation, and criticism that allows us to accept or reject what we want. The textual power that Scholes addresses causes personal reflection for where I place myself in my world. This is where "every meaningful action-...is meaningful only to the extent that it is a sign in some interpretive code (1). Human beings {through interpretation and criticism]make choices to reject, resent, or embrace the action of the word in their world throughpersonal , private, or political influences in the world (I refer once again to Brecht). To paraphrase Scholes, I believe part of the responsibility of those who teach must help students transcend this most manipulative culture and provide historical knowledge that will enable students to interpret and criticize what they are exposed to, being aware that as educators we always make a decision about what is read. That reading can be manipulated itself with methods that encourage research, reflection, and sharing.
I liked his suggestion that a collection of works by the same author are examined rather than anthologies and the use of writers of different genres, genders, and time or place.
One thing I had done with Girl Scouts years ago was after reading The Diary of Anna Frank-They choose 5 quotes from the book and wrote a one paragraph response. Everyone took turns reading one quote to the rest. While we were reading the book we incorporated using disposable cameras to find images that connected or disconnected to what we had read when the story was placed in our present world. We did not have to agree with each other, just explain our "Why?'. Respecting the other view point was always enforced as the girls agreed and disagreed. I tried promoting listening to others as a skill that places value to other points of views.
In the end the decision is personal as the reader accepts or rejects through reading, interpretation, and criticism. After all, each of US and each of THEM have to live in a world where "explicit" and "implicit" words mark the codes of power in our codes of everyday life. As always, I believe education should promote the possibilities and the imagination of students of all ages. We never know who will come into our lives personally, publically, and politically. The least expected person might, through education and the reading, the interpretaion, and the citicism, inspire society to great heights. Ane I like, Jameson believe in order to know where we are and where we are going we must know where we have been!
Textual Power in the Classroom
After toughing it out with Vygotsky for two weeks, I felt like Scholes was a breath of fresh air. I felt he did articulate his points very well and only went over my head a few times.
For some reason, this is the first time that I thought of English Composition in terms of binary oppositions, and in "The English Apparatus," Scholes deconstructs them (although I guess that was the whole point of the book... applying literary theory to English) I felt he was honest in his critique of why things in English departments shouldn't be so polarized and that "the literature/composition opposition must not only be deconstructed in critical writing, it must be broken down in our institutional practice as well" (7). Maybe its just the theme of unity running through my head today due to current events, but to me, this made sense. So often the English office is polarized between those that teach composition and rhetoric, and those that teach literature.
Scholes asks the question "What does it mean to teach literature?" from a historical point of view, and how revered the WORD literature has been in our culture and what that means: "When we say "teach literature," instead of saying that we teach reading, interpretation or criticism, we are saying that we expound the wisdom and truth of our texts, and we are in priests and priestesses in the service of a secular scripture: "the best that has been thought and said" (12). What Scholes wants to do is break down the "sermon like quality" of teaching English, bringing in notions of Freire's banking method, and instead make teaching literature a completely participatory activity. He does not want the teacher's sole function to "guide the student toward the correct interpretation of a text, so that the truth might stand revealed" (13). Instead, I think a big point that Scholes makes throughout these chapters is although literature speaks to certain human truths, the way people interpret them may be affected by their own background and culture. Therefore, a teacher teaching Hemingway only one way (with their prefixed backgrounds) is not going to speak to everyone in the class, as they might be viewing it a different way.
Scholes also makes the argument for the "text" movement, as our culture since the 60s, has had become a more mass media world. Therefore, "the students who come to us now exist in the most manipulative culture human beings have ever experienced. They are bombarded with signs, with rhetoric, from their daily awakenings until their troubled sleep, especially with signs transmitted by the audio-visual media" (15). So we can learn from a variety of different mediums, and teachers perhaps should fine tune their syllabi to address some of these new technologies.
The strongest part of Scholes book is the fact that he provided concrete applications of how to bring textual power to the classroom through reading, interpretation, and criticism. Using Hemingway as an example, although enjoyable, was that that--an example. I think you could probably use any text in a classroom, but I appreciated the nuances of his argument, showing passages and telling us how we can engage our students in the text, finding the "generic and cultural codes" without becoming too "preachy." (22). I do believe reading is important in composition, and it is certainly a huge part of English 101 classes, as we show students how to read and think critically and not only to encode through their writing, but how to get the most out of their decoding. Thats why I liked this simple yet powerful quote Scholes says "Reading and Writing are complementary acts that remain unfinished until completed by their reciprocals" (20).
For some reason, this is the first time that I thought of English Composition in terms of binary oppositions, and in "The English Apparatus," Scholes deconstructs them (although I guess that was the whole point of the book... applying literary theory to English) I felt he was honest in his critique of why things in English departments shouldn't be so polarized and that "the literature/composition opposition must not only be deconstructed in critical writing, it must be broken down in our institutional practice as well" (7). Maybe its just the theme of unity running through my head today due to current events, but to me, this made sense. So often the English office is polarized between those that teach composition and rhetoric, and those that teach literature.
Scholes asks the question "What does it mean to teach literature?" from a historical point of view, and how revered the WORD literature has been in our culture and what that means: "When we say "teach literature," instead of saying that we teach reading, interpretation or criticism, we are saying that we expound the wisdom and truth of our texts, and we are in priests and priestesses in the service of a secular scripture: "the best that has been thought and said" (12). What Scholes wants to do is break down the "sermon like quality" of teaching English, bringing in notions of Freire's banking method, and instead make teaching literature a completely participatory activity. He does not want the teacher's sole function to "guide the student toward the correct interpretation of a text, so that the truth might stand revealed" (13). Instead, I think a big point that Scholes makes throughout these chapters is although literature speaks to certain human truths, the way people interpret them may be affected by their own background and culture. Therefore, a teacher teaching Hemingway only one way (with their prefixed backgrounds) is not going to speak to everyone in the class, as they might be viewing it a different way.
Scholes also makes the argument for the "text" movement, as our culture since the 60s, has had become a more mass media world. Therefore, "the students who come to us now exist in the most manipulative culture human beings have ever experienced. They are bombarded with signs, with rhetoric, from their daily awakenings until their troubled sleep, especially with signs transmitted by the audio-visual media" (15). So we can learn from a variety of different mediums, and teachers perhaps should fine tune their syllabi to address some of these new technologies.
The strongest part of Scholes book is the fact that he provided concrete applications of how to bring textual power to the classroom through reading, interpretation, and criticism. Using Hemingway as an example, although enjoyable, was that that--an example. I think you could probably use any text in a classroom, but I appreciated the nuances of his argument, showing passages and telling us how we can engage our students in the text, finding the "generic and cultural codes" without becoming too "preachy." (22). I do believe reading is important in composition, and it is certainly a huge part of English 101 classes, as we show students how to read and think critically and not only to encode through their writing, but how to get the most out of their decoding. Thats why I liked this simple yet powerful quote Scholes says "Reading and Writing are complementary acts that remain unfinished until completed by their reciprocals" (20).
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
No Holy Crap
I like the breakdown of chapter 3...reading, interpreting, criticizing. I don't know that teaching Hemingway and the likes of Hemingway is necessary in order to teach students how to interpret and criticize. But the overall idea that teaching kids how to think, how to take literature apart in order to understand it (and find the intended humor in it) and try to make sense of what they don't know or words they don't know, and not just see the letters on the page that happen to form words...that's important. So is making that very connection through writing. I don't know that Hemingway needs to be part of a curriculum (elementary? p. 58) in order to accomplish this...like all good works, they become part of history--they become classics, but we should make way for the new and just as good. I wonder what the fixation on Hemingway is with Scholes, anyway.
P. 62...talks about how teachers must ask students not if they "got" it...but what do they think of it...do they accept it. I like that because it requires the student to respond with more than a yes or a no. It teaches them how to criticize and stand behind their thoughts and to analyze the text and their thoughts together. I know, like Vickie, that some students know how to think. They're born with the skill. Others need to be walked through the process of looking beyond the black and white text and taking it for what it is, or worse, not getting it at all.
This blog is short and sweet...I get it.
P. 62...talks about how teachers must ask students not if they "got" it...but what do they think of it...do they accept it. I like that because it requires the student to respond with more than a yes or a no. It teaches them how to criticize and stand behind their thoughts and to analyze the text and their thoughts together. I know, like Vickie, that some students know how to think. They're born with the skill. Others need to be walked through the process of looking beyond the black and white text and taking it for what it is, or worse, not getting it at all.
This blog is short and sweet...I get it.
I'm a fan
Somehow I got through my entire high school and college career without ever reading (let alone studying) Shakespeare. And look at me, I've managed to hold down jobs, raise kids, stay married, and be a productive member of society (well, in my mind anyway). In his book, Textual Power, Robert Scholes is completely accurate when he states "...the worst thing we can do is to foster in them an attitude of reverence before texts." Do I think Shakespeare was worth reading? Sure! Did I feel like I missed out by not reading him in high school or college? Well, I never lost sleep over it. Do I think Dickens, Hawthorne, and even Steinbeck are worth reading? Absolutely! It seems to me though, that since English is the closest thing to a reading course for many students, it's much more important to instruct students how to acquire the "judicious attitude" that Scholes discusses on page 16. He talks about an attitude that is "...scrupulous to understand, alert to probe for blind spots and hidden agendas, and, finally, critical, questioning, skeptical." Maybe if we taught in this way, we'd have less high school students believing that the man on http://www.malepregnancy.com/ is really pregnant. (Check it out!)
New topic...I found myself nodding in agreement while reading Scholes's (according to the source I used, adding an 's' to Scholes is the form that the United States Government Printing Office and Oxford University Press would use, so if it's good enough for them...) Let me start that again -I found myself nodding in agreement while reading Scholes's thoughts on the endless web and interconnectedness of reading and writing. Yep, it's true. To this end (and unbeknownst to the powers that be at my school) I informally studied this in my own classroom. I compared a year of no writing reflection after reading to a year with writing reflection after reading. I found that students became much more active readers once writing became part of the regiment. They now understand that, even though a reader may close the book, that doesn't mean that an active reader's brain stops working. I believe that reflective writing helped students make this very important connection.
It's also through this writing that students can learn to interpret, then criticize. I've mentioned before that this is not a natural skill for all readers. They need explicit instruction in how to interpret (which most English teachers are real good at when it pertains to literature). But, in the big picture, once students leave formal education, how often are they going to need to interpret literature? I realize that this process teaches many higher order thinking skills. I get it. I get it. Equally important (or, in my opinion, even more important) is the skill of interpreting non-fiction. Can students discriminate between the most important details and details of less importance? What strategies are they being taught to learn that critical skill? Good readers can often just pick that up. Poor readers need strategies! And Scholes alludes to that all over this book.
Next topic..."Wah, wah, wah, our students cannot think for themselves. They want everything spoon fed to them. They want us to tell them how to think and what to write." I cannot count how many times I've heard this ongoing rant about students from certain teachers. Duh! We set them up! I felt validated by Scholes's definition of the function of criticism on page 73. "It is a way of discovering how to choose, how to take some measure of responsibility for ourselves and for our world" (73), Perhaps this might be the key to stop that rant. We need to provide risk-free opportunities for our students so they can develop that skill. Sometimes there's much truth to the adage that there's nothing new in education. It just keeps circling back in some new form. To wit, Scholes wrote this in 1985 and we still argue this point today. Yeow, the wheels of educational progress turn slowly!
New topic...I found myself nodding in agreement while reading Scholes's (according to the source I used, adding an 's' to Scholes is the form that the United States Government Printing Office and Oxford University Press would use, so if it's good enough for them...) Let me start that again -I found myself nodding in agreement while reading Scholes's thoughts on the endless web and interconnectedness of reading and writing. Yep, it's true. To this end (and unbeknownst to the powers that be at my school) I informally studied this in my own classroom. I compared a year of no writing reflection after reading to a year with writing reflection after reading. I found that students became much more active readers once writing became part of the regiment. They now understand that, even though a reader may close the book, that doesn't mean that an active reader's brain stops working. I believe that reflective writing helped students make this very important connection.
It's also through this writing that students can learn to interpret, then criticize. I've mentioned before that this is not a natural skill for all readers. They need explicit instruction in how to interpret (which most English teachers are real good at when it pertains to literature). But, in the big picture, once students leave formal education, how often are they going to need to interpret literature? I realize that this process teaches many higher order thinking skills. I get it. I get it. Equally important (or, in my opinion, even more important) is the skill of interpreting non-fiction. Can students discriminate between the most important details and details of less importance? What strategies are they being taught to learn that critical skill? Good readers can often just pick that up. Poor readers need strategies! And Scholes alludes to that all over this book.
Next topic..."Wah, wah, wah, our students cannot think for themselves. They want everything spoon fed to them. They want us to tell them how to think and what to write." I cannot count how many times I've heard this ongoing rant about students from certain teachers. Duh! We set them up! I felt validated by Scholes's definition of the function of criticism on page 73. "It is a way of discovering how to choose, how to take some measure of responsibility for ourselves and for our world" (73), Perhaps this might be the key to stop that rant. We need to provide risk-free opportunities for our students so they can develop that skill. Sometimes there's much truth to the adage that there's nothing new in education. It just keeps circling back in some new form. To wit, Scholes wrote this in 1985 and we still argue this point today. Yeow, the wheels of educational progress turn slowly!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Textual Innuendoe, v1.0
Ooh, OOH, OOOH! Aside from making great sandals and related products, Dr. Scholes is really easy to read, even while his material is simply jam-packed with content. And for all you LFS fans out there (don't be shy, tell us how you really feel), there's even a handy Graphic Organizer on page 7 to show the hierarchical production and consumption of texts in the English Apparatus. I really got into it, perhaps more than the good doctor intended. Here's the point that jumped up and slapped me like a badly trained massage therapist: Consumption of texts is privileged over production of texts in our "academic subculture." This just takes me all the way back to Mike Rose's experience with his graduate schooling. Reading, interpretation, and the overly broad practice of literary scholarship are all manners in which texts are seen as being consumed. Yet teaching a composition course to non-majors or aiding a writing workshop is looked at as the sanitation engineering of the educational institution (it's called hyperbole, back off).
Interestingly, Scholes's (yes, that is proper use of the apostrophe. Look it up if you disagree) solution of three textual skills which can slip this cultural noose was something I was actually taught in 9th grade Civics. Of course, I remember very little content from Mr. Weeks's (it's still right, leave me be!) Civics course, at least consciously. It was the teaching/learning method of the course which has made an impressive impression upon my mental mind (put your rods and reels away; there'll be no more Engfish here).
LFS, take two:
3 areas of learning:
In Civics it was Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom.
For Scholes it's Reading, Interpreting, and Criticizing.
They are the same sets of activities, and they need to go in that order.
2 practices for those areas:
Reading and Writing.
1 (hoped for) result:
Students who are capable of critical thought instead of being passively, unrefectively subordinated by the texts they are presented with. (61)
Is this really any surprise? I, at least, in my phenomenal social insight, would expect the values of a society to be at least commonly, if not always, reflected in its ideological state apparatuses, of which the university definitely is one. Western First World society, exemplified by the U.S., is a consumer society. We seek gluttony and attempt to satiate our lack by acquiring, using, disposing. We recognize that production is a necessary thing--but only as a step towards consumption. We eat at McDonald's or Noma, drink Cristal and Thunderbird, audiovisually ingest a range of entertainment from Survivor to Broadway and only lack the Roman vomitoriums to complete our status as a cultural black hole of devouring wastefulness.
But I've apparently gone off on a rant, somewhere.
Interestingly, Scholes's (yes, that is proper use of the apostrophe. Look it up if you disagree) solution of three textual skills which can slip this cultural noose was something I was actually taught in 9th grade Civics. Of course, I remember very little content from Mr. Weeks's (it's still right, leave me be!) Civics course, at least consciously. It was the teaching/learning method of the course which has made an impressive impression upon my mental mind (put your rods and reels away; there'll be no more Engfish here).
LFS, take two:
3 areas of learning:
In Civics it was Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom.
For Scholes it's Reading, Interpreting, and Criticizing.
They are the same sets of activities, and they need to go in that order.
2 practices for those areas:
Reading and Writing.
1 (hoped for) result:
Students who are capable of critical thought instead of being passively, unrefectively subordinated by the texts they are presented with. (61)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
