Young Adult Lit/Crit

pomo...crazy aussies

Postmodernism as a foundation for curriculum seems like a really good idea.  Then again, so does spam.  Postmodernists' ideas about a multitude of texts that appear everywhere in life could be a good idea.  It would get students to take an active look at their lives and discover things happening all around them.  However, in almost all cases (there will be a few that would work), the kid is simply going to BS about a STOP sign for a little while and not worry about grammar or spelling while doing it.  This is an extremely hopeful policy, and I can't believe Australian schools were actually thinking about allowing kids to watch movies, and only two, for their senior curriculum; they are dreaming.

Also, the idea of "playing the game" is one that I can't help but devote thought to.  I definitely played the game in high school.  Hell, I played the game through much of college.  No real thought has to occur if all you're asking for is some conspiracy theory about what really happened in a book.  The brown river will just start flowing.  But we have to ask ourselves, if a kid builds a better mouse-trap and plays the game, is that a problem?

Thick Lit?

This article investigates whether the teaching of "traditional" content area materials and the teaching of critical theory are mutually exclusive.  I think examining this dynamic/balance is something we've discussed and will be discussing in the future.  And by "in the future, " I mean tomorrow night.

Chris

Appleman Rocks

I just finished reading the Appleman chapters and and am very excited! I wish that when I was in high school we  analyzed texts  with critical lenses  other than or in addition to deconstruction. It's not that I didn't enjoy unraveling a text to discover its hidden meaning, it's just that deconstruction limited what I believed was reality. Perhaps that is why I don't remember reading many classics in high school--I wasn't able to make  connections with my "real" world.
Nancy

Critical Encounters

Appleman's concept of teaching literary theory in high school classrooms is intriguing. If it enhances learning and helps students to connect with their world,  it would be very useful  to incorporate literary theory. I need know more about it. Have high school students been receptive to it so far?
I  have the feeling that I'll need to invest in several pairs of Ray Bans...
Nancy

Choices

Bigelow and Vokoun discuss some great strategies in Chapter 4 "Choices in Writing."  The strategies incorporate elements of teaching writing combined with creative writing assignments.   For example, the Life Map enhances students' ability to translate their visual representation into writing--providing an enlightening expereince for beginners. What an exciting way to teach writing.
Perhaps I overlooked this: can these activities be done in groups? The article promotes excitement for writing (for me, anyways), and hopefully for my students. I will keep these suggestions in mind next semester when I do my student teaching.
Nancy

GenM: Too Wired?

Though I am at sometimes appalled at the extent to which kids are always e-communicating, I am most definitely guilty of muli-tasking in the same ways mentioned in the article.  Why do homework in silence, if you can listen to music while you type a paper and respond to random IM's or check the recent post on Typepad?  Though most often I do this out of a sheer lack of time, I would definitely consider myself a "toggler," shifting gears and changing directions numerous times as I try to get everything accomplished.

However, what does this mean for the reading lives of our students?  Does that make reading obselete or just different?  If students read a text online, an e-book, that's great!  But what about those who are too busy multi-tasking with sports, academics, meetings, and clubs?  Since students are increasingly more dependent upon their gadgets for connection to their social lives and other people, where does reading come in?

On a related note, what about the quote from this article that mentions "professors are assigning fewer full-length books and more excerpts and articles" and as a student mentions "We don't read whole books anymore!" (54).  How is it possible in such a literate world that students are so lost on doing everything that the assignment of reading a book is startling?!  What is daunting about a 350 pp book to a kid who can program his computer, network it, and then make Imovies on it? 

Is it just that kids have changed, tuned out traditional literature, and instead, created their own form of literature that is more appealing to their visual/auditory senses?  Maybe we need books that come with their own music...

Any thoughts?!

Dawn

Critical Literacy

The article on the power of language and critical literacy should have been written about our class, since that is in essence what we are attempting to accomplish: a truely authentic critical literacy that promotes critical thinking, the power of language, choice, and the ability for our students to find meaning within a multitude of various texts, both traditional and nontraditional.

I absolutely loved the idea that Behrman mentioned, of having the curriculum become "negotiable" when students are (finally!) allowed to make their own choices about what they research!  The I-search paper, though still a research paper, gives students a voice in what they choose to discuss and present to their fellow classmates.  What an invention! 

One of the best examples of integrating new texts with those of traditional ELA programs and curriculum is that of the CounterText, which introduces students to the "silenced voices" in literature.  How often do students get to look at a situation from the "other, hushed" perspective that has been squelched?  I think this is one of the most important notions of this text, and of this class, that students can be made aware of the issues of power in relation to language, and to literature; certain voices have been quieted and dominated by the culture in power, and it is significant to understand how and why these things occur, for future reference and in order to impart change. 

This would be a great way to introduce literary theory to students, particularly when studying multicultural literature (post colonialism would be intriguing!).

Dawn

Multicultural education?

Advice from researchers advocating the integration  of  multicultural literature in the classroom is overly abundant. Stallworth, Gibbons, and Fauber report the NCTE reccommendation that students  read "works that reflect the diversity of the United States' population in terms of GENDER,  age, social class, religion, and ethnicity."  Yes, I capitalized the word GENDER.
In a classrom observation, I noticed that my host teacher promoted only one book written by a female author. The rest were books written by DWEM (dead white European men). When I asked why she incorporated only one female author, she responded that the community was very conservative and the administration would object. I felt like I had been catapulted back in time  into Hrothgar's kingdom. It is surprising to read the Stallworth et al. article to discover that many of  the educators that participated in the study included next to none.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but only one book teachers mentioned in the Table Two 2002-2003  survey was written by a woman author. Teachers during the 2003-2004 school year increased teaching women authors by one. What's up with that? How can we as future teachers (also on the very bottom of the totem pole of power) convince veteran teachers and administrators that more women authors (as well as other multicultural authors) need to be included in the curriculum? If "teachers can disrupt the idea" (Johnson and Freedman, p 129), why don't they?
Nancy

Too Wired?

Hey there, friends!  Karen has reminded us that we are supposed to be blogging about at least two articles per week.  That gives me a wonderful opening to let you all know that you can find my blog about "Are Kids Too Wired For Their Own Good" at my very new, very scary, very exciting weblog.  Please give it a quick read.

Thanks,

Jacqueline

Critical Literacy Practices

The Behrman article is a very good review of much of what I have put forward as one of our chief themes in 619, that is, "how texts work, what texts intend [and do) do to [and in] the world and how social relations can be critiqued and reconstructed."

The author provides six categories of classroom practice w/examples of each where students are practicing a critical literacy. Each of these categories works well with the Friedman/Johnson discussion and will inform your reading of Deb Appleman's book (coming up).

Behrman contends that one of these categories, moving students to and supporting their taking a "social action," allows them "to recognize literacy as a sociocultural process and to engage literacy as a vehicle for social change." This is a terribly important understanding, as Behrman says, because taking social action "requires students to become involved as members of a larger community."

I was esp. interested in his observation that often prevailing classroom structures do not support "fully collaborative relationships between teacher and students as members of a learning community."

Our class models what some of those structures might look like in 7-12 classrooms. We might want to talk more tonight (when not in seminar or lit circles*) about these structures/pedagogical approaches that support democratic classroom goals. This article brings some important examples of pedagogical approaches that engage students' own interests but in "critical" ways.

Come prepared to talk about this article--alongside the F/J chapters and your own reading.

By the way, for the 663 readers and those of you who will be taking 663 in future, this is a good example of a published lit review. A good model for your own project. KES

*these are examples of democratic structures that promote student ownership in a collaboration with the instructor