Response to "A Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature"

Out of all of the articles we have read for these blog postings, this one is the one that has most interested me.  The others are more of "perfect world" scenarios.  The others had good ideas and were sound pedagogy's but made me skeptical knowing that full implementation would be hard if not impossible.  This article shows a good way to teach literature in a different manner than lecturing.  The discussion based model really lets students come up with their own ideas about how to interpret literature.  Not all students will like all literature that they have to read in school, but if they are allowed to come up with their own ideas about why they liked or didn't like something, it will make it more meaningful to them.  When teachers force a certain way of looking at literature on students, it creates two different outcomes.  Students will either agree or disagree with the teachers point of view about a piece of literature.  While it is good for some, it wont get the students who had other ideas to keep reading.  Students should be given a  point of view but allowed to create their own.

This brings me to my next thought about the matter of literature.  Why is "classic literature" being forced down students throats?  The obvious answer is that it is classic literature.  It is classic.  That does not mean anything to students now.  Literature is so non appealing to them because they are so far removed from the material that they are having to read.  If I had a choice, I would forgo Romeo and Juliet for Star Wars.  When you ask why something is considered classic literature, people always bring up the elements within such as human nature, memisis, or theme.  3/4 of everything out there whether it be movies or new books contain the same elements.  Its sad and all that slavery happened, but no one gives a hoot about Huck Finn anymore.  Getting students interested in what they want to learn means breaking teaching traditions.  Curriculum and standards are being revamped every other decade, maybe the material should be revamped also.  Change the teaching method all we want and Romeo and Juliet will still suck to the majority of students.

Now that my rant is over I want to say that I completely agree with his method of teaching.  Giving students their own method of interpretation will make for  better discussion and ideas and theories about literature.  We have all had the experience where we have thought we had a pretty good idea of something, and then someone else's idea makes you rethink your idea.  This is where the skill based learning makes sense to me.  The student has the skill to decide if Romeo was an idiot or not.  There is no right or wrong answer, but a process.  I am still unsure of how to evaluate that skill even though I understand the importance.

This is a good article and i am going to save it because I see myself doing discussion based teaching.  This provides excellent and proven examples about how to effectively run a classroom and make literature more in tune with students as they create their own theories about pieces.