I might stand alone with my complaint, but I’m rather accustomed to that, so I’ll just air my grievance. I found Wilner’s analysis of her students’ interpretive skills rather alarming and a bit degrading. She states that her “students responded to texts in such self-centered, such willfully naïve ways, that instead of interpreting or even shedding light on the text, they appeared simply to defy it” (173). I found myself questing whether their lack of interpreting ability was a personal flaw or their professor’s failure. Wilner’s expectations regarding the basic level of her under-graduate students’ analytical skills seemed excessive. The texts her under-graduate students were given, “Territory” and “Sonny’s Blues,” not only require open-minds but high-level skills in literary analysis. The cultural, literary, and historical knowledge needed to handle the texts Wilner provided seemed beyond the capability of her students. The critical stance Wilner took toward the failings of her students should have also been directed at her teaching style.

I do not applaud the forum that Wilner provided for her students to voice their hateful stereotypes and prejudices. Wilner told of the time she wrote the word homophobia on the chalkboard and a student vocalized his hatred of homosexuals. Though it shocked me that this behavior was allowed in a higher education atmosphere, I felt Wilner should have addressed the student’s hatred for what it was—narrow-minded thinking. Instead, I felt she labeled all of her students unfairly because of a few bigoted perspectives. The bigoted outburst of one student seemed to allow a forum for bigoted conversation. Was this the learning experience that Wilner wished for? I hope not. Perhaps Wilner should have taken a mental note of her student population before assigning a text that they were not culturally equipped to handle. The need for scaffolding with this particular group of students seems obvious, even from a secondary educator’s perspective. Wilner’s students needed an anti-New Criticism approach to the reading of “Territory” before actually reading the text. If Wilner would have known her students’ cultural biases more thoroughly—and used scaffolding methods to approach culturally difficult texts—I feel the students would have been better able to analyze the material. I wondered throughout the essay which came first, Wilner’s assumptions about the inept literary skills of her students or her assumptions regarding their inept cultural sensitivity?

If I were teaching “Territory” or “Sonny’s Blues” to under-graduates who appeared culturally and analytically bankrupt, I would hope my approach would focus first on background knowledge and literary and cultural sensitivity. Though I am not a fan of front-loading information, I believe that when presenting potentially controversial texts, a teacher must know when to forgo the New Critical approach. I was pleased when Wilner began the process of self-reflection toward the end of her essay in the section “Am I Blue?” The truest statement of the piece was Wilsner’s analysis of her own approach: “Unless I continue to examine my own assumptions, I will not be effective in helping students confront theirs. Unless I view my practices as always provisional, I cannot expect my students to see themselves as always ‘in process’ ” (193). Wilsner deserves credit for writing about her failed teaching strategies; though I feel I have learned more about what not to do when teaching difficult texts than what to do from reading her self-analysis.