In reading Lynn Bloom, “Textual Terror, Textual Power,” I was happy to be reminded of a problem I had with Scholes’s definition of criticism: the notion that criticism must be a negative examination. Bloom brings up Frey’s point in Beyond Literary Darwinism that “adversarial mode of criticism has dominated the most prestigious journal, PMLA, for at least the past twenty years” (78) and asks “What sparks of creativity can survive in this critical jungle?” (78). While Bloom is arguing for bringing creative writing into the classroom, I can’t help but think this criticism of criticism has other negative implications for both the field and students.

Forgive me as I regress our conversation to largely discussing Scholes here (I owe a post). For the most part, I enjoyed Textual Power. There were several ideas, in the earlier chapters especially, that I appreciated. Unfortunately, for me, his argumentative rhetoric in the last chapter left a sourness in my mind, one that flavors everything he has done up to that point. In this final chapter he seems to go off on a personal rant against Stanley Fish. He gets so caught up in discounting Fish that it seems like he is contradicting himself in his efforts to find fault with Fish’s approach.

Perhaps if I were more familiar with Fish’s argument (or if my brain were better able to absorb all the nuances of so many new ideas) I could understand Scholes’s frustration. But in all the ranting, I just don’t see a major, worthwhile difference between Fish’s idea of interpretive community and Scholes’s idea of cultural codes. Aren’t they both essentially arguing that interpretation is largely influenced by one’s knowledge, culture, and community values? Is saying “Cultural codes enable us to process verbal material” (27) all that different from Fish’s claim that “‘the thoughts an individual can think and the mental operations he can perform have their source in some or other interpretive community, he is as much the product of that community (acting as an extension of it) as the meanings it enables him to produce'” (155)?

Considering Blau’s discussion of how the common interpretations of Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” changed over time, one of the ideas I appreciated in the earlier parts of Textual Power was Scholes’s addressing authorial incongruity. In the first few chapters, Scholes seems to promote accepting that division of ideas exists — not only within a group, but even within an individual: “It would be an astonishing thing if an extended body of written work did not reveal signs of divided consciousness — as if everyday life had no psychopathology, and civilization no discontents” (40).

And so I was surprised when Scholes finds it alarming that Stanley Fish would argue for the cohesiveness of a group, while still acknowledging that “‘Members of different communities will disagree.'” (155) It seems reasonable to allow Fish to define an interpretive community as one that acts to come to agreement, to agree on the principles that govern debate, while not actually resolving all disagreements.

In arguing against Fish, he also seems to contradict his earlier conclusion that in terms of literary interpretation, collective judgment is superior to personal judgment. In the earlier sections he promotes the idea that “criticism is not a matter of personal preference but of collective judgment.” (35) However, in attacking Fish he promotes the value of the individual difference in interpretation:

“Different, even conflicting, assumptions may preside over any reading of a single text by a single person. It is in fact these very differences — differences within the reader, who is never a unified member of a single unified group — it is these very differences that create the space in which the reader exercises a measure of interpretive freedom.” (154)

My frustration is mainly with Scholes’s rhetorical choice to argue so heatedly with Fish. As a reader, one who is not familiar with the ongoing dialogue Scholes is engaged in, I would have much preferred if Scholes had — instead of calling Fish dangerous for being partly accurate — acknowledged where Fish’s ideas were accurate, where their ideas were similar, and then shown me where they diverge.

Dan’s experience with his writing process, from “The Reading-Writing Connection” really engaged me throughout the entire reading. Glen argued that Dan was writing about an idea that he did not believe in (p.111), but later she admitted that it was her who was not “letting” Dan write the argument in the manner that he saw it. She engages the reader with the questions she asks herself about Dan, but she does not answer them. The semester comes to an end and all along I wanted to know what happened to Dan. Did he change his argument? Did he receive a better grade? And if so why? How can we connect with the student who sees the text completely different from the rest of the class, and as a result enters his/her own quiet zone during class discussions? These and many more questions cross my mind as I prepare to begin my teaching career.

Another one of Glen’s methods that interested me was her experience on teaching the reading of Frankenstein as a first time reader of Frankenstein. I wonder if novice students will think differently about an instructor they feel is not experienced in a specific work he/she is teaching. Will that take away from the instructor’s authority, or will it create confidence in the students? In general, I liked how Glen would bring her student’s writings to support the methods she used in class.

Bloom’s piece also provided practical theories that can help students in the reading and writing process. He argues that when students understand what they have done, they will be the one’s worried about perfecting the text. I completely agree with this idea. I had Literature and writing instructors who made the process of understanding text, writing about it, and rewriting so clear, that it made me change my undergraduate major from IT to English. In order for students learn the process, they must take risks in their writing. Glenn shows good examples on how students can take risks. For example on page 101 when she asks students to imitate sentence structure and summarize the text. Short activities like these not only motivates students to work without overwhelming them, but also teaches issues like style and sentence structure.

I’ve really enjoyed the readings this week. I’ve always loved writing, however, I rarely write unless under a deadline. When forced to write, though, I really enjoy it. It’s like deciding whether to go to a movie or a museum. How often do I pick movie because I it doesn’t require any effort or engagement on my part (this is true of the movies I like anyway)? It’s easier to pick mind-numbing entertainment. On the other hand, I am well aware that the memories I have of seeing a museum exhibit far outlast, and have a stronger effect on me, than a movie in which I don’t engage. Maybe this is why I only write under a deadline – it requires more effort than so many other things.

I found it interesting in Carl Lovitt’s chapter on journaling that one student reported that she didn’t want to have to think about reading, that although she liked reading, she resented having to put the effort into it to connect it to her own life. I think it is noble that Lovitt has a “goal of transforming students into lifelong readers.” I agree with Scholes that there should be more to reading literature than analyzing the metaphors, alliteration and line breaks. Lovitt’s journal assignment does not intend for students to create an academic text for the purpose of sharing it with the community, as Scholes advocates, but it does require students to create text upon text and to look at the “So what” factor. Not all students are going to have the same objective in a literature course. Some may be English majors that hope to submit articles in academic journals someday, but what about the others? The journal assignment allowed students to find value in literature because of the self-exploration it prompted. I have to think that Flannery O’Conner would prefer this to the dissecting of her work like a frog in a biology class.

I think Greene’s writing assignments to develop texts from the perspective of different characters also provides an opportunity for students to connect with the text on a personal level. For example, the rewrite of The Awakening from a male perspective would require the student to consider his/her views of the male perspective. Whenever a student takes a piece of literature and makes it his own, on some level, he not only learns about how to write but also to explore something about himself. Writing is always about the writer on some level. It comes from the writer’s head and heart, and the more it comes from the heart the better the writing in my opinion, and the more self exploration for both the writer and reader.

I have stated before that I don’t see the point in literature if there is no human connection, if it’s only about analyzing and dissecting. I would like to believe that if everyone made a human connection to a piece of literature at least once in their high school or college career, they would occasionally choose to pick up a thought-provoking novel, essay or poem rather than turning on the TV or sitting down with a book that merely entertains them but does not make them think. Perhaps, like I occasionally go to a museum instead of a movie, they would allow literature to make a lasting impact on their lives.

           Like Laura, I was thrilled by the fantastic results Carl Lovitt described in his article Using Journals to Redefine Public and Private Domains in the Literature Classroom.  As a diligent student who annotates texts, I even wrote “Title sounds boring, but it’s really a great experiment with wonderful results” next to the article in the Table of Contents.  True story, I promise.  Then Laura knocked me back to reality, reminding us that real students put less thought into their journal entries than what socks they should wear to work.  In fact, all the articles about using writing to teach literature gave that “too good to be true” feeling.  For example, to a disappointing eulogy for a father, Bloom merely commented “A very nice tribute.”  With no further direction from Bloom, the student revised his paper, resolving “never, ever to write anything ‘nice’ again!”            Getting students to rewrite anything, let alone do it with fervor, is my greatest challenge as a writing teacher.  The twist that Bloom added, her struggling as a writer in front of them, is something I have not tried-yet.  I think I have nothing to lose.  Another important ingredient in her workshop was a feeling of a writing community in which erasing the teacher-student barrier also erased the student writer-real writer barrier.  By setting the example, and setting the bar for herself high, she raised the students’ expectations of themselves.  Similarly, Glenn’s experiment with imitation (style, tone, point of view, genre) includes a new twist that sparks enthusiasm in her students.  I loved her idea of requiring students to respond to her comments (as Professor Sample said he has tried) and write out their revision plan before they could conference with her.  This idea struck a chord with me because I spent an hour conferencing with a student recently, and the “revised” paper he submitted was exactly the same as the first draft.  Glenn’s idea puts the responsibility for revision with the student where it belongs.

            When Green’s students wrote their own texts in response to their reading, Green says in Reinventing the Literary Text that the opportunity gave students “strategies they need to ‘read like a writer’-to anticipate the reader’s response” (189).  As a writing teacher, I have always wanted my students to write like a reader-understanding what readers expect and satisfying those expectations.  Teaching literature can make students better writers while teaching writing can make them better readers by enhancing the critical thinking skills necessary for both.

            The lesson I take from these three writing teachers is that if something I am trying is not inspiring my students to create great writing, don’t give up-try something new.

When I read Peter Elbow’s comment that he has “come to want some kind of workshop” in his literature classes instead of a straight discussion, I thought “No.” I like discussions in literature classes. In fact, my favorite literature classes have been ones that required absolutely no writing at all. The lit class that I taught without any writing was a Great Books class. We met once a month, discussed the novel that we had read and chose the next novel to be read and discussed. The class ran for about four months. Attendance was perfect except for one student who had surgery. Discussions were lively. Opinions were varied. Of course, the class was voluntary and filled with adults who wanted to be there and were interested in the topic. And yes, I was actually PAID to do this.

I often wish that I could teach an introductory lit class like that one which did not require writing. Students are frequently so worried about the PAPER that will be due that they fail to focus on the reading at hand. They are worried about analyzing and critiquing. They are worried about abiding by STANDARD AMERICAN ACADEMIC PROSE. The are worried about proper MLA documentation. They are worried about writing the correct “thing.” They are worried about their grade. Unfortunately, this worry overshadows the simple pleasure of reading and discussing the text at hand. My favorite part of teaching literature is actually talking about it in class with students, not forcing them to write about it. In a perfect world, students would come to class having read and contemplated the assignment. They would have annotated the text, writing in the margins and adding sticky tabs to the pages to mark what they deemed as relevant passages or areas where they had questions. In a perfect world this would happen. Perhaps I am lucky because this does sometimes happen in my classes. These are the days that I live for.

Unfortunately, not all students are so dedicated. There are students who come to class without having contemplated, without having annotated, sometimes without having even read the text. While I LOVE the prepared students who are already making personal connections with the texts, it is the latter students who challenge me. I somehow want to reach those students and convince them that reading can be entertaining, enlightening, and down right fun, even if it does take work. So for them, I choose such selections as “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” and Gattaca. These are accessible and entertaining readings (or viewings). Unfortunately, some students are already so jaded that they don’t even want to give the assignments the benefit of the doubt. So along come the dreaded journals mentioned by Lovitt.

Though I use these as a way to ensure that students are doing the readings (I collect them at irregular, unannounced intervals), I also use them as prompts to help students begin to connect with the readings. I tell my students that grammar, spelling, and documentation do not count. I provide them with a prompt that asks them to note passages that affect them, images that they think are strong. These are followed by the question “Why.” I encourage them to note any questions (think difficulties) they encounter while reading. I have found this assignment to be successful in getting most students to engage with the text. Of course, there will always be those who simply do not want to read. For many, however, the journals help to focus their own thoughts on the texts. Many students have told me at the end of the semester that they actually have begun to enjoy reading. Be still my heart!!! This is my goal in a literature class. My goal is not to create the next generation of literary critics turning out pages of Shakespearian interpretation. It is to engender a love, or at least a greater like, for reading.

While I recognize the relevance of writing, while I realize that writing forces rigorous thought, I do not think that is always needed. Sometimes a good discussion is more than adequate. Sorry Uncle Peter.

Edith

Okay, so I posted on entry early. To make up for it, I am posting this one late. Not to confuse you, this is my post about the Scholes text. I will post again for this week’s readings.

Inside/Outside

There are three things that struck me in the Scholes’ text that I feel the urge to comment on. The first two are relatively simple; the third is more personal. I recognize that none of these are the “deep” content of the text, but I believe they are worthy of discussion and note.

To begin, on page 46 Scholes advocates withholding information that would help students to understand Hemmingway’s references to Mantegna until “after they have worried the meaning … a bit without this evidence.” This withholding empowers the teacher and diminishes the student reader. If Scholes really believes that this information is vital to understanding the passage in question, keeping that information from his students will only frustrate them, and in the process make him look like the revered holder of all knowledge. I also think Scholes’ word choice of “worry the meaning is telling.” Does he want his students to actually worry, as in have anxiety because they are unable to perform the required task? If so, he is then able to rescue them with his profound knowledge as the all-seeing, all-knowing teacher. (Actually, this strikes me as his attitude throughout the text with his constant references to his other writings. But I digress.) Perhaps I am reading too much into his word choice and intentions in this passage. Perhaps I am interpreting wrongly.

Secondly, on page 43, Scholes writes that literary study “opens the way to a critique of culture.” I find this an interesting comment in the light of other arguments that the study of literature is solely for the purpose of enjoying literature, that it serves no real purpose. Perhaps Scholes is attempting to create a “real” reason for studying literature that will validate it outside the ivory tower of academia. (More on this later.) Even if not, this leads to the dangerous territory of teachers leading and dominating the discussion and critique of society. I know this is true because I usually (I would love to say always but was taught to never (ha!) use absolute words in writing.) try to link readings to life with the “so what” question. This does typically lead to a discussion of society. Students are very quick to condemn the cultures of our society that preceded our own. They desperately want to condemn the husbands in “The Story of an Hour” and “The Yellow Wall Paper.” They automatically read these stories from a feminist perspective without even realizing it while I, on the other hand, have a certain amount of sympathy for the husbands. I find it difficult to maintain a completely hands off attitude in these discussions. Yet I don’t want to lead the students into the “only acceptable reading” idea that the teacher knows best.

This leads me to my third area of interest in Scholes’ text. Scholes points out a dichotomy between reality and the academic life. He claims that this is “the most problematic, and, therefore, perhaps the most important” distinction in his basic structure (5). He explains that we “despise our own activities as trivial unless we can link then to a “reality outside academic life” (5). He advocates that this distinction is false and that there does not need to be a link to reality to validate the study of literature. Yet he later states that the study of literature “opens the way to a critique of culture” (43). In this statement he contradicts his earlier statement that we do not need to have a link to the world outside of academia for the study of literature. At one point Scholes echoes Fish’s argument that literature needs no reason to exist as an area of study; it is its own validation. Yet Scholes later counters his own argument.

It is this very contradiction that I find intriguing because it is echoed through history and my own teaching experience. From the early stages of education in this country there has been a battle between composition and literature. Literature was the elite study that needed no reason to exist. It simply was. Composition, on the other hand, was very egalitarian in its efforts to raise the less culturally refined to the ranks of the elite. Not only has this struggle been seen through the history of English departments, but it can also be traced through my own teaching career. I teach both composition and literature. For a long time, though I thoroughly enjoyed teaching literature, I saw no use for it outside the ivory towers of academia. Therefore I turned to composition to deem my job as worthy. Everyone needs to be able to communicate and to write well. This was an area that translated well to the real world outside of academia. It was easy to explain to students why they needed to take composition, no matter what the major. It was less easy to justify literature as a required study. Yet I continued to struggle to justify it to both my students and to myself. Finally I allowed myself to say to my students (and to myself) that they needed to take it because it was fun. Of course they looked at me as if I was crazy. However, once I admitted this to myself and gave up on the idea of justifying literature as being “useful,” my students did actually begin to enjoy the study, at least some of them. Yes, our conversations frequently turn to the “so what,” which I think is a good thing, but sometimes we just read something and admit, “wow, that was pretty neat.”

So I may have focused on a minor part of Scholes’ work, but it is a part that speaks to me personally as it elucidates my own struggle with “why.”

Edith

She is a model student. Always on time for class. Never skips. Turns in each assignment with confidence, having started them all at least two weeks before the due date. Her course load is challenging, her GPA high. In the staff room, where teachers always talk about their students, her name is only mentioned in moments of praise. Yes, she is a model student. But a model of what?

Has anyone ever asked her what she really thinks about the subjects she studies? Have her instructors, so admiring of the bright, hard worker who is “a joy to teach,” ever given her the opprotunity to explore her own growth as a reader, thinker or writer? Have they acknowledged the agonizing effort she exerts to produce the “well-developed, critically aware” discussions of their subject matter?

Is she even human?

In most cases, no. Her teachers are not like Bloom, Glenn, Greene, Elbow or Lovitt. They are mechanical apparatuses, seeking to profess the knowledge they have obtained through years of study and thus stamp out little versions of themselves. She is a gifted reader, a gifted writer. But only because of what they gave gifted to her.

Perhaps my feelings on the matter are biased, tainted by my own experience as a “model student” followed by several years of employment in the mechanical institution I have previously railed against. I would like to think that I am simply jaded, but sadly I fear that is not the case. Writers and teachers like Bloom (et al) have for thirty years been writing about and teaching in the mode of self discovery, creating and espousing environments wherein the student is treated humanely and the authentic development of her knowledge base held paramount. Yet the prevailing sentiment remains – “IT’S LITERATURE! ALL HAIL THE WRITTEN WORD – so long as it’s canonical, anthologized and definitely NOT written by you.”

So what do we get? Graduate students who have submerged rich throughtful voices, only to be resurrected through challenging exercises in creative nonfiction and personal discovery. Glenn’s students who, so enamored with the novelty of conferencing, line up outside the professor’s door just to talk about their writing because, for the first time, someone will actually listen. And we see “readers” initially unable to connect their own lives to a text until allowed to step out from under the authority of academia and the auspices of analysis.

Glenn is right. When writing teachers teach literature, we honor the process, not the machine. We encourage our students to interact with the text – analyze it, own it, become one with it and in so doing transform it in their own critical, creative way. We help them learn to silence the judge – that voice that tells them they are not good enough, not bright enough, not wise enough to navigate safely through the difficulty of a text and write deeply, passionately about its (their) meaning in the world. We open doors for our students, inviting them into a community that respsects individual progress and values the social nature of reading.

We honor their abilities. We accept and treasure their humanity.

I don’t have a higher tolerance for failure than my students. I agonize over every reading, every assignment, every word on the page. So help me if I have – or ever will – instill that sort of fear in one of my pupils. I don’t want any model students. I want readers. I want thinkers. I want writers.

I want human beings.

-Ginny

Only having read a few of the sections of When Writing Teachers Teach Literature: Bringing Writing to Reading so far, I’ve found it to be one of the most useful assigned readings of this course. I particularly connected to Cheryl Glenn’s “The Reading-Writing Connection-What’s Process Got to Do with It?” Throughout her journal entries, she stresses the importance of reading, writing, and speaking as processes that begin as rough drafts that may be polished and refined through more reading, writing, and speaking.

This semester I’m teaching a 12^th grade literature course to the same group of students I instructed last semester in composition. I’ve found that they are terrified of expressing their opinions about literature, especially when it comes to poetry. Most of these students are college-bound, but have not ever taken advanced courses. They don’t seem to have the vocabulary to talk about literature, and are afraid of saying the “wrong” thing. This week, I spent a good portion of the class teaching them about the possibility of individual interpretations of literature, that there’s not necessarily one “right answer” to a poem, that I don’t have all of the answers.

Because I had spent so much time working with these students to develop writing fluency, they are very familiar with low-stakes writing; one of my mantras during quick writes was “write first; think later.” Just getting something down on the page was a great achievement for many of these students. So this week, I applied that same technique to reading and the discussion or literature. While we were looking at a new poem, I encouraged them to jot down whatever came to mind, to “brainstorm the poem,” that there were no wrong answers. They appreciated the idea of having a “rough draft” of reading; this strategy enabled most of the students to take the risk of jotting something down or adding to the discussion. I have to admit that reading Glenn’s chapter gave me a sense of validation regarding my teaching method. I enjoyed seeing in print an approach I had tried just a few days earlier. Despite my success with this method, I still had a few students who insisted they had nothing to add to the reading of the poem; they just “didn’t get it.” I’ll need to work on another strategy for including them in this process.

One of the most appealing features of Glenn’s chapter is the detailed explanation of writing prompts that she uses in her ENGL 205 course. The writings she assigns early in the class focus on summarizing a text, whether in a few words, a sentence, or a paragraph. Her emphasis on teaching students to effectively summarize before moving on to interpretation follows the chart we discussed in class last week: a reader must have a literal understanding of the text before she can move to a deeper, more critical reading. Based on the student samples Glenn offers, this strategy seems to work well for her class; however, I was often left wondering if she only opted to choose the best student work to be included in her chapter. It might be more representative of the effectiveness of the assignments if both less successful and more successful examples of student writing were included.

As a bit of an aside, I would like to build on our prior week’s discussion of grading; I feel that Glenn is working toward a successful balance between high and low-stakes writing. One of Glenn’s students, Gretchen, comments that “with the three critical responses and seven ‘freewrite’ journals that this class does a great job of combining the two” (110). Glenn grades several written assignments solely on completion, allowing her students more freedom. The three critical responses are examined and assessed more closely. The one area of assessment where I would question Glenn’s technique is in the overwhelming amount of time she spends conferencing. It’s not clear if all of these student conferences are occurring within standard office hours or if Glenn is staying late to get through the long lines of students hoping to discuss their revisions, but she often remarks how tired she is and how much time she’s spending in this area for the course.

This is a response to Prof. Sample’s comment on Aliens, but it’s long and the format doesn’t work very well in the comment section, so I’ll put it here too:

I wasn’t really responding to Scholes so much as I was responding to “Story of an Hour;” offering, in a way, an interpretation for how to teach it. Chopin’s tale isn’t just a feminist parable, nor a lesson about the economy of storytelling in general; it also follows the conventions of an elaborate joke. The reader response can be similar to an interpretation found in Blau of “Any Minute Mom Should Come Blasting Through the Door.” This interpretation found the piece to be an extended verbal joke based on exaggerated forms of hyperbole. In “Story of an Hour,” there is a dissonance between what’s at stake–Mrs. Mallard’s freedom, her autonomy, her happiness, her very life–and the fairness, or lack thereof, of the abrupt finish. Chopin waxes poetic about grief, about misery, about the idiosyncrasies of life that make it worth living or worth exiting. Then, she finishes with a quick “Oops. Her husband is still alive…aaaaaand now she’s dead.” The only thing missing is the soundtrack going Wah-wah-wah-waaaaaaaaaah.

Of course, this reading overlooks the subtext of that final sentence–“When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease–of the joy that kills.”–undermining the duality of the juxtaposed superficial and deeper meanings: she was being rewarded/she was being punished; she died of happiness/she died of misery; her heart broke with joy/she was heartbroken. But those meanings also serve as commentary on the feminist reading. No matter the eloquence of feminine liberation, it’s attainment is still as ephemeral as a dream that evaporates upon waking. Snap of a finger. The passage of a few sentences. The beat before the punch line.

I believe more fiction utilizes this technique than we recognize. As for “Aliens!,” it’s not that good a story, but I do make use of a punch line rooted in human narcissism. When the little purple hermaphrodite informs Dan that he has effectively annihilated an entire species, Dan’s essential reaction is to mourn the loss of what would’ve been a cushy life: “What happens to me?”

It’s also a simple mockery of the human desire for exploration and understanding of our own universe. Here exists an entire culture that Dan can barely fathom–sometimes noble, sometimes petty, bizarre in appearance and action, prone to exploding–and it’s gone before he can even recognize that its destruction was his fault. I suppose it’s a bit too self-consciously irreverent, only showing a small inclination towards that melancholy near the end; but, in my own way, I tried to set it up with a punch line that mirrored what I understood about Chopin’s story, and about storytelling in general.

In a class last semester, we spoke of a technique for understanding a text that involved transcription. Copying the text to see how the author went about writing it. Well, if writing is merely thinking on a page, writing a story that duplicates what the student understood to be the intent of the original is arguably the best way to think about it, regardless of how successful the duplication. After all, inspiration does not mean imitation.

My comment about Scholes was not really connected; I was merely tired and didn’t want to produce a post that would be completely interchangeable with what everyone else was already saying (and therefore get lost in the shuffle). The argument over this kind of theory always seems to devolve into an argument over semantics, the primary contention being how to say “New Criticism bad, Reader-Response good.” Check your ego at the door and teach the student how to learn to learn, not to learn what your telling them.

A fine enough contention. But everybody puts up this specter of the egocentric teaching of yesteryear like one of those blow-up dolls with sand in the bottom that children are encouraged to pummel even though they always pop right back up. Easy targets, but pointless targets as well. A caricature of the real problem. Why else does Laura contend that lectures are not the problem, bad lectures are? Why else does J.J. contend that the five-part-paragraph, while useless in its pure form as anything other than a literary artifact, can still have use as a building block? Everyone in class is looking for happy mediums, but no one’s necessarily happy about the mediums being presented in the readings. The texts just keep preaching to the choir under the guise of saying something new.

I suppose this comment would’ve made a better post. But hey, that just means that the comment is in the post and the post is in the comment; it’s backwards! Hilarity!

Ba-dum-bum.

Sorry, my brain is paste right now. I think of Scholes, I think of footwear. His discussion of literary theory feels like it’s going in circles. Tired. I shall post a story I wrote inspired by “Story of an Hour.” Always seemed like an anecdotal story for strictly introductory purposes; all fiction is an elaborate joke to get to a drawn-out punchline:

One day, Dan Freeman was abducted by aliens. These aliens were gentle but firm. They promised to cook, clean, and provide entertainment for him until such time as their study of human behavioral patterns came to an end. All he needed to do was be himself.

Though angry, Dan was also rather excited. It seemed like a nice gig, especially in light of his recent employment opportunities—or lack thereof.

“Finally,” he thought, as the little purple man who was his host finished gesticulating with his three arms (which might have been feet). “I’m finally getting what I deserve. All my needs will be taken care of, and all my days will be a breeze.”

“Zorsplatt!” the little purple man exclaimed. Dan nodded and favored him with a blank smile. His Splurbian translator operated on a ten-second delay. In a moment, the stentorian tones of television actor and history channel narrator Edward Herrmann flowed into his ears: “And, in conclusion, we shall select a mate for you, engaging in a worldwide search of your home planet.”

“Wow!” Dan said. “You said all that in just one word?”

“Snarf blug, chesekstan. Snedley sploo. Elta fremon che so la la garfnoddle. Deweda dweda ne ne.”

In ten seconds time, Edward Herrmann’s mellifluous tones translated this statement as “Indeed.”

“Huh. My own space girlfriend. Do I get to choose?”

The little purple man did a back flip, or perhaps he stood up—Dan wasn’t exactly sure what part of his captor was the head—and unleashed a torrent of rapid-fire gibberish. In a few moments, Edward Herrmann assured Dan they were counting on his input.

“Man, you guys thought of everything.”

“Flurble!” said the little purple man.

“I am not a guy,” Edward Herrmann translated. “I am a hermaphrodite.”

“Oh.”

A door slid open and a little purple chef with an ample belly—or perhaps an enormous cranium—waddled in. He was carrying two gourmet dishes on his tentacle-arms and he skittered across the room on his hundreds of little legs (which might have been hair). “Splattle!” he said. Ten seconds later the powerful voice of veteran character actor and history channel narrator Keith David said “I have brought forth your sustenance!” He slapped the dish down and removed the top; inside, hundreds of little bugs wriggled.

“Um,” Dan said.

The little purple chef slapped his fat belly—which, as it turns out, probably was his head—and gibbered for a bit. “Oops,” Keith David translated. “My Bad. This meal is not for you.” He handed it over to the little purple hermaphrodite, who quickly dug in. He placed an alternate plate before Dan, lifting the top to reveal a well-cooked steak, mashed potatoes and asparagus.

“Ah,” Dan said. “Much better. Although, for future reference, I’m not really a fan of asparagus.”

The little purple hermaphrodite choked on a mouthful of grub; hacking it up, he/she let out a piercing scream. Edward Herrmann soon joined in. The little purple chef looked stricken (I think), at least until the little purple hermaphrodite pulled out an object that looked like a pencil and fired an incandescent beam of tightly focused energy through the little purple chef’s belly/head, coating the wall behind him in a gooey splatter of purple guts. The little purple chef screamed and fell down dead. I stared at the corpse for a full ten seconds before Keith David said “Aaargh!”

“Splittle splottle fooby booby splay nog,” screamed the little purple hermaphrodite, his/her arms fluttering above him/her like a deformed, waving balloon at a car dealership.

“We do not take kindly to failure amongst our staff!” Edward Herrmann translated huffily.

“Evidently,” Dan said, looking down at the little purple chef—now the little dead chef. He gulped and turned back to his dinner. How would he be able to eat now? He winced and began picking at the mashed potatoes.

Dan and the little purple hermaphrodite dined in silence for a few minutes, Dan careful not to touch any of the offending vegetables. He wondered idly if his voice was being translated into a mildly famous Splurbian celebrity. Probably so. He wasn’t sure why, but the thought actually pleased him. As he began debating which celebrity would be best suited for his voice—perhaps the Splurbian equivalent of Edward Norton—he cut at his steak with greater enthusiasm. He spared a glance behind him and saw that the little dead chef, as well as the mess made by his passing, had disappeared.

“Wow,” he thought. “What service!”

As the little purple hermaphrodite and Dan went over the criteria for his stay—indefinite, but pleasant—they finished their respective meals. By the end of dinner Dan was almost certain that he’d imagined the little purple chef entirely. After all, he was in an alien spaceship talking to a creature whose anatomy he couldn’t even fathom.

Anything was possible.

An hour later, after a delicious dessert of caramel apple pie for Dan, and roaches for the little purple hermaphrodite, the two were looking through the Victoria’s secret catalogue for a mate. Suddenly, a little purple man in a little purple HAZMAT suit rushed into the room.

“Flibble flobble,” he wailed. Ten seconds later, the dulcet tones of Meryl Streep translated this sentence as “Code Seventeen-B!” and then the little purple man—probably a little purple woman—exploded, splattering the inside of her little purple suit with little purple guts.

The little purple hermaphrodite seemed to sigh—or perhaps fart—and put the catalogue away.

“What happened?” Dan asked.

When he/she answered, the little purple hermaphrodite’s voice had a fatalistic quality to it. Edward Herrmann almost seemed to take longer, as if he were reluctant to translate. But translate he did.

“We made an unforgivable error,” Edward Herrmann said, voice cracking. “It seems your species carries a certain bacterium which ours cannot tolerate for a sustained period of time. We are all exposed. Though it takes a variable amount of time for death to occur; sometimes earlier, as in the case of my dear wife Garfsblaggle,”—he gestured to the little purple pile of goo in the little purple HAZMAT suit—“and sometimes a little longer, death is nevertheless inevitable. Honestly, I could detonate at any moment.”

“Oh my,” Dan said. “Is there anything I can do?”

The little purple hermaphrodite sighed, looking not at Dan but into the eyes of the Fourth Horseman, and gabbled a bit more.

“No,” Edward Herrmann translated. “Our race is telepathically linked via brainwave. Your bacterium will destroy us all, even those on our home planet…Splurbia.”

“No!”

“Yes,” said Edward Herrmann.

“But, what will happen to me?”

“You shall be returned to your home planet immediately. I am sorry we did not get to continue our association much longer, Dan. But, in the short time I’ve known you, I feel safe calling you…friend.” He held out a tentacle-arm, the last act of a doomed hermaphrodite feeling the ephemeral breath of some slouching beast upon his neck (or perhaps upon his ankle). Dan reached out his hand, a single tear rolling down his cheek…and then the little purple hermaphrodite exploded. Dan was coated with purple substance that felt like a mixture of jelly, honey, and Jell-o.

Ten seconds later, Edward Herrmann said “aaaah…”

In a moment, lights appeared before Dan’s eyes, a deep thrum hummed in his ears, and he found himself in the food court where he’d been abducted. He looked at the people milling by, so blissfully unaware of the truth behind the curtain of their own consciousness. So sad. So short-sighted. So small they all were, so oblivious to the presence of life beyond the stars.

And then Dan laughed.

After all, there was nothing to be oblivious about anymore.

-Matt (maybe)

  Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of theories, especially of those that are past their prime.  Would knowing about New Criticism and the rest have been beneficial years ago in my early attempts in understanding a whole text? Perhaps, but now, in trying to learn and understand teaching of literature ideas/concepts, these resurfacing theories are like a thin layer of dust that I’d like to wipe away once and for all, but know will always be present, even if not visible.

  I have mixed feelings about Scholes’ book.  Possibly, because of his writing style, I think.  At times, the language is quite academic-sounding to me, such as on pg. 24″……in perceiving the potent aura of codification…….,”and yet other times, his talk is straight forward, “teaching literature should be retitled studying texts.”    It doesn’t sound as intellectual but it does provide a clearer purpose.  (On a side note, my B.A. is in Family Studies, but the following year, Univ. of Maryland changed it to Family Science.  Which sounds better to you)?

In many of our readings and discussions, we’ve mentioned (if not outright) that the current system of teaching English seems “broken.” Gerald Graff discussed the problems within curriculum and Peter Elbow would like greater emphasis on the writing process.  Scholes too speaks of rebuilding and discusses his middle of the road ideas. He dismisses the revolution or abrupt change approach as well as the tinkering or reform method. This got me thinking about the D.C. school system and how past superintendants attempted to reform the broken system, but never got too far in instituting change.  Now  there’s Chancellor Rhee using a revolutionary-like style to overhaul the system. Although, it’s still early in the remaking, she doesn’t appear to be backing down from the opposition, which gives the impression that maybe this time reform will actually occur.  My guess is that a university setting would be much more resistant to the overhaul process.  So then how textual power is taught still lies with the individual teacher.  

  Both Blau and Scholes list the three skills: reading, interpretation and criticism.  Blau defines reading as what does the text say while Scholes views reading as processing text without confusion or delay.  Reading for both refers to text within text, which I understand, but I’m uncomfortable with Scholes use of ‘without confusion or delay.’ So if I  reread text to strenghten or cement my understanding at a particular point in text during the first read- through then I’ve delayed my reading process, and what? (Or am I putting too much stress on his choice of words)?

 Also, on pg. 11 he discusses his diagram regarding the English apparatus.  How does moving composition from the bottom to the othermost margin place a greater value on the subject of composition?  Which brings us back to Elbow’s argument and why reading and writing can’t get along. And yet, Scholes’ other comments, specifically that cultural knowledge should either present itself or be told, overlap previous scholars’ ideas.

As for Hemingway, perhaps he’s not a favorite among women because in the few stories that I’ve read, the women are often referred to as girls or hold an inferior position to the male character.  Also, the bull fighting theme has masculine overtones and although bull fighting is so entrenched in that culture, I personally wouldn’t mind seeing that act, of inciting a bull and then shoving swords into it till death,  banned.  I don’t understand man’s need to dominate animals. Anyway, as for the painting, I’m glad it was posted because aside from Impressionist paintings, I’m at a loss. But how does four holes and the gash in the side be deemed  “lots of holes” since that was the method Romans used.  In reading an excerpt from “Portrait of Hemingway” by Lillian Ross,  Hemingway says, ” I learned to write by looking at paintings at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris.” In this scene, he is looking at pictures by Italian painters Titian, Giorgione, Francia, plus Rubens’ “The Triumph of Christ Over Sin and Death.” I’m wondering if Hemingway’s attraction to these stems from his own fears of death and of his writing being misinterpreted. He refers to Mantega’s portrait of Christ as bitter. Is that because Hemingway feels that any attempts at goodness and righteousness will be condemned in a tortuous way like that of Jesus?  Or was Hemingway feeling embittered already? Does this even have anything to do with the criticism question? But I did use textual power….right?

Susan  

Sorry this is a week later than everyone else’s reflective posts because I was out sick. When I reflected on my posts I noticed that I did respond more to how the texts and readings might affect my classroom. I suppose I cannot help but imagine my classes and how they may or may not respond to new pedagogy and activities. In fact, a lot of my posts mention how I have tried or look forward to trying new methods learned from our readings.

In our class discussion some people mentioned that the posts were narcissistic, but I think mine have to be. Isn’t the point to react to the readings and text? At times I felt I was a bit redundant, but I think it’s because when I’m writing, I’m also trying to talk ideas out on paper and sometimes that involved repetition of the same ideas and thoughts. I tended to focus on a chapter or an idea, rather than the whole work. When I read, sentences or phrases stand out to me and that was evident in my posts.

Though I discussed a lot about how I would use these ideas in my classroom, I noticed I discussed a lot about my department and school that often forces curriculum and texts down our throats. It has always been amazing to me that people who are not in the classroom and are not updated to new ways of learning are the ones dictating what happens in our schools. Again, I digress, but my posts were mostly about my classes and how I relate and teach them.

The second chapter really spoke to me because I do think that the English curriculum that is forced in most schools really serves as an injustice to individual student learning. Scholes has brought about a new way for teachers to teach literature in the classroom. I do believe that textual power is important. Having kids create the ownership and understanding of the works we teach is invaluable. When I watch my students I realize that reading is in fact a skill and when they do not understand the fundamental narrative coding it is difficult for them to understand.

When we were reading In the Time of the Butterflies, I was surprised that they really had a hard time adjusting to the narrative change. One chapter would be written in a narrative they were used to and the next would be set up in a diary-style. It took dissecting the reasons for the diary entries for them to become more comfortable with the novel’s style. As a teacher, it is a challenge for me to help them read and understand the overall concept of the text. It seems with the novels I choose to teach, there are always political and social undertones that make the reading much richer when they are understood. The term textual power is so powerful because to me understanding the connections and links to other works, art, history and politics does make the reading that much more interesting and meaningful.

When Scholes looks at Hemingway’s work, In Our Time, I was really impressed and overwhelmed by the detail in which he looked at the text. As a teacher I don’t think I ever asked such detailed questions about the writer’s style. This might sound odd, but asking those questions was what I loved so much about my college professors. I guess I never felt that way with any of my high school teachers. I think secretly I felt that my high school students wouldn’t be able to interpret to the extent Scholes discusses. I am more encouraged after reading this book, but I also got a little hung-up on the cultural codes that my ESOL students struggle with. At times they cannot “orient” themselves because they are thrown off by the new language and culture. When Scholes suggests looking at words and asking kids to construct a scene and slowly add or imagine text without words really seems like it might work. I suppose it does if he wrote a book about it. In my class we are about to embark on The Odyssey. I feel I can use these methods because Homer does use specific language and often more than once. Asking students to pay special attention to the words and phrases will hopefully enable them to understand the text better. Having students write from the point of view of Odysseus or one of the men on his ship may also help them relate to the text.

When Scholes suggest the group study approach to reading and interpretation it makes me feel good because I run my ESOL classes seminar style. Luckily I only have less than ten students in each class so I can ask deeper questions and we can discuss the hang ups and issues that individuals have with the text. I feel a lot more confident about teaching my students because I do think we need to find new ways to be great teachers because the traditional curriculum and style is dry and I always a proponent for fresh changes in the classroom.

Thanks Renee for letting me know that I was not the only person who found Textual Power really difficult to understand. In fact for me I thought none of the matters was sinking in until I read Professor Sample’s question, which was a great help for giving me a direction to begin my post. On page 24 Scholes mentions “our job is not to produce “readings” for our students but to give them the tools for producing their own”. My guess is the Andrea Mantegna’s painting would be considered a tool for understanding and criticizing Hemingway’s fiction. For students who don’t understand art very well, like myself, I would argue that in fact that painting does not help me push from interpretation to criticism. I am a big fan of Hemingway’s works. His simple, yet intriguing sentences can already spark different criticism and interpretation. Mantegna’s painting does not necessarily add or subtract from my understanding of the work, unless it is fully discussed in a classroom setting, and I am able to hear the views of others in class.

Although I do not deny that for many other works a painting or “marginal cultural allusion” can actually help students begin criticizing a work. For some students maybe a painting is not enough to spark criticism. For example when a teacher asks students to compare a work of Shakespeare, like the text of Romeo and Juliet with the most recent Hollywood version of the story, students can easily begin the criticizing and interpretation process because they can relate to the recent version that uses guns and other familiar cultural props. They can then compare the differences and understandings of the original text. This activity helps students explore the different interpretations, and how to criticize.

“essays say what they mean and stories do not” (p.22).

I likedhow Scholes spells out the different tasks of essays and stories. I realized one of the reasons stories are so highly appreciated among all ages and cultures is that it allows the audience to come up with their own interpretations based on their own cultural experiences. I always wondered why my creative writing instructors were not very concerned about format and grammar, and why being good at punctuation does not necessarily make you a good writer.

I especially enjoyed chapter five as Scholes walked the reader step by step through the bull fighting story explaining exactly how Hemingway walked with the reader to experience bull fighting.

But then from chapter 5 and 6 I really began to lose track of the text. Scholes’ comparison of the different formulas and commentators like Jameson, de Man, and the hermetic theoreticians threw me off. Even the quotes on page 83 which seemed very simple to read seemed like a different language. I’m looking forward to understanding them in class tomorrow.

I’m with you, Sara. I was OK with some of the chapters in Textual Power (mostly the ones in the beginning) and even with pieces of some of the later chapters, but parts of the book seemed convoluted and were very difficult for me to read. As someone else mentioned I, too, was annotating and employing some of the difficulty paper tools, but eventually the text seemed to degenerate into semantics. The lengthy discussion on whether history is anything besides text (really?) and then the pages on how to define the words that were made up by other literary theorists made my eyes spin.

I was looking forward to reading Scholes because he was referenced in some of the other texts and I liked the ideas presented on his behalf. And, I do like the idea in Textual Power of breaking down literature into the three stages of reading, interpretation, and criticism. I also appreciate Scholes’s focus on not criticizing and interpreting during the reading stage but instead on trying to read the text from a more detached point of view so as not to misinterpret or to just miss information. I also appreciate his discussion “between practice and earnest.” This reminded me of Blau’s suggestion to create a literary community within the classroom but with a suggestion to take it one step further so that practice does not merely become theory without a place for application.

But after that, Scholes began to lose me and as I meditated (i.e. began losing interest in and focus) on the text during the discussion of whether a word means a word or means an object and if the object really exists (or something like that) I kept asking myself, so what? Isn’t it Scholes’s theory that encourages the reader to ask, so what? One of the questions that I keep asking myself in this course is “what is the objective of teaching literature?” If a student doesn’t care about the end result, is he going to care about the exercises he is doing to get there? Some of the possible answers I have come across so far are to learn critical thinking skills, to explore thoughts we might not have on our own, to be entertained, to connect with humanity, for self exploration, to become a better writer, and to develop consultation and collaboration skills doing group work. Are students going to care about literature more if we are able to define “differance”? How is that going to make a difference in the world?

During the discussion of objects and signifiers I couldn’t help but think that Magritte seems to have communicated the same thing much more succinctly, creatively and poignantly in his painting, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” where he presented a picture of a pipe and wrote on it, this is not a pipe
(http://artscenecal.com/ArtistsFiles/MagritteR/MagritteRFile/MagritteRPics/RMagritte1.html).

Is literary theory about semantics, and if it is, can’t we at least make the discussion a bit more interesting? Perhaps, sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

 Like Ginny, I noticed that Scholes recommends that smart English teachers suppress their natural inclination to show off for their students.  Too bad he couldn’t resist.  He sounded like he agreed in principle with Blau, that an English teacher’s role was to enable students to read and interpret a text themselves, but in practice, he gave me the feeling that interpreting texts is a mysterious power held by genius English teachers.  Of interpreting texts, he says “there is an element of intuition . . . that cannot be reduced to formulas”31).  That said, he presents the formula for interpreting a text:  Step 1.  Look for repetitions and oppositions in the text.  Sounds simple enough, but the cultural and geographic information he supplies, as well as some not-so-obvious oppositions he points out, put him in the position of telling the students the correct interpretation of the text.  He says, “In leading a class from reading to interpretation, I would try to uncover the implications of the opposition by exploring all the relationships and differences that link the story’s two main places and episodes” (33).  He asks questions and answers them himself.  His text gives no indication that his students were coming up with the conclusions he makes. Step 2. Determine what these oppositions represent.  About this step he says students must be able to make connection between text and culture based on knowledge, and then teaches the class the cultural knowledge they will need to correctly interpret the text.  Sounds like a show off to me.  I do not question his brilliance.  I just don’t think being in one of his classes would make me feel empowered.