Last week\u2019s Think Aloud, paired with the written analysis of the exercise, helped me better understand how my students must feel when I urge them to master\u00a0the uncertain skill of interpreting literature. I chose to analyze the Think Aloud that I participated in, and in my analysis, I realized that acquiring knowledge truly is a process. I was surprised that our group analysis during the Think Aloud fluctuated from literal to figurative meaning and\u00a0then back to literal understanding; the cyclical nature of our analysis did not produce a concrete understanding of Williams\u2019 poem.<\/p>\n
As a lifelong reader of poetry, I feel uneasy when I cannot unearth poetic meaning. In my secondary and undergraduate education (even many graduate classes), I have assumed that a close reading and analysis of poetry will uncover the poet\u2019s intended meaning. After the Think Aloud, I am left questioning the certainty of knowing. If knowledge is indeed a process, and the poem a living organism that changes with time, what can the reader conclude about the permanence of poetic meaning? Perhaps poetic meaning isn\u2019t permanent. A poem, by nature, seems to riddle the reader with metaphorical and figurative imagery, while giving away little more than the literal words on the page. Williams\u2019 intended meaning in \u201cBetween Walls\u201d could live in the world of the Imagist movement, where the essence of the thing described creates the central focus of the poem. The image represented in the poem could hold the meaning of the poem. How could a reader unarmed with knowledge of the Imagist movement, or the Modernist movement that followed it, truly understand Williams\u2019 poetry? How can I expect my young students to correctly analyze poetry when I doubt the certainty of poetic knowledge? Should this uncertainty and difficulty pinning down meaning pervade the analysis of literature? Should I teach uncertainty?<\/p>\n
After struggling through the Think Aloud exercise, writing the analysis, and reading this week\u2019s poetry selections, I feel comfortable advocating uncertainty. The Norton Introduction to Literature<\/em> offers some suggestions (pg. 407) that I found helpful when analyzing poetry, though I think these suggestions could apply to all literature as well. The most comforting suggest was \u201cassume there is a reason for everything.\u201d When I analyze a poem, trusting the artistic vision of the poet becomes paramount. As a teacher, I hope advocating this authorial trust will transfer patience and understanding to my students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week\u2019s Think Aloud, paired with the written analysis of the exercise, helped me better understand how my students must feel when I urge them to master\u00a0the uncertain skill of interpreting literature. I chose to analyze the Think Aloud that I participated in, and in my analysis, I realized that acquiring knowledge truly is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}