My personal philosophy of teaching comes from a poem by Taylor Mali titled Miracle Workers: All I do is give you what I know you need, before you know you need it. The question then becomes, what do students need to learn most? Organization? Creativity? Coping? Judgement?
All of these skills can be taught through literature. Although all schooling teaches students to organize, to think critically, to evaluate, to synthesize, and the list goes on--teaching language arts enables students to learn how to express themselves, as well as connect with people around them, while making judgements about the experiences they encounter via text. I teach literature because I want to teach about life; literature and writing are just my vehicles.
First of all we must teach students to connect with our characters by asking questions like: Do you understand this character’s motivation? His or her reasons for acting this way? Do you agree with those reasons? Why or why not? If you opinion differs, why do you think that the character has come to a different conclusion than you? Are their values different than yours? What has influenced their values? What has influenced yours? How does this affect the choices you make?
This form of questioning is much more intensive than normal processing questions, such as those dealing with plot or characterization--not that plot or characterization aren’t important, which I will deal with later. But by asking our students to connect with a character by evaluating their own life is a necessary skill for their future. If students cannot connect with other people, they will not be effective employees in whatever job they aspire to, not to mention socially disengaged and unsatisfied beings.
But back to the much-maligned plot structure. Teaching plot structure is important, although not as important as the previously mentioned higher-level thinking strategies. Teaching plot structure implies the teaching of an aesthetic. That is to say, “There is a formula for making something beautiful.” Once we explicate this formula, we first enable students to recognize it, and then we enable them to critique it, and discuss--is one climax in a novel, really the best way to write? Would a certain novel be better if it incorporated more conflict? Or perhaps a different structure than the traditional single climax? These questions illustrate that if we teach students to first recognize and work within a literary structure, we then enable them to work outside of it in an informed and deliberate way.
This same tactic can be applied to any literary tool. Once students learn a literary tool they are then informed users instead of passive consumers. They can use these cognitive skills in any written or oral forms of communication.
Who has not succumbed to the movie quote “I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request” (Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl). If one understands rhythm and meter, as well as phonetics, it is easy to break down this simple selection and see why it is so appealing: The stress on each of the lines is the same, “I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request.” Here is the pattern: un stress un un/ un stress un un/ un stress un un. There is also a leading string of similarity between the syllables of dis and inclined, the hard k sound in clined/ac and the last pairing is between qui in ‘acquiesce’ and ‘request,’ not to mention the near-rhyme at the end between ‘acquiesce’ and ‘request’ as well.
Before you learn those patterns, a student could simply remember it as a good quote from a movie. But after a student learns about rhythm, and stress in poetry, and studies the effect of phonetics and repetition on writing that makes it memorable, they are able to realize that they can use these same tactics in their own writing.
These skills are important--analyzing the aesthetic--because they allow students to foster their own creativity. Instead of teaching students to mimic the accepted forms of communication, I would like to teach them to break down that communication and take the good parts, but leave the ineffective parts. This “take it if it works for you; leave it if it doesn’t” strategy promotes a shift in culture, where only the most effective methods for communicating survive.
Overall the parallels between skills you use in an english classroom, and the skills you use generally in a creative and professional life are undeniable. Learning how to evaluate people, to connect with them, to analyze your own experience, to understand a set pattern, and to then critique that pattern, to see if it is the most appropriate avenue for you to reach your communicative goals--which of these skills cannot be used in business, performing arts, education or science? Each of these professions clearly needs the abilities one first learns in a well-taught language arts classroom. Other classes may teach organizational ability, and some evaluative skills, but in literature, because our text is life and life’s challenges as written about by the human, we prepare students to connect, understand, and shift their actions to accommodate new situations.
**written for my final in "Teaching Literature and Reading"
No comments:
Post a Comment