To Cap Gardner
Form
Bleezer's Ice Cream
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday 2/26
I feel more uncertain about the core of this section of the text, for often as I read, I thought, “Am I to read this as something new? Is she repeating herself, or is this simply the byproduct of the context, attitude, and assumptions I am bringing to this transaction?” That said, I do believe that even though I wonder if I missed the boat as I kept looking for the new information, the second part of the book answered some of my questions from last week and left me thinking, “Ooo, good!” while stirring me to question the practice of reading shared texts in the classroom.
On page 104, Rosenblatt addresses the issue of reader necessitated creation of a text. I wondered last week about a reader refusing to look aesthetically at a text, thus rendering it non-artful. If the reader is charged with the complete creation, bringing the text to form and position, then The Divine Comedy might be a completely new piece each time it is read. From my understanding, though, Rosenblatt argues that Dante’s work is not recreated in as many entities as there are readings, but rather forms and evolves, changing as one dynamic piece in the individual and cultural awareness of humanity. For me, that sums up much of the reasons I would give my students why I enjoy reading and studying literature. There is a deep connectedness that I have within the larger picture of humankind. Not only am I interacting with the author and my own consciousness, but also the continued creation of the work of art.
Rosenblatt reinforces this idea for me on pages 108 and 85, giving me a bit of the reader’s chills with emphatic Amen’s and You know that that’s right’s sounding through my brain. On 108 works are described as “dynamic in nature” and given a same, basic element of human tradition: change. The text comes to life and is breathing through time and each of its readers. Poems, novels, and other works do not become stagnant. There is no universal analysis. The factors surrounding each reading make the piece unique in that moment, but the collective experience with the text allows for a much bigger and adapting synthesis. On page 85 I get the sense that the text, in itself and within the context of an aesthetic reading, reflects this change and the dynamics of culture as words and symbols, ideas and literary features, point both backward and forward, providing “a contextual ambiance” that is not merely located in the efferent understanding of the plot, but can create a greater understanding of self and the world, depending on the level of awareness one brings in their reading attitude or when a moment is sparked while reading.
I leave this text with a new question in mind: how will I approach reading in the classroom. Rosenblatt stirred my thinking on page 78: “The nonverbal setting can be understood to include all of the possible factors outside the verbal symbols themselves that might influence the interpretation of their meaning. We take for granted that the actual circumstances surrounding a spoken utterance often provide the basis for understanding.” Right now, I see students in classes, and remember my own, sitting and reading the same book together…well, alone, possibly out loud to one another, but alone. They sit in rows, sometimes thumbing through pages, but the context of reading (which is most definitely a social act) is a cattle call, where THE themes and literary analysis tools are branded into each student – some brands last longer than others. It seems important to study together and have a common literature experience – multiple interpretations aside – but a generally rigid view of the canon and methods used to distribute the text and interpret for students looks to me like disaster. I know there are plenty of teachers who do this well, but the ingrained ,scientifisizing of art in order to measure and somehow legitimize a particular method of assessment because some kinds of data are so important gives me another reason to question the classroom novel. If we teach with an emphasis on efferent reading, then that is the attitude students will take away for their next encounter with a text, possibly missing out on the contextual ambiance and cultural awareness of humanity afforded by aesthetic looks at texts.
On page 104, Rosenblatt addresses the issue of reader necessitated creation of a text. I wondered last week about a reader refusing to look aesthetically at a text, thus rendering it non-artful. If the reader is charged with the complete creation, bringing the text to form and position, then The Divine Comedy might be a completely new piece each time it is read. From my understanding, though, Rosenblatt argues that Dante’s work is not recreated in as many entities as there are readings, but rather forms and evolves, changing as one dynamic piece in the individual and cultural awareness of humanity. For me, that sums up much of the reasons I would give my students why I enjoy reading and studying literature. There is a deep connectedness that I have within the larger picture of humankind. Not only am I interacting with the author and my own consciousness, but also the continued creation of the work of art.
Rosenblatt reinforces this idea for me on pages 108 and 85, giving me a bit of the reader’s chills with emphatic Amen’s and You know that that’s right’s sounding through my brain. On 108 works are described as “dynamic in nature” and given a same, basic element of human tradition: change. The text comes to life and is breathing through time and each of its readers. Poems, novels, and other works do not become stagnant. There is no universal analysis. The factors surrounding each reading make the piece unique in that moment, but the collective experience with the text allows for a much bigger and adapting synthesis. On page 85 I get the sense that the text, in itself and within the context of an aesthetic reading, reflects this change and the dynamics of culture as words and symbols, ideas and literary features, point both backward and forward, providing “a contextual ambiance” that is not merely located in the efferent understanding of the plot, but can create a greater understanding of self and the world, depending on the level of awareness one brings in their reading attitude or when a moment is sparked while reading.
I leave this text with a new question in mind: how will I approach reading in the classroom. Rosenblatt stirred my thinking on page 78: “The nonverbal setting can be understood to include all of the possible factors outside the verbal symbols themselves that might influence the interpretation of their meaning. We take for granted that the actual circumstances surrounding a spoken utterance often provide the basis for understanding.” Right now, I see students in classes, and remember my own, sitting and reading the same book together…well, alone, possibly out loud to one another, but alone. They sit in rows, sometimes thumbing through pages, but the context of reading (which is most definitely a social act) is a cattle call, where THE themes and literary analysis tools are branded into each student – some brands last longer than others. It seems important to study together and have a common literature experience – multiple interpretations aside – but a generally rigid view of the canon and methods used to distribute the text and interpret for students looks to me like disaster. I know there are plenty of teachers who do this well, but the ingrained ,scientifisizing of art in order to measure and somehow legitimize a particular method of assessment because some kinds of data are so important gives me another reason to question the classroom novel. If we teach with an emphasis on efferent reading, then that is the attitude students will take away for their next encounter with a text, possibly missing out on the contextual ambiance and cultural awareness of humanity afforded by aesthetic looks at texts.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Sunday 02/19 Rosenblatt Ch 1-3
As I was reading, efferently for information of course, I wondered about the power of the reader. Although discussed at length, I do not believe that Rosenblatt came out, to meet my expectations, in giving the reader who is involved in transaction with the text the ultimate agency. I wanted her to say that the reader could choose, or refuse rather, the aesthetic of a particular text. It still seemed to me that she felt the onus was on the text to elicit reader engagement. I realize that it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg sort of relationship, defining and depending upon one another, but I felt like her position on efferent (not to mention indifferent) attitude was not developed enough. What about the mind that is not “excited by the attractions of the journey itself” (28)? Does this person have the power to keep a text from becoming art? This is not simply about the person who glosses information or looks a painting/listens to music and is uninterested/unmoved., but it is about that person. Does their unwillingness or fear of delving/view of “art” as inconsequential have the ability to ransack the artist, rendering them impotent since the piece failed to move? And what if there is a moment, but it doesn’t take hold – the stalk is choked by the thorns or wilts for lack of water? If I am not continuously moved, has my lack of awareness slammed the door shut on the text’s ability to make meaning?
Her study, too, is skewed for me. The basis of Chapter 2 came from the reactions of graduate students in English, trained in a system of interpreting texts, much like extroverts living in an extrovert-driven/praised/valued society. I wonder what her statements would have been if she took information from mildly disinterested teenagers. Are we to look at how the trained and motivated approach texts or those who are new to language and interpretation, those who have yet to be tainted or disturbed? That asked, the story of the eight-year-old who cannot get past the idea of rabbits with pocket watches hits me in a way that saddens me, urges me to grab the system by the shoulders and shake. We have made poems and other textual art into work. There is always something to find, something to know, some form to learn. Will I matter-of-factly tell my daughter, “What you seem to have misunderstood about the attitude with which you are to approach listening to my bedtime story is that you should not be so efferent,”? No, I will not, and I hope that in how we treat reading situations, she will understand the difference of situations, preventing us from getting to that point. Rosenblatt suggests that the aesthetic reader can focus enough to do the efferent reading if they needed.
In order to find a place where transaction can occur, where the text and the reader simultaneously form environments for each other, do we have to retrain our brains? Our hearts? The “inner ears” of our students? So often, we teach people to listen to directions, to listen for the facts, but rarely do we exercise listening to self. Self can be so unimportant in school. The universe is big, and I am insignificant in it all – that is a quantifiable number: 1 in 7 billion.
There was so much in these first three chapters that I did like, mostly was the notion on page 29 that the artist is aspiring to the moment of absorbing a reader in the performance of the art. It may even be less than that – when the artist, himself, is absorbed in the production, no reader need apply.
Her study, too, is skewed for me. The basis of Chapter 2 came from the reactions of graduate students in English, trained in a system of interpreting texts, much like extroverts living in an extrovert-driven/praised/valued society. I wonder what her statements would have been if she took information from mildly disinterested teenagers. Are we to look at how the trained and motivated approach texts or those who are new to language and interpretation, those who have yet to be tainted or disturbed? That asked, the story of the eight-year-old who cannot get past the idea of rabbits with pocket watches hits me in a way that saddens me, urges me to grab the system by the shoulders and shake. We have made poems and other textual art into work. There is always something to find, something to know, some form to learn. Will I matter-of-factly tell my daughter, “What you seem to have misunderstood about the attitude with which you are to approach listening to my bedtime story is that you should not be so efferent,”? No, I will not, and I hope that in how we treat reading situations, she will understand the difference of situations, preventing us from getting to that point. Rosenblatt suggests that the aesthetic reader can focus enough to do the efferent reading if they needed.
In order to find a place where transaction can occur, where the text and the reader simultaneously form environments for each other, do we have to retrain our brains? Our hearts? The “inner ears” of our students? So often, we teach people to listen to directions, to listen for the facts, but rarely do we exercise listening to self. Self can be so unimportant in school. The universe is big, and I am insignificant in it all – that is a quantifiable number: 1 in 7 billion.
There was so much in these first three chapters that I did like, mostly was the notion on page 29 that the artist is aspiring to the moment of absorbing a reader in the performance of the art. It may even be less than that – when the artist, himself, is absorbed in the production, no reader need apply.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sunday 02/12 for Franzak, Newell, Skerrett, and Scherff and Hahs-Vaughn
The key term for me that tied these readings together was, well, “together.” There is an isolation in teaching that seems rather depressing. It’s almost enough to keep a person who thrives on interaction out of teaching all together. Whether it is reinforcing a phantom policy as Franxak notes happened with Romeo and Juliet and The Odyssey (they’re in the blue literature anthology sold as a freshman text, that’s why they’re taught to so many 9th graders across the country) or Newell’s urging for horizontal teacher development, I kept finding that success in terms of morale and longevity as well as senses of purpose, progress, and agency teachers needed colleagues. One cannot think it possible for every teacher to come to their position with the same set of experiences, interests, or vision, but not working together for the community within the school seems like a waste. I know that I was not too keen on spending time with other teachers when I felt forced to do so. As a teacher, my sense of agency coupled with my sense of having to get the day to day done in my classroom always put a sour taste in my mouth during staff meetings and inservices. Some long-standing teachers worked so hard at upholding union rights that I got a feeling that it was always the teachers versus the administration. In many of those moments, the collective seemed to be solely interested in getting back to class, climbing their vertical ladder of experience, and disregarding any inscribed or oral policy being directed or encouraged.
Scherff and Hahs-Vaughn’s findings of English Language Arts teachers is spot on with my experience and describing the type of English Language Arts teacher with whom I worked. The expectations that teachers bring to their professions can be irreversibly shaken by the realities (this might be a function of moving into your mid twenties in general); I will definitely be sharing this piece with the Student Teachers I am working with this semester. The findings ring true. It is easy to want to leave teaching. A good preparation program can do wonders. New teachers need support; they do not need to be made to support the system that is already in place. With expertise comes “easy” or “cushy” assignments, fewer preps, and more say in department decisions. Is that written down anywhere? Is that just the way it’s always been? Just as students need encouragers, new teachers need a system that helps them become the best teacher, not one that beats the love of Willa Cather out of them. Skerrett’s piece emphasized the importance of agency for teachers to be able to develop and teach an anti-racist curriculum, and although she imparts that teacher education programs and personal histories are influential as driving forces, I see that being able to work together, encouraging one another, sharing resources, and challenging one another is what is ultimately important in developing and maintaining a vision for education, something Jim Hoffman pointed out in class last semester which is far more important than a love for kids or good books.
Scherff and Hahs-Vaughn’s findings of English Language Arts teachers is spot on with my experience and describing the type of English Language Arts teacher with whom I worked. The expectations that teachers bring to their professions can be irreversibly shaken by the realities (this might be a function of moving into your mid twenties in general); I will definitely be sharing this piece with the Student Teachers I am working with this semester. The findings ring true. It is easy to want to leave teaching. A good preparation program can do wonders. New teachers need support; they do not need to be made to support the system that is already in place. With expertise comes “easy” or “cushy” assignments, fewer preps, and more say in department decisions. Is that written down anywhere? Is that just the way it’s always been? Just as students need encouragers, new teachers need a system that helps them become the best teacher, not one that beats the love of Willa Cather out of them. Skerrett’s piece emphasized the importance of agency for teachers to be able to develop and teach an anti-racist curriculum, and although she imparts that teacher education programs and personal histories are influential as driving forces, I see that being able to work together, encouraging one another, sharing resources, and challenging one another is what is ultimately important in developing and maintaining a vision for education, something Jim Hoffman pointed out in class last semester which is far more important than a love for kids or good books.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Sunday post is in...is it Monday already?
The way I understand Jerome Bruner’s “spiral curriculum” (195), it is a way at coming at curriculum that I could get behind (I am easily swayed throughout my reading, thinking: “Oh, this would be great;” “Now that’s an idea I would like to try;” etc.). My basis of hope in this model comes from the thought of “intellectual honesty.” The way I read it, intellectual honesty is about letting students come to higher/deeper/more complex knowledge through discovery – the knowledge isn’t forced upon them, isn’t babbled out in the rote of daily assignments, isn’t presented as exhaustive. Repetition as students is important in creating context and familiarity; few things make me more frustrated than isolated learning. Transfer is so important to me, yet I and many others will ask, “How does this transfer to life after high school?”
In my experience, college has been the only “acceptable” step after high school, so the push-back against the Progressives would tend to yield a response that emphasizes the academic value of the requirements in English classes. And for the student not headed for college? There has always been a sense of disappointment, as if I were to watch my daughter refuse to learn to walk. I do not think that is a fair way to think of people and their decisions within their own circumstances. This leads into a few selections from the reading that had me quite irritated at how young people were/are treated.
As the scope of education narrowed from “experience and exploration” toward “general education,” instruction focused on providing opportunity to figure out (or be told) how to adjust to demands of the oncoming, adult world and improving language and communication skills (at least enough to get by in the Army). Now, I’m for a well run military with fully aware and high functioning members, and I recognize that life after high school changes considerably, as do the expectations and demands of an individual. These two options, honestly, seem so limiting in what teachers think their students will become. Some may argue that this is exactly the reason for AP and honors tracking, to make sure that the bright students do not get sucked into simply fitting into the world waiting to use them as cogs, but I would argue that the AP programs limit who is allowed to have access to enriched educational models. In my teaching of Freshman Composition at Utah State, the skills and development of ideas our department wanted to illicit were different than the AP goals. A first year Chemistry or Biology course is going to teach as if the students have no background in the subject. Some would help, but the material gets retaught. Instead of calling it Advanced Placement (a term that creates division to me), how about “an opportunity that some of you have to get college credit early that we just don’t offer everyone at this school”? That term seems just as harsh in defining worth as “Life Adjustment” where you fit in to survive – forget about your own muse's impetus.
In my experience, college has been the only “acceptable” step after high school, so the push-back against the Progressives would tend to yield a response that emphasizes the academic value of the requirements in English classes. And for the student not headed for college? There has always been a sense of disappointment, as if I were to watch my daughter refuse to learn to walk. I do not think that is a fair way to think of people and their decisions within their own circumstances. This leads into a few selections from the reading that had me quite irritated at how young people were/are treated.
As the scope of education narrowed from “experience and exploration” toward “general education,” instruction focused on providing opportunity to figure out (or be told) how to adjust to demands of the oncoming, adult world and improving language and communication skills (at least enough to get by in the Army). Now, I’m for a well run military with fully aware and high functioning members, and I recognize that life after high school changes considerably, as do the expectations and demands of an individual. These two options, honestly, seem so limiting in what teachers think their students will become. Some may argue that this is exactly the reason for AP and honors tracking, to make sure that the bright students do not get sucked into simply fitting into the world waiting to use them as cogs, but I would argue that the AP programs limit who is allowed to have access to enriched educational models. In my teaching of Freshman Composition at Utah State, the skills and development of ideas our department wanted to illicit were different than the AP goals. A first year Chemistry or Biology course is going to teach as if the students have no background in the subject. Some would help, but the material gets retaught. Instead of calling it Advanced Placement (a term that creates division to me), how about “an opportunity that some of you have to get college credit early that we just don’t offer everyone at this school”? That term seems just as harsh in defining worth as “Life Adjustment” where you fit in to survive – forget about your own muse's impetus.
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