Recent Studies in ELA 9/11

Jeffery, J. V. (2011). Subjectivity, intentionality, and manufactured moves: Teachers’ perceptions of voice in the evaluation of secondary students’ writing. Research in the Teaching of English, 46(1), 92-127.

Author: Jill V. Jeffery is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies and the Department of English at the University of New Mexico. According to academia.edu, her “scholarship focus on constructs of writing competence as perceived by students, teachers, and writing assessment designers.” I need to pay special attention to what she is producing because she is interested in understanding transition experiences from “secondary to postsecondary writing demands”. She studied English Education (post-bacc) here at the University of Texas and earned her PhD in English Education from New York University.

Date: Like Vieira, very recent publication in 2011. She is two years out of her doctoral study. An early impression on the academic scene.

Research Questions: From page 92:

1)      What language features do secondary English teachers associate with voice in secondary students’ writing?

2)      How do they explain their associations?

3)      Ho do such identified features vary across genres as well as among readers?

Context (need for study): Continued questioning of “voice” as a writing standard – inequity when applying same standard to ELLs in high-stakes writing assessment. “Researchers have used sociocultural and functionalist frameworks to analyze voice-related discursive patterns, yet we do not know how readers evaluate written texts for voice” (p. 92). Leaning on the 60s comp theorists Peter Elbow, Don Murray, and Stewart? voice had a big presence, but 80s and 90s saw the emphasis had gone too far – undermining goal for academic writing. Late 90s and early 2000s brought up the fairness to ELLs. Despite the academy’s discreditation of  voice, still remains in classrooms.

Methods: Think-aloud interviews (talk about voice as they read the papers with follow-up questions) with 20 teachers (at least three years, master’s degree, and National Writing Project, from West, Northeast, and Midwest – 1 is discarded over poor recording quality) over samples of secondary narrative and expository writing (high scoring from OR exit-level test 2007). Inductive analysis? of interview transcripts. Look through developmental and sociocultural lenses – “how developmental approaches to voice might be integrated within sociocultural models” (p. 93). Systemic functional linguistics? Narrative and expository should have certain characteristics with associated with development.

Findings: The  teachers involved showed a bent in recognizing voice toward  “appraisal features, such as amplified expressions of affect and judgment” (p. 92). What does this mean? All 19 used the “evaluative code” of “tone” to mark voice, 16 used “explicit stance”. Most also talked about structure patterns of diction, specificity, sentence structure, coherence, and development. Talk on language features included connecting voice to effectiveness  of intentionality (choice, control, command)). There is a feeling of sensing commitment and passionate with positive associations and academic or perfunctory with negative views on voice. There is an imagination of an author. They don’t know the student who wrote the piece, but they are connecting to developing writers. Associations of youthfulness and personality were positive in narrative and maturity in expository. 9 of 12 teachers who associated gender to the author, thought female because of the age and perceived maturity level of insight.

Discussion (my connection): A paradox in teaching voice – voice seems to be so individual that it conflicts with structures that can be taught or measure up to academic writing. Can voice be “manufactured” through following specific traits? I have the feeling that although everyone used tone (an evaluative code) the more used indicators of voice were structural patters – I see those more as tricks to make the reader perceive a powerful voice. In high school, my AP English teacher gave everyone awards – I received the “confidence” award. Looking back, I think I figured out that you could play the AP game – that certain structures could elicit the feelings of “rightness” or something to that effect. But half of the teachers talked as if they could spot natural vs forced effectiveness.

Purcell-Gates, V., Duke, N. K., & Martineau, J. A. (2007). Learning to read and write genre-specific text: Roles of authentic experience and explicit teaching. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(1), 8-45.

Authors: Victoria Purcell-Gates received her Ph.D from UC Berkely in 1986. She was awarded Most Promising Researcher from NCTE in 1987 and has seemed to live up to that – hitting some high-point awards and appointments in the early 2000s. She is on faculty at the University of British Columbia: victoria.purcell-gates@ubc.ca. Interested in purposes for and attitudes toward reading and writing and designing educational experiences for young children that build on knowledge gained in home communities. Cognitive learning and sociolinguistics are focuses. She is currently working with family literacy and doing study in Guatemala.

Nell K Duke was on faculty at Michigan State University in Teacher Education and Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education. She just started at the University of Michigan this fall: nkduke@umich.edu. Ed.D from Harvard. According to her page at umich.edu: expertise in “development of informational reading and writing in young children, comprehensions development and instruction in early schooling, and issues of equity in literacy education.” She highlights a lack of nonfiction texts (written outside of narrative?) in primary grades.

Joseph A. Martineau is a member of the state of Michigan’s Department of Education in the office of Educational Assessment and Accountability/Bureau of Assessment and Accountability. MSU in 2004? I am interested in his 2010 publication in Phi Delta Kappan about value-added models in accountability for teacher effectiveness and how parents see the situation.

Date: 2007 is near the end of President G.W. Bush’s second term – perhaps some NCLB backlash? Recent work in genre studies.

Research Questions:

1)      What is the impact of explicit teaching of genre features of informational and procedural text in science on children’s ability to read and write these texts? Does this impact differ from children from homes of different parental education levels?

2)      Is the degree of authenticity of literacy activities, or the degree of explicit teaching of language features, with these texts related to children’s growth in the ability to read and write them? Does this impact differ from children from homes of different parental education levels?

Context (need for study): From page 8: “This study addresses the long-held debate regarding how language is best learned, particularly language forms that are not acquired as one’s primary discourse (Gee, 1992), such as reading and writing.” Spectrum: language acquired only through situated experiences to explicit instruction. Question has been addressed in decoding individual words, indicating explicit teaching is best. Grades 2 and 3 are at “a developmental level rarely included in studies of genre learning of content area written discourse” (p. 11). Critical mass agreement on necessity of authentic literacy activities in genre learning, but little research, “nor is there even a well-established meaning of this variable” (p. 13). What combination of experience and explicit instruction best facilitates learning of new language forms? Exploring “the roles of (a) authentic, communicatively functional reading and writing and (b) the explicit explanation of genre function and features on growth in genre-specific reading and writing abilities of children in grades two and three” (p. 9).

Methods: Within constructivist perspective, view of language as essentially social. Experimental and correlational designs? Longitudinal (at classroom level) for a year, possibly two. 420 students (student level is quasi-experiemental) from 16 2^nd grade classes, 10 were followed to 3^rd grade, growth measured 6 timeusing Hierarchical Linear Modeling. 2 groups – authentic reading and writing with science texts (informational and procedural genres) OR authentic experiences WITH explicit language feature explanations. Teachers attended summer workshop, taught science 2 times a week for 45-60 min at a time. One or more researchers in on a weekly basis to code implementation and coach instruction. Each teacher bought a library of science books for purposes of research – fitting criteria. Study not in change of curriculum, but of increased use of authentic literacy activities and (for one group) “explicit teaching of genre functions and features” (p. 17).

Findings: “No effect of explicit teaching on reading and writing growth for six of seven outcomes” (p. 9). Strong correlation of degree of authenticity with growth for 4/7. Addition of “growing empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of involving students in reading and writing for real-life purposes in the classroom” (p. 9). Parent education levels did not seem to be a factor – page 30: 1/7 outcomes in 2^nd grade. Some schools supposed to be A+E fell into A-only distributions – not every class had the same degree of explicitness. Degree of authenticity of events shows faster rate of student growth.  Findings do not indicate that the amount of time is not the simple answer, looking directly at the nature of the experience.

Discussion (my connection): How is there a degree of authenticity? Either it is authentic or it is not. Be on the look out – page 14 answers this…”This term relates specifically to the nature of the reading and writing acts, or events, in which students engage while participating in the activity of schooling” (p. 14). The idea of teaching of language and genre features matches with Jeffery’s article about teachers associating certain features with positive assessments of voice. How does one’s interpretation of tone and skill (and whether these are natural or forced) differ across the board? Does teaching a formula or being explicit lead to students trying too hard to have a good lead, for example? In regards to the note that it is not just the quantity of time spent reading and writing – I think Wilt Chamberlain said something against the idea of practice makes perfect. You can practice incorrectly all the time. It will just make you good at doing the wrong thing. There are times for intervention – perfect practice makes perfect. So, I see the value in regularly making authentic events, but there are times for the explicit direction. The evidence doesn't find a correlation, though.

Vieira, K. E. (2011). Undocumented in a documentary society: Textual borders and transnational religious literacies. Written Communication, 28, 436-461.

Author: Kate Elizabeth Vieira writes on discourse study, immigration in education, cultural difference, acculturation. She finished her dissertation, “an ethnographic study of the writing of two Portuguese-speaking immigrant groups” in Massachusetts, in 2010 at The University of Wisconsin - Madison. Currently at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; kvieira@illinois.edu.

Date: Like Jeffery, very recent publication in 2011. She is two years out of her doctoral study. An early impression on the academic scene.

Research Questions: How has the transnational movement of a particular group of people, from Brazil to Massachusetts, shaped their literacy lives?

Context (need for study): Looking at migrants’ literacy practices as shaped from crossing national boarders – subset of interest in transnationalism within Writing Studies. Note the demographics of the 22 participants on page 438.

Methods: Ethnographic study – undocumented Brazilian community in Massachusetts. Ethnographic observations, study of writing samples (from whomever was willing to supply – see page 439), and analysis of participants’ accounts of own literacy practices on both sides of migration experiences. Heavy on literary history interviews. Constructivist approach to grounded theory. Open coding of interviews for all literacy practices.

Findings: Crossing borders keeps certain literacy experiences out of reach, especially for those who are undocumented in the new nation. Refuge or revitalization of literacy practices within institutions not connected to the sate – specifically churches. “Writing practices became increasingly religious in the United States when compared with writing practices in Brazil” (p. 441) – political immigrant status drove participants to religious literacy events. Trauma often led to increased involvement at church – an exploitation of non-dominant/marginalized positions. Workplace literacies remained similar, but a general increase in digital literacy practices. Pro-immigrant readings of the Bible designate the difference between what is man-made (governments and borders) and what is part of the inclusive law of God (p. 453).

Discussion (my connection): Church seems to be a safe place from the government. I have a sense that there is a substantial hope in the spiritual or honored tradition that the uncertainty of government cannot provide. There is a sense of community and reality that the church can provide – easier? to be open about yourself at church than with a government that doesn’t seem to want you there – you have a PLACE at church. (p. 445). The increase in digital space literacies is a way to be known – both in their new situations as well as back at “home”. Teenagers in PBS Frontline’s “Growing Up Online” flock to digital spaces in order to find community. Knowledge transfer is a big part of this new identity in The United States; look at the transformation of secular genre practices to religious genres in the US on page 448. I am intrigued by Washington. His plan to return to Brazil after 5 years and refusal to have an “artificial” US marriage shows me that his hope is in the return, the past? So there is not a look to the divine for the future. On page 457: “If bureaucracies have a historically documented need to count, participants in this study had a corresponding need to be counted.” WOW! I do not think I have engaged this idea of textual belonging yet – this is a must watch for me.

Last of the Term, already?

The more I read through Dr. Bomer’s book, the more I see how his vision is impacting me throughout this term. Although I had not read any of his texts until this semester, having him in class as well as those who work (and live) closely to him has molded me to be quite ready to lean heavily on what he presents in Building Adolescent Literacy.

Two quotes from the second half of the book stick out to me as representative practice for larger themes of education in my mind: a) students should be responsive to and responsible for more fill-in-the-blank, as the most important participant in their education; and b) teachers need to find a level of comfort in acting and believing that they are not the most important participant in a student’s education.

The first had to do with writing notebooks and how their use and purpose can create a realm that is not duplicated in the classroom, where control belongs to the student, a concept that is merely abstract or even make-believe in most young people’s lives: “By and large, notebooks are locations for students to work on self-control of the literacy that allows them to name experience, construct identities, and imagine powerful social positions” (195).

The second idea comes from conferencing with students. Bomer characterizes the interplay between student and teacher as a dance, and I see much truth in that – not the kind I had to learn that was choreographed for performances, but one that is not self-serving in “who-knows- the-moves-best” or dominating in “this-is-what-you-should-do”. He makes strong suggestions and will lead in the dance, but the decisions are left up to the partner: “What is most important is that they take on the process of decision making in revision for themselves, so I need to temper my strong opinions with respect for their agency, to reign in my expertise with questions to help them think through their purpose, audience, aesthetic intentions, motives, and reasons” (209).

I appreciate his not-so-teachery box on letting go of rules that are not “rules” on page 218 (so many have-tos and can’ts get in the way of finding fluency and hinder the creation of meaning) and his acknowledgment of student struggles with revision, often seen as a punishment of extra writing, and emphasizing a circular process to writing. I think it also valuable to discuss with students the fact that published pieces have multiple people review and edit before printing. His treatment of new technologies in association with literacies is also important, especially the idea of “composing with velocity” in that now, anyone with access to the internet can be a published writer with the simple touch or click of a button. It is important for students to see that the quick publishing is not the only way writers work, but it is definitely the way that they will face one-shot writing tests. I am glad that although he obviously does not advocate the standardized testing, he does not write for a world where the things he likes just disappear. Chapter 16 “Working Toward Tests Without Insulting Students’ Intelligence” is an important place for teachers who are disillusioned by the current state of affairs in test prep.

An After Easter Post

A key calling in Randy Bomer’s Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms that stuck out to me, especially in light of what I have failed to do in my classrooms in the past is to recognize, expose, and discuss the implications of a text’s incompleteness. I have done a few exercises with recognizing bias, usually based on visual advertisements, but rarely have I taught with a focus on what texts are actually saying when not saying. This involves an eye for critiquing social worlds and assumptions. Most of the time, I would focus on the themes that are in a book, and we would ruminate over them for 3 weeks to a month. As the English survey teacher, I have asked students not only to buy into the assumptions of the texts we read, but also into the assumptions of the classroom – without ever exposing and discussing them. It seems that I have an ethical responsibility to make this kind of awareness the dynamic center of talking about thought.

Over all, I see that what I present in class is not only my previously held attitude about building on skills and trying to never ask students to do something that would not benefit them later in the course, but the curriculum (environment, texts, all of it) “must reflect—and make the case for—the usefulness of books and other texts in and ordinary life” (77). With the critiquing of social worlds, I think that students do that on their own, at times, but it is rarely fostered or encouraged…at least it hasn’t been in my classes. The Continent of Literacy Purposes creates a visual for thinking about the use (therefore importance) of literacy in current and future life circles. Understandably, Bomer is coming from the viewpoint that academic literacies are used less than others, so he has positioned it visually as smaller and on the border of the continent rather than at the heart of it. The point, highlighted on 51, is that the system of school has become geared toward turning out college graduates when only ¼ of 9th graders will see that college diploma, effectively miseducating ¾ of the population. The cycle then becomes that the school discourse is created by a small, “distinguished” fraction of the original ¼, those who have gained cultural capital through education and with all their wealth have emphasized becoming like them or not deserving an education that meets the interests and current positions (academically, culturally, etc) of students. Bomer asserts that “school should be about becoming educated people” and what educated people should know, do, and have on page 49, and it shows that he values individual agency and education that provides individuals with the power to live a complete and connected live, rather than segmented and cut-off from other parts of self as well as other people. No matter the existing skill level or experience, one needs help to become more “thoughtful, critical, and powerful” in their literacy lives (31).

This whole year, student choice has been a valued theme in studying curriculum decisions, and it became most apparent to me that instruction and curriculum have been more an act of convenience rather than compulsory rituals. I see that mostly in challenging my experience with the class-wide novel. I am in the process of moving my thinking away from novels as the base texts for classes anyhow because of restraints of time and disillusionment with homework which presumes that the home is a safer and more work-conducive place than school, and the classroom is the place of the two that I have the most control over. On pages 10 through 12, Bomer discusses the organization of people at different levels within the classroom. The reading/writing workshop’s emphasis on choice is obviously part of his pedagogical history (knowing his wife and his time at The Teachers’ College). My understanding of the pendulum of the different groupings is that the fewer the people in the group, the more choice is available; and the more people that are in the group, the more that agendas (damaging?) compete with a singular and focused direction of inquiry or study.

A Sunday Post on Monday

I think Adolescent Literacy and the Teaching of Reading is an important read for teachers of any experience. The opening NCTE Policy Research Brief on Adolescent Literacy is a great base that preservice and veteran teachers alike should familiarize themselves with in order to communicate the necessities of teaching reading to peers, parents, and outsiders.

The book, as a whole, does not have the heavy appendix of discussed strategies and activities as the other Appleman text does, but this serves to focus the teacher in pursuit of what it means to teach the English Language Arts tripod of reading, writing, and literature.

My general sense of my own experience was that I was acting as primarily, if not exclusively, as a literature teacher, not because I didn’t think that reading and writing instruction were not my job or were not important. I didn’t feel confident in teaching them. What would I have to offer? How much of an impact could I have made in their last years in high school? I don’t know how I learned to read or write, so how could I teach someone else?

From what I understand in the case study and other examples Appleman provides, I will call the inquiry-driven, student-centered instruction that gets students "reading well" a deliberate shotgun approach. Teaching reading is not a random, throw all your options out there and hope something sticks method, but rather a necessary breadth of activities and angles designed to meet the variety of researched findings on the teaching of reading over the last 20 years.

Something that kept me from pursuing the deliberate teaching of reading in the high school classroom was my view of reading as an isolated and discrete skill. I didn't think it as simple as that. I felt reading was responsible for the base necessary for other learning, but the instruction component was so frustrating in "how to teach reading" that I was not comfortable in actively taking time in class to do such work - worried that I would become a drill and skill teacher. But reading is not just something to teach in a block of minutes within the period. “Factors including family literacy patterns and opportunities, community and individual identity, and membership in groups that traditionally had been marginalized or disenfranchised in school and society” (18) have been left out of understanding the reading equation. Not everyone learns to read in the same way and are not coming to school in an equitable fashion. Not only is reading not an isolated skill within the classroom, it is not isolated from life. And if I am learning anything, it is that students' lives and choices must have prominence in the classroom. And I think that takes levels of organization (outside research and preparation), foresight, and risk on the part of teachers that I was not comfortable with, and I wonder if others would take such risks as well when they feel their jobs are tied to state tests.

To me, this work revolves around helping students know themselves within the context of the world, and sociocultural conversations are a necessary part of that. Reframing the classroom in ways similar to those on page 20, lead to being able to then allow students "to discern the text’s purposes: the intentions of its creators, their desired responses, and their ideological premises" (27). Teaching reading is teaching reading meaning in all things, especially society since "today’s students must be able to recognize social assumptions and cultural presuppositions and must be aware that such cognitive operators are ubiquitous and inescapable" (27). So, there at least must be a concern for teaching reading, especially since I desire to help students be observant of and alert within the world around them. I still don't feel great about teaching the alphabet-decoding aspect of reading, but for possibly the first time, I want to be.

End of Spring Break as we know it

Lee points out the irony of the achievement gap on page 183: although it would seem obvious that the successes of one group at the expense of others creates problems that “will eventually leach into other segments” of society, the dominant group (Whites) doesn’t work hard enough to close the gap, placing more blame on others than taking responsibility. She uses the phrase “all in the same boat,” and when I read that I did not think of The Mayflower, Life of Pi or even Noah’s Ark. I thought of The Titanic. Everyone was on the same boat, yes, and that boat hit an ice berg, but who had first access to the too-few life boats? The people who were on deck. The wealthy were more likely to be saved, for the oppressed classes were down below and were denied the opportunities to get top-side in order that they might save themselves. To me, this emphasizes all the more the responsibility of those on the higher end of the achievement gap to those “underperformers”. Sure, we are all equal, but we do not have the same equity. The conversation of merit and the disrobing of cultures not in line with the current system cannot continue. Humanity does not have to abide by Darwinic ideologies. It is arrogant and short-sided to do so.

In Chapter 5, Lee brings to light what I had commented in my notes while reading the first part of the book: the relationship between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. I have often thought about the demands of a teacher’s mind and “how we think about what teachers need to know” (110). School is this interesting place where your performance is continuously measured, and one measurement is necessary to qualify for the next and the next. And whatever it is that makes someone “good at school” somehow means they’re more qualified to ultimately – to what? To work? In my perception, people become ELA teachers, not because of their past proficiency in pedagogical content knowledge (this, I think, often has a small window for seeding, rooting, and growing as most pedagogical knowledge is formed during Student Teaching and in reaction to the first years of teaching – again, this is my estimation) but because of their performance in and success with ELA content knowledge. There is a necessity in knowing both the ins and outs of the discipline but also how people learn, highlighted by two points in particular: understanding “enduring misconceptions and naïve theories held by youth ant novices generally” and “multiple routes to maximize opportunities to learn” (120). For some reason, I feel that many people are committed to streamlining their own production and work in a way that it would be more work and not worth the individual effort to think broadly and deeply about pedagogy, which would ultimately require change.

The crux of Chapter 5, and the book, in my estimation comes on page 129. The teacher must commit to and actually make progress in coming “to know each student and the life circumstances that student brings with him when he enters a classroom.” That is the daunting and ultimate measure of teaching, and it must be the first thing in a teacher’s heart, mind, and deed. Does it profit a theologian to study scriptures without a desire to know God? Do I have a desire to share my knowledge with those unexposed, or am I concerned with knowing my students? Not many jobs carry the same kinds of ethical pressures. My grandfather told me that his mother once said, “Teachers don’t teach [English]. They teach pupils.” Shall I be in the business of teaching far-off content or in knowing students and encouraging them as they open doors to their own world?

A Short Review

Where the Wild Things Are
by Will Pooley, 2009

It sure ain’t easy pleasing everyone in the competitive world of themed restaurants, but the surprising thing is just how well The Texas Roadhouse seems to be doing just that in town. I say ‘surprising’ because both times I have been, the group I was with have ended up sitting in silence, staring at the rubbish-strewn floor as all around us the normally respectable citizens of Logan whooped, hollered and grunted in a scene reminiscent of the worst post-apocalyptic depictions of the decay of humanity. The thing is that in terms of all the important criteria, such as atmosphere, service, entertainment, drinks, food, and price, the Roadhouse seems to hit the spot for a wide public, yet I certainly found myself cringing, if not actively weeping.

You get a feel for this atmosphere before you step through the door. There are never any parking spaces, because the restaurant has opted for the cunning strategy of building a tiny car park, so that they always look busy. The faux Texan building beckoned to us as we walked from the car-park a few miles down the road. Slowly.

The closer we got, the louder the sound of the menagerie within. My dreams of a casual, relaxing, and friendly atmosphere rapidly faded. As we pushed open the door, we were confronted by the zoo itself.

At this point, it is legitimate to wonder how much your experience at the Roadhouse is going to be affected by its apparently widespread popularity. The queue was a long, drawn-out experience involving other people’s children. My eyes flicked between the little boys throwing peanuts at each other and the hunks of flesh proudly displayed under the counter. The waitress pulled me from my violent reverie by cheerily announcing that our table was ready.

As she led us through the restaurant, my worst fears about the atmosphere were realized. The decorations are clearly designed to reflect ‘authentic’ Texicana, but their actual effect is a mind-bending excursion into the debasement of the boundaries between human and animal, authentic and fake. I shuddered as we passed a stuffed armadillo clutching a bottle of beer. His beady eyes fixed on mine, and I think that he whispered, “Welcome to the Roadhouse.” Disbelieving, I reached out to touch his stomach: real hair, and it felt warm. The cacti, by contrast, were plastic, their spines soft and bendy, presumably for the benefit of the ape-children running between my feet. The floor was littered with peanut shells, and the other members of my party explained that the peanuts available in the barrels should be eaten, and their shells dropped directly to the floor.

I have seen this done before, by the chimps at London Zoo.

It has to be said that the waiting staff who served us both times were well skilled. They were friendly and enthusiastic, and tried to be as helpful as possible. Unfortunately, claiming that a particular dish is a ‘House Favorite’ comes off a bit fake when the restaurant has only been open a few days. I had the distinct feeling that the staff were coached in ready-made slippery phrases, such as, “Try the blended Margarita, it’s great!” If you respond to this question by asking what it’s like, their eyes get shifty and they admit that, being good Utah Mormons, they have never actually tried a Margarita, let alone the one in the restaurant which they got a job in a couple of days previously. In my slightly disturbed state of mind, this insincere good cheer appeared not a little ominous. Thoughts of Mini-Man, the satanic muleteer who lured Pinocchio into coming to Toyland and gradually turning into an ass, flashed through my mind. “If you spend long enough in the Roadhouse,” the waiters eyes seemed to say, “you’ll end up on someone’s plate.”
In fact, the waiting staff play the role of the demonic circus masters in this debased amphitheatre. Don’t be surprised if your ribs are delayed because the staff have suddenly put everything down to engage in a mechanistic and thoroughly unsettling line dance. Every forty five minutes, our waiter told us, they were expected to ‘perform’ a dance, though it’s hard to say if the owners of the restaurant expected their staff to do so with the fixed maniacal grins and rigid, robotical body movements which we saw. Still, I suppose the Dance of the Dead was popular with the other diners, who punctuated the display with various yelps and grunts. At one point, I thought that the man across from me was going to jump up and sink his teeth into the flesh of one of the dancers. He looked back at his plate instead, and returned to gnawing a suspiciously human rib bone.

The rest of the clientele genuinely seem to consider the whole affair good fun. The men tap their feet, wag their tails and paw at the available surfaces, the drool dribbling down their stubbly chins. The children crawl around under the tables, or stare glassy-eyed at the sports on the big screens, until, as if from nowhere, a mock horse is produced for someone’s birthday. Suddenly jeers and shouts go up from the surrounding tables, as the ‘lucky’ celebrant is bullied into riding the mock horse. Didn't the primitive populations of peasant Europe use to do this to adulterers? The ringmasters’ role in this proceeding is crucial. They stand on nearby tables, shouting orders at the compliant herd, who stomp and roar in return.

I didn’t find this mood appealing, but you can’t judge a restaurant by its bestial clientele and hellish atmosphere alone. In terms of the actual products that they serve, I wouldn’t recommend shelling out on the drinks since the Margaritas, for instance, are distinctly lacking in alcoholic content, and the beer list is fairly unexciting. I cannot imagine anyone drinking a glass of wine here, but if they did, I like to think it would be served to them in an animal’s skull. However, the food, on the other hand, is really worth the trip. The Roadhouse serves huge portions of meaty treats. Their website declares a simple mission: ‘great steaks, killer ribs and ice-cold beer at a price that families across America [can] afford’ (The Texas Roadhouse). The half rack of ribs could feed one of these hypothetical families for a year, and the pulled pork is of similarly huge dimensions. Both are sweet, meaty and soft, with big, brash American flavours. As I swallowed my first mouthful I screamed, “Yeehah!” (In my interior monologue, you understand.)

The sides are also impressive, providing a caricature of southern cuisine. Sweet potato comes with caramel and marshmallow loaded on top (?), and an ordinary baked potato comes with so many optional toppings that it would make an oversized meal on its own. The salads were crunchy and fresh, and the fries were hot and crisp. I think that it would be quite a feat to finish a whole main course and sides on your own, not least since even the most restrained nibbler will undoubtedly have tucked into a couple of those peanuts before their food arrives. I defy any human to resist the cinnamon rolls which are baked before the eyes of the customers waiting in the queue and then rushed to the tables. These rolls are soft, sweet and hot. Best of all, the supply of them is unlimited. If it was my restaurant, I would be tempted to call it the ‘Texas Roll and Ribs Place,’ but there’s probably a reason why I don’t own a franchise with over ‘310 locations in 44 states’ (The Texas Roadhouse). In the final say, it would be impossible to ignore the fact that even with a beer and a tip, you can leave the Roadhouse with change from $15. If, like some of my friends, you share one of the ample main courses, you can be in and out for under $10. Considering the quality and portion size of the food, this really is excellent value.

There’s a reason why the horde have made the Roadhouse their home. The quality of the food, and the value it represents must be important considerations for the families who make up most of the clientele. Who knows, maybe the hellish circus atmosphere of anthropomorphic animals and bestial humans even appeals to them. For me, this atmosphere and the whole style of the place is distinctly unsettling. Sitting at the table full of silent, despondent English majors, I wondered if this kind of thing isn’t aimed at people who don’t know how to make their own fun. Looking across at the perfectly normal looking young woman screaming and wobbling on the table next to us, I wondered if this is where librarians come to let their hair down.

Sunday 03/04 Appleman

I wish that I had Deborah Appleman’s Critical Encounters in High School English before I started teaching. Not being greatly exposed to critical theory, certainly not in high school, I flirted with including feminist theory, but I was teaching a heavy dose of formalism and reader response. This book, especially with its appendices and chapter eight – reminding me that this is not just for “advanced” students or future English majors, guides a teacher mucking through purposes and their own insecurities a great deal of help and insight, offering a springboard into the kinds of classes I would think most teachers would hope for: room for thinking to happen, interaction, and growing awareness of all involved. Then again, like much of what I’ve been learning this year, I don’t know if I would have been ready for this out of the gate. Could I have really anchored myself to teaching literature this way? Would I have the impetus to creating some of my own learning experiences, or would I simply be throwing out handouts of other, more enlightened teachers?

Not only do I appreciate the possibilities and anecdotal evidence provided, but I also admire that Appleman would provide warnings and cautions. I would not be ethical to sing the praises of this orientation of teaching only to let teachers figure out, through trial and error, all of the problems associated with introducing theory in the high school setting. In reading the book, I was busy thinking critically about my own students, and although I began to consider some ways in which they might have lashed back, I was not deterred from this approach all together for the students’ sake. Her book provides a better version of the praises of an approach during a teacher inservice and pointing out its flaws for the student population during lunch and in the halls as teachers make their ways back to their rooms.

I have trouble with the deconstructivist point of view anyway, but the treatment of Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” seemed unjust. I credit this with my own lack of understanding of the theory (and I think this might be a turn-off to many teachers) and my affinity for Donne. To deconstruct without the context of who Donne is and who he is writing to, out of grave purpose, doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps that was covered, but in the student responses, it appeared that the reading of the text was a misreading due to the focus of deconstructionalist criticism.

On page 11, Appleman brought a point from James Baldwin that drew out a verbal agreement from me in the midst of reading: that students would be “able to critique their own society intelligently and without fear”! This whole premise set the book up for me with great expectations. I did however continue to wonder about the texts I would use and what that time spent looks like. My fear is not that students are incapable of thinking through theoretical lenses, but that they are likely to resist reading. If a student comes to class when we are to work through one of these literary criticism theories, they have to have read the text. If there is no common text, then what am I interpreting? I would be giving my own, uninformed opinion. And although I appreciate the view that through this, we are teaching ways of reading, how does this work alongside teaching students to read. Simply giving a lens with which to interpret will not make reading for understanding increase. However, I do take the transformation of student reading very seriously, and the class and gender criticisms (I agree with the removal of the labels, similar to the title of a poem, that can lead to instant resistance) got me happy as I read. On page 69, Appleman lists these effects in how students’ reading transforms through gendered reading: “How students view female characters and appraise the author’s stance toward those characters; how students evaluate the significance of the gender of the author in terms of its influence on a particular literary work; how students interpret whole texts within a feminist framework; and finally, and perhaps most important, how students read the gendered patterns in the world.” These transformations work on the levels I want to see student’s affected: they can recognize the situation of the text (author, historical context, fictional context) and their situation within/without the text.

Oh, to be alert and interactive with something to say and do in this world and hardly spend so much energy focused on self. You may get there before I do, but please try not to bother me while I am looking in the mirror – that man is such a captive audience.