Blog Party Inquiry Post

According to the National Endowment for the Arts Reading at Risk report from 2004, the number of American adults reading literature has dropped 14% from 1992 to 2002 (ix). As a lover of and teacher of literature, this decrease saddens me. What saddens me further is that literature instruction cannot seem to halt this decline. Kids seem to be hardwired to rebel against authority as part of their growth into adults, including against reading as a required educational activity.

So, my inquiry question is, how is it possible to teach reading without killing the love of reading? Since we probably need to continue requiring literature, my current conclusion is that instructors of literature need to help students connect literature to their interests and learning styles and to the outside world.

1. Instructors of literature need to help students connect literature to their learning styles. I have known about learning styles for many years, but a turning point for me occurred in 2007 while I was researching student engagement. In a source I can’t find now, I read that 95% of learners prefer styles other than “linguistic intelligence” (PBS) or processing by reading and writing. This shocked me! I prefer reading and writing, but my students probably don’t, and there I was using reading and writing to teach reading and writing to students who don’t prefer reading and writing!! This sounded like a recipe for failure.

Due to this revelation, I’ve begun to build opportunities for students to use different learning styles to understand literature: music, art, comic strips, Play-Doh, pipe cleaners, tableaus, personal experiences, collaboration, and connections to larger life questions through opinionaires, an idea I got from Jeffrey Wilhelm’s 2007 book on inquiry. These strategies use learning styles that may be more accessible for that 95% of students so that they can access literature through them.

2. Instructors of literature need to help students connect literature to their interests. The use of personal interests and experience in teaching motivates learning. It is even more important in literature because literary interpretation relies on personal experience to make meaning.

As an example of this, I’ll share that I had a very sheltered childhood. My parents and teachers were kind. I always had food, housing, clothing, and money to spend on occasional extras. This background caused me to read Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” as a fun romp in the kitchen. It sounded fun that the father and son were causing “the pans/[to] Slid[e] from the kitchen shelf” in their enthusiasm, and the cute “unfrown” suggested that the mother was just pretending to disapprove. It was not until I read this poem with students who had other life experiences that I realized the poem could also represent abuse. Because our life experiences inspire a wide variety of interpretations, life experience should be central to literature instruction.

3. Instructors of literature need to help students connect literature to the outside world. All I need is a good book or classroom discussion to make me happy. Unlike me, my students need to know the value of literature in relation to the outside world. I believe that literature study teaches many real-world skills: Through reading, we learn to think outside the confines of our own lived experience, to understand other people and cultures, to make meaning from stories and think critically and artistically, to value individual and ordinary experience, to address future challenges, to long for justice (Pontuso and Thornton 65), and to better understand ourselves (Felski 7). These skills are vitally important to ensuring our culture moves in a constructive direction whether it be in business, politics, health care, or parenting.

To help students see the value of literature, I tried two new strategies this term:

a) Our first week’s readings and our first paper demonstrated that people care and talk about reading outside school and that reading connects to our real-world lives.

b) My on-campus students presented a Town Hall meeting on reading, and my online students will host a Blog Party on reading. In each case, students developed inquiry projects on topics related to reading and/or literature and presented or will present their results in public forums. These efforts represent an attempt to demonstrate to students that discussions of reading are an important part of our culture, not just academic work shut away in classrooms.

Because I am still in the process of this experiment, I don’t know whether these efforts will result in greater learning and engagement among my students. My on-campus students seem to like to come to class and don’t resort too frequently to texting under the desks. My online students seem overwhelmed. I think all the little activities might be easier to keep in perspective if we were working in person, so I’ll need to fine-tune the balance.

To conclude, I would be interested in discussing the following questions: Should we stop teaching literature to encourage reading? If not, how can we change reading education to avoid killing the pleasure of reading?

Works Cited

Felski, Rita. “Remember the Reader.” Chronicle Review 55.7 (19 Dec. 2008): 7.

National Endowment for the Arts. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2004. 26 Sept. 2009. < http://www.nea.gov/pub/readingatrisk.pdf>.

Roethke, Theodore. “My Papa’s Waltz.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2007. 438-39.

Pontuso, James F. and Saranna R. Thornton. “Is Outcomes Assessment Hurting Higher Education?” Thought & Action (Fall 2008): 61-69.

Public Broadcasting System. “Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory.” Great Performances. 11 Nov. 2009, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/education/ed_mi_overview.html.

Wilhelm, Jeffrey. Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry. Scholastic, 2007.

Blog 22: Freestyle

I'm going to go back to the idea of "ocular proof" in Othello (III.iii.376). Based on Iago's clever suggestions, Othello moves from fully trusting Desdemona to seeking "ocular proof" or visual evidence that he should not trust her. In this movement, he seems to go from loving on faith in his own heart to loving based on evidence of reciprocity; he moves from what I consider to be true love to love that exists only if returned and demands evidence from the beloved. In this sense, he has already fallen out of love with Desdemona, at Iago's mere suggestion that she has been cheating on him. Maybe he is as pitiful as Iago.

The fact that he identifies visual evidence as the way he will decide plays right into Iago's hands because Iago can set him up by encouraging Desdemona to speak on Casio's behalf and by stealing the strawberry handkerchief and setting it up as evidence against her. If instead, Othello had loved Desdemona enough to just talke with her about Iago's comments, he could have cleared things up right away. But, then there would be no play!

Blog 21: Scene Response

I enjoyed watching the scene from Act III in the three different productions of Othello. I like the Fishburne version most because I like the imagery of the armory and Othello's handling of weapons during the dialogue. However, what I think impressed me most about the Welles and Fishburne versions was the way they move from sunny, outdoor settings to dark interior settings. It's almost as if we move from pleasant, transparent, truthful conversation to the darkness of lies, insecurity, and cruelty. I think the use of the mirror in the Welles version is very effective because it indicates that Othello is questioning himself.

Blog Entry 20: Othello Acts III-V

It's kind of sad that Iago encourages Othello's jealousy by telling him the truth about jealousy: "It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it feeds on" (III.iii.179-80). Iago's words mean that jealousy feeds on love and mocks it as it does. This means that jealousy in love should be avoided at all costs because it will destroy love. Instead of hearing this truth, Othello hears only the suggestion that he should be jealous. Rather than setting that suggestion aside and trusting to the fact that Desdemona "had eyes, and chose [him]" (III.iii.203), he says, "I'll see before I doubt" (III.iii.204), which sets him up to find all of the clues Iago sets up.

Blog 18: Quote-Response Othello I and II

I like the earnestness with which Othello and Desdemona love one another in Shakespeare's play. At the end of his life story, he says simply that "She loved me for the dangers I had passed,/And I loved her that she did pity them" (I.iii.169-70). What interests me about this line is that he appreciates her pity, not her admiration. He does not need excessive attention or praise. Instead, he needs someone who understands that his life, though brave, has been difficult and whose heart reaches out to solace him for those difficulties.

This simplicity and lack of arrogance contrasts with Iago's spite. At the end of Act II, Iago indicates that his plan against Othello arises from gossip: "it is thought aborad that twixt my sheets/He's done my office" (II.i.366-67). Iago thinks Othello has slept with his wife, and it doesn't matter to him that he "know[s] not if 't be true" (II.i.367). He is so wound up in his appearance and what people think of him that he will take any pretext to plot. Perhaps the difference between Iago's pride and Othello's simple humility and trust is illustrated by fact that Othello waits the whole length of the play and collects plenty of "evidence" left by Iago against Desdemona before he succumbs to jealousy, unlike Iago who uses the briefest suspicion to fuel his deadly plot.

Blog 19: Freestyle

In addition to reading literature for class and for fun, I also read many student papers. I'm heading into scoring Paper 2 for my on-campus English 104 class today, so I thought I'd write a bit about why I assign papers the way I do and what happens when I read them.

Academic writing is an important skill for college students because they are asked to use that form frequently in their classes to show what they know. Even though most students will write different kinds of documents in their work after college, the form is also helpful to learn because it is set up to make one's thinking clear. Having a thesis at the beginning provides the reader with a good understanding of the writer's overall conclusions without mystery. Body paragraphs then each make a supporting point, and their separation allows the reader to move easily through the writer's reasoning, in a sense following the steps in the thought process that brought the writer to the thesis conclusions. The details in the paragraphs and analysis of them indicate how the writer is processing ideas so that the reader again has a window into the writer's thinking. For me, academic paper format provides the best way to pin down students' thinking so that I can tell whether they've learned the knowledge and skills the course provides. Once students have graduated and moved into the working world, the skill of making their thinking clear to a reader is useful in other kinds of writing they may pursue, such as letters to the editor, legal briefs, or proposals.

When I read student writing, I catch the thesis and tuck it into the back of my mind. When each paragraph connects to the thesis and helps demonstrate why the writer believes what he or she does about the thesis, I think, "Yes!" Good transitions at the beginnings of paragraphs help me follow those connections in easy steps so that I understand why the information is being presented in the order it appears. The examples provide sensory experiences that help me picture why the writer believes what he or she does, but I can't process them in connection with the thesis unless the reader follows them with analysis. In the analysis, the writer explains the connection for me so that I don't have to try to make it up in my head. For this reason, analysis is one of the most important parts of academic writing and makes the difference between good and excellent in my scoring.

I really love reading student writing, and I love trying to help students make their ideas as clear as possible. I think that being a good reader of student writing involves listening carefully for what students want to say and not imposing my own ideas on their writing. It also means encouraging students to use the tools of academic writing to clarify their thinking both in their heads and on paper. To respond effectively, I need to remind writers to use those tools.

Blog 17: Quote-Response Trifles

I love Trifles! It is such a short play, but it makes a strong impact. I like how it sets up women's knowledge against men's. The men are investigating the murder of John Wright, whose wife is being held on suspicion of having committed the crime. Dramatic irony occurs as the men reject evidence in the kitchen; the Sheriff says, "Nothing here but kitchen things" (Glaspell 840). This bit of dialogue suggests that the men reject the "kitchen things" as evidence because they are kitchen things; they are part of women's lives and therefore not important. In their arrogant reasoning, they somehow forget that the suspect is female, which should make "kitchen things" very important. The men go upstairs to investigate the scene of the crime, and their wives, left behind in the kitchen to pick up some things for Mrs. Wright, locate all the evendence needed to indicate not only that Mrs. Wright killed her husband because of his brutality but also that they shared some of the blame for knowing "how things can be--for women" and not "com[ing] over here once in a while!" (847) The men's reaction to "kitchen things" indicates "how things can be." Women's lives and women themselves were treated as inconsequential, and when one is inconsequential, one is not really human in terms of rights or in terms of treatment, which allows brutal men like John Wright to torture his spouse. In this "Jury of Her Peers," Mrs. Wright is acquitted by the women because they understand that she murdered her husband because he killed all the joy in her life and because they should have seen the problem and tried to help.

Blog 16: Scene Response

I have viewed the film O about three or four times now, and I liked it better this viewing because I noticed more of the film techniques. I want to discuss the montage where Odin watches Desi and Michael, looking for signs that they are more than friends. There is a point where he looks at them through a doorway that he doesn't enter, through a window where Desi sees him but he doesn't acknowledge her, and through a gate onto a patio. I really like this sequence because all of the threshholds involved indicate that Odin is again seeing himself as an outsider at this school. His race and class differentiate him, and the status he has gained as a basketball player has masked his difference for awhile, but now that he is unsure of Desi, he is reminded that there is a door between him and his white classmates that might be closed against him at any time and might even now be shut. So, his questioning of Desi's loyalty is more than merely her fidelity; it's about his own worth and his own ability to succeed in a white world.

Blog 15: Freestyle

I completed Sight Hound a week or so ago, and so as not to spoil the ending, I won't discuss it. I also completed the second book in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, The Great Hunt, and am on to book three, The Dragon Reborn. I usually read this for half an hour before I go to bed, and I've just been gobbling it up. In this book, the narrative mostly follows characters other than the main character, Rand, so we get to see the adventures of Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne as the move up in the ranks of the Aes Sedai and begin to hunt the Black Ajah. And, we watch Matt and Perrin as they draw the attention of Gray Men and other Shadowspawn, which suggest they remain important to the fate the land. At the end of the last chapter I completed, Chapter 43 "Shadowbrothers," we discover that one of the Forsaken, the evil Ba'alzamon's followers, has taken power in Illian. Perrin and some of the other characters have arrived there, so now I'm wondering, as they are, whether they'll make it out. When Moraine say that they need to leave "Unless you want to make closer acquaintance with Sammael," it's clear that they've got to go. We already know there are no ships bound for Tear making port in Illian, so they'll have to go on horseback. Since Chapter 44 is called "Hunted," I would expect there to be a bit of a chase. These plot elements keep me wondering and keep me reading.

Blog 14: Quote-Response Satrapi 1

I enjoyed reading Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. In the first half of the book, young Marji has all of the black-and-white perspective of young people, which is why I like the extreme black-and-white color of the panels (no grays). Whatever she commits herself to, she does it without reservation, and like many beloved children, she feels she is the special one for the task. I like how she thinks she will become a prophet and the images of her relationship with God. In one image on page 8, God is holding Marji like a baby. He says, "Yes you are, Celestial Light, you are my choice, my last and my best choice" (Satrapi). This image is very comforting because God calls Marji "Celestial Light," as if she will bring the love and wisdom of God to the world like nourishing sunlight. Because she is God's choice, his "last" and "best," the dialogue also suggests she is God's chosen one, and no one but she can do what she needs to do. Also, the pose of God and Marji makes the panel comforting. She is held like a baby in God's arms. What safer place could there be? His body is white, which indicates the goodness of light, and around him is dark, as if he were protecting Marji from the evils of the world. I think the world gets a lot more complicated for Marji as the book moves forward, so it's harder for her to think of herself as a prophet.

Blog 13: Quote-Response Kooser

Well, I have to respond to "Carrie" by US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser (635) because I've met him. I'll try to locate and post one of the photos I took of him. "Carrie" is an 11-line free-verse poem without regular rhythm. The poem contrasts the persona's Aunt Carrie's cleaning dust with the dust resulting from her death. While alive, she worked energetically "like a thunderhead" to keep the house clean. The storm image suggests pressure, power, and drama. I can picture a woman who throws people out of the room so that she can attack the furniture with her rag. What is perhaps sad is that she wasted her energy on an activity that can never be completed. Upon her death, "dust/is her hands and dust her heart." She turns into the dust she fought; in the end her very hardworking hands and the heart that motivated them are utterly defeated. The last line "There is never an end to it" suggests that because the world and even people are made of dust, Aunt Carrie might have spent her life in more rewarding ways, perhaps applying her heart elsewhere, rather than trying to undo what will always be. I take that as a message that it's OK to leave the dishes in the sink so that I can play with my daughter.

Blog 12: Poem Paraphrase Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why" represents an older woman persona speaking about having had many loves in her life. Perhaps because she has had many or because she is older, she can't remember then all. Tonight, those lost loves seem close though still unremembered, and she thinks sadly that she is lonely. Yet, she knows and perhaps is comforted by the fact that she once loved. I love the line "summer sang in me." It seems to suggest fulfillment of young love, which would be a good memory.

Blog 11: Quote-Response

I really like Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool" (579). The poem has four two-line stanzas, and what's interesting about the poem for me is that every syllable is stressed. That's pretty hard to do in English, as most words are comprised of a set of stressed and unstressed syllables. Brooks uses all single-syllable words divided into three-syllable sentences. Each line has four syllables and ends in "We" without punctuation (enjambment) except for the last line, which has two syllables "Die soon." I think the rhythm punctuates the short lives of these people. The syllables are all stressed, which indicates they are using every hard moment of their lives. The use of a plural first-person protagonist indicates that the characters, including the narrator or persona, act as a group, so there may be some peer pressure to participate in this lifestyle. The last line being short a syllable, ending with a period (end-stopped), and including the words "Die soon" emphasizes exactly that: because these people (I think of them as young men) live hard, they won't live long.

Blog 10: Song-Quote Response

Because my musical tastes got stuck in the 80s, I'm going to write about the lyrics of a Howard Jones song, "What Is Love?" Here is a verse from the song:

Can anybody love anyone so much that they will never fear
Never worry, never be sad?
The answer is they cannot love this much nobody can
This is why I don't mind you doubting

I really like Howard Jones for the philosophy in his songs. These lyrics don't have much poetry about them in that they don't employ the figurative quality of words. However, they do include the irony of love--that love must trust enough to assume there is no risk of loss and yet exist in the constant fear of loss. I like the confidence in these lines that the speaker at least believes in his own power to love so much that he can stand the doubts of his partner. I like also the realistic grasp of love, that love can't erase problems. It's nice to be assured of love despite whatever problems may arise.