Doing What We're Already Doing, But Doing It Openly

"Every English teacher acts on the basis of theory. Unless teaching is a random series of lessons, drills, and readings, chosen willy-nilly, the English class is guided by theories of language, literature, and pedagogy."

- W. Ross Winterowd (Appleman, 133)

I mentioned in my post on deconstructionism that students are already engaged in applying theory, but let me extend that assertion here in two directions: 1) not only are students applying theory to texts, they are applying it to their world daily; and 2) teachers, as the quote explains above, are also engaged in applying theory through their pedagogy, whether they are open about it or not. These are both points Deborah Appleman makes in her chapter on "Reading the World." If considered true, these statements about our classrooms and our students make a claim for responsible teachers to apply theory openly. When I began constructing my own lessons I found that I was continually applying theories, asking "who is at the centre of this text? who is at the periphery?" To fail to alert students to the method I was using to extract meaning from a text seemed to me like the unjustified withholding of information. How could I teach students to understand this text without showing them the tools that I was using to understand it? When we teach without theory, we infer that the "right" way to extract meaning from a text is mysterious and accessible only through the instructor. Teaching theory is an expression of academic honesty and the endowment of students with the tools to discover textual meaning for themselves. Likewise, it allows students to approach understanding the world systematically instead of limiting them to the more common emotionally-charged, reactionary approach I've observed in High School students over the course of my placement. If students understand the tools they are already using to make judgments, they will be able to more easily evaluate and defend their positions when challenged. Is teaching these skills not the mandate of any English-Language Arts class?

Instead of putting a piece of literature on a pedestal, as if it is some pristine work of art, so perfectly formed that it is capable of communicating truth with a clear voice in a universally comprehensible way, I am advocating something more like Baroque history painting. Take for example the painting below, Saint Jerome Reading by Georges de La Tour (1622). The centuries-old saint is anachronistically depicted in cardinal's costume, lowering his spectacles to examine a manuscript. The title of this painting could as easily be "Reading Saint Jerome," for La Tour unabashedly places the ancient teacher in his own time period, inferring his place and the claim of his writings on contemporary life. Unlike Classical painting, which typically bounds its action entirely within the canvas, Baroque art suggests that there is a life outside the work of art, of which the image is only a snapshot. I suggest that we take the same level of openness and continuity with the world found in Baroque history painting and apply it to teaching English. Teaching English responsibly and effectively requires instructors to be open about the ways they are infusing texts with contemporary significance and to give students the opportunity to see how the meaning in those texts is not bounded to the classroom, but informative for understanding the world.

Georges de La Tour - Saint Jerome Reading

"[H]istorical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence"

- T. S. Eliot