Reading Response: Wilhelm Ch. 6

In the section titled, "Toward A Critical Literacy," Wilhelm brings up a couple issues that I find worth reflection. First, he asks, "Why do we teach the language arts? What do we hope to achieve for our students and for ourselves through this enterprise?" (151) For me, these questions also tie back into a question he posed earlier in the chapter, regarding "what our purposes are as teachers: to teach texts, or to develop readers who can and will want to engage with and know texts in personally powerful ways throughout their lives?" (145) In my special methods class this semester, I reacted to the idea of teachers having a responsibility to the text. At the pre-college level, I don't believe that teachers are responsible to anyone or anything but their students. Their success, in and beyond our classrooms, is our job (success being measured by actual learning and performance, not grades). The text is a tool to be used in whatever way it is most effective towards getting the job done.

But I digress. Regarding the initial question, I wrote earlier this semester that my goal as an English teacher is to create "effective and fluent communicators." Wilhelm, like me, sees the skills nurtured in English classes as reaching beyond the classroom, and beyond reading and writing. He writes, "Literacy is both the willingness and the ability to evoke, conceive of, express, receive, reflect on, share, evaluate, and negotiate meanings, in the various forms that meanings may take." (151) All of those things, in my mind, fell under my umbrella of "communication." As I read this section, I actually thought again about Frankenstein (the book this time). When I first read Frankenstein in the seventh grade, I was struck at how eloquently the monster was able to describe the experiences of his life before he learned (or re-learned) to speak and write. I wondered if, without knowing the words for what he was seeing and feeling, he would really have been able to commit those experiences to his memory with such detail, to be recounted later when the proper words were there.

Whatever the answer to that query, I do still believe that our communication skills, our comfort with language and its use, can enrich our experiences and enhance our engagement with the world around us on many levels. Working with figurative language teaches us to think abstractly and make comparisons and connections, to think if not in metaphors then perhaps in analogies that help us make sense of the new and unfamiliar. English classes, ideally, teach students to ask questions and think critically to answer them, to consider motivations and character, to interpret what isn't said as well as what is. In this way, students learn not only to communicate their thoughts and feelings to others or to receive and interpret communication from others, but also to communicate to themselves the full significance of their experiences with richer detail and deeper meaning.

Why do we teach language arts? To allow our students access to the world around them, to help them break down the mysteries, build understanding, engage their environments, and improve themselves.

Reading Response: Wilhelm, Ch. 5: Reading is Seeing

Towards the end of the chapter, Wilhelm writes something that I found potentially more interesting than all of his experiments and findings throughout the chapter. "In an art class," he tells us, "divergent views are 'interesting' rather than incorrect," and "students are prodded to explore and express their visions and understanding, not to simply justify them." Wilhelm argues that the use of (visual) art in our reading classes can "open the doors to these same possibilities with literary response" (140).

I watched "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" yesterday, and there's a professor in Victor Frankenstein's first medical school lecture who begins by warning students--and I'm paraphrasing here--not to fool themselves that they might ever have a new or original thought, or that there is any hope or virtue in creativity or imagination. I'm sure no teacher in schools today tells students such a thing that explicitly, but to what extent are students being taught that same lesson? Why should art class be the only place where divergent views are encouraged? For that matter, why should it take the addition of visual arts to our classrooms to make students welcome to "explore and express their visions and understanding?"

Watching "Frankenstein" in 2008, it's easy to see what a fool that professor is, acting as though everything had been done and discovered and there was not a single advancement to be made in the field of medicine, but would we not be just as foolish to act as though we have all the answers to any text we might be reading with our classes? Easy as it is for us to see that we would, many of our students come to class expecting us to act just that way, and they don't know what to do when we don't. I of course love the way Wilhelm used drawing to draw reluctant readers in and will borrow his methods, but if the only time we are "prodding" out students to "explore and express" their "divergent views" is when they're doing it through visual arts, we're falling short.

Feelin' a Funk

Today is the last day of my 5-day weekend. Friday was a pretty good day. Julie was working, I had a list of things to get done and errands to run, and since I had my momentum from the week behind me, I managed to have a good and productive day and then to relax a little. I even made my first gumbo! For a guy claiming to be a Cajun, it's pretty sad that it took me 26 years, but it came out awesome.

Saturday was another great day. Julie & I went pumpkin picking, and we drove out to Lexington to do it just to get out and see a bit more of Kentucky. On the way home, we strayed from highways for a while and drove through some really pretty country and cute small towns. We both love Louisville, but we came to Kentucky for something a little different than the way we're living now. It was good to get out and see it, to remind ourselves of the ultimate goal.

For the last three days, though, I've been totally in a funk. With as little free time as I usually get, a 5-day weekend seems like having an eternity stretched out in front of me. After 2 days, I completely failed to make or stick to plans to continue getting everything done that I wanted to. The attempts I did make to put up a gate in the backyard so we can finally let the dog out without a leash or get ahead on my homework were frustrating flops. I tried to have band practice Sunday and to make plans to hang out with friends last night, but nothing came of it.

In a normal week, I get about zero time to stretch out or relax. The only downside of having 3 days off should be missing 3 days' pay, but somehow--poor as I am--that feels like the least of my frustrations right now. If only I could pinpoint what the most of them are, instead of just floating around here like a potato in a funky stew.