Radical Revolution

"Why do we have to read this?"

Perhaps the most dreaded question in the English classroom.  I have heard it countless times during my experience as a student in the American public school system.  And I admit that I have begun to brainstorm defenses of the literary value of certain texts that I expect to teach.

But Jeffrey D. Wilhelm has opened my eyes to a new classroom order.  English classrooms do not need to be battlefields in which the teacher fires literary expertise at an army of dozing soldiers.

Granted, I knew this.  Upon my first step onto this university, I was inspired by both the successes and failures of my former English teachers as well as the possibilities of my own lofty idealistic plans for my future classroom.

However, in Wilhelm's You Gotta BE the Book, I was introduced to some very radical ideas about how to effectively teach reading in a 21st English classroom that showed me that the very ideas that I esteemed two years ago are merely extensions of the same dull methods that some of my former teachers espoused.

"Reading is . . . an intensely human pursuit with intensely human purposes that must be foregrounded.  Reading, instead of a complex set of skills, becomes a social practice and a search for meaning" (24).  Wilhelm discussed the current structure of the majority of English classrooms, which is the New Criticism school of thought of the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text!  While memorizing vocabulary lists and listing literary techniques, students outline the author's intent on worksheets rife with leading questions.  This classroom is the direct opposite of the process of reading that Wilhelm described.  The current system is lifeless.  Wilhelm's vision is invigorating!

Wilhelm's students attested that their English classes sucked the fun out of reading.  Consider the paradox!  Wilhelm finally determined that this is because most English classes do not try to engage the reader with the text.  Often, students are given a text and the text controls the experience.  The students passively drag meaning out of it under the direction of the teacher.  I remember an English class that I took where I would come into class having done the assigned reading and prepared with questions and discussion points, only to sit for an hour each day to listen to the teacher lecture about what the author meant and how she chose to express it.  There was no room for my own experience with the novel, and I quickly lost interest in the class.

Wilhelm argues that reading should be a relationship between the reader and the text.  My role as a teacher is not to "define a narrow and exclusive view of 'literature,'" but to encourage students to engage personal experiences, prior knowledge, and interpretations of the text in order for it to come alive for them.  I need to be able to motivate them to see meaning in the text.

Wilhelm offered a number of strategies in order to foster student engagement in the text.  He highly recommended providing the students with an essential question - some way for them to begin to organize and structure their response to the text.  Another thought was the idea of developing a literary text as opposed to a literary canon for the English classroom.  Wilhelm defines a literary text as "any text that provides a particular reader with a deeply engaging aesthetic experience" (47).  This includes graphic novels, which is a form of literature that I actually vowed never to teach in my classroom without ever reading a single graphic novel.  (I am thankful to say that my thoughts were reversed; I am excited to see how I can include graphic novels in the classroom.)  Wilhelm also suggested that by starting students with a text that they are comfortable with and that they can connect with, a flame will ignite the students' interests to expand their literary repertoire to include a variety of texts.  A few of the students that Wilhelm studied in his classroom confirmed that they did not want to read the same things; they wanted to be introduced to new texts. 

This is the ultimate success of an English teacher: to develop individuals who are able to think and read, and create meaning in both of these processes.  Wilhelm further acknowledges that this requires the teacher to assume a "new role" (47).  To engage a classroom of readers, of thinkers, of meaning-seekers, the teacher must dispose of prescribed textbook readings and guided questions and design a classroom that explores literature in a way that allows students to immerse themselves into new worlds because it is interesting and, as Wilhelm cites, "life-changing" (51).  This new role means that the teacher will need to commit to engaging herself in the classroom in new ways.  "To effect meaningful change, we must know our own goals and ask what methods and materials are most effective in meeting them" (34).  It will not be easy to change the status quo, but the reward of a classroom of readers is invaluable.

Wilhelm both confirmed and challenged my standing teaching philosophy.  My most engaging English classrooms have been centered around discussions, debates, and freewriting.  I want my classroom to emulate these same methods.  However, I have always imagined myself teaching the same texts that I was taught.  These are the works defined as "Literature," including authors such as Dickens, Melville, and Shakespeare.  I remember being astounded even in high school to hear my classmates expressing (often quite vividly) their hate for the readings that we had to do.  I had resolved to become an English teacher that could encourage students to appreciate, if not love, the works with the same passion that I have.

However, Wilhelm has challenged me to change my perspective.  Instead of trying to change how students are taught, what if I also try to change what students are taught?  Could a student pass through four years of high school without opening a single Shakespearean play and still graduate as an independent thinker?  Or, I am tempted to teach Romeo and Juliet using solely the graphic novel.  How will I incorporate art and technology into the classroom beyond the standard collages and PowerPoint presentations?  Wilhelm is daring me to move into uncharted territory.  I am thinking about teaching in ways that I have never seen in any of the classrooms that I have been in.  It is a little uncomfortable.  I hesitate to fully embrace the idea of using art as a viable response to literature in the classroom; it is much easier to revert to the writing exercises that I experienced.

However, as Shannon reminded us last week in class, I am not going to be teaching a classroom of students like me.  Therefore, I must be willing to adapt so that I am a successful English teacher in the 21st century with a diverse group of students and learning styles.  I must join this radical revolution.