I come from a family of teachers--my mother is a teacher, and 3 of her 4 sisters are as well. A few of them also married teachers, and now a good part of their children are also becoming teachers. I once figured out that one could conceivably go from kindergarten to an associate's degree being taught by at least one member of my family at all times. It's a bit ridiculous, and growing up I had no intention of following the family tradition.
When first came to college, I was an English major with a linguistics emphasis, and I loved it. I soon found myself falling into a familiar thought pattern, though--I kept learning all these cool things and I couldn't keep them to myself. I found myself figuring out how to explain things to other people, and it wasn't much of a jump to explaining them to a hypothetical class. I gave in and switched my emphasis from linguistics to teaching and I love that too.
It's really important to me to remember that every student in a classroom is different: they have varied interests, goals, and skills, and it's not my job to convert them to liking English as much as I do. It's my job to cater to them and their needs and give them the tools they need to succeed.
I was having a discussion with a few people the other day about a dichotomy we see in teaching English, specifically literature. We read three articles that touch on this: "Reader-Response Theory and the English Curriculum," by Robert E. Probst, "Literature and Literacy: Rethinking English as a School Subject," by Robert P. Yagelski and "Toward Thoughtful Curriculum: Fostering Discipline-Base Conversation," by Arthur N. Applebee. These articles talked a lot about using literature as a means to learning something else, like critical thinking, reading comprehension, and exposure to other cultures and points of view. This set my group thinking about why we chose to study literature in college. The truth is, I don't love literature because it teaches me critical thinking skills, although that is a perk. I love it because I love the stories and the characters.
This leads me to wonder, what is the purpose of teaching literature? Should we teach Shakespeare because Shakespeare is awesome, as Probst suggests in asking, "How do we teach so that the experience with literature is its own justification?" Or, should we teach Shakespeare because through it, students can learn about history, can be exposed to interesting thoughts and ideas, and can learn how to interpret unfamiliar words and phrases? Should we be doing some mixture of both?
The quandary comes because how we present literature to our students can greatly affect whether they approach it from an efferent or aesthetic stance. How possible is it to teach students that they can choose to read from either stance, and would it be a good idea to do so? How does this fit in with what our job is as English teachers?
