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Kidlit Bloggers
This is one of the blogs that my students and I created for a course on young adult literature. For this particular blog, students weren't required to post and we used the space as a complement to our twice a week sessions. The "Issues of Diversity in Children's and Adolescent Literature" blog shows what it looked like when I had a blog as an instructor and asked students to create and link their own review blogs to the course site.
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Week 4: Thinking about Theory; Graphic Novels
For Tuesday:
- Read "Theory as Prism" (Moore) and chapter 1 of Critical Theory Today. What has been your experience using critical theory? Did Tyson's experience ring true? Were you persuaded by her arguments that theory can enhance reading?
- This is not required, but you might also want to skim the theory chapter you will be reading for your group presentation.
- No critical reflection paper due. Instead, write a post or comment on the blog. Your contribution can be about anything: a key idea in the class, a response to a quote from the reading, a book suggestion, a link to an interesting on-line resource. Our main goal is to make this a discussion among everyone in the class. :-)
For Thursday:
- Read "Reading Lessons 101" (Rudiger). How does reading graphic novels differ from reading other types of YAL? What place do graphic novels have in YAL?
- Read and come prepared to discuss American Born Chinese. How does this text "work" as a graphic novel? How is it YAL? What questions or points in the text do you want to discuss? (You might think about trying out an idea with your group as the basis for the Critical Reflection paper due on 2/9).
I have next to no experience with critical theory before this semester. The concept was first introduced to me at the start of my TE 408 class where we are examining how to teach literature using critical theories. At first I was extremely skeptical of critical theory and its accessibility to students who are often unmotivated to read at all, let alone language that comes across at times as elitist and convoluted. However, I've definitely changed my mind after reading some chapters from "Critical Encounters in High School English," one of the assigned texts for TE 408. Reading chapter 1 of "Critical Theory Today" has only reinforced the validity of teaching these theories. I completely agree with Tyson in that "there is no such thing as a non theoretical interpretation," (4) and that we have essentially been using critical theory when evaluating literature for a long time now. We are simply unaware that we are doing so. Teaching theory will inevitably help our students view all aspects of their life in different ways or through different lenses. And in a society where we are becoming more and more manipulated by texts and guiding forces (images, movies, music, culture, etc.) it is important to enable our students to critically view the world they live in.
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