Although this is my (maybe) fifth English class, this is my first look into the actual study of critical theory. I feel like most English instructors expect you to be able to take a text and read and understand it as a critical theory expert (which I definitely am not).
Of course all literature has some sort of meaning, but how you choose to understand what the author is saying is completely up to you... If you get something out of a text, then that is what you wanted and were supposed to get out of it. Critical theory is all a matter of perspective; some theories are shoved down your throat, but it's really up to you on how you want to understand and accept a text, not anybody else's opinion.
So in studying critical theory I hope everyone can keep an open mind and follow their own accepted critical readings of the texts.
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There's definitely a continuum of thought on the subject, ranging from those who think that there's only one "correct" read of a text to those who think that each person creates his or her unique text. What I like about the middle ground is that it calls upon people to support why they read a text in a particular way. I don't think of this as much as "proof", but as persuasion.
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