Roar Journal for 10/14

Roar Journal for 10/14
In "Teaching Literature to Adolescents" in chapters 4 and 9 there is a discussion about teaching the classics and using different perspectives.  I thought it was insightful, especially in its idea that teachers should introduce the different perspectives to their students and also to let the students know they can become part of the argumentative voice for what should be in the canon of literature.  While I know I was introduced to the different perspectives and asked to view literature through various lenses, I couldn't see the bigger picture.  I didn't know there were whole journals devoted to critically applying lenses to literature to learn about what the words are trying to say.  Nor, did I realize how much literature was informing our society, it's norms, and it's changes.  And when I say literature, I don't mean just the canon; I have become increasingly more aware of the influences of all types of writing in our society.  Television and movie screen writing, radio and podcast writing, news and political campaign writing, are all forms of reading and writing we participate in that change our society.  For better or worse, Occupy Wall Street is writing a story, Obama's 2008 campaign was very much a story, television programs like Modern Family, Glee, Psych, and Big Bang Theory write other ideas into our society as well.  Being aware how we are written into society is important.  Since most students will not be writers and rather consumers who become literate in these different modes, it's incredibly important to teach students how they can interact with a variety of texts through different lenses, through their own ideology, and through other types of critical thinking.  The most important reason they may be given for reading the classics is so that they can develop that talent through critiques of the classics - not because they necessarily will read the classics for the rest of their life- but because the skills they learn in reading the classics will inform the rest of their interactions with the texts of today.