While reading this story of a man learning to love something that seemed unobtainable and boring I was enlightened. School is not always fun and enjoyable; each student has their favorite classes and ones they are not in favor of. But hearing how somebody can have such a life-changing experience is beautiful. He never thought he would enjoy literature let alone teach it; and learning that fact made me think. I know that personally I have never felt that English class was my favorite; in fact I am a math person. Although I have nothing against English or writing I just feel confident when working through a math problem and when writing an essay I feel that the person grading it will be subjective and not care for my style. In fact in my high school senior year English class (AP Literature), my teacher told me that I do not know how to write a paragraph. After hearing that I just wanted to give up and cry, of course I did not do that considering that I am here today in a college English class. It is hard because I really do love writing and I know the rules, it just is not natural for me to be coherent from sentence to sentence sometimes because I have so much I want to say. And it is difficult when you are evaluated and expected to write in a certain structure and in the liking of the instructor/professor.
That is why I can relate with Gerald Graff. Graff’s story is inspiring because his love for literature was unexpected and occurred in the midst of an essay. I never pondered the concept Graff shared “that what literature teachers teach is not literature but criticism, or literature as it is filtered through a grid of analysis, interpretation, and theory.” Why is it that we must break down each piece of literature? Why can’t we just read the piece, as it is, unbiased and open-minded? I do not understand the concept of analyzing another person’s thoughts and criticizing the way they think and write. That is why I have turned to math my whole life; it has a specific answer and is unbiased. I do understand that English is our language and it is the way we communicate with one another but I do not understand why we must criticize it and tell others to write in a certain manor. I hope to learn the answers to these questions throughout this course and the rest of my college career. I would love to understand the importance of past, present, and future literature and have a life-changing experience as Gerald Graff did because his story was remarkable!
Well let me first start off by saying I 100% agree with you when you say why do we have to analyze someones text. I don't understand that either. I have always felt that someone wrote a book or short story maybe just because they had a good idea and created a masterpiece. So, (in my mind) why should I have to analyze every minute detail about a few paragraphs in a massive book. Now don't get me wrong, the author might have wrote that paragraph with something completely deeper than the text might say. But hey, who knows. Loved your response.
ReplyDeleteGreat answer Alison! I love how you totally opened up about your opinion to writing and reading because, as a fellow math logical person, the ability to understand the motives behind higher level thought is an extremely hard task. I know with my AP Literature teacher, I came in after every essay to break down my approaches to analyze and synthesize.
ReplyDeleteI like that you brought up the ideas of how literature is not only subjective to the reader, but also to the outside influences that surround the manner in which others critics will impact the manner of our personal perspective. I love that you were able to find the story of Graff to be inspiring and I hope that you will be able to have an epiphany within your collegiate exposure to literature and writing so that you may love literature as Graff was able to learn.
Alison, what a beautiful picture! Critical thinking skills are a major part of this course, and as a mathematics person, you're an expert at that already. Now it's just a matter of applying those skills of breaking apart problems and looking at things closely and applying those to the world.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that you brought up the topic of 'teaching critcism.' I hope you bring this quote up in our class discussion! What's very interesting to think about here is... can we "just read" anything, without applying some sort of evaluation or judgment? While we are reading/watching anything, we are analyzing at some level. "Critical thinking" and "analysis" is just about bringing that critique to a conscious level and thinking about how you got to those conclusions. And then considering if the text really backs that up or not. Sounds very systematic and mathematical to me. :o)
I'm sorry to hear about what your teacher said. None of us know how to write perfectly, that's why you're in this class. We'll work on building your skills this year.