Ed’s English Blog

Setting aside serious questions about technology, even the uncritical embrace of computers and the Internet in the classroom poses real problems. First of all, while most public schools have some computers and Internet access, they usually do not have enough computers for even a small portion of the student population. Thus, teaching students to use computers and the Internet is not practically possible. Furthermore, given that many students do not have functioning computers and/or Internet access at home, it is manifestly unfair to give technology assignments as homework.

To address these difficulties, many schools have directed their resources to the creation of computer rooms that teachers can reserve for their students throughout the school day. Although this sounds like a great idea in theory, in practice there are far too many students and far too few computer rooms. In the school where I teach as an intern, I was told on my first day that all the computer rooms were booked solid for the time I would be teaching. This makes embracing technology very difficult for the average public school instructor – even one who is in love with computers and the Internet.

Of all the issues I’ve discussed with teachers, classroom discipline always ranks as a very pressing, if not the greatest, concern. Educators are happy to dream up interesting and innovative pedagogical techniques, but behavior problems more often than not prevent these ideas from actually being adopted in the classroom. In fact, discipline issues are the main reason cited for the continued use of antiquated and unimaginative teaching practices. The greater the discipline problem, the more likely teachers are to steer away from open discussion, group work, creative projects, and the use of new technologies. In the most difficult teaching situations, the classroom takes on the character of a military boot camp. Students are lined up in neat rows and discouraged from expression. If we are to change the teaching practices we all abhor, we must start by tackling the difficult problem of classroom management.

Let me start by confessing that I am unquestionably a member of the bourgeoisie. This fact combined with the fact that I am male and white should undercut much of what I have to say, at least from a Marxist perspective. Despite these handicaps, or perhaps as a result of them, I have to admit that Karl Marx is my philosophical hero. This is not because I agree with him in some important way. I’m actually not sympathetic with much of what he has to say, especially in his later writing. What I admire about Marx, however, is that he was able to accomplish what so many other philosophers have only dreamed of.

What I find most unappealing about Marxism is its thoroughgoing reductionism. This reductionism is clearly manifested in Marxist literary theory where every text gets interpreted as an expression of class struggle. Moreover, such expression is conceived only in the narrowest terms as the voice of the capitalist or the proletariat. While this may be an interesting way to look at certain texts, it becomes objectionable when critics insist that this is the preferred, or the only, way to read.  We are left asking “Why must we read books as expressions of class conflict, and why do we have to understand this conflict in the terms that Marx spells out? Rather than answering such questions, they are reinterpreted by Marxist critics within the schema of class conflict and dismissed.

Given this criticism of Marxist theory, it certainly seems odd that I would claim Karl Marx as a hero. Despite his many flaws, however, Marx is the first and only philosopher to directly influence the course of human events in a significant way. From the beginning, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle sought, not simply to theorize about the just state, but to bring it into existence. That this surprises us attests to the abject failure of such efforts. By contrast, Marx was ultimately successful in rallying others to his ideas and as a consequence he transformed the world dramatically. In short, he is the only philosopher to truly unite theory and practice. How we judge this union over a century later, however, gives us pause to reflect on the relation between thought and action.

In his book Teaching Shakespeare, Rex Gibson does an admirable job of offering an exhaustive list of Shakespeare’s literary conventions, but I am tempted to say that all, or almost all, depend upon the interplay of difference and repetition. Obviously, repeating phrases makes use of similarities in language. Building emotional tension in this way is effective, however, only when the phases repeated are ultimately replaced by something different that breaks the momentum. Alliteration and assonance rely on repetition and are used to a similar effect with contrasting words that break the repetition of vowel or consonant sounds. It’s clear that even personification relies upon this contrast when we consider that it involves speaking about something different as though it were in fact the same. It is exactly this contrast between seeing an object as a person and being aware that the object so perceived is in fact nothing like a person that makes the use of personification, especially in unlikely contexts, so interesting. Given the interplay of difference and repetition in Shakespeare’s writing, I wonder how this contrast functions in dramatic narrative and why we find it so emotionally pleasing.

On the surface, literary criticism seems to be writing about writing. Often its purpose, stated or unstated, is simply to arrive at a better understanding of the text. In this respect, such writing often presumes that works have a single meaning, and that this meaning is pretty much what the author intended when he or she wrote the material being explicated. Surprisingly, however, this presumption is hotly debated. Critics focus on the notion of an author’s intention and raise a number of questions. What is an intention, and does an author have a single unchanging intention when writing? Moreover, isn’t the author’s intention completely expressed in the primary text? Wouldn’t a secondary work explicating the primary text express an alternate intention? Furthermore, why do we give priority to the author’s interpretation rather than that of someone else? What if an author comes to see his or her own work in a different light later? Would the author’s intention while writing the book or after reflecting on it constitute its “real” meaning? These questions raise doubts about secondary literature, but form the issues around which much literary criticism centers. What kind of questions are these and how should we answer them?

This web log was started as part of a graduate course on the theory and pedagogy of English instruction at the secondary level. It is my hope that this blog will enable me to better understand the nature of blogging and the possibility of using web logs as part of the secondary English curriculum. I also hope that this bog will allow for an interesting and lively discussion of issues related to teaching English and literature. My background is in philosophy and I am especially interested in American philosophers such as John Dewey and William James. I believe that the notion of web logs challenges many of our tradition presuppositions about literature and opens the possibility for interesting theoretical discussion. For example, blogging raises questions about what exactly constitutes a text and authorship. Where does a text start and stop, and does a text require a beginning and ending? Furthermore, when can we consider ourselves the author of a text, and when should we note the contributions of collaborators, mentors, and other sources of insight? Hopefully, my background in philosophy will prove helpful in addressing these weighty issues. Feel free to join in the discussion, but please be mindful of the thoughts and feelings of other participants.