I thought that the idea that literature needs to be taught in a manner that allows students to interpret texts in their own way is a very valid point. Personally, I view the English Language Arts as having the purpose of ensuring that students will be able to analyze information, create an opinion or perspective about that information, and then be able to cite evidence to support their claim. Therefore, I feel that Langer was correct in saying that literature differs from other textual materials in that having a single right answer is most oftentimes not possible for many questions regarding literature (well, at least questions that don't ask only basic, rudimentary information). Obviously some interpretations are incorrect (such as saying that a text is about a historical event that happened after the text was written), but, really, ones that contain sufficient evidence to support their claims can be considered "correct" even if they differ from other people's ideas.
Another concept Langer discussed which I found interesting was that the purpose of questions involving subjects such as science most often seek to narrow the scope of what an answer can be, whereas with literature, the purpose is more in the discussion about the texts rather than in finding a single answer (or even attempting to narrow the scope of what an answer could be). I thought that evidence for this could be seen with texts (especially within poetry) where the author has given readers the perspective he intended, but people still debate about the text because they do not view the author's intentions as cannon. Looking at any database of articles about literature will show that there are absolutely just tons of different ideas about various texts, and none of them are quite the same! Of course, these discussions that can be had is what makes literature enjoyable - without them, reading literature would be more like reading a historical account of something rather than like reading a story.
No comments:
Post a Comment