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Answer each of the posts based on your reading of Chapter 1 and 2 in Critical Encounters. Everyone should answer every question. Please post your name with your comments to receive credit.

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What does Appleman most want ELA teachers to get from this book, based on the first 2 chapters. What makes you say this?

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Cecilia Sutton

Teacher Take Aways: I think Appleman most wants ELA teachers to consider how they can use these tools to promote societal change. On page 2, Appleman says “...our job is to help them use the skills of writing and reading to understand the world around them.” In teaching students to utilize critical lenses, ELA teachers can push students to better understand and critique the world they live in.

New Insights: Never have I ever learned how I fit into the world as a student in an English class. I think this is an interesting idea and something I’d like to try in my own class.

Muddy Moments: How do you ensure your classroom environment is safe for students to respectfully express differing opinions?

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Through introducing our students to differing lenses on reading literature we can increase the depth of connections and understanding they form.

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Appleman wants teachers to understand the importance of teaching students literature in order to decipher the world. There are many lenses that literature offers and as a teacher we can present them to our students to have them apply their thinking and learning. Literature is to be deciphered, as well as the world around.

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Perspectivism and multiplicity as well as paired & textured texts and relevant texts or Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy.

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I think that Appleman wants teachers to learn how to help students utilize literary lenses to make meaning of a text.

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In chapter 1, Appleman stresses the idea that "the best way to uncover and explore these ideologies as they are found in literature is through the explicit teaching of contemporary literary theory" (3). This is important because it teaches students to read literature with a critical lens.

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Appleman wants teachers to emphasize theory and encourage students to develop meaning through the their personal experiences.

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Appleman wants teachers to implement theory into how texts are chosen in class. She emphasizes that teaching is an inherently political act. Understanding multiple perspectives creates the possibility of readers coming away with different takeaways.

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From the first chapter, Appleman states, "Our job is not simply to help students read and write; our hob is to help them use the skills of writing and reading to understand the world around them." I feel like this quote does a great job of making it known what Appleman most wants ELA teachers to get from this book. As future and current ELA teachers, and teachers in general, it is important to realize that we are not just teaching our students to succeed in the school environment, but in the real world as well. - Alicia H.

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I think Appleman really wants teachers to understand the value of literary theory, and then be able to apply it to their classrooms independently.

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Appleman wants teachers to understand the power of literary theory in instructing students. She says "Literary theories provide lenses that can sharpen one’s vision and pro vide alternative ways of seeing. They augment our sometimes failing sight  and bring into relief things we fail to notice."

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Appleman wants teachers to give students the tools to develop critical lenses so that they become better readers, thinkers and are able to develop their own ideologies.

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Appleman most wants ELA teachers to understand that it's important to teach adolescents many ways of examining the media they consume so that they can critically read with and against the text. He wants students to not just read and be told what to think about texts, but to actually think about the text themselves.

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Appleman most wants ELA Teachers to understand the different ways you can look at literature critically and reveal the different purposes of texts.

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Appleman wants ELA teachers to understand that different students will read through different lenses and wants teachers to know about literary theory.

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Teacher Take Away: Appleman wants ELA teachers to teach their students to think about characters from different perspectives. She notes how a story is told and received based on the character's limited POV, and the POV/ideology of the reader.

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Appleman wants teachers to understanding that literature is not neutral and possesses an ideology and purpose, and by examining a text by using New Critical Lenses can help reveal these purposes. These lenses help to give power to diverse voices and to connect literature to the real-world experiences for students. Many of them do not know about the existence of New Critical Lenses and how they can be useful in narrowing the purpose of analysis.

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As teachers, our job is to help students read the world around them through literary lenses! These lenses provide students with multiple perspectives that are essential for understanding the world around them.

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Appleman wants ELA teachers to understand from this book the value in teaching literary theory to students in their classes. While teachers generally give students the task of reading (according to Appleman), they have historically failed to teach literary theory, and have performed literary analysis themselves, rather than teaching that skill to their students.

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Appleman wants teachers to recognize that they "are not teaching readings but teaching ways of reading" (11). This is so that students can gain a deeper contextual understanding of the text.

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From the first two chapters, it looks like Appleman wants teachers to feel comfortable using literary theory and to use literary theory in their classrooms.

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Appleton wants ELA teachers to understand the importance of teaching students literary theory.

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What did you read or learn about in these chapters that made you say, "Never have I ever thought about.....!" (Use the stem and finish the sentence)

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Never have I ever thought about using literary theory. I feel as though this is something I have not learned much about or how to apply it. Appleman gives many perspectives and ideas to use it in the classroom.

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I have never thought about how multiple perspectives does not just apply to how texts can show a variety of identities and points of view, but the readers of these texts all have different takeaways and perspectives as well.

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Never have I ever thought about…using the New Historicism lens to see society and culture through literature, rather than pushing back against the notions or agenda of the text, we can use it to contextualize (but not normalize or validate) the outdated notions of the times in order to learn from them and how far we’ve come, or how many people there were accomplishing things than we knew about.

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Never have I ever thought about teaching texts beyond just to read them. That changed me.

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Pluralist approaches help students weigh their opinions and experiences to other students. Appleman said that this creates a sense of observation that is “like a prism.” This means that students can have light brought on a text to illuminate its meaning amongst other perspective. There are all kinds of colors to observe. These metaphorical colors can be the different voices in and around a text.

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Never have I ever thought about how vital literary lenses are to the class room!

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I really liked the focus on Ideology in chapter one. It made me think more on my own experiences and what my students/colleague's might be experiencing as well. Over the past year and a half we have talk about lenses and how we view the world we live in and I feel as though this ties into ideology as Bonnycastle states, "you can visualize your ideology as a grid, or a set of glasses, through which you can see the world." - Alicia H.

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I had never really thought about using literary theory and ideology as a way of studying literature in the classroom. This book really opened my mind to the different ways to talk about literary theories.

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Never have I ever though about how I can integrate multiple perspectives into every text we read! There is always another way to look at a story. This can create great conversations about the lenses in which we look through them.

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Never have I ever thought about "[moving] the discussion point of view" when looking at literature but it makes a lot of sense, and I can see how this would allow students to broaden both their understanding of the text and the character perspectives.

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Never have I ever thought about ideology as the major way of studying literature and unpacking ideology as a way to talk about different literary theories.

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Always be aware of the way in which books/other forms of literature were written. This is because there are books and articles that may be written in satire but until you do the research to know that you are misinforming students. This can also lead to cancel culture from misinterpreting an author when they may have meant what they said in a different way.

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To be honest, I had never thought about using literary theory in the classroom. This book was really interesting because it opened a whole new branch of ideas for me.

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From the first two chapters I learned what literary theory was. I actually had not heard/read much about it before this book and now I feel I have a solid understanding about it. This quote was enlightening as it offered a new way of thinking: "Literary theories provide lenses that can sharpen one’s vision and pro vide alternative ways of seeing."

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Never have I ever thought about how teaching literary theory is not necessarily making adolescents critical theorists, but rather helping them feel comfortable constructing their own meanings while appreciating other perspectives.

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Never have I ever considered exposing students to all the theories at once like Martha had (25). Being transparent about what your students are learning allows for an easier bridge to the information you mean to teach and can allow for them develop better understandings while working with these lenses.

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Insights: Never have I ever thought about how we often analyze the things we read based on our own worldview and POV. I always try to have empathy for other characters in the novels I read and think about them differently than the author presents them, but I didn't realize that doing this might not be natural for everyone.

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In these chapters I was a little bit confused by the reason for Appleman's point. Maybe this is just because Appleman's book was originally published almost two decades before my expereince in high school, but I found the idea that teachers don't teach literary theory to be fairly outdated. I learned bout literary theory almost exclusively in at least one literature class in high school.

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Appleman wants us to understand how to help students understand critical tools

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I did not feel like I had many muddy moments in chapters one and two. Appleman's sentiments have been echoed in our course work and readings for the past two years, so I felt very comfortable engaging with this text.

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What frustrates you or confused you in these chapters? Be specific! Include words, phrases, quotes, page numbers, etc..

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In chapter two there was reference of theories, a quote that stood out to me, "Reading with theory can become as mechanistic and arbitrary as some of the other kinds of literary apparatuses we've been collectively guilty of overusing in the past. Applying theory should be neither mandatory nor automatic." This made me feel something as I feel that we shouldn't be guilty for teaching certain texts as they do still have meaning and are beneficial for the education of many students. - Alicia H.

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The idea that everything is political is frustrating to me from the perspective that there are people that truly don’t understand that their “neutral” is blatantly political.

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Are multiplicities different than textured or paired text sets? I am having trouble understanding how this approach differs and if so, what is the effect?

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I was not particularly confused or frustrated while reading these chapters. I feel like it was pretty straightforward and I was able to understand the point that Appleman was trying to get across.

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I was a bit confused about the implementation of lenses. However, I think these will be progressively revealed as I keep reading. Everything else feels reverberated in other readings and vice versa.

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I felt okay reading these chapters. I think my biggest challenge is incorporating theory into the texts I choose for students to read.

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How do we implement these while also not being dogmatic about them being the only way to perceive these texts? (Chapter 3 does go into how we should use many, but I was initially confused about this after reading the first two chapters)

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I also did not really have any moments that were particularly muddy. I think it was confusing at first about how I could implement these lenses, but the chapters gave specific examples later on about how I could use them! In specific texts too!! Super helpful.

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Something that frustrates me is that this book challenges us to focus on reading through different perspectives and POVs (for example, pg. 19). However, what we learned in our previous readings for this class is to put books in historical context to understand it. It seems like this exercise overlooks historical contexts and has students look at the text in different ways through their own lens. How do we do both and make room for both? Or do we choose one over the other?

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I didn't feel like anything as muddy or confusing for me in the first two chapters. Everything felt very straightforward and easily understandable.

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I was not confused during chapters 1 or 2. It was straightforward, well organized and easy to understand.

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I honesty thought these chapters were straight forward and clearly written. I did not have many moments.

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To be honest I didn't have any muddy moments when reading. The only "muddy" part I felt was how I would apply this in the classroom.

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The importance of Literary Theory in the classroom

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Not every student will read texts through the same lens. It depends on their experiences, identities, and backgrounds.

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There wasn't anything in 1 or 2 that was really confusing. Ch 3 was more confusing for me

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To be honest, I didn't really feel like I had a lot of muddy moments within the reading. I def. had questions for myself about how I might use these ideas, but not a lot of moments where I was confused.

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Appleman really wants teachers to understand that we are to do more than simply teach students to read the word and the world. We need to teach them how with the different ways in which we can teach the word.

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I haven’t thought about how “literary theory can provide for young people the tools necessary for interpreting culture as well.”

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Teacher Take Aways - Appleman wants teachers to have ways to concretely teach literary theory to students. There's a misconception that literary theory belongs to high-class, highly academic English readers, and Appleman wants to be critical of that misconception. They argue that, by teachers not providing their students with the tools to participate in contemporary English conversations, students will believe that their opinions are not relevant or valid.

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Never have I even thought about how theories can vastly impact the way in which a text is interpreted.

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As a whole, these were not new concepts to me. I've always been a fan of teaching how to think and examine over what to think and that's what it seems like Appleman is arguing for

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Appleman wants ELA teachers to encourage their students to consider multiple perspectives when interacting with literature. This allows students to discover a new depth of understanding and allows them to connect with various characters.

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I'd never thought about the importance of introducing students to literary theory. I had learned about it in my junior year Creative Writing class so my perspective on it was that it's collegiate-level thinking and not meant for general classrooms.

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The text strives for teachers to understand that literary theory can be used to inquire about textual ideology and connect those to student's actual experiences in the world

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I have never considered the ways that literary theory can be used in the classroom. Having students use literary theory seems like a great way to get students engaged with texts and understanding them more deeply.

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I loved Appleman’s use of the proverb of the lion: “Until lions tell their stories, tales of hunting will glorify the hunter”

I think the biggest takeaway I had was the emphasis that all stories are political, and then importance of centering other voices.

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How can we demonstrate different lenses to students who have stubborn views/don’t want to change their mind?

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I was not confused during chapter 1 and 2 they were straightforward and I have even heard of some of the theories explained!

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Something I read in these chapters that made me say "I have never thought about that" is about introducing multiple perspectives. In the one part of CH. 2 where there's an excerpt of two students who read the same poem entirely differently. Sometimes as a teacher I forget that not every student will feel the way about a text I will and this understanding of multiple perspectives is important to keep in mind.

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I liked the idea of the importance of multiplicity. I think it's really easy for us to try and focus on the one thing we might be good at instead of opening the minds of our students to the many ways of seeing!

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Some new insights are doing different point of views. It's one thing to have a narrator's persepective but what about the other characters in the story? It would be a fun project to implement in future classrooms to do the story from their narrative instead of the current protagonist

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I cant think of anything that was necessarily confusing. I enjoyed the book and feel that it resonates with course content.

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Never have I ever thought about using fairytales or children's stories to teach multiple perspectives!

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I am still unsure how this would be applied to curriculum and how to teach it at all educational levels, accounting for scaffolding of material and differentiation for learning.

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Something that I felt confused about while reading these chapters is how I will be able to use all of these different lenses. I know this post is just about ch. 1&2 but I had to read the Deconstruction chapter too and I felt genuinely confused on how to implement that.

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I actually didn't have any questions for chapters 1 and 2 but I'd love to hear other conversations!

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I love teaching critical lenses, and I never would have framed my thoughts as students arguing in contemporary conversations

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I thought it was interesting to learn more about literary lenses because I had not been encouraged to view literature in this way previously

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I didn't really have any muddy moments, but I did consider how this could be difficult to push students to consider other perspectives if they tend to be single-minded. This would be a process for sure!

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I think trying to get students to understand the perspectives of others can be really hard, especially depending on the grade. Empathy isn't necessarily something we can just teach, so trying to include it in our lecture of different readings might be difficult.

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I didn't feel too muddy with these chapters. I thought a lot of it was fairly straightforward with its arguments and points. I'm a little worried about overloading my students with lenses, but as long as it's sort of drip-fed to students I don't think my students will have a cognitive overload.

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I am a little worried about how to use literary lenses in the classroom. I feel like there are so many of them and I would be unsure on how to touch on all of them without making my students feeling overwhelmed.