A Call for “Questions”
My graduate class in Theory and Pedagogy of English Instruction has been exploring the possibilities for the introduction of various literary critical theories into the secondary classroom, as you can see from the previous posts. I wrote in an earlier post, “Literary Theory in the High School English Classroom,” that I was particularly interested in teaching the questions that each theoretical perspective asks of texts. Dr. M. suggested in a comment to that post that we start a list of those key questions. I am interested about particular questions for each critical perspective, because I think that these are useful in inducing the kinds of questions each perspective asks. Some of the theories can be pretty difficult to grasp, for teachers as well as students, so I think the inductive method might be helpful. Learning about the key questions may help us understand the theories in general. Toward this inquiry, I am starting sub-categories under this category for various theoretical perspectives. I will start each perspective with a key question or two, and I’d love to hear your key questions.
