Conceptual+Framework

In order to understand the principles that Wilhelm and Novak bring to the teaching of ELA, it is first necessary to realize that they feel the labels “Language Arts,” “English,” and “Literacy” are all misrepresentative both of what ought to be taught and of what most teachers are striving to accomplish in those classrooms. While performance standards ostensibly focus on the skills of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing, the nature of testing is such that reading and writing clearly take precedence, thus suggesting that those skills constitute “what” is taught in English class. Of course, that is only part of the story. The rest of the story, and the “real” reason we teach English is far more elusive, elemental, meaningful, and above all—human.

Wilhelm and Novak explain that exemplary teachers use their English classes to do “far more than provide places to convey and construct knowledge: They seek to awaken and renew, and so to transform and deepen life” (8). The skills and knowledge imparted in the classroom are clearly not ends in themselves—as testing might suggest—but are means through which we cultivate awareness of the relationship between ourselves, others, and the world at large. Personal awakenings that lead students to discover, question, and develop their individual values and belief systems form a core that guides how teaching ELA is approached within the authors’ conceptual framework. That individual development, however, is not enough. As personal growth happens, teachers help students to cultivate an awareness of themselves within larger contexts, beginning with the classroom and school, expanding to community and country, and culminating in a global context.

Drawing on Rosenblatt and Dewey, the authors express this idea through distinguishing between “//re//action and //trans//action” (13). Subjective reaction is understood as the personal emotional and intellectual responses students have through encounters with their coursework and texts. Such reaction is perhaps refreshing in its contrast to the exclusive objectivity inherent in text-based learning frameworks, but Wilhelm and Novak contend that it comes up short of what they envision the English classroom is capable of accomplishing. They note that while the experience of reaction occurs within the individual, “transaction takes us out of ourselves, and thus helps us find and expand ourselves anew” (13). In moving outside of themselves through transactional responsiveness, students begin to form conceptions of how they exist within larger social and cultural communities. However, these conceptions are “more than just social,” involving experiences of “not just cooperating with others, but of //coexisting// with them: the sharing. . . of life itself, seeing and feeling how our very being is wrapped up in others’ and in larger worlds than we are accustomed to think” (13).

Because it deals with the myriad emotional and intellectual complexities of existing with others in the world, literature is an invaluable tool for seeking to provide transactional experiences for students. Compared with the vast potential for vicarious experience contained in the literary world, one’s own personal experience is infinitesimally small and restrictive. Through literature we are able to move freely not only among space and time but also among personalities and experiences. In that sense, we do not have to choose between breadth and depth but can achieve both simultaneously. Broad historical events, for instance, acquire a resonant depth when encountered through the human experiences of characters in literature. Books, then, are indispensable for moving students through the stages of personal growth and self-awareness to an understanding of social responsibility.

Because he has seen how students in an English class can come together as a community of individuals who value each member’s perspective and story, the principles underlying //Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom// resonate deeply with David. He, along with countless others, feels strongly that English class is a place where something far beyond simply reading and writing are taught. During a week of introductory activities and discussions designed to get his ninth graders in the proper mindset to experience //1984//, one of his students came up to him after class and remarked, “I really like this discussion, but I thought this was a literature class; it feels more like a philosophy class.” The truth is, of course, that the two are inextricable and help to inform and enrich one another in much the same way art and life feed off of each other. That sense of helping students realize that their potential for discovery and growth is much larger than what might be indicated on their schedule as ELA keeps teachers coming back to the classroom and creating new experiences with the hope of helping kids approach a more complete understanding of their membership in society, culture, and the world.

The work of Wilhelm and Novak has not changed David’s principles about teaching ELA as much as it has helped crystallize them. Ideas and beliefs that were previously only vague notions are now anchored both in specific language and practicable pedagogy. Viewing texts as //"//transpersonal"--as experiences personally shared--has changed some of the groups approach to respecting the text. Specifically, Novak and Wilhelm discuss the nature of canonical texts to sustain an ever-evolving emotional derivation through transference of previously developed ideology. The authors discuss the "connective bond" that is shared when teaching canonical text as previous lessons and evolving theoretical approaches to the text allow for a more involved dimension of respect for the text. Drawing on Dewey again, the authors write that "only once we better understand the //transpersonal// dimensions of transaction that we can fully tap into the power Dewey saw it could have: the power, eventually, to definitively end the chaos of modern life, through the power to both respectfully and feelingly connect people in their diversity." In a sense, the authors have shown that teaching ELA canon is a method of tapping into aesthetic appreciation via finding a way for future generations to recognize the evolving "love" of experiencing texts. (96-97)