Circumspect Speculation

Purves, Pedagogy, and Pop Culture

April 18, 2010 at 11:00 am (Pedagogical Theory) (Alan Purves, and Pop Culture, New Criticism, Pedagogy, Pop Culture and Literature, Telling Our Story about Teaching Literature Purves)

In “Telling Our Story about Teaching Literature” professor Alan Purves discuses the best, most productive ways that teachers should teach literature. He begins by blatantly stating the good and bad pedagogical practices he sees.

Firstly, he detests “New Criticism,” a form of solely text-based literary analysis in which the cultural influence of the reader and author are completely ignored. He believes that if we examine a piece of work without taking into account the cultural influences surrounding the text, we miss a large part of the texts meaning. A full understanding of the text, he argues, must taking into account the cultural implications and setting in which the literature was penned.

Secondly, Purves suggests using contemporary media to appeal to the new generations of students studying literature. His belief is that the traditional, trite method of teaching English merely culls out the true academics from the class—cultivating those who will continue studying literature and weeding out those who feel that English is not their forte. If this is true, then the old methods of teaching English risk turning the field into an elitist endeavor: catering to the talented and ignoring the incompetent. The addition of multimedia in the classroom would help all students understand literature. He argues that “there is no reason why students should not deal with film, video, audio, hypermedia, and other forms of presentation” (214).

Digital Illiteracy Amongst Adults: (0:24-1:00)

The clip above, from the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, illustrates an over-exaggerated caricature of how many adults feel about technology. If teachers try to suppress the use of media in the classroom, they risk becoming techno-stressed caricatures of digitally illiterate adults.

Today’s student could definitely benefit from Purves’ suggestion of using multimedia in the classroom. I am a firm advocate of using movie clips, music, and blogs in the classroom. (Haha, duh! I think Purves and I would be pedagogical soul mates in real life.) In this day and age, we are constantly saturated and bombarded by images of pop culture. If we can connect the outside world to the world housed in the bindings of the texts we read, students can better understand literature and connect it to their lives. Using media can help the teacher educate students about the universality of themes in literature and in their lives. Furthermore, using media can help the teacher create enriching cultural lessons.

However, if we use media too much in the classroom and completely forgo the “traditional” way of teaching English, we risk ignoring students who truly love literature in order to please the masses of students who would prefer looking at images of pop culture and watching movies about the text. 

“Too Much Text”: If we continue with the traditional methods of teaching English, we risk saturating students with too much text-based analysis and not enough cultural enlightenment and enrichment about literature. Too much text may not be a good thing, especially for students who aren’t academically inclined to study English and literature in the first place. In this picture, the text has literally become part of the student. As much as most English teachers would love to have students like this, what about the other mass of students who can’t assimilate to text as well as the academically inclined?

vs.

“Too Much Media”: If we use too much media in the classroom, we risk alienating the students who actually love studying literature. In this picture, the room is saturated with external media. The student it being bombarded with pictures of pop culture and external references to text. However, too much media has alienated the student. Where is the traditional method of studying English that teaches students how to be disciplined and academic?

           I believe a medium or middle ground must be established between traditional methods and multimedia methods. If balance is found between these two methods, then the study of English will no longer be solely for the academically inclined or solely for the culture-obsessed. I think it’s important to retain some of the traditional aspects of literary study while incorporating media to indulge the masses of students who aren’t as academically inclined to study English.