The Literature Workshop

Sheridan Blau
16 November 2015
Adrian, Kellie, Courtney, Olivia, Eric, Thomas, Kyle, and
Kendall

Some interesting interpretations.

I went to work for her that summer /A teenage kid so far from home
She was a lonely widow woman /Hell-bent to make it on her own...
Til she came to me one evening /Hot cup of coffee and a smile
In a dress that I was certain/She hadn't worn in quite a while...
And on the air there was a hunger /Even a boy could recognize
She had a need to feel the thunder/To chase the lightning from the sky...
That summer wind was all around me /Nothing between us but the night
When I told her that I'd never/ She softly whispered that's alright
And then I watched her hands of leather/ Turn to velvet in a touch
There's never been another summer/ When I have ever learned so much
I often think about that summer/ The sweat, the moonlight and the lace
And I have rarely held another /When I haven't seen her face
And every time I pass a wheat field /And watch it dancing with the wind
Although I know it isn't real /I just can't help but feel
Her hungry arms again
-Garth Brooks, That Summer

What is a literature workshop?

1.Posing of a genuine question or problem that a reader encounters
individually or in groups as they interact with literary texts.
2.Workshop participants must monitor their experience as they work
through their problems with the text.
3.Reflection, either through discussion or writing, about what issues
were encountered and how they were addressed.
-Blau 13

Which Interpretation Is the Right One?

Two mainstream schools of thought-Myth of the one correct response
The first is the widely held idea that there is only one authoritative and
best interpretation for most literary texts, what Susan Hynds (1991)
calls myth of the one correct response (60).
Anything you want it to mean
..if there is no single or authoritative author interpretation for a literary
text, then the discipline of literary study is one in which any and all
interpretations have equal authority. Or, as many student put the case,
a poem (or any other literary work) can mean anything you want it to
mean (60)

Which Interpretation Is the Right One?

In Blaus opinion
Range of possible interpretations...
In other words, our disagreement operates within a very narrow range of possible meanings
and suggests that we have already agreed on a great deal about the meaning of the
poem...every reading offered and counted as a viable reading was supported by evidence to
warrant it (75).

...that are dependent on evidence.

We depend on evidence or facts that constitute evidence to produce an interpretation, but
we also interpret the facts or the evidence available in the light of the interpretation that we
anticipate or have hypothesized (70).

In a nutshell:
Focus on how to interpret texts in a way that uses evidentiary reasoning as well as leaps in
imaginative logic for students.

Which Interpretation is the Right One?

How to solve competing interpretations
Persona / Identity / Biographical Information
Teachers history
Sources of interpretative authority
Literary study

The Problem with Background Knowledge

Background knowledge
Reading is assisted by cultural knowledge or knowledge of texts residing behind texts, and
can be impeded by the absence of such knowledge (79).

Skilled Reading
...we certainly give our students the impression that our understanding or interpretation of
a text derives from our careful analysis of the text and from our skill in figuring out
nonobvious meanings, when in fact, our interpretations derives from prior knowledge that
we didnt make our students aware of because we may not have been aware of it ourselves
(88).

Demystifying Skilled Reading

- Providing students with prior reading that would enable them to understand an assigned
poem
- Syllabus promoting intertextual literacy through text as opposed to lecture or footnote
- Comparing intertextual or cultural literacy as a traveler in a foreign country

Where Do Interpretations Come From?

Asking Students to Interpret
Whats going on? Whats the moral/lesson? Whats hidden?

The Problems
-

...readings treat texts as objects requiring mechanical analysis rather than as

invitations to genuine human illumination and pleasure (101).
What bothers many of us about what I am calling mechanistic readings, I believe, is
not that [students] interrogate or analyze a text according to procedures identified with
a school of criticism we dont like, but that they appear to produce the analysis for no
genuine intellectual reason at all, except to satisfy an externally posed assignment
(103).

Some Solutions
- ...urges teachers to rescue literature from t est makers and from student indifference
by helping students see how it speaks to them as human beings rather than as test
takers and technical analysis [and] to drop those writing assignments that focus on
technical features of literary works (102).

Whats Worth Saying About a Literary

Text?
1. Rereading as a Reading Strategy
At least 2 readings: 1) silently and 2) jump-in reading

2. Pointing (and its Point)

Call out lines that strike you as memorable, important,
interesting, shocking
Purpose: Acknowledges and honors each readers own
aesthetic experience with reading the text (Blau 144)

3. Writing About a Line

Pick an important line thats meaningful of the text - use as paper

My Papas Waltz Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mothers countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off the bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

What to do now.
1)For five minutes, individually read the poem once. First time a
general read-through. Then a second time well jump-in read. The
second time identify lines youre having difficulty with, and the third
reading, pick out a line you find most important in the poem.
2)After you complete your reading, discuss in groups of three or four
trying to make your group as diverse as possible (different genders,
ethnicity, region of origin). Share any problems you encountered.
Discuss your most important line from the poem. Discuss
similarities or differences.
3)Reporting out. As a class, well discuss our groups conclusions.

Take-away as Teachers
Discuss:
What was successful about this workshop? Did you find it helpful
What would you change, if anything?
Would you use this in your classroom?
Do you think this helps issues with interpretation?

Chapter 7 & 8 - Writing assignments in lit

classrooms:
The
problems
& some
solutions
Oftentimes,
students dont
gain anything
of value from formal writing
assignments
Students usually have trouble using their own voices when writing
academically
Some students previous teachers promote arbitrary rules that hinder student writing
**e.g. not using first person**
Critical writing often looks formulaic or interpretations are copied directly from a
teacher

Essay tests are usually quite limited as opportunities for students to

experience genuine authorship (Blau 154) as they are seen as

Potential Solution 1: Literature

Logs/Journals
Student responses in a journal format create a kind of reservoir for
storing ideas that may later be drawn on in class discussion or
developed into more formal essays (Blau 154)
During discussions, students can share their ideas and confusion in a
low-stakes and collective environment
**Logs also allow students to develop critical reading and writing abilities
independently**

Blau recommends teacher models good entries initially, so that

students dont end up writing teacher-pleasing junk
While writing/discussing: the writing of the entry allows me to think more deeply
about what I have read, that it generates important questions about the text and
my reading of it (Blau 155).

Writing Logs Foil?

When approaching formal academic papers,

students appear to have nothing interesting
to say and whatever they manage to say
sounds as if it were written by a language
machine with a hyperactive thesaurus (Blau
157).

Potential Solution 2: Throwing out Silly

Rules
Many students are taught not to use first person when writing formal
academic essays without being told why.
Alternative: forbid the use of the word think rather than the word I,
or, most logically, forbid the whole offending phrase rather than any
innocent word at all (Blau 159).
Teaching our students pesky rules can interfere with voice, but can
also make formal writing assignments seem more
alien/difficult than they need to be.
Blaus advice? Try to sound as dumb as you are. In doing so, you
allow yourself (without trying) to also sound as smart as you are.
And that is as well as any of us can do (162).

Potential Solution 3: Reading Process

Research
Report
Informal research
project to track the students own mental process
as they attempt to read and make sense of a short poem or an
assignment.
(Hint, weve done activities like this in this class, and weve had
discussions about it in Warringtons adolescent literacy class.)
Self-study to help reveal what the students have learned about
themselves as readers, reflect on the particular demands of the
reading assignment, or think of the reading process in general.

Metacognition designed to help the students formulate their own

original thoughts.

Potential Solution 4: Interpretation project

The students read a short story or poem, and then writes a first draft
of an interpretive paper.

Student A then reads student Bs interpretation and must find a way

to incorporate it into his/her second draft.
Can be affirmed, or refuted.

Really tries to get the student to engage with the thought

process.

Potential Solution 5: Portfolio

HUGE MAJOR GRADE at the end of the term. Meant to encourage the
students to take risks and think outside the box without penalizing
them.
3 parts- Collection, Selection, Reflection
Collection- Student may include everything written in the term.
Selection- Student separates best writing into this section.
Reflection- Development from piece to piece as a writer, and what they
reveal about the students development as a reader, which writings are
the most interesting/why.

**Whatever assignment you decide to go

with, the assignments need to have a
purpose, need to be useful to the student,
and both of these need to be made clear to
the student.

Chapter 9: Honoring Readers and

Double bind for teachers (earned interpretations vs. teacher-dictated
Respecting
Texts
interpretation)
Misreadings are real (inattention, inexperience, ignorance)
Syntactic complexity can contribute to misreadings
The problem of over-reading
Cutting through the double bind
Get kids to trust in their own interpretations
Value/authority distinction
Multiple readings

Chapter 10: What Do Students Need to

Learn?
Three main literacies: textual (procedural), intertextual (informational),
performative (enabling)

Textual: Essentially close reading (interpreting, inferring)

Intertextual: Like Hirsch, but not
Performative: Capacity for sustained, focused attention; willingness to
suspend closure; willingness to take risk; tolerance for failure; tolerance for
ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty; intellectual generosity and fallibilism;
and metacognitive awareness.
Engaging with literature on a deeper level isnt an innate skill
It recognizes that reading, like writing, is a process of text construction. It is
not simple absorption and there is no simple, direct transmission of
knowledge or meaning from the author to the reader.

Gentlemens Discussion Questions

Chapter 7
- Would you use the modeled AP essay practice sheet in your own class? Why or why not?
- How do we bridge the gap between journal logs and formal writing assignments, most
notably in teaching structure, without being too formulaic?

Chapter 8
Chapter 9
-How do we get kids to become comfortable with their own interpretations (without it
devolving into everyone gets a trophy for participating)?
- Should kids be told about misreadings?

Chapter 10
- Is the literature workshop approach worthwhile?
- Do you feel like class discussion has a place in studying literature? To what extent?