Critical Listening and the Sounds of Stories in the English Classroom

Abstract

ABSTRACT As the growing body of English scholarship has made clear, the act of critical listening plays an important role in cultivating a mindful and democratic classroom. By way of Carmen Maria Machado’s short story, ‘The Husband Stitch’ (2017), this article addresses how the tertiary English classroom creates opportunities to re-centre the relationship between critical listening and storytelling to create productive discussion and expression about sociopolitical issues. The sounds that the narrator in the story both speaks and induces shape a narrative to interrogate how we critically listen to each other across gendered and cultural codes. Further cultivating a dialogue around the act of critical listening, students take inspiration from Machado’s story to create sound stories, or stories narrated using sounds and music that respond to gendered injustices. Critical listening, as a practice and a stance, is fundamental to their participation and, the practical objectives of the assignment emphasise teaching about critical listening as an integral aspect of the ways in which the telling and hearing of stories help to underline the inequities of society.