Enhancing Perspective, Inviting Response: Multiple Interpretations of a Frost Poem

Abstract

Language Association databank or ERIC in order to discover a bounty of resources to supplement their inquiry into virtually any literary text. The plethora of critical analyses catalogued throughout these reference sources provides an important linking of literary theory, practical criticism, and classroom pedagogy. Such literary analyses also offer a wide variety of critical insights that enable teachers of literature to reduce their dependency on the textbook with its inherent limitations and to supplement the activities in the anthology with those of their own design for use at the prereading, reading, and post-reading stages. Most important, though, published literary analyses can be used as pedagogical tools for inviting students to respond spontaneously to a text while also exposing them to informed critical perspectives which they would not otherwise encounter. Unfortunately, there is convincing evidence that critical analyses are not much used as resources for pedagogy in secondary literature classrooms today. Recent studies show not only that textbooks continue to serve as the primary tool of instruction (Sosniak and Perlman 1990), but also that teachers, even in the best literature programs, remain largely unaware of the pedagogical implications of literary criticism (Applebee 1989), while many others are untrained in critical methodology (Smallwood 1981). Given this situation, it is not surprising that students report a lack of interest and little appreciation for the study of literature (Sosniak and Perlman) and outright frustration at the limitations placed on their freedom to respond personally to literary texts or to consider critical perspectives which their teachers view as incorrect for reasons often unknown (Carlsen and Sherrill 1988). With teacher-dominated, anthology-centered, and perspective-limited practices as the norm, the need for an approach to teaching literature that elicits respect for individual readers' responses is clear, but an instructional approach that also provides opportunities for the consideration of other critically informed insights is equally desirable. An mpathetic and pluralistic approach is achievable when scholarly literary analyses are incorporated into instruction. To illustrate this, I will examine a post-reading practice based on several interpretaions of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a S owy Evening, a poem widely anthologized and aught. To prepare students for their encounter with t e text and their eventual engagement in postreading activities, I first set the stage for a more fruitful experience of Frost's poem with a variety of prereading and reading activities. For example, before they look at the work, I begin by inviting parti ipants to discuss its title and to consider moods and symbols they may later find while reading the poem. Then, as part of the actual reading process, I encourage them to watch for any images which they eel are important or to note in their journals any patterns they encounter. Other considerations include the setting, rhyme scheme, transitions, and the role of the narrator. I also invite students to