Passive gazing and the voiceless subject inthe literature classroom

Abstract

High school literature lessons all too often produce students whose own reflective thinking about the literary texts they read is either limited or non-existent. The need to introduce the idea of wide-awakeness becomes urgent. Encouraging a form of interpretation that allows students their own voice, and makes good use of the rich diversity that exists in many of our classrooms may require a re-examination of some of the practices we have tended to take for granted as sound. Three such practices are reflected upon here: the use of declarative statements before a text is read and studied; the mechanistic way in which metaphor is studied; and the use of such questions in the traditional contextual question exercise as to deliberately prevent any attempt by students to reflect, disagree or argue a point.