This week I've been preparing for the next short story unit (and data collection point) for the boys. This past summer, I'd settled on "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, "Ghosts" by Edwidge Danticat, and "Ru" by Kim Thuy. At the time, and not knowing the boys I'd teach, these short stories seemed best suited for the aim of constructing meaning...through the stories themselves and as the boys interacted with them. Yet, as I've been reading (and re-reading) each of the stories, I'm uncertain if they are as well suited for the boys as I once imagined. One of the main reasons for this ambiguity was a telephone conversation with my advisor on Monday.
As we hashed out the next phases of data analysis and getting a jump on planning (I've been a little lax), she asked if the emerging themes I observed with "Girl" (ideals about masculinity, femininity, social pressure, and parents among others) would be transferable between the stories. She didn't phrase it like that, but what I took from her prompting me to think centered on fluidity, alignment, and a sense of building (like each story allowed the boys to build on, create new meanings out of, and interact with former constructions of meaning present in the previous story). I hope I'm making sense...
I looked back on my initial proposal for clarity. My initial aim was to, define curriculum (these short stories over the course of a school year) as text [centered on Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory, a more universal application of the reader-response theory (1938)] because it "has special meaning, and more particularly, [...] submerged associations [of] words and images [that] for the reader will largely determine what the work communicates to him" (Rosenblatt qtd in Church, 1997). There was a reason I chose these stories. The School is a primarily an affluent and White community, I was interested in what types of meaning all boys in this context would assign to learning experiences (the short stories, the class discussions, homework, and other class activities) that were outside the periphery of this environment. One major voice, in my opinion, that was missing/silenced/ventriloquized/erased was the female voice. Instead of overhauling the entire 8th grade English curriculum, I decided (giving my teaching stance, which I'll go into later) to use the short story medium to open the door to my "sistren" so to speak.
Furthermore, my perspective and pedagogy are also informed by my ethnic/racial identity and not just my gender. Given this, weaving female authors of color (non-Western) into the mix of Steinbeck, Alexie, Orwell, Shakespeare, and Wiesel was purposeful. Yet, this conversation with my advisor has prompted me to reconsider these choices (also informed by students, not just me) as I plan the next unit.
Is this part of my own curricular transaction? As I interact with the texts produced by boys who've constructed particular meanings about boyhood, masculinity, and femaleness, I too am on what Rosenblatt terms a "reading journey." In a way, my transactions are multidimensional (spatially, aesthetically, and in efferent ways). I am simultaneously engaging with my memory of teaching/learning with "Girl," the boys' discussions (prior to, during, and after the story), my previous students' feedback about the types of texts they'd like to read (as that produced the impetus for doing this project), and the texts my current boys produced as they made sense of (meaning making through cultural production) the themes, and fact (we worked on using the semi-colon) all while trying to "write" and author a dynamic curriculum...the next phase in our collaborative "reading journey..."
Whew...I can't believe I was actually able to put that into words. In any event, I'm reconsidering next...
Signing off...
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