Pedagogical Tool (Text) Review

Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents. New York: Teachers College Press, 2009.

In the second edition of Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents, Deborah Appleman aims “to bridge the divide between secondary language arts teachers and college English professors” by offering guidance for teaching literary theory to secondary students (ix).   She argues that literary theory helps teach students to think critically as they encounter the ever-present voices that seek to “sell us their version of the truth” (1) because learning to apply multiple theories helps students recognize the ideologies behind other people’s texts (whether those be written, visual, or oral).  In Freire’s terms, learning theory prepares students to read both the word and the world.

Appleman’s book, which is available through NCTE and many booksellers, is carefully crafted to appeal to an audience of secondary teachers, who generally don’t feel that they have time to read long inventories of research or extensive theoretical grounding; they often demand to know what a writer suggests they do in the classroom and what value such a practice will add.  Thus, Appleman’s first chapter includes only 15 pages of literature review, which she also uses to convince her reader that literary theory should and can be brought into high schools. She demonstrates that her work grows from and is affirmed by the work of Applebee, Bonnycastle, Eagleton, and Emig among others who have argued for the value of literary theory in general and for its teaching in secondary or other “lower level” courses.

Appleman offers a chapter on each of five critical lenses (Appleman’s less-intimidating term for literary theories): reader-response, social class/privilege, gender, postcolonialism, and postmodernism.  Note that Marxist and feminist theory have been given new names that are less likely to call up reactionary resistance from teenagers and their parents.  Each of these chapters makes a case for teaching the theory in question, demonstrating how it is relevant to the texts secondary students study, the lives they live, and world they face.  Each chapter also offers one or more anecdotes demonstrating a classroom lesson focused on applying that critical lens.  Such anecdotes characterize the entire book, and although they suffer from the too-neat dialogue that tends to permeate classroom stories in books for teachers, they are effective demonstrations of Appleman’s points.  Most of the materials mentioned in these anecdotes also appear as appendices (34 activities and assignments in all), making the book useful for transferring or adapting example lessons into the reader’s real classroom.  The activities themselves do better than most at recognizing the real-life (not conveniently simplified or idealized) interests and abilities of high school students.  They offer useful analogies and ask appropriate and interesting questions that do not have single, correct answers; graphic organizers, when they appear, assist cognition instead of simply looking pretty, and the anecdotes and examples offered as teaching tools don’t ring false as so many others do.  I rarely see activities I would be willing to use just as they appear, but these are the exception.  Many are also easily adaptable for different novels or student ability levels. 

Appleman rounds out these chapters on individual theories with two more: one on teaching theory to diverse learners, and one on the value of applying multiple lenses to texts and the world.  She seeks to disprove the misconception that theory is “intellectual cake for adolescent cake eaters” by pointing out that “students on the margin, for particular reasons—ethnicity, class, ability—are often more receptive to the basic ideological premises of these theories than are their more privileged peers” (112).  Appleman goes on to demonstrate the valuable work done and valuable gains made by non-elite students when asked to engage with literature through critical lenses.  Although she does not say it in so many words, her examples demonstrate one of the greatest opportunities opened up by teaching theory in classes of mixed ability: even if a teacher must teach works in which the words-on-the-page difficulty level is suitable for students with lower reading comprehension, critical lenses offer a way to elicit rigorous intellectual engagement and critical thinking.  In other words, literary theory offers us ways to challenge students in an English course not through difficult-to-read texts but through an expectation of original thought, and as we teach students to apply those lenses, we offer scaffolding to help them discover how to have those original thoughts.  

Appleman’s final chapter, which reiterates the benefits of teaching literary theory to high schoolers, also demonstrates the value of her book as a whole.  She asserts that the goal of teaching theory is to move away from teaching students that a teacher will reveal the “hidden meaning” in a text and the student should take notes and prepare to repeat back that hidden meaning.  Instead, Appleman hopes that teaching students to apply multiple theories will give them the tools to interpret literature for themselves, revealing the significance they find there.  As teachers in English studies and beyond seek to teach not only content-specific knowledge but also the skills students will need to navigate and succeed in a globally connected society, the ability to critically examine and interpret texts produced from within many different ideologies is vital.  Literary theory, with its firm roots in English studies and its relevance to navigating a media-drenched world, is indeed worth high school teachers’ and students’ time.  Appleman’s book, with its effective activities and useful analogies, demonstrates a clear understanding of the high school world and the students we find in our classrooms. 

Critical Encounters is likely to appeal most to teachers like me who are not satisfied with our current ways of teaching literature.  In my own classroom, I have been frustrated when the curriculum (or perhaps just my enactment of it) invites only cultural studies or preaching about themes and their relevance to our lives.  While describing one teacher’s classroom, Appleman sums up her vision of what could happen when teachers use her book: “Rather than simply covering literature as cultural content or focusing exclusively on the skills of reading and writing, these students and teachers…constructed and enacted a different kind of knowing in the literature classroom” (127).  I am eager to apply the concepts and activities included in this edition, because another “kind of knowing” would add significant depth to my students’ study of literature.