Thick Democracy: Rethinking the English Classroom: 09/12/12

K-12 Educators Become Cultural Anthropologists // Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies at Tulane University

What is this project?

The posts you will find here are reading notes for the most part. I am working on two reading lists this summer in preparation for preliminary exams. (I am working towards a doctorate in English Education.)

One list is about genocide including young adult historical fiction novels about genocide. With this list, I hope to think about what the novel does for understanding and shaping our understanding of history and also globalization. I hope to interrogate historical fiction for at least two categories: that which is a fable, meaning it is easily grasped, didactic, and potentially (perhaps dangerously hollow) and that which is grasping at the unimaginable, recognizing complexity and showing an awareness of its limitations to account for all the voices of history.

The other list is about critical pedagogy, and this is focused on anti-authoritarian thinking and pedagogy more broadly. I hope to use this to explore and define democratic pedagogy as something much more global and complex in nature and then argue for this way of teaching middle and high school English. This connects to the former list in that "good" historical fiction is more democratic in nature because elements of the narrative are complex in attempting to account for an event or experience, yet the narrative is also aware of its limitations.

September 12, 2012

K-12 Educators Become Cultural Anthropologists // Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies at Tulane University