Interpreting text through context
“Thought of the Week” for February 13, 2006
Much of the time when we produce an interpretation of a text…, we do so by contextualizing it within the frame of some meta-text or generalization that occupies a discursive space at a higher level of abstraction than the story. …[We] are re-presenting the story from a more abstract perspective of a generalization… Students…may lack the life experience and/or the discourse experience that would otherwise equip them with an adequate repertoire of generalizations or theories to draw upon for a more abstract perspective or frame through which to reexamine a narrative…
Sheridan Blau. (2003), The Literature Workshop: Teaching texts and their readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. p. 119.
The personal narrative as a contextualizing framework
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2006 by Reg Harris. Revised October 6, 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
The heroic journey pattern in its generic, non-mythological sense, could be considered a theory or, in the case of the journey, a generalization about human experience. In the hermeneutic process of interpretation, we must begin any interpretation or analysis from our current understanding. That current understanding provides a schema or scaffold upon which students can build meaning. The heroic journey patter provides students with a starting point for interpretation by giving them a transformation pattern and a vocabulary to use to express their understandings of a character’s passage through the pattern.
Blau goes on explain that our “theories” are based on what we learn in school, our own experience, and from generalizations provided by our community, what Jerome Brunner called “cultural narratives.” In a sense, mythologies carried (and still carry) these cultural narratives, the generalized assumptions that guide a people in their relationship with each other and the world.
But as valuable and ubiquitous as a theory is to interpretation, it has its dangers. Blau points out that when a theory works for them, young people will over use it to interpret not just literature, but their own lives and the lives of others. This attraction of theory creates what James Moffett called the illusion of power. While the heroic journey pattern is less likely to create this illusion of power, it should be considered only one interpretive theory, albeit an extremely good one. For most students, simply understanding the concept of transformation, with its challenges, its crisis, and its revelation, will be enough to serve them well in school. For others, the journey will serve as a starting point for deeper understanding.
However it is used, the heroic journey is a valuable model to teach students as they search for ways to make meaning of their lives during the dramatic changes of adolescence. . It seems to explain everything and gives a false sense of understanding and control, creating a selective blindness that may exclude more viable models of understanding and interpreting. You can see this in students who are so indoctrinated in their religious philosophies that they interpret all experience with their religious model, even distorting the experience itself so that it fits the model.
While the heroic journey pattern is less likely to create this illusion of power, it should be considered only one interpretive theory, albeit an extremely good one. For most students, simply understanding the concept of transformation, with its challenges, its crisis, and its revelation, will be enough to serve them well in school. For others, the journey will serve as a starting point for deeper understanding.
However it is used, the heroic journey is a valuable model to teach students as they search for ways to make meaning of their lives during the dramatic changes of adolescence.
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Interpreting text through context
“Thought of the Week” for February 13, 2006
Much of the time when we produce an interpretation of a text…, we do so by contextualizing it within the frame of some meta-text or generalization that occupies a discursive space at a higher level of abstraction than the story. …[We] are re-presenting the story from a more abstract perspective of a generalization… Students…may lack the life experience and/or the discourse experience that would otherwise equip them with an adequate repertoire of generalizations or theories to draw upon for a more abstract perspective or frame through which to reexamine a narrative…
Sheridan Blau. (2003), The Literature Workshop: Teaching texts and their readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. p. 119.
The personal narrative as a contextualizing framework
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2006 by Reg Harris. Revised October 6, 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
The heroic journey pattern in its generic, non-mythological sense, could be considered a theory or, in the case of the journey, a generalization about human experience. In the hermeneutic process of interpretation, we must begin any interpretation or analysis from our current understanding. That current understanding provides a schema or scaffold upon which students can build meaning. The heroic journey patter provides students with a starting point for interpretation by giving them a transformation pattern and a vocabulary to use to express their understandings of a character’s passage through the pattern.
Blau goes on explain that our “theories” are based on what we learn in school, our own experience, and from generalizations provided by our community, what Jerome Brunner called “cultural narratives.” In a sense, mythologies carried (and still carry) these cultural narratives, the generalized assumptions that guide a people in their relationship with each other and the world.
But as valuable and ubiquitous as a theory is to interpretation, it has its dangers. Blau points out that when a theory works for them, young people will over use it to interpret not just literature, but their own lives and the lives of others. This attraction of theory creates what James Moffett called the illusion of power. While the heroic journey pattern is less likely to create this illusion of power, it should be considered only one interpretive theory, albeit an extremely good one. For most students, simply understanding the concept of transformation, with its challenges, its crisis, and its revelation, will be enough to serve them well in school. For others, the journey will serve as a starting point for deeper understanding.
However it is used, the heroic journey is a valuable model to teach students as they search for ways to make meaning of their lives during the dramatic changes of adolescence. . It seems to explain everything and gives a false sense of understanding and control, creating a selective blindness that may exclude more viable models of understanding and interpreting. You can see this in students who are so indoctrinated in their religious philosophies that they interpret all experience with their religious model, even distorting the experience itself so that it fits the model.
While the heroic journey pattern is less likely to create this illusion of power, it should be considered only one interpretive theory, albeit an extremely good one. For most students, simply understanding the concept of transformation, with its challenges, its crisis, and its revelation, will be enough to serve them well in school. For others, the journey will serve as a starting point for deeper understanding.
However it is used, the heroic journey is a valuable model to teach students as they search for ways to make meaning of their lives during the dramatic changes of adolescence.