This article reports on an experiment in teaching at Huddersfield University (UK) in the context of the first year of a single honors English Language degree program. It took as its basic premise the idea that some kinds of learning of theory would be aided by the use of analogy explored by multi-modal means rather than the purely textual or discoursal. This article combines the insights of research into analogical thinking and into multimodal cognition to suggest that analogical experimentation using exploratory methods with non-linguistic modes of representation may be able to help students in understanding and learning complex theoretical concepts.

Literary scholars consider themselves to be expert in writing about literature or teaching literature but not necessarily in writing about the teaching of literature. The latter field is likely to be thin, in both senses--less productive of scholarship than the fields of rhetoric and language and less conceptually developed. (John Guillory) Socrates himself begins [...] when he says, on behalf of Hippocrates, who wants to "study professionally" with the eminent Protagoras: "he would be glad to be told what effect it will have on him" [...]. What effect will it have? How will he be changed? By his teacher? Specifically. What strikes me about this question is how obvious and basic a one it seems to be for a teacher to be asking. And how rarely it is asked. What effect will it have? Important particularly in the part of our work that prepares others to become professionals at what we do. For such a question places the pedagogical transaction at the center of the problematic. (Paul Kameen) It is the question that is wrong because it assumes that we are responsible for the effects of our teaching whereas, in fact, we are responsible only for its appropriate performance. That is, we are responsible for the selection of texts, the preparation of a syllabus, the sequence of assignments and exams, the framing and grading of a term paper, and so on. [...] There are just too many intervening variables, too many uncontrolled factors that mediate the relationship between what goes on in a classroom or even in a succession of classrooms and the shape of what is finally a life. (Stanley Fish, "Aim") So set 'em up Joe; I've got a little story you oughtta know. (Frank Sinatra) 1 In a recent PMLA note, Ruth-Ellen Boetcher-Joeres, the editor of Signs, spoke about both the difficulties and exhilaration of doing interdisciplinary work. She argued that both "feminism and interdisciplinarity alike [for example] stress collaboration," but that such joint ventures were often limited because the "metalanguage of disciplinarity assert[ed] itself, controlling and limiting what interests us" (319). I will argue in this essay that much the same could be said about our own internal division between ourselves as teachers of literature and as literary scholars and critics (Cuban 76, Kameen 168-70). Those who insist, not without some merit, that the two should be synergistic often substitute what should be for what (all too often) is in a world of merely semiperineable boundaries (Nelsen and Watt 285). We all want to be good teachers and good scholars, but we have found relatively few models for learning how to do both well (Levine, Foreword xii; McGann 157; Showalter 39). Fortunately, the times, they are a-changing as many look anew at the joys of classroom transactions (Guillory; McGann; Scholes, Crafty; Showalter). Teaching as a Belle-Lettres research topic is refreshingly in the air at the turn of the new millennium, but thus far, that literary generation previously focused on theory sometimes seems to be rediscovering the pedagogical wheel. Even so, rediscovery can be a good thing that may often lead us back to the reasons why we teach the humanities at all (Charles Anderson 86, Nell). Although at least some recovery of the obvious might seem necessary to those who have only recently come to literary pedagogical consciousness, much has happened in the educational world during the last twenty-five to thirty years that has gone far beyond the lecture-paper-final examination model that once dominated literature classrooms. After flower-power temporarily shook up the often-staid practices of the previous generation, many have extolled the virtues of the newer, pedagogically more interpersonal reader-response alternatives to the earlier paradigmata, but these too have undergone rethinking (Rabinowitz and Smith). Indeed, almost a decade ago, thinkers in one scholarly essay had even developed a rather loose sort of plot-line: "The profession has moved from raising questions about texts, to raising questions about readers, to raising questions about the conditions of possibility for any reading, to raising questions about how we teach students to read" (Downing et al. …

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.38.1.50

Analogy and Multi-Modal Exploration in the Teaching of Language Theory

Current Conversations in the Teaching of College-Level Literature

The study and teaching of literature has been a challenge for many teachers and students. This is due to the fact that many teachers are not equipped to teach the subject and many students have not seen the significance of reading literary texts as an important aspect for language development. Often, reading literary texts means memorizing useless information and not really understanding and appreciating literary works. It is imperative to find ways to overcome these challenges especially when dealing with the comprehension of literary texts. Based on the sociocultural perspective, this paper presents findings from a larger study on the use of analogy. It explores the ways analogy is used as a scaffolding tool by teacher trainees in their attempts to comprehend literary texts. Based on a qualitative study, this paper identifies and explores how teacher trainees scaffold their partners in pair work, with the use of analogy. The findings of this study suggest that analogy generates positive impact in the comprehension of literary texts. It enables teacher trainees to make rational statements through justification that leads to possible new knowledge.

Analogy and Multi-Modal Exploration in the Teaching of Language Theory

Citations

Current Conversations in the Teaching of College-Level Literature

Using Analogy As A Scaffolding Tool For Facilitating The Comprehension Of Literary Texts

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