You Gotta READ the Book

My initial and immediate reading of Wilhelm's method is that New Criticism is somehow a bad thing, but taking that stance would make readers miss so many things that texts themselves have to offer (a reader following NC might have noticed the alliteration in that sentence, which wasn't originally intentional but became so). If the reader isn't looking for characteristics like that (or isn't at least later made aware of them), he'll miss the genius of the writer or the work. I'll be the first to acknowledge that, oftentimes, there is no genius coming from either one (here's looking at you, Chopin), but it's hard to imagine missing out on the kinds of things that a close reading--but not necessarily NC--can show. I stopped on page 22 to type this, so maybe Wilhelm can reel me in with an argument soon.

It's important not to worry about correct interpretation unless there really is one, though. If an author has gone on record stating his or her intentions, there's nothing wrong with offering that view of the book. If the teacher hijacks the discussion with his favorite theoretical reading, regardless of how outlandish it is, that's a problem.

I also think it's important to visualize the scenes and connect to the text, but I have a hard time saying that that's more important to the reader than paying attention to the meanings of the words. I remember in 6th grade reading class, Mrs. Chilton gave us worksheets on which we had to make this many connections and visualize (draw) that many scenes and predict what would happen in the next chapter of whatever we were reading. Well, that's perfectly fine and perfectly correct. That's what Wilhelm is saying students need to learn. But, in my case, that was something we learned in 6th grade! We learned it in 6th grade and could then carry it over to 7th grade, through high school, through college, and into the rest of our lives. We didn't have to learn it in 8th or 9th or 10th grades. We had already learned that we were supposed to do those things. And that's why I have such trouble with the notion that students should be more focused on their own connections. They should've been taught those things years ago, and by 8th or 9th or 10th grade should be learning how to dive deeper into texts to gain meaning that way--in addition to what they've already learned about their own connections. That said, even in 10th or 11th grade, teachers would ask questions like, "How do you feel about Curly's wife? Do you think she's a good person?"

On page 88, Wilhelm says that many of his students have trouble spontaneously imagining the scenery of the story, and I literally cannot imagine not doing that while reading. My inability to understand that is most likely something that I'll have to learn to deal with while I'm teaching. It's a little bit like playing a sport: a great athlete will have difficulty understanding why you can't do something that he or she does every day, and will often have trouble teaching that skill until they understand what the average or less-practiced person needs to do in order to accomplish the task.

I read a story earlier today about teachers who are removing the desks from their classrooms. I feel the same way about this as I do about reading: aren't the desks important? I'd love to sit in a beanbag chair in class, but surely there are times when desks are better. Or maybe not. Maybe the desks are only important because teachers make them seem important; after all, they're often in the wrong place and need to be moved to facilitate activities anyway. So... maybe it's okay to get rid of the desks, but I think we need to keep some of the close reading.

I'm looking forward to reading more of this book because I think the subjects Wilhelm is writing about are things that inexperienced teachers either often worry about or never even think about. I'm interested to see what solutions he used in order to help his less-engaged readers become more so.