A political classroom

This week’s reading from Appleman’s Critical Encounters in High School English brought up the ways in which we can challenge our students in their reading of literary texts. As Appleman quotes Bonnycastle (1996),

“Theory is subversive because it puts authority into question … It means that no authority can impose a ‘truth’ on you in a dogmatic way – and if some authority does try, you can challenge that truth in a powerful way, by asking what ideology it is based on” (p. 56).

I liked this quote because it means when we ask our students to use literary theory, we aren’t just doing it to challenge them but to also give them tools to have power and control over their own minds when they are reading and engaging society in cultural discourse.

One theory that I have always found particularly important is postcolonial theory. Here is a comic that has been circulating around the internet for a couple weeks now that I thought was a funny example of this theory...

As bell hooks (1994) puts it in her book Teaching to Transgress:

Again and again, it was necessary to remind everyone that no education is politically neutral. Emphasizing that a white male professor in an English department who teaches only work by “great white men” is making a political decision, we had to work consistently against and through the overwhelming will on the part of folks to deny the politics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and so forth that inform how and what we teach (p.37)

According to hooks, every educational choice is political in some way. We can choose whether we present only white male authors as part of the canon or “great books” list. We can decide if our classroom is going to be what Appleman describes as an “inclusive classroom” that “validates the experiences and perspectives of readers from outside the mainstream” (p. 89).

I have heard some people say that when we choose to include non-traditional authors we are missing out on an opportunity to read a “great” book. 

In this moment, we should question whether Death of a Salesman (by white male author Arthur Miller) 

is really that much greater than Death and the King’s Horseman (by Nigerian male author Wole Soyinka) 

or Pride and Prejudice (by white female author Jane Austen) 




has more literary value than Beloved (by black female author Toni Morrison)?   

The assertion that Jane Austen and Arthur Miller are worth the valuable time in a classroom more than Wole Soyinka or Toni Morrison is just evidence of the dominant ideology that postcolonial theory seeks to amend. We need to help our students recognize that a multitude of voices and experiences are worth their time and that reading literature through a postcolonial (and feminist and Marxist!) lens will help them not only help them navigate the power dynamics of society but also leave the classroom a more thoughtful and compassionate person.