In the last post, I spent a fair amount of words saying what is wrong with canonical surveys of literature, such as the Harvard Classics. It's one thing to reject the canon, it's another thing to move from protest to an alternative. The alternative to the canon emerges from the rejection in two steps: first, the rejection invokes some higher values that should be relevant to the alternative; second, the values should point to a set of skills that students can practice in response to the canon.
What are the values of post-canonical protest? Based solely on the first part of this series, I'd identify at least five values:
- diversity of both demographics and beliefs
- empowerment of students to participate in scholarly conversations
- openness to discourse, change, and improvement
- responsiveness to students' experiences of the text
- truth, especially in the representation of evidence and argument
Already, I'm beginning to express how students can participate in each of these values:
- discovering and accounting for diversity in the historical archive
- participating in scholarly conversations as a mode of empowerment
- discoursing upon, changing, and improving an open canon
- responding to literary texts
- evincing and arguing for some truth relevant to literary texts
It just so happens that I believe that
writing is one of the most powerful activities for all of the above skills. Skills will inspire scaffolded assignments in my next post.
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