Blau works nicely to fill in the gap between the theory we’ve been encountering and the reality of the classroom. Several of us have commented on it. Finally, news we can use!

I like that Blau gives us models and examples of what we can do, but I also like that he also tells us what NOT to do. Like Scholes, he warns us that we can easily slip into the role of “sage on the stage” and put our students into the position of spouting back to us our own interpretations when it comes time for assessment. This “banking model”, where information is deposited into our student’s memories and withdrawn by them when they need it is, unfortunately, what many of our students have come to expect from us. His revelation that in planning and preparing to teach a course, teachers are doing the learning while students are relegated to the role of serving as witnesses and recorders of interpretations and approaches to conceptual problems. I confess that I have occasionally presented lessons like this, usually when I am out of ideas on how to engage students or when the material is new; it sometimes is the easiest way, the path of least resistance, but it is mediocre teaching at best.

Fortunately Blau’s book is full of suggestions on what we can do with a classroom full of students so they can become more competent and productive learners instead of merely containers for our ideas. I appreciate his emphasis on group work and how it is a natural part of the reading process. Yes, reading is a solitary act, but that doesn’t mean that understanding, analyzing and interpreting should also be done by the student working alone. In my composition classes, I am always pleased with the results of group discussions as a pre-writing activity. Working in groups, students rarely complain afterwards that they don’t know what to write about. Working together, without the intimidation factor of a teacher standing over them, they feel free to say things they might not say otherwise. They question each other’s ideas, suggest alternative approaches and general are more open. This is exactly what we want them to do in a literature class when we ask them to engage an author’s text.

Blau’s book is crammed with too many examples to discuss in a single blog post, but his workshop on background/prior knowledge (Chapter 4) is especially illuminating to me as an ESL reading instructor. One of the biggest issues I face is that ESL students frequently discount what they know because they don’t see the universality of it or its worth. After all, their cultural background is different from that of their peers and from their instructor, so how can it apply to a classroom discussion of a poem or passage they don’t understand?

I would modify Blau’s approach and have them bring in examples of fables indigenous to their cultures, then spend time in groups where they would “teach” each other how they construct meaning from the cultural references. I think they would soon realize that there are themes that run through many of the readings that are universal to all cultures. They would hopefully also understand that what they bring with them from their culture is just as valid as anything I or any students has to say.

I also think that Blau’s storytelling workshop (Chapter 5), where students exchange interpretations of personal stories, would be an excellent way to illustrate how each of us uses our different backgrounds and cultural references when we attempt to create meaning. As students and instructors, we are the sum total of the experiences we have had in our lives. There is not “wrong” interpretation, only different interpretations.