Cut-up

Abstract

and learning from each other, inevitably provoking such observations as “I hadn’t realized how funny that part was!” “The Blow Up” emphasizes the closeness of close reading, but it also grounds and enlivens more general discussions in the text—removing parts from the whole and putting the whole back into conversation with its parts. After having extracted, magnified, transformed, performed, and resituated individual sentences, students will feel more authoritative when the conversation widens to larger themes and ideas. They will also not be afraid to take apart the text, to zoom in and out of any page, drawing in or blocking out what they already know for the sake of testing new claims or ideas. Students will not only feel comfortable referring to specific passages, but they will find it easier to refer to one another’s readings as evidence and counterevidence. Most importantly, they will enjoy the opportunity to converse freely with each other (instead of answering the instructor’s questions), tracking their own interpretative moves and choices in a collective and creative encounter.