{"title":"Literary reading as a socially responsive practice: Implications for literature pedagogy at higher education","authors":"Naomi Nkealah, Maria Prozesky","doi":"10.1002/rrq.562","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"As university teachers of literature, we tend to accept the rhetoric that students lack the capacity to interpret texts meaningfully, without questioning our own biases about the kinds of meaning we expect them to elicit from texts. Often, these are meanings that have little relevance to students' own social or professional lives. In this article, we report on a research project on literary reading at a South African university in which we set out to find out how our second‐year English literature student teachers were reading or making sense of Shakespearean plays and how in turn their readings inform new thinking about literary reading. We found that our students were interpreting Shakespeare's <jats:italic>Macbeth</jats:italic> in ways that both explicate social problems in present‐day South Africa and offer possible solutions to remedying these problems. Therefore, our knowledge contribution in this article is the proposition of socially responsive literary reading as a relevant, empowering and viable approach to literary reading that has potential to decolonise literature education in African universities.","PeriodicalId":48160,"journal":{"name":"Reading Research Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Reading Research Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.562","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As university teachers of literature, we tend to accept the rhetoric that students lack the capacity to interpret texts meaningfully, without questioning our own biases about the kinds of meaning we expect them to elicit from texts. Often, these are meanings that have little relevance to students' own social or professional lives. In this article, we report on a research project on literary reading at a South African university in which we set out to find out how our second‐year English literature student teachers were reading or making sense of Shakespearean plays and how in turn their readings inform new thinking about literary reading. We found that our students were interpreting Shakespeare's Macbeth in ways that both explicate social problems in present‐day South Africa and offer possible solutions to remedying these problems. Therefore, our knowledge contribution in this article is the proposition of socially responsive literary reading as a relevant, empowering and viable approach to literary reading that has potential to decolonise literature education in African universities.
期刊介绍:
For more than 40 years, Reading Research Quarterly has been essential reading for those committed to scholarship on literacy among learners of all ages. The leading research journal in the field, each issue of RRQ includes •Reports of important studies •Multidisciplinary research •Various modes of investigation •Diverse viewpoints on literacy practices, teaching, and learning