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Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents (Language and Literacy Series) [Paperback]

Deborah Appleman (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)


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Book Description

August 2000 080773974X 978-0807739747
''What a smart and useful book! It provides teachers with a wealth of knowledge and material to help their students develop critical perspective and suppleness of thought.''
--Mike Rose, University of California, Los Angeles

This bestseller was the first text to specifically address the challenges of teaching critical theory in high school literature classrooms. Since its original publication, the author has worked with hundreds of teachers and students to update and refine the lessons she presents. This completely revised Second Edition now features:

* A new introductory chapter that focuses on ideology and literary theory.
* A new chapter on using literary theory with diverse learners.
* An expanded discussion of gender, including new activities.
* A reframing of Marxist literary theory.
* A new postcolonial lens that will help students read such classics as Things Fall Apart.
* An amplified focus on cultural texts, with new material on helping students think critically about music videos, websites, advertisements, films, and television shows and two new activities for analyzing a contemporary movie.
* Many new additions to the appendix of activities, including handouts from teachers who have adapted the original activities for use with diverse students.

Praise for the First Edition!
''All the undergraduate students cited [Appleman's book] as their favorite piece of work for the semester, and the one that was most successful during student teaching.'' --English Journal

''This book provides powerful ways to get young people thinking about literature and about how it relates to their lives.'' --Rethinking Schools

''Compelling.'' --Teacher Magazine

''Interesting and provocative''--Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy

''Many teachers have difficulty engaging students in critical analyses of literature because teachers themselves do no know how to use strategies to ease their students into this higher order thinking process. Appleman's text helps teachers understand how and why, 'now perhaps more than ever before, students need critical tools to read the increasingly bewildering and text-filled world that surrounds them,' and provides detailed strategies to guide students' review of literature.''
--Voice of Youth Advocate
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Deborah Appleman is Professor of Educational Studies at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 200 pages
  • Publisher: Teachers College Press (August 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 080773974X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0807739747
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Newest "Must Read" for English Teachers, October 24, 2000
By 
Chris Gordon (St. Cloud, MN USA) - See all my reviews
Book Review Appleman, Deborah. Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents. New York: Teachers College Press, 2000. Deborah Appleman's book, Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents, recently published by the National Council of Teachers of English and Teacher's College Press, is a MUST read for all English educators and all teachers of high school literature classes. Appleman not only envisions a new way of teaching high school literature, she shows the reader (with practical classroom activities) HOW this is possible. Appleman's first line, "I'm stubborn" (xiii), grabbed my immediate attention. As a friend of Deborah's, I agreed and read on. What I found was not a stubborn approach to teaching literature, but rather a wonderful, open-minded, newly articulated approach to the teaching of literary theory in high school. Granted, Appleman might need to stubbornly insist that naysayers, those who say it can't be done in high school, hear her out, but by mid-point in the book, even those people will be considering the possibilities. In Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescent Appleman defines reader response, Marxist and feminist criticism, and deconstruction theory in an understandable manner. Within each chapter Appleman weaves together, through classroom vignettes, literary theory and literature. Appleman explains how the application of literary theory in high school provides students with an interpretive repertoire which enlarges their view of the world. This approach empowers students to think "beyond the boundaries of their own comfortable world" (63) and to "foster a knowledge of others" (29). In addition to being impressed with the linkage of theory and practice in Appleman's book, I observed it in action when I visited Paige Shreeve's Senior-to-Sophomore literature class at Becker High School. Shreeve read Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents the minute it was released. She then taught her class to apply these critical perspectives to the literature they read. The day I visited, the class discussed Frost's poetry. As I joined a small group discussion, I heard one student say, in reader response mode to "After Apple-Picking," "This tiredness is the way I feel after working a weekend at Subway." Another student, in keeping with a New Criticism approach, wanted to explore the symbolism of sleep. Yet another student, who apparently knew some background on Frost, told the group (using a psychological approach) that this poem was biographical and went on to explain why. These students were not directed by Shreeve to use literary theory; they had already internalized many aspects. Critical Encounters in High School English works. I suggest that you read and "try on" Deborah Appleman's new book. Chris Gordon English Education - St. Cloud State University
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars You Need Not Be a College Student to Learn Theory, October 8, 2007
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This review is from: Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents (Language and Literacy Series) (Paperback)
Mastering Critical theory on a college level is sufficiently imposing so that to learn it on a high school level is seen as even more so. In CRITICAL ENCOUNTERS IN HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH, Deborah Applebaum proves that the teaching of it and the learning of it need not be the insurmountable obstacle that many a harried college student often perceives it to be. Applebaum writes this text for the high school teacher who may not know much more theory than the very students whom she hopes to teach. Until recently, college courses in theory were not required for English majors and even for those who have taken a course or two, this book is a helpful reminder as to what theory is, how to apply it, and perhaps even more importantly, how to justify teaching it to teenagers who already groan under what they will undoubtedly see as simply one more "hard" subject to master in their senior year.

The first chapter, "The Case for Critical Theory in the Classroom," is teacher-oriented in that Applebaum anticipates potential pitfalls for the teacher who wishes to include critical theory in a typical high school curriculum. She acknowledges that there is "tension between presenting literature as cultural artifacts...for those who favor a more progressive approach to education." This tension she suggests can be reduced by forthrightly examining "our notions of what literacy is, of what students should read, and of what it means to read well." Critical theory she sees as the lever by which all this may be done.

In the second chapter, "Through the Looking Glass: Introducing Multiple Perspectives," Applebaum addresses the advantage that theory has over the standard one-size-fits-all paradigm of the typical approach to high school literary analysis that focuses on plot, setting, character, and symbolism. Since theory by its very nature is multi-dimensional, students can benefit by viewing texts under varying lenses, all of which require close reading, resulting in enhanced understanding of that text.

Since this text is designed for high school seniors, Applebaum wisely decided to limit her choices of theory to Reader-Response, Marxism, Feminism, and Deconstructionism. Her analyses and examples of each school are sufficiently clear so that college students who desire a jargon-free text can look here for relief. Applebaum also has a most useful chapter, perhaps even more so for college students, on "Reading the World as Text," where her students describe how they used selected theories to understand articles, movies, books, and advertisements that might have otherwise resisted more conventional approaches. Reading the World is an ambitious undertaking, but Applebaum judiciously shows how high school teachers can expose their students to the literary side of it.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Another must-have addition for your shelves!, July 11, 2007
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This review is from: Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents (Language and Literacy Series) (Paperback)
Like Wiggins' book on Essential Questions,Understanding By Design Expanded 2nd Edition Critical Encounters is a book that has changed my approach to teaching. Unlike Understanding by Design, this one applies directly to my role as an English teacher.

There are so few books out there on methodology that combine theory and practice the way that Appleman's book does. It's worth the price for this alone. I agree with another reviewer about the over-emphasis on student work examples and anecdotes (I skimmed over many of these), but the practical strategies and lessons to use with high school English students are invaluable. Most get the students involved and doing the work. These strategies require students to think about what they read and to respond to what they read critically.

If you're tired of the typical Reader-Response papers you've been requiring and/or receiving from students who are capable of much deeper thinking, buy this book!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
WE LIVE IN DANGEROUS and complicated times and no one is more aware of it than our teenagers. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Native Son, Perkins Gilman, Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf, New York, The Great Gatsby, Bigger Thomas, Bruce Pirie, Richard Wright, New Criticism, The Awakening, The Things They Carried, National Council of Teachers of English, New Critical, Room of Ones Own, Death Be Not Proud, Little Miss Muffet, Snow Falling, The Scarlet Letter, Theodore Sizer, Henry Louis Gates, Mike Rose, Ordinary People, Robert Probst, Sharon Crowley
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