Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

This particular article is incredibly useful in my opinion.  As a future teacher I am well aware that I am staring down a future curriculum that will require teaching classic literature to classes who may feel no connection to the text.  It's hard for many ethnic minority students to see the value in learning about white characters within works where the language is already difficult to traverse (I'm specifically thinking about Romeo and Juliet or any other Shakespeare).  This article addresses that problem in such a novel way that "the classics" seem less like a chore and more like an exiting challenge to tackle. 


In particular they suggest that every classic text can be approached in some way to make it appeal to a more diverse audience.  They first suggest that a work can be dissected for its portrayal of minorities or those who are considered "other."  Asking the students to question just what makes that character "other" in the first place.  This is an unique perspective to take on literature.  And I was a little shocked when they mentioned that a culturally diverse text does not always mean one written by a minority or concerning another culture.  In my mind that is exactly what I thought when I considered a diverse text.  But their assessment rings true with me, that an oppressive approach to a culturally diverse text still makes it oppressive.  It is not always the text that is the problem, sometimes it is the instruction.


The authors also suggest pairing classical works with more contemporary works.  Their example is poetry and rap music.  Students who fall behind in their literary studies, who struggle to understand any poem placed before them, can walk into class having memorized and analyzed an entire album of rap lyrics.  There is a bridge to be made here that might otherwise be hard to find if not pointed out.  Perhaps it is my current generation of incoming teachers and the new aspects of education we are being taught, but I have heard this point on more than one occasion.  This is perhaps the first time I have heard it applied as a way to approach classical literature in diverse ways.  Before it was simply a way to get students to care.  Now it is a bridge to help them connect classical literature in a text-to-self way that I had not considered before.  I really appreciate an article that can expand something I think I know into new and interesting avenues.  This text does that.