Appleman Chapter 8

Appleman Chapter Eight
Critical Encounters: Reading the World

I absolutely adore the idea of literary stations. I think that it would be a fun interactive way of utilizing literary theory and would also provide students to work together and an outlet for some who have a hard time sitting. I think that the worksheet (appendix 6) provided is a great guideline to follow. “Critical encounters with theory help students and teachers re-evaluate what counts as knowing in the literature classroom…. First, literary theory has implications for how people read. Secondly, literary theory has implications for what is read. Thirdly, literary theory simulates the production of ideas and discourages reductive thinking” (138-139). I think that this is true and valid especially after reading the three texts we had for this course. This book does provide tools to become more familiar with contemporary literary theory, and also emphasizes the value of multiple perspectives by different readings. Appleman uses journals as a tool to see how the students respond to different activities. This is a very insightful way to see how effective the teaching process went.


This final chapter was able to pull everything together in a conducive manner to fully understand what Appleman is purposing. I think this book is extremely resourceful and I will definitely be keeping it around. I like the activities in the appendix as well.