Constructing Interpretive Schemata
As mentioned in the previous page, after a conceptual introduction to critical lenses and theoretical thinking, my students jumped into critical theory by reading and annotating "Shakespeare's Sister," an excerpt I pulled from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. This lesson, discussing and debriefing "Shakespeare's Sister," was built up to be a pivotal point in the coming unit: the theoretical understandings gained from "Shakespeare's Sister" were to guide our entire study of "The Yellow Wall-Paper." Ultimately, my class exceeded all my expectations in their engagement with their first theoretical text. My (gushing) field notes taken after this lesson read as follows:
Notes (2/18): This was the best lesson of the year so far, I think. I projected a few discussion points for our debrief of SS ["Shakespeare's Sister"], but we wound up not needing them. Students’ key/most powerful passages totally segued into good discussion. I think I did a good job facilitating. Many students had the same key passages, which shows they were really getting it. Afterwards, I asked them to articulate the key ideas or claims Woolf was making. They came up with “Women are often not allowed to express themselves” and “women are often not given the same opportunities as men.” I wrote these on the board and explained that these were key ideas that we can move on from the text with--that can inform our analysis through our feminist lenses. From there I gave a brief historical overview which students found really engaging and interesting. The heavily personal framing of gendered problems by SS followed by showcasing historical injustices really won everybody over. MD warned me about students being potentially resistant to the feminist lens, but even students (boys) who seemed slightly resistant at first were on board by the end, actively participating and asking questions. I was super proud of how this lesson played out!
As I mention in my notes, the key element of our debrief of this text was collaboratively determining our "key ideas or claims" made by Woolf in this essay. After discussing and interpreting key passages, the class determined that the key claims made by Woolf were that "Women are often not allowed to express themselves," and "Women are often not given the same opportunities as men." I had students copy down these claims into their notebook along with the notes they had taken the previous day on key assumptions of the feminist lens. These claims and assumptions proved deeply resonant with "The Yellow Wall-Paper," and moving into "putting on" our feminist lens, the ideas captured in these notes served as an intentionally created interpretive schema--students had isolated themes on which to focus, been given key questions to ask to identify these themes, and derived key assumptions, associations, and ideas to guide their interpretation. We were now ready to begin reading through our feminist lens.
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As discussed in my overview of this unit, a key element of strengthening these interpretive schemata is applying them to a variety of media. This corresponds with the third goal presented in the "A Proposed Solution" section above and is analyzed deeply in this artifact analysis of my use of visual media throughout this unit. For a structured "test run" of feminist interpretation before diving into "The Yellow Wall-Paper," I turned my students loose on "Perilous Stuff," an infamously misogynistic contemporary review of "The Yellow Wall-Paper," which insinuates such hysterical accounts should not be permitted in print:
This document provides valuable historical context for "The Yellow Wall-Paper," showing students a common current in the contemporary criticism of Perkins-Gilman's work. This letter to the editor articulates some of the popular misogynistic sentiment that Perkins-Gilman is reacting to in "The Yellow Wall-Paper." After reading the letter once as a class, the class's indignation at "M.D." was palpable. I sought to channel those feelings in our first attempt at feminist criticism: students were to critique and respond to M.D.'s argument through the feminist lens. This was a fairly complex task: I was asking students to assume a new perspective, pull apart M.D.'s argument, and construct a counter argument using the theoretical ideas we isolated in our work with "Shakespeare's Sister" (see my original blog post for more on this assignment). This is exactly the kind of task I am driving at with my paired text curricula: equipping students to create their own focused interpretation of a text, and develop a counter argument. As an independently completed homework assignment, I got a range of quality in responses. A few students could have used additional structure, but most students really ran with the assignment and gave M.D. a piece of their mind. You can read several complete responses at the bottom of this page, but some highlights included:
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Dear M.D., |
… Honestly, the discovery of these diseases was just a systematic way to keep women in their place. Look at the people diagnosing these women. They were all men that needed to be confident in their superiority… |
Dear M.D.,
Recently you published an article where you stated that “The Yellow Wall-Paper” was “deadly peril.” I believe that it was in fact the complete opposite. The Yellow Wall-Paper served as an emancipator for women who were suppressed and inhibited by male dominators who believed physical and mental exertion led to lunacy. Charlotte Perkins Gilman articulated that her main reasoning for publishing this work was to prove that being antagonistic to the doctors orders ultimately allowed her to recover “some measure of power…”
The above selections from a few of the stronger responses demonstrate how the added focus of a "critical lens" strengthened my students' argumentation. Our reading and discussion of "Shakespeare's Sister" helped to construct an interpretive schema of themes, associations, and values, which allowed students to better see and respond to the M.D.'s argument in "Perilous Stuff." In the responses above, students picked up on and refuted M.D.'s paternalistic tone, connected his argument to broader societal injustices, and even used Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's own words (from her article, "Why I Wrote 'The Yellow Wall-Paper,' which we read together before moving on to "Perilous Stuff") to assert the importance of the story in Perkins-Gilman's reclamation of her voice and agency. Although this was a rather small touchstone assignment, it proved very promising for assessing the level of analysis prompted by our reading through "critical lenses." As we moved on to "The Yellow Wall-Paper" itself, we continued to strengthen this analysis, culminating in analytical essays, the quality of which, I was incredibly pleased with. Click ahead on the button below for analysis of these essays.