Envisioning Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction (Language & Literacy Series)

Rating:
Summary: envisioning new approaches to literature
Review: This is a book for those who question literature teaching the way it has been done so far, and wish it was different. Langer's "envisionment-building" approach considers text interpretations as constant and never-ending processes, always collectively created and in transformation. The literature classroom is therefore an opportunity to share and re-build our interpretive procedures, to review and recreate our sense-making processes. The literary is seen as a way to produce meanings that is present in the everyday process of understanding, and not only when in contact with literary texts. She suggests classroom procedures and gives examples from her own teaching experience to illustrate her views; her writing-style is clear and straightforward, filled with passion for teaching and literature alike. I strongly recommend this book as one of the very few to describe teaching/learning approaches to literature from a theoretical basis without theoretical boredom.