Teaching in a postmodern world: A study of applications of literary theory to teaching of high school English

This dissertation studies ways selected literary theories may be used to expand the possibilities for teaching literature at the high school level. Each chapter begins with a review of the theory or theories being used; includes a series of strategies, lessons, or activities that make use of that theory or theories; and presents examples of how students have made use of those theories in my classes. I use these four postmodern literary theories to help my students move from a mindset that there is only one way to read a text to a mindset that there are many ways a text may be read.;The studies in this project focus on four major areas: (1) The transactional model of reader response, used to focus learning on students and their strengths; (2) Feminist and gender theory, to correct the traditional, androcentric reading of a text and begin the process of requiring students to consider more than just their own perspectives when reading; (3) New Historicism, to further the process of encouraging students to recognize that the cultural, societal, and historical perspectives the reader brings to a text determines the meaning the reader makes of a text. I use New Historicism on a "macro" level to help students see how the meaning of an entire text is determined by the cultural, societal, and historical perspectives of the reader; (4) Translation theory, to examine the indeterminate nature of a text at a "micro" level. With translation theory I focus on the indeterminate nature of words and phrases.;This dissertation draws on the classroom experiences and practice of two levels of high-school students: ninth-grade students who have no plans for college, and Advanced Placement seniors who have been on a college bound "track" during most of their schooling.