Stepping Through the Sliding Glass Door to Connect with Katniss and Auggie: How Literature Spurs Praxis
Less
than two weeks after the Parkland school shooting in Florida, Mashable journalist,
Chris Taylor, wrote,
“For days we've been amazed as the survivors of the
Parkland massacre have repeatedly spoken truth to power…But should we be so
surprised? This is exactly the response we should expect from a generation
brought up on dystopian YA novels in which downtrodden teens rise up.” (Taylor, 2018, p.1.)
His
words suggest kids are relating to literary protagonists (like Katniss Everdeen
from the popular Hunger Games trilogy)
who in turn, inspire them to think critically about established practices and policies
and to act when they perceive real-world situations to be similarly unjust.
It is
precisely the change-provoking impact of students’ emotional connections to
characters in literature that Johnson, Koss, and Martinez (2018) argue in a
recent issue of The Reading Teacher
is not only possible but crucial; when readers experience empathy for
characters in books, they are able to imagine how the characters feel and to
think deeply about how those feelings function as catalysts for influential action.
Johnson et al. (2018) root their argument in the thinking of African American
children’s literature expert, Rudine Sims Bishop, and renowned philosopher and
humanitarian, Paulo Freire. Specifically, Bishop’s (1990) metaphor of
literature as a sliding glass door
through which readers pass into alternate worlds is combined with Freire’s
(1970) concept of praxis, or the
process of continuous critical thinking, action and reflection. Upon this
sturdy theoretical foundation, Johnson and colleagues posit that when readers
are matched with texts through which they are able to establish deep emotional bonds,
they emerge transformed and empowered to act as agents
of change capable of transforming their world.
As evidence of the transformative
power of literature, Johnson and colleagues provided the example of a
fifth-grade boy who relayed to researchers that after reading Palacio’s (2012) Wonder, he made the conscious effort to look a man who was missing an arm directly in the eyes and smile- an encounter
the boy claimed he would have previously avoided. In order to promote the kind
of deep critical thinking about texts that in turn, empowers students to act, Johnson, Koss and Martinez (2018) underscore the importance of knowing
one’s readers and available texts well. Specifically, they recommend educators,
“thoughtfully consider their readers and the characters they meet in the books
placed in their hands” and “ensure that emotional connections become
fodder for classroom discussions and offer opportunities for students to act on
their response” (Johnson et al., 2018, p.576).
In closing, Johnson et al. (2018) offer the hashtag #EmpowerTheReader,
as they encourage us all to nurture students’ transformative potential through literature.
Bishop, R.S.
(1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 6(3), ix-xi.
Freire, P.
(1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.
Johnson, N.
J., Koss, M.D., & Martinez, M. (2018). Through the sliding glass door:
#EmpowerTheReader. The Reading Teacher, 71(5), 569-577.
Palacio,
R.J. (2012). Wonder. New York, NY: Knopf.
Taylor, C.
(2018, February 23). Teens on fire: Of course the 'Hunger Games' generation
knows how to fight the NRA. Retrieved March 06, 2018, from
https://mashable.com/2018/02/23/parkland-hunger-games-dystopia/#nCce2KLBBOqk
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