Constructing Multiple Perspectives and Rationality in the Teaching, Learning, and Reading of Literature

This chapter examines the use of multiple perspectives in the teaching, learning, and reading of literature by taking a close look at Ms. Nelson’s 11th-grade English language arts classroom and an instructional unit focused on reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. While Ms. Nelson encouraged her students to develop multiple ways of seeing Things Fall Apart and other literary texts, there are subtleties and complexities in how Ms. Nelson frames multiple ways of seeing that create a dialectical space that redefines multiple ways of seeing. The dialectical space that Ms. Nelson and her students construct involves the juxtaposition of diverse rationalities. While teachers and students could treat multiple perspectives on a surface level, the teaching, learning, and reading of literature linking multiple perspectives with diverse rationalities creates potentials for deeper explorations and understandings of what it means to be human.