ABSTRACT
READING TEXTS, READING THE WORLD What exactly are we trying to accomplish when we read literary texts with adolescents? If we think back to the goals that we discussed in Chapter 2, it is clear that we want to do more than simply transmit our literary cultural heritage. We want to help young people understand the social, political, and cultural contexts that shape their lives. We want to help them see that the literary texts we assign them to read are inscribed with issues of power and shaped by ideological influences as they are created and as they are read. Teachers like Harry and Ms. Crosby know that the world of their classrooms, bounded by texts and interpretive conventions, is shaped and influenced by larger forces. In order to teach To Kill A Mockingbird effectively, Harry needs to take into account the context of the changing nature of his community. To make the canon of International Baccalaureate relevant to her twenty-first-century students, Ms. Crosby wants her students to read and resist the ideology of traditional texts through the use of critical theory. In other words, Harry and Ms. Crosby do want to help their students to read and interpret the literary texts, but they also want to help their students read the worlds that are inscribed in those texts.
