Collaborative Spaces and Education
Early Modern Studies, Pedagogical Theory and Computer-Instruction
When reading, students tend to examine texts from a distance...they often see
texts as objective materials having no relationship to themselves. Their reading
and understanding of the text are directly informed by the distance they
maintain.
To have a student do a close reading of a text, if you have the
problems I have encountered, requires a level of connection it seems they are
reluctant to have. They are disinclined to engage a text at the level necessary
to gain cultural and social immersion that would make texts relevant to
themselves.
Why students are hesitant to examine texts at that level is still
beyond me..suffice to say, the comfort distance that students want to maintain
from the words on a page complicates, as an instructor, my requirements of
critical analysis in literary studies. As a result, I have had to find some
method to transform the students' relationships with these texts.
Daniel Anderson
Joi Lynne Chevalier
2/26/97