A QUESTION FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS - AND OTHERS

Teaching of English Literature: WHAT ARE THE GOALS?

Many years ago i was a secondary school English teacher. Over a number of summers, I took graduate courses on a variety of education topics towards qualifying for the Master of education degree which I obtained in 1969.

One of the studies I undertook was to answer a question that had bothered me for some time.

"Are the official purposes of the teaching of English Literature in sync with the methodology and achievement measures employed by teachers and schools?"

I gathered what was said about the teaching of English Literature in the curriculum guidelines presented by the Ministry of Education of the time, along with various curriculum overviews prepared by secondary schools, along with a number of other official and semi-official publications available at the time in the mid 1960s. This collection, for the purposes of my study was the apparent objective of English Literature instruction in the secondary schools of Ontario at that time:

The following is my best attempt at remembering  the stated official purposes of English Lit.

The purpose of the English Literature program in our secondary schools is to help people achieve the following: developing in students the ability and the desire to appreciate and understand good literature; the development of good taste in literature; to develop in young people the habit of being lifelong readers who remain aware of all aspects of their world.

I interviewed a number of English Lit teachers to determine their instructional strategies and methods.

I also collected English Lit. curriculum descriptions from several schools, along with the English Lit. examinations, tests, and project assignments from teachers.

I also surveyed a large number of students from Grades 11 to 13 asking them to indicate what they felt were the main purposes behind the teaching of English Literature

What I discovered, in brief, was a very strong relationship between what the official Ministry pronouncements were on the purposes behind English Literature and the general statements by the school and the teachers as to their aims in English Lit.

However, there was a very distinct difference between all of that and the student perceptions of the subject's purposes, There was a similar disconnect between the stated purpose and the apparent objectives behind teaching practices and the examination contents.  The students seemed to draw their clues as to the purpose of  English Lit. from their exposure to examinations in the subject, rather than from general course or curriculum descriptions. They knew that their overall achievement was measured by their recall of teacher's valuation of the material studied, rote memory of content, names, arguments contained in the material studied. In other words, their ability to answer questions based on the opinions expressed by, or approved by, the teacher during the course, was the end goal of these courses.

At that time, I discovered a very inciteful two-volume book entitled "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives".

Volume One deals with the Cognitive Domain. Volume Two deals with the Affective Domain.

Published in 1956, this book is still regarded by many educators as the most influential book on the field education of all time. It should be read by teachers, instructors, educators of all types. the volumes are still available after more that 50 years. It helps to clarify what is meant by educational objectives by expressing them in terms of the intended  behavioural outcomes of students.

In this instance, it is helpful for English Literature teachers to re-think their goals and objectives as a basis for their curriculum design and as a means ot re-thinking what goals and objectives they are trying to develop or encourage in their students.

Brock Vodden