Re: Monologic textbooks

Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Sat, 10 Feb 96 18:10:02 EST

Thanks Jacque, but that example would probably not go far enough
to satisfy my criteria. Monologic text strategies are not really
the simple domination of one point of view, and can certainly
include a kind of liberal pluralist 'let's hear everybody's ideas'
frame. To break a monologic frame requires that the existence
of the frame be made visible by some voice that explicitly
(or in literature, more elegantly) or implicitly challenges
the framing assumptions themselves. How about a question at the
end of the chapter that asks: What are the historical and political
biases of the authors of this book and the questions we posed
at the end of this chapter? How is your viewpoint different from
ours? what questions would you pose about [Great Book text]?
Why do you think we included [...] among the Great Books? would
you include it? why? --- and that's just a beginning.

I have actually used one book in my teaching that fairly predictably
(though not always) leads to some sort of revolution about the
power relationships in my own classroom, or at least a real
questioning of the frames of education, and that is Freire's
_Pedagogy of the Oppressed_. It doesn't even need questions at
the end of the chapter. :) JAY.

JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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