Elizabeth Fleyshmakher, Period 6, 09/26/23

     When we were first tasked with reading an excerpt from "Recurrent Ideas in Critical Theory"                it felt like my brain turned to mush. It took me a couple of read throughs to make some sense of the mumbo jumbo in front of me. The "Types of Literary Theory (Criticism)" simplified the concepts discussed and gave me a more comprehensive view of the topic. For me English has always been structured, broken down into key elements to be identified and analyzed to get the big picture. Since elementary school the "correct" way to read and write a text has been drilled into our heads. In second grade I was forced to transfer from private to public school midway through the year. I remember it was a rough adjustment transitioning to the Common Core State Standards English curriculum. I was punished with bad marks for failing to apply the strategies outlined in these benchmarks. Even though the idea of creating one set of challenging academic expectations for everyone sounds great in theory, I believe  it isn't realistic. First of all, who gets to decide which way is the right way to think? Why is New Criticism superior to all these other perspectives?  The goal of Common Core is stated to "help students graduate with the skills they need to succeed in college and in the workforce". In my opinion, although this approach is initially effective, yielding the highest results on State Assessments, it ultimately falls through once a student progresses past a certain point. You need more than the basic ability to lay out the plot structure, conflict, symbols etc to examine a piece of work thoroughly. Encouraging the fragmentation of the learning process limits a student's full potential. So much emphasis is placed on acing exams that we are blind to the complexity of literature. Studying text through one critical theory makes it boring and repetitive. 

All in all, the fact that there are a multitude of schools of theory is a foreign and exciting                  concept for people like me. These past couple of lessons have painted the childhood stories I've heard thousands of times over in a new light. I've realized how fluid and unstable literature is. How the way literature is perceived is dependent on the context in which it was created. How in some cases circumstances may make a book "one of the greats" while in others it'll be lost to time. How the relationship between a book and each reader is entirely unique. The study of the psych goes hand in hand with the study of literature. Our experiences, relationships, genetics, environment, behaviors etc all play a role in the type of literature we may enjoy versus dislike. What genres are fitted to our tastes. What characters we identify with. Additionally, a parallel between critical theory and psychology exists in the room for interpretation in both. There is no one definite way to define the brain rather, a whole slew of theories constructed to best understand it. Ultimately, I'm excited to delve further into critical theory and implement it in the future. 

Works Cited:

-Armstrong, Thomas. “12 Reasons Common Core Falls Short | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.” Institute4learning.com, 22 July 2018, www.institute4learning.com/2018/04/26/12-reasons-the-common-core-is-bad-for-americas-schools/.

‌-Lee, Andrew. “Common Core State Standards.” Www.understood.org, www.understood.org/en/articles/common-core-state-standards-what-you-need-to-know.

-“Types of Literary Theory (Criticism).” Google Docs, docs.google.com/document/d/1rCcdJtiuQV2pJnVdaUTOa29Ntox3ibd4FTeR3Q0KCkY/edit#heading=h.9h6d9iwik21i. Accessed 26 Sept. 2023.

- Lesson 5 - Aim: How Can We Learn How to Read Different Texts through the Perspectives of Various Critical Theories? docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WBHmT4Nd0WEUzqWS5-_kdqoYRUpEyScaWQGoYa7kxFk/edit#slide=id.g983f194107_0_0. Accessed 26 Sept. 2023.

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