Joy Li, Period 1, 10/4/2023

Joy Li

Period 1

Blog #1

Literacy & Learning

Write about your thoughts/feelings regarding any of the fiction or nonfiction covered in class.

For the past two days in class, my fellow classmates have been presenting the second part of our Fairy Tale Stained Glass project. For this presentation, we were instructed to take any piece of any text in literature or even movies/shows and look at it through the critical theory lens of our choice. When I was first introduced to critical theory in this class, I was confused since I have never heard the term before. Learning the different types of critical theories and trying to understand them was more challenging than I thought. Although some lenses are pretty self-explanatory and easy to use on a piece of literature, other lenses like ‘Deconstruction’ or ‘Post-modernism’ were confusing to me. Even during the presentations, my understanding of critical theory lens was still rocky. However, as more people went up and present their texts/movies and what lens they use, I found myself understanding these lenses better, especially since they have used familiar texts/movies that I’ve read/watched before, such as: “The Great Gatsby,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Shrek 2.” 

Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

One thing I learned from these presentations was how open to interpretation most books are. When I read “The Great Gatsby” or watched the movie “Shrek 2” I didn’t focus on some Marxist critical lens theory, instead I look at them the same way most people would, not thinking about the different possible lens in the text or how to switch it up, and just finding it entertaining. This new project influences my critical perception in a way that when I think about any books I read when I was younger, I remember the critical theory lenses and start to reimagine the text or insert that lens into the text, completely changing my view and original thoughts of this particular topic to fit in the new lens I’m thinking of.  

How is what you're learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

When I thought about using lenses to look at something differently, I thought about Forensics Science. In that class, we’re currently learning about eyewitnesses and how accurate or inaccurate they are for crimes. Yesterday, we watched an experiment where some people witnessed a staged murder and were told to describe what happened to an interrogator. Their recollection of the scene varied between each person, with some saying there was fist fighting while others said there was no type of physical fight. I thought about how people might remember things differently because they could observe the scene differently. Some would be focused on this small detail, like glass shattering, and others would be focused on what kind of altercation happened and who was part of it. This made me think about how we also observe pieces of literary text differently from each other and can apply all sorts of critical theory lenses to one text.