Examining Canonicity as an Implicit and Discursive Frame in Secondary English Classrooms

• In Event: 56.080 - Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 56.080-11 - Teacher Knowledge and Pedagogy in the Literacy Classroom

Abstract

The idea of the literary canon has occupied the field of English Education, where it is debated and critiqued as a list of books (or as an ideological force linked to a list of books) that is, ought, and/or ought not to be read and engaged in the classroom. Using a critical qualitative approach, this project rethinks or disrupts that notion, conceiving instead of the of canonicity, a larger concept that both endorses the canon as a list but also does much more to entrench the ideology inherent in such a list through pedagogical encounters. This project illustrates that the ways one teacher acts, thinks, and speaks about and around canonical texts are imbued with one ideology in particular: religiosity.

Author

• Michael Macaluso, University of Notre Dame