When Critical Thinking Met English Literature: A Resource Book for Teachers and Their Students

161 Pages·2009·1.03 MB·English

by  Belinda Hakes

When
Critical
Thinking
met
English
Literature
Morerelatedtitles
CriticalThinkingforASLevel
RoyvandenBrink-Budgen
CriticalThinkingforA2
RoyvandenBrink-Budgen
CriticalThinkingforStudents
Learntheskillsofcriticalassessmentandeffectiveargument
‘Areallyusefulintroductiontodevelopingandimprovingacoreskill.’
–AssociationofCommonwealthUniversitiesBulletin
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‘Thereisalotofgoodsenseinthisbook.’– TimesEducationalSupplement
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When
Critical
Thinking
met
English
Literature
A resource book
for teachers and
their students
BELINDA
HAKES
howtobooks
DEDICATION

This book is for Terry, who gives me the precious gifts of time and space, and
for all our family for their interest and encouragement.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks first go to Roy van den Brink-Budgen, second only to Socrates in
the critical thinking world, and without whom this book would never have
been started. Thanks also to my friend, colleague and partner-in-crime Noel
Stewart, without whose infectious enthusiasm it probably wouldn’t have been
finished. Thanks to Nikki and Giles, for taking the risk, to my editor, Nick
Hutchins, and to the students of Wyke Sixth Form College, for inspiring me
and going along with my weird ideas. Live long, read much and think well!

Published by How To Content,
A division of How To Books Ltd,
Spring Hill House, Spring Hill Road
Begbroke, Oxford OX5 1RX, United Kingdom
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
[email protected]
www.howtobooks.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or stored in an
information retrieval system (other than for purposes of review) without the
express permission of the publisher in writing.

The right of Belinda Hakes to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

© 2008 Belinda Hakes

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.

First published 2008
First published in electronic form 2008

ISBN: 978 1 84803 292 7

Cover design by Baseline Arts Ltd, Oxford
Produced for How To Books by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock
Typeset by specialist publishing services ltd, Montgomery
Contents
Introduction vii
Preface – Critical Thinking and English Literature xi
1 Othello 1
2 Measure for Measure 15
3 MuchAdoAbout Nothing 39
4 Credibility and the First Person Narrator 47
5 Waiting for Godot 65
6 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead 72
7 Critical Thinking and Poetry 77
8 The Resolution of Dilemmas 96
9 Words and Meaning 109
10 Critical Thinking and Other Texts 115
11 Introducing Critical Thinking to an English Literature Class 122
12 Using CriticalThinkingApproaches to (post-16) GCSE English 131
Appendix 140
Index 141
Index of texts 143
v
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Introduction
Critical thinking is often seen as a new subject. But, of course, though the
name might be new, the subject isn’t. Those of us engaged in it are, at best,
dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. In this position, of course, dwarfs
are supposed to be able to see further than the giants. Sometimes, however,
people in critical thinking seem to be looking down rather than towards the
horizon.They need to have their heads lifted. Here is a book that should help
this to happen.
Forme,oneofthegreatestthinkersofalltimewasPeterAbelard.But,ifhe’s
known at all these days, it’s normally only for his love of Heloïse and the
pricehepaidforthatrelationship.However,inhistime,manysawhimasthe
greatest philosopher since Aristotle. He was a brilliant logician, an
outstanding teacher of logic, and was pre-eminent in rhetoric. And this tells
us something. We have come to see the world (though we stand on others’
shoulders)inwaysthatimpoverishourthinking.Weseethestudyofliterature
as having little or even nothing to tell us about the study of critical thinking
(andviceversa).However,forAbelard(seeingveryclearlybystandingonthe
shoulders of Aristotle), an understanding of language lay at the root of all
intellectualendeavour.Hehadlearnedthatthecompositionofproseandverse
(rhetoric) was a necessary step to a deeper understanding of logic. Indeed a
contemporary epitaph describes him as being the bridge of rhetoric to the
mountain of logic. It always strikes me as odd that, in today’s attempts at the
assessment of critical thinking, the term ‘rhetoric’is used by many of those
who write the papers as an example of poor argumentation. The student who
uses ‘mere rhetoric’is castigated for not being a good Critical Thinker.
So how have we come to this? How have we divorced an appreciation of
prose and verse from critical thinking? This could be the subject of another
book but, in the meantime, let us be pleased that we have someone who has
made a contribution to rebuilding the bridge of rhetoric to the mountain of
vii
WHENCRITICALTHINKINGMETENGLISHLITERATURE
logic.Someofyoumightrememberthat,forsometime,Ihavebeenspeaking
ratherdarklyof‘aladyinHull’whohasbeendoingimportantworkinlinking
the teaching of literature and critical thinking. Well, here is that lady.
I have been involved in critical thinking for 21 years and have read a great
dealofmaterialonthesubject.Unfortunately,muchofthestuffthat’swritten
on it these days is remarkable for its lack of passion, its lack of intellectual
excitement, its lack of fun. Using my own criteria of judgement, much of the
stuff that’s written on critical thinking fails to make itself on to my
bookshelves, being relegated instead to a filing cabinet drawer. This book,
however, will sit proudly on one of my shelves, sharing space with the likes
ofAbelard, Darwin, and Voltaire (as well as Donne and Keats).
Thisbookhasmademethinkdifferentlyand,forthat,I’mverygrateful.This
book should make all of us look at literature differently. It should certainly
make us look at critical thinking differently. There’s nothing here of the
passionless, of the unexciting, of the humourless recitals of tedious and
artificial argument. Take for example, Belinda’s examination of Donne’s
poem ‘The Flea’. Her showing this to be a remarkable chat-up approach
through analogy is one that students will want to take apart, will want to
evaluate(and,perhaps,willwanttouse).Thisissomuchbetterthansomany
of the heart-deadening analogies that critical thinking students are given. For
another example, take her examination of ‘The Ancient Mariner’. Here
studentscanlookatissuesofcausationandcorrelationinanewway.Whatis
the significance of the shooting of the albatross? Post hoc becomes central to
the anguish, to notions of right and wrong.
So who is this book for? It’s obviously for English teachers. They will find
that, at one level, there is much here that might be familiar (and Belinda
writes in a way that acknowledges their knowledge and expertise). But they
will see the familiar in unfamiliar ways. They will find reasoning in poems;
they will be intrigued by the finding of assumptions in narrative; they will
find troublesome issues of credibility in all sorts of first-person accounts. For
thoseEnglishteacherswhoalsoteachcriticalthinking,thisisabookthatwill
transform their teaching, showing the richness of the connections they can
make between the two subjects.
viii
INTRODUCTION
Butthebookshouldalsohaveamuchwiderreadership.Forthoseofuswhose
academic background is not English, there might seem to be dangers in
tackling some of the material that’s in here. But critical thinking invites us to
take risks.What does this mean?What is the significance of that? How could
weexplainthis?Whatinferencecanbedrawnfromthat?We’reusedtotaking
such risks with our material, such that a student might well come up with
something we hadn’t thought of before. So, if you teach critical thinking, but
don’t have a background in English, use this book to show you how to risk
looking at literature in your teaching. Use it to add to your skills. Use it to
encourage more cross-curricular links, teaching, and programmes.
As Abelard explained, “spiritual men have made better progress in sacred
doctrinebythestudyofliteraturethanbythemeritsofreligion”.I’msurethat
he would want to update that pronouncement by saying “Critical Thinkers
will make better progress in their thinking by studying literature than by just
looking at what’s published in the majority of critical thinking books.” And
I’m sure that, having read this book, you’ll agree.
Roy van den Brink-Budgen
ix