Reading and the Profession: On the Literary Education of English School Teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/adno.5575Keywords:
literary reading, teacher education, metacognition, professional practice, disciplinary thinking, content knowledge, upper secondary schoolAbstract
Abstract
The article addresses the question of how English departments best can teach literature and literary reading to future upper secondary school teachers of English. It approaches the question in terms of the literary scholar’s contribution to the professional education and practice of school teachers in Sweden. The article combines metacognitive analyses of disciplinary ways of thinking with profession theory to reflect on the literary content knowledge upper secondary school teachers need for their teaching practice. It outlines key differences between the understanding of what reading literature entails in academia and in upper secondary education, respectively, and it points out that current academic practices for teaching literature rely on a narrow understanding of what school teachers need to know about literature and literary reading to exercise their professional judgement concerning literature in the language classroom. Advocating a change in our academic teaching practices, the article proposes that literary debates over reading also be incorporated and that the principles and procedures underpinning professional modes of reading literature be explicitly articulated. This means verbalising underlying theoretical assumptions about the value of literature and of reading it and explicating interpretative conventions and tools, alongside the skills involved in literary reading. Such a teaching practice, the article posits, is not merely key to developing school teachers’ content knowledge regarding literature and reading. It is also a prerequisite for the development of their pedagogical reasoning when it comes to the uses of literature and to the affordances and limitations of literary reading in the school classroom.
Keywords: literary reading, teacher education, metacognition, professional practice, disciplinary thinking, content knowledge, upper secondary school
Läsning och professionen:
Om litteraturutbildningen för skollärare i engelska
Sammanfattning
Artikeln tar sig an frågan om hur akademiska engelskämnen bäst kan undervisa litteratur och litteraturläsning för gymnasielärarstudenter i engelska. Den närmar sig frågan i termer av litteraturvetarens bidrag till gymnasielärares professionsutbildning och -utövande i Sverige. Artikeln kombinerar metakognitiva analyser av ämnesspecifika tankesätt med professionsteori för att resonera kring de ämneskunskaper som framtida gymnasielärare behöver för sin lärargärning. Artikeln belyser viktiga skillnader i förståelsen av vad litteraturläsning innebär inom akademin respektive i gymnasieskolan, och den granskar kritiskt förhärskande akademiska praktiker för litteraturstudier inom ämnet. Den påpekar att rådande praktiker bygger på en snäv syn av de ämneskunskaper gymnasielärare behöver och föreslår ett förnyat fokus på ämneskunskaperna som krävs för att gymnasielärare ska kunna utöva sitt professionella omdöme om den engelskspråkiga litteraturens plats i språkundervisningen. Artikeln förordar att akademiska litteraturstudier också inlemmar litteratur-vetenskapliga samtal om litteraturläsning i utbildningen och explicit formulerar de principer och tillvägagångssätt som ligger till grund för professionella sätt att läsa litteratur. Det innebär att verbalisera teoriers underliggande antaganden om litteraturens och litteraturläsningens värde och även ämnesområdets principer och verktyg för texttolkning samt färdigheterna som krävs för litteraturläsning. En sådan undervisningspraktik skulle bidra till en stadigare grund för gymnasielärares ämneskunskaper. Den är också en förutsättning för att lärarstudenter ska utveckla sitt pedagogiska tänkande vad gäller litteraturens och litteraturläsningens möjligheter och begränsningar i gymnasieskolans engelskundervisning.
Nyckelord: litteraturläsning, ämneslärarutbildning, metakognition, professions¬utövning, ämnesspecifika tankesätt, ämneskunskap, gymnasieskola
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