Week 8 - Webb Ch. 7

Chapter Seven - Testimonial, Autoethnography, and the Future of English

"Poststructuralism begins with the assertion that "consciousness" as we experience it resides in language and that language is always a social phenomenon, created by an interactive community of speakers. (Webb 135)"

"Deconstruction asks us to look carefully into what is already there, ans, as well, to see behind, around, above, below and so on. If the poststructuralist insight is correct that our consciousness is determined by language and social discourses, then deconstruction means the English classroom, rather than being separated form the "real world," is a place where meaning and change take place as we examine, rethink, ands play with the texts and roles set up for us. (Webb 139)" This quote helps me understand deconstruction better. I had a hard time coming to a solid understanding of it from Appleman's book.

"A postmodern approach to teaching would freely examine the kaleidoscopic variety of contemporary life...Postmodern teaching would invite different voices; it would find the historical in the contemporary, and the contemporary in the historical. (Webb 143)"

"Like poststructuralists, traditional Marxists believe that they way people think and believe, their "ideology," is not something they freely choose. For Marxists, ideology is most basically the result of the economic structure of society, and changes in forms of thought derive from changes in fundamental and underlying economic realities. (Webb 150)"

There was a lot of theory discussion within this chapter. I felt like it was thrown at me, and I have a hard time working with texts like that. I still don't fully understand postmodern and Marxist theories. I think I may have to research them further. I really feel that by the end of the chapter I had been so overloaded with theory that I just wanted to be done with the chapter, which is unfortunate because it is the last chapter I have to read in Webb's book.

I think this chapter should have been broken up into smaller more digestible theory sections.