When I read Sheridan Blau's essay "Performative Literacy: The Habits of Mind of Highly Literate Readers," I noticed that the words Blau uses to describe the critical literacy required of today's students carry explicit and implicit ethical meanings. For instance, critical literacy "requires students to become active, responsible, and responsive readers." Moreover, the capacities, required and cultivated for "performative literacy," which he identifies as "an enabling knowledge," include habits that are not merely cognitive but ethical as well: the willingness to suspend closure, the willingness to "respond honestly," "intellectual courage," "tolerance for failure," "tolerance for ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty," "intellectual generosity and fallibility." The teacher, in turn, is asked to "foster in students ... respect and capacity for tentativeness...."
I don't have a problem with this, but I think it's interesting.
Is it true, or at least inevitable, that our "theories" of what works in the classroom are bound up with ethical values? Gee would say, "yes," I think.
I'd like to ask Blau about the implied ethics of his views on literary literacy instruction tomorrow.
I wonder too what Blau means by "tentativeness." The ethics of practices he encourages makes some sense, especially in response to other practices where expert readers, or even political leaders, claim the right to know what a text says, often obscuring the process that led to the claims (of course, they might not view their roles as leading others to see interpret). I think Blau is suggesting that in nurturing ethical and responsible ways of interpreting texts, teachers must recognize the challenging tasks of reflecting similar values and practices when approaching students with class discussion.
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