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While the geometric progression of advances in computer technology has resulted in virtual reality games and learning simulations, Internet feats of library access, and world wide web exploration, as well as twenty-four hour electronic mail and other cyber space innovations, English education in the 1990’s still includes a major emphasis on the teaching of literature from books. Even though the current teaching of literature reflects the wide scope of all the literary and pedagogical movements of the twentieth century, and in spite of all the technological advances and disparate theories of literature, one practitioner’s theory of literature education seems to be more widely cited and referred to than any other’s since it was first published in 1938. During the six decades of teaching and learning which have passed since Louise Rosenblatt first published Literature as Exploration, critical theories have risen and crashed, but the preeminence of her theories, particularly since the mid 1960’s, underscores most of the “innovations” in critical theory associated with the dominant teaching approach since then: Reader Response to Literature.
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The Significance of Louise Rosenblatt (via paulallison)
I couldn’t agree more - it seems so simple when she presents it, yet so profound.
