This activity is very useful in a classroom because it takes something as simple as an orange and approaches it with many different views.
For example:
Gender Theory asks: What possibilities are available to a woman who east this orange? to a man?
It also looks critically at formalism, social class theory, postcolonialism, reader response theory, structuralism, and deconstruction. This is a very simple activity but it gets students talking and contrasting all the ideas in an easy way. It also has specific questions so that students have the opportunity to discuss in detail each approach or critical lens.
This would be useful when the class just finishes going over all the theories and if they are thinking, "Can I use all these approaches on just one text?" Their question will be answered by the orange. It is very important that once you give students a theory you let them use it themselves. The more that hey use a theory the more confident they will be.
When I first began using theories, I was not confident using them within papers because I wasn't always sure I was using them correctly. Something as simple as an orange definitely would have opened me up because it isn't as serious of a topic. Also, everyone knows what an orange is and facts about an orange and therefore it levels the playing field.
This activity also is easy to use in other scenarios and all ages. It can be adjusted accordingly and as a teacher, it is always useful to have many possibilities.
For example:
Gender Theory asks: What possibilities are available to a woman who east this orange? to a man?
It also looks critically at formalism, social class theory, postcolonialism, reader response theory, structuralism, and deconstruction. This is a very simple activity but it gets students talking and contrasting all the ideas in an easy way. It also has specific questions so that students have the opportunity to discuss in detail each approach or critical lens.
This would be useful when the class just finishes going over all the theories and if they are thinking, "Can I use all these approaches on just one text?" Their question will be answered by the orange. It is very important that once you give students a theory you let them use it themselves. The more that hey use a theory the more confident they will be.
When I first began using theories, I was not confident using them within papers because I wasn't always sure I was using them correctly. Something as simple as an orange definitely would have opened me up because it isn't as serious of a topic. Also, everyone knows what an orange is and facts about an orange and therefore it levels the playing field.
This activity also is easy to use in other scenarios and all ages. It can be adjusted accordingly and as a teacher, it is always useful to have many possibilities.