subobjectivity

Objectivity. I feel that everything we’ve talked about in class has somehow come to the conclusion that this is impossible. It probably is, on a lot of levels, but isn’t it possible that there is some form of objectivity in an interpretation, albeit small or very broad? Or at least we can allow for varying degrees of subjectivity.

For example, let’s take Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s a story about a rich and crotchety old man named Scrooge who has an assistant named Bob Cratchit. Scrooge seems to be a very black-hearted man who hates Christmas while Bob loves the holiday and is a very optimistic man even though he has almost no money and a sick child. That night, the ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s late partner visits the old man and warns him to change his ways. Scrooge is visited by three ghosts that night, those of Christmas Past, Present and Future. After these spirits visit Scrooge, he realizes that he must and will change his stingy ways and becomes very generous and everyone is happy. The end.

Was that an interpretation? If so, could it be construed as an objective one? If it’s not an interpretation, why isn’t it? These are the things I've been wondering each time we discuss subjectivity and objectivity... what do you think?

Dealing with the Ever Expanding Cannon

After our discussions on curriculum and cannon, I cannot help but to think about (as well as critique) the formation of curricula in any school. Should high schools better prepare students to encounter diverse literature? It seems like many, and I do not have an amazing knowledge to base this on, read the "classics" and not much else, i.e. you read a new Shakespeare play each of the four years you are in high school. I know one of my best English classes in high school included Plato, Thucydides, Johnathan Swift, and Thomas DeQuincey. While we did encounter Shakespeare, we read a text which would not seem to be the appropriate play to use--Titus Andronicus. Other English teachers were taken aback by what we read--and I am aware that this may just be the experience of my high school. All this to say, that I actually enjoyed a kind of opening up of the cannon in my very "safe" high school curriculum. Although, I know that at least one of the four mentioned has to be in that acceptable cannon, at the time it was amazing to read them.
All this to say, how can we make the cannon inclusive? What is "enough" to satisfy that inclusion? For the most part, we seemed willing to throw everything into the cannon, I just don't know how can ever cover everything or even do it justice. I can't help but to think including works earlier in the educational system would help greatly. Still, we would get nowhere near to reading everything, but I think it helps to bring in "challenging" works that might be "better-suited" in a college setting into high schools. Enough rambling. What do you think?