ilrlo

I’ll be blunt: I don’t feel comfortable teaching deconstruction. I’m not sure that I even understand it fully, though Appleman’s chapter helps a bit. If I’m understanding correctly, deconstruction means that the reader takes the text apart to find what is wrong with how it was originally put together by the writer. The reader looks for contradictions in meaning. I believe that my students, especially certain students who take the role of being disillusioned with the world, would love to put this lens on. However, the problem that I foresee is that this lens would stick to their eyes like month-old contacts, and my students would never want to take them out. I can already see a picture in my head of students asking why we should even read or write any more because there is no valuable meaning. There is meaning to be found in reading and writing even in just the acts of doing so as well as in the actual text. While I try to convey this meaning, help students to discover this for themselves, and welcome the question, “What is the point of doing this?” I am afraid that teaching deconstruction would shut down this learning.

However, many students will learn to look at contradictions in a work on their own. In my experience, students enjoy being cynical. They are introduced to so many contradictory images and statements in the media that many students approach statements in class and in literature with a doubtful air. So, would it be better to teach deconstruction than to let students wade through this theory on their own, not even knowing that what they are doing is using a specific theory of analysis? Perhaps… But how can I teach deconstruction in a constructive way?