| This dissertation pairs specific critical pedagogy strategies with cultural theory to create an engaging, reflective, and invigorating teaching and learning environment. (The dissertation is a plan to be implemented; therefore, it does not include student data.) Using Fences by August Wilson, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Silent Partner by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and such theorists as Michel Foucault, Dick Hebdige, Susan Bordo, Pierre Boudieu, Michel de Certeau, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton, Raymond Williams, Paulo Freire, and Gerald Graff, I have outlined a course narrative that will raise students' awareness of cultural ideologies through what people wear, how they define work, if and how they experience leisure, and where they live.;Through the exploration of the four primary texts, and theoretical sources contributed by me and the students, fashion is exposed as a "signifier" rather than just a "series of distinct cultural expressions" that give a clear and precise reading of history. The blurred boundaries between work and leisure are examined in chapters three and four, specifically exploring the idea of how work and leisure are defined and as a result, who is allowed leisure. Chapter five explores the relationship between culture and home by analyzing who helps make and reinforce the definition of home.;This dissertation will present an opportunity for teachers and learners to consider introductory literature classes as a place where learning can become "relevant, critical, and transformative" and teaching can be as Henry Giroux stated a "language of possibility." Using cultural and pedagogical theory as a backdrop, this dissertation will demonstrate that literature can be taught in such a manner as to not only excite the teacher and thereby enrich the learning environment, but also engage the students to reflect on their own lives and culture so that they can make a difference in the world in which they live. |
