English And American Literature Instruction In The Vision Of Doll’s Postmodern Perspective On Curriculum

This dissertation is a tentative study and discussion made on the basis of the general understanding and analysis of postmodern curricular theories of the famous American postmodern curriculum theorist, Prof. William E. Doll, Jr. and the observation of the actual classroom instruction of English and American literature. Through this discussion, this dissertation aims to provide the possible reference or inspiration for the curricular and instructional reform of English and American literature.Postmodern perspective on curriculum is the Western educational theory that has been paid much attention to in our country in recent years. It embodies the new paradigm and thoughts of curriculum research in education. The appearing of the postmodern educational theories was to solve the problems existing in modern curriculum, which would bring positive effect to the transformation of the traditional perspectives on curriculum and instruction, and help us carry on the educational reforms in our country. There are various postmodern perspectives on curriculum, and this dissertation focuses on the discussion of Doll’s perspective, whose educational theory provides us with new visions and conceptions for our curriculum research.Doll’s perspective is very applicable to the curriculum and instruction of English and American literature. However, Doll’s theory is rich in contents, in my limited writings, only four aspects are included:1. Dynamic and generative instruction;2. Dialogic relationship between students and texts;3. Spirit of reflecting, questioning, and criticizing;4. Evaluation of instruction. The applications of these theories in English and American literature teaching are discussed respectively.This dissertation begins with a brief introduction.Chapter1describes the cultural and philosophical base of postmodern perspectives on curriculum, i.e. postmodernism. This chapter is divided into the three parts:1. Origin and development of postmodernism;2. Common key features of postmodernism;3. Elementary viewpoints of constructive postmodern philosophy.Chapter2analyzes Doll’s postmodern perspective on curriculum. It consists of the three aspects:1. Fusion of much rational thinking;2. New4R criteria for a postmodern curriculum;3. Similarities between Doll’s postmodern perspective on curriculum and the other postmodern perspectives on curriculum.Chapter3discusses the implications and applications of Doll’s postmodern perspective on curriculum in English and American literature, which are mainly based on the four aspects of Doll’s theory mentioned above, in each aspect, a comparative study is made between the traditional teaching mode and Doll’s postmodern perspective on curriculum, and the possible attempts applied in the actual instruction of English and American literature are discussed.The last part of this dissertation is a conclusion.