Literature and Education: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Classroom Practice

Abstract

Most scholars of English literature education experience the research-practice gap as having advanced literary theory and everyday classroom teaching work that is deeply disconnected with one another. This paper explores the myriad and complex reasons for the gap. In the literature, the reasons typically fall into six major categories: institutional factors (limited time, inflexible curriculum, scarce resources), low levels of teacher education and training on the latest theories, resistance (both attitudinal and linguistic) to frameworks labeled as ''jargon-laden,'' New Criticism and humanism/colonialism, the socio-economic context of teacher beliefs and student outcomes, and the of the Furthering Colonization of the Educational System (F.C.E.S) model. In writing about the research and the primary theories on the research-practice gap, along with technology and pedagogy, the author attempts to illustrate the primary factors of the gap and the “schizophrenic split” in teacher identity whereby writing instruction is dominated by process, but in instruction of literature, it is dominated by product, text-centered, and procedural approaches. Reader-Response theory, Sociocultural theory, Critical Literacy with self-reflexivity and root narratives, Dialogic Literary Argumentation (DLA), Theory of Practice Architectures (TPA) reflection tool, Design-Based Research (DBR), and problem-based digital teacher education are frameworks for the transformation of the research-practice gap that the author proposes.