Studying Melville's Billy Budd and students' reactions to justice and morality

I teach in “Taylor,” a northeastern suburban community approximately 40 miles southwest of the state capital with a population of 29,500. Its citizens are, on the whole, white, European-American, and upper-middle class. I’m conducting a study with a segment of my classes. The population comprises three rosters, or 66 tracked (Oakes, 2005) English subject area high school senior honors students. In the tradition of qualitative research (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003), I will function as a teacher-researcher, which allows me to collect data that emerges from critical literacy pedagogy.

I am required to incorporate mandated texts into instruction. Tracked classes are different due to number and complexity of text assignments. The study population’s required texts include Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Potek’s The Chosen, Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Albee’s American Dream and The Zoo Story, Shakespeare’s Othello, Zeale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Wilder’s Our Town, and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Ghosts; and, Melville’s Billy Budd. At Taylor High School (THS), tracking appears to be individualistic when it is, according to Oakes (2005), founded on an “intergenerational transfer of social, economic, and political status” (p. 248).

Because tracking academic ability-based but, rather, linked to family privilege, traditional whole-class instruction at THS does not meet the needs of all learners. Alternative approaches are necessary. Instruction that requires metacognitive awareness, social justice responsiveness, questioning through critical lenses, and dialogic interactions invites new meanings to the study population. Known as critical literacy, this praxis extends beyond decoding print texts and creates literate consumers who approach and discuss various meanings of the text with others. Keene and Zimmermann (1997) state literacy and life learning require that we as readers “reorganize and create our own explanations for what we are learning, our own definitions of our lives at any particular juncture” (p. 183). Critical literacy praxis grounded within postmodern theory allows a variety of learners to decode and encode an archaic text like Melville’s Billy Budd.

Set in the late eighteenth century aboard an English warship, the novella focuses on a young, handsome, and innocent sailor who, eventually, is executed. As the final text of Melville’s life, Billy Budd has aroused much interest on the author’s views on justice, morality, and religion. Readings of Billy Budd often describe an allegory of good versus evil; an examination of nature and innocence; or, analysis of Christianity in opposition to an emerging industrialized society. A non-traditional reading of Billy Budd, however, can offer insights into why leaders fail to choose justice in times of crisis.

In the novella, Captain Vere presides over a court martial. He interprets maritime rule of law in the most severe manner possible and condemns Billy to hang. In doing so, Vere deliberately distorts applicable substantive and procedural law. Billy Budd is relevant to today’s society. During times of crisis, leaders make sacrifices in the name of security, ones that future generations often question. After September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration curtailed civil liberties in many ways. Similarly, Herman Melville's Billy Budd chronicles sacrifice in the name of security and is fodder for contemporary thought about rebellion, patriotism, loyalty, camaraderie, and modern definitions of morality.

Aims, objectives, or rationale of the project
I am interested how students respond to explicit socio-cultural instruction during a curriculum-mandated study of Melville’s Billy Budd. High school students in 2007-2008 have a unique opportunity to reflect on the times in which they live. Heightened security measures, pervasive media stories of terrorism, and a looming Presidential election present many prospects to critique American society and culture.

This study will analyze students’ discourses in a final research poster presentation in which they incorporate textual and academic sources to critically analyze Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. Fairclough (2003) argues that texts are elements of social events and “bring about changes” (p. 8). Will students recapitulate and create arguments through literary and historical lenses? Or will they create personal meanings and draw linkages to today’s world through socio-cultural constructs?

Results achieved or progress done work in this previously
Preliminary pilot data foreshadow three themes that are consistent with literature on critical literacy classrooms. Each theme accounts for a degree to which students exhibit anxiety or flow in academic performance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). While the following occurrences have led to my current research questions, my study will, in all likelihood, reveal additional themes or replace the ones I have observed so far.

“Welcome to my world” group: First, a group of students acquires the ability to identify and evaluate assumptions embedded in text messages. They thrive in an academic climate where literacies of power (Macedo, 2006) are deconstructed. Their real, literate lives are finally celebrated in an academic forum.

“Academic standing is all” group: Second, a group of students acquiesces to what one student, Jerrie, called my “political” approach to instruction. They comply so as to maintain Grade Point Average (GPA) and class rank. This group is or is not influenced to make personal meaning through critical literacy praxis.

“I’ve got the power” group: Third, a group of students rebels against critical literacy praxis. This group embraces the dominant codes of society that has enculturated them. Perhaps this group possesses family values that conflict with Marxist ideology (Chandler, 2002). Or, because critical literacy praxis requires students to demonstrate new and higher levels of thinkings, this group experiences and expresses angst.

Procedures to be followed
1. Receive Human Subjects in Research approval
2. Collect Student Release and Student Assent Forms
3. Create sequential and scaffolding instruction
a. Background for reading: Social, cultural, historical, literary
b. Allusions in text, research and collaboration
c. Syntax versus semantics explicit instruction
d. Study guide questions for class discussions
e. Six academic, peer-reviewed journal articles
f. Socratic Seminar
g. Research poster presentations
4. Conduct qualitative research
a. Teacher journal
b. Audio recordings
c. Artifact analysis
5. Analyse data and draw conclusions

Most teachers do not conduct research as means for advancing educational reform.
Teachers typically approach Melville’s Billy Budd through a New Criticism approach in which close reading and attention to texts are sole means to garner implicit author messages. Teachers who adhere to a New Criticism approach reject criticism based on extra-textual sources. Vocabulary instruction, narrative identifications, quizzes on names/ dates/ places, five paragraph essays, and author research are the norm.

My research study regarding Melville’s Billy Budd is not merely a comment on traditional instruction. It is a rejection of cultural transmission approach to pedagogy (Hirsch, 1987). I contend that an ethnocentric presentation of Western civilization creates an Us versus Them binary in which European-Americans students feel superior and non-European Americans feel inferior. More importantly, though, as Linn (1996) argues, “the Great White Story” also means “misogyny and slavery.” He states that postmodern theory informs us “it is also related to who has the money and power” (p. 136).

As I remind students that Billy Budd was one of thousands of impressed sailors, I also relate stories about how today many inner city students, no matter how hard working and intellectually talented, fight impoverishment, racial stereotyping, and fewer opportunities for dominant majority successes. I broaden out to connect “prejudice, race, gender, the media’s presentation of the Other, color symbolism” (Linn, 1996, p. 137), their own discourses, definitions of physical appearance, and dominant societal structures to Melville’s text. Responding to contextual relationships among levels of texts (Fiske, 1987) is constant.

Value of the project
A great deal is known about how students develop decoding and encoding skills. Literacy progress is indicated in most classrooms by drill sheets, workbook pages, skills instruction, teacher-directed questioning, and ability group discussions (Keene & Zimmermann, 1997; Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1994; Turner, Parkes, & Meyer, 1996). Most instruction focuses on low-level facts and skills; stresses an ability to follow rules and procedures; emphasizes discipline; and, shares information through seat-work (Oakes, 2005).

In contrast, little is known about how students aged seventeen and eighteen react to critical literacy praxis within postmodern theory or how student-created messages reflect dominant ideologies. As Spiro, et al (1994) note, a dearth of research indicates how students move “from retrieval of intact, rigid, precompiled knowledge structures to assembly of knowledge from different conceptual and precedent case sources” (p. 611).

This project is of great value for a variety of reasons. First, it will offer new information of significance to students, educational policy, and reform. Second, the study will become one chapter of my dissertation. Third, acknowledgment of my teacher-research by the University Graduate Research Grant Committee may foster respect, additional materials, and opportunities for increased awareness from THS administration and faculty. Fourth, and most importantly, students will be awakened to their “white privilege” (McIntosh, 1997) and to their capability as agents of social change in the global community.

Resources

Bogdan, & Biklen. (2003). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theories and methods. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Chandler. (2002). Semiotics: The basics. New York: Routledge.
Csikszentmihalyi. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Fairclough. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. New York, NY: Routledge.
Fiske. (1987). Television culture. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hirsch. (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. New York, NY.
Keene, & Zimmermann. (1997). Mosaic of thought: Teaching comprehension in a reader's workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Linn. (1996). A teacher's introduction to postmodernism. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Macedo. (2006). Literacies of power. Boulder, CO: Perseus Books.
McIntosh. (1997). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In Beyond heroes and holidays: A practical guide for K-12 anti-racist, multicultural education and staff (pp. 77 - 80). Washington, D.C.: Teaching for Change.
Oakes. (2005). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson. (1994). Cognitive flexibility theory: Advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. In R. Ruddell, M. Ruddell & H. Singer (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Turner, Parkes, & Meyer. (1996). The role of optimal challenge in students' literacy engagement. Reading Research Quarterly, 126-135.