Developing Criticality Through Reading Novels

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the SpringerBriefs in Education book series (BRIEFSEDUCAT)

Abstract

This chapter concerns individual students who come from a range of professions including coaching, teaching, environmental work, the police service, dog training, the maritime industry, airlines and charities. I encourage students to explore how their life histories have made an impact on their professional growth. In doing so, I suggest that they resist simplistic answers and instead try to embrace the complexity of their lived experience and question their previous assumptions while narrating their “stories”. I encourage them to use knowledge from a range of academic disciplines in a reflective way: my hypothesis is that reflective thought, properly guided, will foster change in terms of increased academic confidence. Furthermore, motivating students to read literature can help them become better communicators as they reflect on how fictional character—George Babbitt, John Stoner, Travis from Old Yeller—navigate the knotty issues and complex problems of life and work: reading novels is conducive to developing criticality. The students’ own testimony and work appear to suggest that learning and literature complement each other: stories enrich our lives and help us to interpret and understand others.

Keywords

Fictional Character Literary Work Police Service Professional Doctorate Black South African Woman 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Hendon, LondonUK

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