Sans Walls

In my last two posts I have been harking on my belief in the cultural impact of literature as something I hold in high esteem, then came Bruffee.  I had no idea that what I had thought up was so close to his theory of classes without walls.  He concentrates on the ability to bring in mew voices into the classroom through tutors, studies of culture, and society.  In this way the classroom walls are dissolved through the tutors and voices.  This is an interesting concept, but still not exactly what I was meaning by emphasizing the cultural/social/historical in literature.
I was thinking that this approach would allow for literature to achieve a broader reach and show its impact in a global sense.  The reason behind my doing this was to make it more relate-able to the students.  Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll is an approach I like to take while referencing culture, society, and history to situate the literature while at the same time showing its context to better illuminate its content.  Bruffee was an interesting read because it showed me a new side of the idea that would allow me to better defend my approach to teaching literature.  Bringing in history, science, sociology, and other disciplines I am not only making it more relate-able but now I am breaking down the walls of the classroom (partially) as the scholar Bruffee suggest with the "conversation of mankind".  I feel smarter already.
Another reason that I felt myself aligning with was putting audience in the forefront, because it is true-you can't write for an audience if you don't know the audience.  Bringing in other elements which allow different scope with which the students to look at the literature will also allow them to situate it within the time that it was written, thus better knowing the audience for which it was originally written.  Even if the audience cannot be without question pointed to, it still starts a conversation within the students minds.  If these types of sparks can be ignited, then when talking through the required paper it is easier as an instructor to make a link between the importance of audience in their own writing since they have seen the importance of audience in what they have read for the class.  This may just be because of my minor in history or the fact that I started grad school doing both English and History, but when teachers were able to connect these dots it always made the discussion more interesting to me when I was/am in class.