Teach Secondary 13.5

READING between the lines Gordon Cairns looks at how emotional literacy can be a useful frame for literary analysis – particularly when wielded by learners more well-versed in it than their elders... T he power of great literature is its ability to maintain relevance long after the source of the author’s inspiration has passed. It’s what enables Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible – which portrays witchcraft-related hysteria as an allegory for the political persecution playing out inmid-20th century America – to still be read today as a primer in Emotional Literacy. Consider the play’s lead character, John Proctor. Steeped in toxic masculinity, he attempts to gaslight Abigail Williams – a younger woman he has groomed in the past. We also see him applying coercive control to his wife Elizabeth, adding salt to the rabbit stew behind her back and then complimenting her on the seasoning. All the while, he applies the power of male privilege to every female character he interacts with. Proctor’s servant, Mary Warren, meanwhile experiences a form of ‘cancel culture’ when she attempts to break free from a core group of girls accusing the villagers of witchcraft. Native speakers Previous GCSE cohorts may have been comfortable using critical terminology to describe Miller’s use of foreshadowing, but they could often struggle with employing the vocabulary of emotions to describe Proctor’s behaviour. This wasn’t limited The Crucible . An essay skilfully analysing Philip Larkin’s use of enjambement in ‘Afternoons’ would be similarly less assured when trying to describe the disillusionment felt by the young mothers in the play park. This wasn’t because English students of the past couldn’t recognise a range of behaviours and emotions, but more because many simply didn’t have the language needed to accurately pin down those behaviours and emotions beyond the broad strokes of ‘depressed’, ‘angry’ or ‘jealous.’ Luckily for English teachers working today, however, we’re blessed with classes of late Generation Z-ers who are native speakers in the new lexicon of Emotional Literacy. By that, I mean they’re well-versed in the lingua franca of emotions that are increasingly becoming better understood by everyone. The terminology is pithy, often compressing otherwise lengthy phrases into – decidedly exam-friendly – single words or expressions that are easily remembered, and can be jotted down quickly when writing against the clock. It’s far easier, for instance, for a student examining Iago’s actions in Othello to describe him as ‘gaslighting Othello’ when he ambiguously exclaims: ‘ Ha! I like not that ’, rather than laboriously explain how Iago is manipulating his general using psychological tools that prompt him into questioning his own powers of reasoning. Encounters with ghosting A key benefit for teachers is that they barely need to teach this new language; they just need to provide the materials, and then let their classes deploy their own vocabulary and go to work. Most members of Generation Z, as well as the younger Millennials that preceded them, have been raised to be emotionally literate, to the point that they can and do freely discuss encounters with ghosting, gaslighting and catfishing across the various online platforms they use. Conversely, some of their teachers – including me – will sometimes need to Google one or more core Emotional Literacy terms. Indeed, it was a student who first alerted me to the possibility of deploying the language and thought processes of Emotional Literacy to the study of literature, rather thanme attempting to impose this new vocabulary upon them. In one of their essays, the student in question described Lennie Small – an impulsively destructive character portrayed in Of Mice andMen – as being ‘unable to self-regulate’ when he accidentally kills his puppy by smacking it too hard. It made me wonder if the student had first heard that phrase used to describe his own behaviour by someone in authority. As important as passing exams or appreciating art is, the opportunity “Encouraging teenagers to transferanalytical skills learned in the literacy laboratory tounderstanding theirownactions can support goodmental health” 32 teachwire.net/secondary