Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Literature: Investigating the Intersection of Consciousness-Raising Method and Reader-Response Theory in Teaching Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea

Abstract

This dissertation undertakes an interdisciplinary approach that aims at investigating the importance of implementing consciousness-raising method (CRA) in literature classes, as well as their significance in teaching literary criticism since this study will employ Reader Response theory (RRT) as a bridge that brings together two dissimilar fields, literature and linguistics. The current research, henceforth, argues that consciousness-raising activities and reader-response theory do share some common affinities which make it possible for this study to examine their intersection in reading Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Old Man and the Sea 1951, through the lens of an interdisciplinary perspective. Accordingly, an experiment will be carried out to reveal the considerable act of merging CRA and RRT for teachers of literature, as the current research attempts to demonstrate, in involving their students in a critical engagement with and interpretation of literary texts through two different levels, linguistic and literary. The students’ engagement is, therefore, assumed to be manifested in increasing their awareness of, and arousing their critical and creative responses towards different literary texts.