Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading.
Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts, unsettles the reader’s historical cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his [sic] tastes, values, memories, brings to a crisis his [sic] relation with language.
Roland Barthes
This quote by Roland Barthes, reflects the relationship a reader develops with literacy and the feelings generated by that relationship. After reading the quote several times, it seems to me that Barthes is trying to distinguish the level of comfort a reader feels when engaged with literacy practices. A text of pleasure is the kind of literature we choose to read, write, or communicate because it is familiar and when consumed it fulfills a desire or need from within thus creating a sense of contentment. These are the texts that meet our cultural history and personal identities. A text of bliss, on the other hand, refers to text that is foreign and creates uneasiness to the reader or writer. These forms of literacy are difficult to comprehend and make connections because they do not mirror the participant’s cultural discourse. As an educator, these different relationships or reactions to text a reader creates are important as our students develop language skills that will shape their future attitudes towards literacy in the classroom.
As I read the various assigned articles concerning gender, race, and class. as well as the chapters from Reading Lives about Laurie and Jake, the relationships that were made between reader and text became more outward when thinking about this quote. The study and research of Elizabeth Noll involving two Native American students clearly illustrates the relationship Daniel and Zonnie experienced with the literature they engaged in both at home and at school. Their cultural history of Native American life included music, dance, and art to express and convey meaning. Daniel’s texts of pleasure included stories about Native American heroes and life including, the local paper, Indian Country Today, and horror stories. When engaged with these forms of literacy, he felt pleasure as they met his cultural history and the identity that he valued most. The content of these forms of language gave Daniel the feeling of belonging that the racial discrimination he encountered at school did not. The information in text found at school concerned “White man stuff” which was inconsistent to his taste and values. These would be considered texts of bliss and because of his discontent and lack of participation, earned him low grades. When Zonnie wrote letters to her father in prison and poetry to express her feelings, she engaged in texts of pleasure. Connecting with her father and expressing herself in poetry and music, Zonnie felt connected and joyful. The words flowed easily and became an important part of her identity at home as well as school. When given writing assignments in school, she felt disconnected when trying to make up stories that had no personal meaning. She had already learned that writing should be purposeful to be gratifying. When engaged with text, Daniel and Zonnie struggled to construct personal understanding of their identities through literacy practices, while some brought pleasure and others brought resentment.
The article written by Annette Henry, outlines her research with adolescent Caribbean girls finding “their voice” or identity through literacy activities. By providing students with issues relevant to their own lives, these girls were able to think, reflect, understand, and even extend the text through writing to their own personal experiences. The students showed passion when asserting their voice about current events that connected to their own cultural discourse. When two of the girls wrote a play about their home discourse, they found the text pleasing and meaningful because it was about their cultural history; females cooking a dish from their home country. These afterschool literacy experiences, unlike those in class, would be considered texts of pleasure because they integrated the participants’ cultural identity to the experience. The results of this study of students who rarely see themselves reflected in the curriculum, confirms that when text is irrelevant to a reader or writer, it is difficult to accomplish and creates a disengaged student who loses interest in the task.
This was also apparent when learning about Jake’s literacy experiences in first grade as described by Deborah Hicks in Reading Lives. Unlike his center structured kindergarten writing and storytelling, his choice and expressiveness was confined to what his first grade teacher deemed relevant to the curriculum. His personal identity was not recognized and the shift between his home discourse and school became difficult. We learned a student’s home discourse will prevail in this conflict because that is where the identity is strongest and most influenced.
When I read the various postings of our class blog, I found the critiques and comments insightful and meaningful because we connected with our own experiences as educators and early learners to understand these new ideas of race, culture, gender, and class in literacy. Although I have often thought about how race and culture affects a student’s literacy history, I had not considered how class can emotionally impact these experiences. The relationships with text can be positive or negative, depending on the text and the reader or writer. I plan to create more positive experiences with texts of pleasure by getting to know my students and integrating their other discourses into the classroom where identity and voice can be nurtured.
Michelle Carlson