Surrealist Critical Play: Implementing Surrealist Philosophy in Secondary English Language Arts
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis explores possibilities for fostering critical engagement within English Language Arts (ELA) education, using influences from the Surrealism movement. My work was inspired by observations from my personal practice as a Secondary ELA teacher. While the Quebec Education Program (QEP) for ELA highlights the development and articulation of multiple perspectives, the document also implies “correct” ways of reading. It is possible that this implied emphasis on correct answers leads to disengaged learners. Conversely, Surrealism involves pursuing unhindered thought, by critiquing reality and the status quo. Surrealist philosophy, within ELA, invites students to question their conditioned positions as readers of text and the world. I argue that such a stance increases engagement and relevance. Critical Pedagogy is a philosophy of education that borrows from critical theory and attempts to awaken a critical consciousness in students. Critical Pedagogy questions the effects of status quo educational systems that promote select forms of knowledge (Giroux, 1988). Neoliberalism is a philosophy based on individualized economic potential (Harvey, 2007). Critical Pedagogy thus critiques Neoliberalism’s effects on education, while Surrealism problematizes politically-controlled artistic viewership; thus, the former provides theoretical glue in connecting Surrealism and ELA. Through qualitative research, I draw upon narrative inquiry, as well as self-study and memory work. During a sixth-month period observational study of my “problematized” ELA class, I introduced Surrealist philosophy to the existing curriculum, using critical dialogue to interrogate norms. Jot notes, personal interviews with students, and a self-study using personal photographs comprised my data strands. I present these strands in a narrative account, which aims to represent a multidimensional, shared experience of teaching, learning and experimenting with ELA. My research holds value in addressing gaps between the theory and practice of educational programs such as the QEP. With transferability and societal preparation being goals of the QEP, my Surrealist-inspired focus on norms and human-centered themes could illuminate societal relevance in students’ classroom learning. This study also offers significant contributions to the domains of teacher self-study and professional development. Ultimately, this work aims to reconceptualize the ELA classroom as a democratized laboratory for critical experimentation and the development of expressive skills, as well as a societal microcosm for the world outside the classroom
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.014 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.019 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.015 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".