ERIC Identifier: ED394147
Publication Date: 1996-00-00
Author: Stewart, Richard D.
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on
Reading English and Communication Bloomington IN.
Using Mythic-Archetypal Approaches in the Language Arts. ERIC
Digest.
This Digest will consider approaches to language arts teaching that are based
on "mythic" or "archetypal" ways of experiencing and knowing. Such approaches
address students' inner lives more directly than do the usual instructional
methods such as whole language or student-centered instruction, and thus can
help to promote feelings-sharing, intuition, and imagery production in the
classroom. For example, in attempting to balance the decades-old emphasis on
mental skills and rote learning in language education, many teachers and
researchers are starting to address the intuitive, holistic or "right-brain"
functions of students (King, 1990; Roberts, 1989).
MYTHS, IMAGERY, AND SYMBOLS
Carl Jung (1966) called the
images that we see after waking from a dream "archetypal." He also coined the
term "collective unconscious" for the level of awareness from which this imagery
springs, because he felt it was common to all human beings. According to Jung,
the archetypes, or archetypal potentials for image-making found in the
collective unconscious provide the basis for worldwide myths, imagery, and
symbols. Myth follows certain identifiable tendencies and takes form in similar
shapes because humanity at all times and places has shared a common unconscious
fund of experience (Birenbaum, 1988).
Developing a personal mythology involves using a body of personal myths to
form a system for organizing one's conception of reality and guiding day-to-day
behavior. By using cross-cultural myths, fairy tales, and folklore, a teacher
can help his or her students bring their personal mythologies into clearer focus
and inspire them to use their own or other people's myths in creative writing.
(For suggestions for creative writing, see "Notes from Beyond the Cognitive
Domain," edited by Alice Brand and Dick Graves.) In this way, students can gain
a more global perspective on their lives and an expanded sense of their place in
the universe. As language educator Nancy King (1990) says, "working with myths
to stimulate images and stories (metaphor and memory) enables students from
cultures around the world to discover more about who they are and continue the
lifelong process of 'making themselves.'"
MYTH AND ARCHETYPE AS INSTRUCTIONAL TOOL
Concerning the
value of myth as an instructional tool, King states that myths and folk tales
are a powerful source of wisdom and comfort that can be used to nourish and
stimulate imagery and the expression of students' inner experience. Generally,
the outward-directed awareness of students is stressed in language arts
classrooms, so that inner sources of feeling, insight, and creativity are
ignored. But working with myths can bring students back into contact with these
inward forces. King discusses Feinstein et al's (1988) personal mythology
approach and adapts it for use in the language arts classroom. Students create
stories, dramas, and images, share memories and life experiences, and write
narratives based on unresolved life issues. As King (1990) suggests, the folk
tales and myths provide the stimulus, and the classroom work offers the occasion
for students "to discover and develop their authentic voices in an environment
free of premature judgment." King's technique includes rewriting, inner imaging,
and reflection by students to uncover the universal meaning contained in their
own personal symbols, and the personal meaning to be discovered in universal
symbols.
Crow (1986) introduces the classroom teacher to the study of archetypal
patterns in literature and ways to teach writing that are grounded in students'
experience of archetypal themes in their own lives. Employing the theories of
Jung, Crow describes the general nature of archetypes and provides a writing
assignment that guides students in writing about the "archetype of initiation."
This cross-cultural archetypal pattern reflects humanity's need for rites of
passage into new stages of life. Students are asked to look at their lives as
texts, choose one initiation experience, and describe it in detail. As Crow
points out, using archetypes in this way can lead students to define their
values and initiate them onto "the path of wisdom."
In a different article, Crow (1983) shows teachers how to help students use
"steppingstones" or "markers" to divide their lives into significant periods,
and write about them by exploring dreams, fantasies, and "twilight imagery"
(images that arise during the "twilight state" just before sleep). Through
Crow's journal-writing procedure, students can uncover mythic-archetypal
patterns such as the hero's journey, initiation, and death-rebirth. Thus, by
moving from subjective, unconscious experience to the objective process of
writing, students can see the links between their innermost feelings, images,
and thoughts and the public world of autobiography and literature.
DREAM SHARING IN THE CLASSROOM
Pirmantgen (1976) discusses
dream sharing in the classroom as a way to help students uncover the mythic
themes underlying their inner processes. Pirmantgen's work with dreams in her
own classroom led her to speculate on the idea that people's dreams are the
primary basis of a culture's mythology. She asked: "Could it be that our
culture's folklore and myth are cut off from a primary source--the people's
dream experiences, which express the cosmic meanings underlying human
life--those same meanings that inspire art and literature?"
Pirmantgen's (1976) dreamwork approach to enhancing students'
mythic-archetypal ways of knowing and experiencing involves 3 processes: (1)
developing a class's awareness, recognition, and memory of dream states and
content; (2) creative work with students' own dream material; and (3) drawing
parallels between students' dream content and the English curriculum. Pirmantgen
admits that working with students' dreams will usually be a peripheral part of
the language arts curriculum. But she also feels that dreamwork is important
because it helps students open themselves up to an area of their being that is
rich in personal meaning and closely allied to their creative abilities.
CONCLUSIONS
This Digest addresses a much neglected area of
students' lives--their inner intuitive and image-making abilities and emotional
states. As Jung and our other researchers insist, mythic forms of knowledge and
experience resonate with the deepest levels of our nature as human beings,
because they reflect the archetypal or fundamental forces within us. As we
teachers and our students learn to access these inner resources, we may develop
in the process a greater understanding and sense of our oneness with other
cultures and with the universe as a whole.
REFERENCES
Birenbaum, H. (1988). Myth and Mind. Lanham, MD:
University Press.
Brand, A., and D. Graves (1992). "Notes from Beyond the Cognitive Domain."
Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College
Composition and Communication (Cincinnati). [ED 347 557]
Brand, A., and D. Graves (1993). "Notes from Beyond the Cognitive Domain."
Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College
Composition and Communication (San Diego). [ED 361 688]
Brand, A. and D. Graves (1994). "Notes from Beyond the Cognitive Domain."
Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College
Composition and Communication (Nashville). [ED 372 407]
Crow, E. (1986). "Archetypes and Assignments: Writing about Personal
Archetypes Aids Students in Writing Composition Papers and Understanding
Literature." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College
Composition and Communication (New Orleans). [ED 274 981]
Crow, E. (1983). "Shaping the Self: Using Steppingstones and Autobiography to
Create and Discover Archetypes in an Illustrious Monarchy." Paper presented at
the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication
(Detroit). [ED 278 016]
Feinstein, D. et al. (1988). "Mythmaking and Human Development." Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, 28(3), 25-50.
Jung, C.G. (1966). The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature. New York:
Pantheon.
King, N. (1990). "Myth, Metaphor, Memory: Archeology of the Self." Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, 30(2), 55-72.
Pirmantgen, P. (1976). "What Would Happen to the American Psyche if, along
with Homerooms, Flag Saluting, and I.Q. Testing, Schools Had Daily Dream
Sharing?" In G. Hendricks & J. Fadiman (Eds.), Transpersonal Education: A
Curriculum for Feeling and Being (59-63). Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Roberts, T.B. (1989). "Multistate Education: Metacognitive Implications of
the Mindbody Psychotechnologies." Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 21(1),
83-102.
Richard D. Stewart received his Ph.D. in Education from Indiana University.
