College English - Volume 63, Issue 5, 2001

Considers how in the classroom, dealing with conservative Christian belief, progressive writing instructors confront “problems of meaning” just as perplexing and urgent as those that trouble evangelical students. Offers some stories that show how the author analyzed her own recurring “problems of meaning,” some theoretical (and theological) ways of working through perceived impasses between academic interpretation and biblical precept.

Considers how teachers might re-create, rather than import, Paulo Freire into North American contexts—and so not lose the power of his ideas. Takes the method of pragmatism and connects it to Freire’s concept of praxis to argue for pragmatic theory and practice in the work of teaching literacy.

Argues that Kenneth Burke used “The Interpretation of Dreams,” as well as other works by Sigmund Freud, as a lesson on reading, taking over the central tropes of dreamwork and making them broadly dialectical rather than strictly psychoanalytic terms. Suggests that Freud’s “tropology” of dreaming is crucial for reading Burke.