Discussing Feminist Issues after New Criticism in Short Story Analysis and Interpretation to Build Learners’ Critical Thinking skills: Tra Vinh University Students’ and Lecturer’s reflections

Abstract

To interpret underlying meanings of a literary work is a very common task in a literature course. A logical interpretation and analysis of a literary text often needs to be supported by literary theory. This study investigates whether students’ critical thinking is built after they explore a short story by the two approaches, New Criticism and Feminist Criticism,  in their literature classes. This paper illustrates how the teacher guided forty-four junior English major students in their school year 2023-2024 at Tra Vinh University to look for textual evidence from a short story in their literature course to support their analysis and interpretation from both approaches. The students firstly analyzed and interpreted Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Knight’s tale” by applying New Criticism, and Feminist Criticism. Later they wrote reflective papers to give the lecturer their feedback. The findings from the students’ papers reveal that all the students reacted positively towards the application of both approaches since they like to explore a literary work to the full when both approaches can fill each other’s deficiency as well as help to build the students’ critical thinking skills. Finally, the lecturer’s reflections on her instructional practice are presented.