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By Tim Pappageorge


Art and Controversy (in AP English Language).  

Students learn best when constructive controversy is engaged (Johnson and Johnson, 2009), and the art of Barbara Kruger gets us to rethink assumptions by introducing controversy.

Here, a floating hand holds up an ID-card sized sign that offers a disturbing message, and  Kruger gets viewers to stand outside of their typical understandings.  In formulating these ideas and in making these juxtapositions, Kruger destabilizes accepted connotations of certain words such as "friend" or "belong," or in this case, a philosophical phrase.  Literacy researcher Rebecca Trites calls this "critical literacy" (Disturbing the Universe, 2004), and it is the type of read-think-write move that causes us to question and push back against ideologies and patterns that form our assumptions.   It's important to incorporate texts, images, ideas that set the stage for students to question in a substantial way.

Enjoy the image, and hope that you have fun this week getting students to think critically.

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