Being Out and Stepping In: Finding a Foothold in the Odyssey
Real Pedagogy, Possible Lesson Designs
Judith Langer and Louise Rosenblatt, whose frameworks for interrogating disciplinary literacy pedagogy to tease out ways to evoke deep aesthetic responses to literature, offer blueprints to think about ChatGPT in literary reading, likely as early as children can comprehend the core function of natural language algorithms—a function of patterning responses to commands from predictable occurrences of word surfaces in syntactic structures filtered through statistical tests and mechanical rubrics and indexed in mathematical vectors. Children in preschools will likely experience AI in aural and visual systems and may need guidance to integrate this new responsiveness from screens into their unfolding Piagetian odyssey. AI is not real—or is it?
These theorists envision reading serious, challenging pieces of literature as complex personal, intellectual, and emotional work. It feels crazy to have to say “human reading.” Rosenblatt’s Literature as Exploration (1938, 1976) anchored the design of the CLAS Reading test in the early 1990s. Fran Claggett wrote about this design in her book A Measure of Success (1996), making no bones about the intent: To bring the teaching of literary reading to the forefront of professional English teaching, to value it enough to assess it. I recall Fran speaking in 1991 in her soft, thoughtful voice to the teachers assembled in Oakland and then Sacramento, words resonating with Rosenblatt:
“Through the medium of words, the text brings into the reader's consciousness certain concepts, certain sensuous experiences, certain images of things, people, actions, scenes. The special meanings and, more particularly, the submerged associations that these words have for the individual reader will largely determine what the work communicates to [sic] him” (Rosenblatt, Literature as Exploration, 1938).
Everything, almost, Rosenblatt listed as objects of the reader’s consciousness is personal, intimate, private—except for concepts. Here the door for AI opens. Langer in particular highlights the critical first step in approaching an aesthetic text: Making the leap of faith from the objective world outside the text to the subjective world evoked by the text. This leap must be energetic, aimed, often startling and confusion. Think about the first paragraph of Sound and Fury:
Entering a subjective world according to Samuel Coleridge involves the “willing suspension of disbelief.” People can fly; animals can talk. Readers can go inside the head of a 33-year-old man with the mind of a three year old in April, 1928.
Reading for information necessitates a critical approach, temporarily setting aside beliefs in textual claims until they align with the reader's objective knowledge of the world. While reading for imaginative purposes does involve processing information, that's not its primary goal. For example, nobody reads Faulkner's Sound and Fury seeking empirical data, unless the text is studied as a cultural or historical artifact. Rather, the enjoyment comes from the narrative's unfolding, its becoming—not the static facts, the is, the folded. Yet, in the context of Spring 1928, Faulkner grounds his tale in history, just before the stock market crash. Readers are invited to transport this objective knowledge into their subjective consciousness.
The Common Core State Standards confuse the matter by defining narrative and informational text structures as purposes for reading. In practice, narrative means literature; expository means information. I mentioned earlier the work of Gadamer on protocols for reading autonomous texts with determinate meaning like sacred or legal texts: Such reading requires remaining within the four corners of the text, bracketing any prior knowledge or personal responses. Autonomous protocols, when privileged, demand a focus on words, syntax, and text structure; reading to recover determinate fragments of message to locate in a pre-structured template can dominate literary/narrative as well as informational/expository alike. Literature as exploration becomes literature as grist for rhetorical analysis or argument.
The matter is complicated and nuanced, however, as Smith4 would say. Students need to understand that information is just as important in aesthetic reading as in fact-based reading. What one is free to do with the information is very different. Reading for information does not destroy aesthetic reading; it’s in fact never more important than at the beginning of a complex text where guideposts to the unfolding aesthetic vision must be cognitively constructed based on the brute facts of the text. On these textual facts the reader builds an imaginary world. Being out and stepping in can be taught, and AI can help young readers make the leap from the objective to their own subjective world.
The following example assignment with a response fabricated for illustrative purposes only (I have had zero opportunity to test out AI in a classroom, a fact worth keeping in mind) is designed to position AI as a tool with the capacity to assist readers to make this commitment to a work—being out and stepping in. The assignment requires students to read and write on their own and to prompt an LM to provide contextual information. It also builds in a writing task that cannot be accomplished by AI.
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Assignment: Read Book One of the Odyssey on your own. The first pages take place among the gods. Do your best to understand the difference in purpose between Athena and Poseidon regarding Odysseus, as we discussed in class. While you read when the story settles in on Earth at Ithica, note the names of characters who are in the action or are discussed. Choose three characters to explore with AI assistance. Finally, prompt AI to generate a paragraph about each one to provide you with context. Copy and paste your prompt into the assignment, and include the AI generated paragraphs. Finally, write one personal informal paragraph on your own, discussing your personal insights into Book One based on your own reading and on the contextual information you learned from your AI research.
Be prepared to share your insights into these characters with your reading group and with the class. Extra credit: By describing the characters as you see them, in your mind’s eye, prompt an image generator to develop a portrait of each character.
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Prompt: I’ve finished reading Book One of the Odyssey. My assignment for my English class is to prompt you to write a paragraph about each of three characters who appear or are talked about in Book One. Please write a paragraph giving me insights into Telemachus. I feel for him because it seems like he has to defend his home from a gang of older men.
Telemachus
Telemachus Among the Drunken Suitors in Ithica (Image created by OpenAI December 2023)
Smith4: Telemachus, the son of the long-absent hero Odysseus, is a figure caught in the throes of adolescence and thrust prematurely into the burdens of manhood. In Book One, we encounter Telemachus at a critical moment of his life; he is no longer a boy, yet not quite recognized as an adult by the suitors who infest his home, courting his mother Penelope and depleting his father's wealth. The young prince is depicted as simultaneously vulnerable and resolute, embodying the awkward transition between youth and maturity. Much of Telemachus's plight stems from the void left by his missing father, which places him in a position of both power and impotence—as the man of the house in Odysseus's absence, yet without the authority or strength to rid his home of the parasitic suitors. He is respectful yet full of simmering anger, courteous to his guests but clearly harboring deep resentment for the injustice of his situation. Telemachus's call to action comes through Athena's encouragement, shaping him into a character who must embark on his own journey not solely to find his father but to carve out his identity and assert his rightful place in the world—a journey that sets the stage for his evolution throughout the epic.
Penelope
Penelope in her Chamber with her Handmaids Weeping (Image created by OpenAI December, 2023)
User: I’ve finished reading Book One of the Odyssey. My assignment for my English class is to prompt you to write a paragraph about each of three characters who appear or are talked about in Book One. Please write a paragraph giving me insights into Penelope. I wonder what she was thinking after Telemachus sent her back to her chambers with her two attendant women.
Smith4: Penelope, the epitome of steadfastness and cunning in the face of adversity, is a character whose silent fortitude often speaks volumes. In Book One of the Odyssey, after being directed by her son Telemachus to retire to her chambers with her attendants, one can imagine a storm of emotions brewing beneath her composed exterior. Penelope carries the weight of preserving her husband Odysseus's kingdom, enduring the ceaseless torment from the suitors, and maintaining hope for her husband's uncertain return. Her quiet return to the chambers, following her son's assertive instructions, suggests a mix of maternal pride and poignant resignation. She recognizes Telemachus's emergence in their household hierarchy, witnessing him cross the threshold into manhood and responsibility. Inside her, there is likely a wellspring of sorrow, missing Odysseus and the partnership that once provided her with strength and support. Yet, there's also the sharp intellect and strategic patience that defines her—a woman who weaves and unweaves a tapestry to keep her suitors at bay. Withdrawn to her quarters, Penelope reflects the ancient Greek expectation that women should remain out of the public eye, but, paradoxically, her influence and presence remain palpable throughout the palace, as the central figure withholding her choice of a new husband and keeping Odysseus's legacy alive.
Eurymachus
User: I’ve finished reading Book One of the Odyssey. My assignment for my English class is to prompt you to write a paragraph about each of three characters who appear or are talked about in Book One. Please write a paragraph giving me insights into not just Eurymachus, but the suitors as a group. They seem like one character. They are very disrespectful to Penelope but especially to Telemachus. Is this the way people lived back then?
Smith4: Eurymachus, depicted as one of the more cunning and influential suitors, embodies the entitlement and arrogance that characterizes the suitors as a collective force of disorder in the household of Odysseus. Within Book One of the Odyssey, these suitors arrogantly usurp the role of the absent master, consuming his wealth and wooing his wife without reservation or respect. Their conduct towards Penelope is deplorable, treating her as a prize to be won rather than a person, while their interactions with Telemachus are dismissive and condescending, blatantly disregarding the customs of xenia—the ancient Greek concept of hospitality and the respectful treatment of guests and hosts alike.
Their behavior illuminates the power vacuum and moral decay that ensues in a household without its king. Moreover, the suitors, including Eurymachus, serve as a foil to Odysseus's noble character and to the codes of conduct that were expected to govern Greek society. Their reprehensible actions are a distortion of the societal norms of the time, flaunting their disrespect for property, family, and the gods. The suitors, rather than representing the cultural ideals of ancient Greek life, are a collective character representing the societal disarray that can arise in the absence of effective leadership and the failure to adhere to cultural and religious customs. This unchecked behavior forms a stark contrast to the ideals espoused by the Homeric hero and sets the stage for the inevitable return and retribution that must come with Odysseus's long-awaited homecoming.
My Personal Insights
I see that even families of the rich and famous have always had problems. I have personal experience with living as a young person in the absence of a father. So I understand how Telemachus feels. My mother was loyal and good like Penelope, but she had problems adjusting after we lost my father. In fact, for a while strange men were coming around. When Mentes tells Telemachus about Orestes, a young guy in similar circumstances who had to kill his mother Clytemnestra to revenge her murder of his father, Telemachus must have understood the potential for violence. I can’t imagine how much pressure he felt at a time when he should be interested in finding his own life partner. Penelope, his mother, seems to be a lot different than Clytemnestra, though. She’s not happy about all of the suitors. It’s weird that the gods are taking part in family matters. I’m looking forward to reading about how Telemachus and Penelope come out of this.
