Power Issues in the Teaching and Learning Context

How do questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities? (Are there power relations inherent in the content being taught? Are there power relations inherent in the ways in which content is being taught?)

In the framework for literary instruction that was created in class, we saw that teachers, students, content area skills and literary skills are all interconnected. Each one contributes a great deal to making students create meaning of their education. Students act as the audience when educators convey their lesson, but it is the power that both the students and teachers have that enables a message to be brought about. Students are no longer expected to just sit and absorb information, rather they should be expected to voice their opinions and create that “meaning” that makes their education a meaningful one.