Politics, again?

"The aim of many progressive educators is to use literature as a vehicle for self-exploration and expression." (p.6)

When children begin to learn about their world, do they use books? Why have books been given a privileged place in the institution as a means for discovery?

"It is at [his] intersection of text and social context that the explicit study of contemporary literary theory can help adolescent readers make meaning of the text" (p.7)

It seems that contemporary literary theory wishes to withdraw the "funds of knowledge" students bring to the text as a means to understand the text.  Every experience the student has is valuable for understanding their reality and also the writer's reality.  Once that bridge is crossed, teachers can show how textual analysis, say Marxism, can be used to understand a text; moreover, students can decode their reality, with the tools we've given them, from a Marxist's view; thus, cultivating cultural change or a deep-seated distrust for all things bourgeois.  

So by removing a privileged interpretation of the text from the center of the reading and replacing it with adolescent experiences:

we arrive at a place where the lions can tell their story, right?  

and hopefully give us a deeper understanding of the world our students live in.