Keywords

Experiential Critical Theory, ECT, Critical Theory, Pedagogy, Episodic Memory, Literary Analysis

Abstract

There is a current gap in academia which has been largely overlooked in both pedagogy and assessment: the value of personal experience as key evidence of interpretation and meaning-making correlation. Aside from narrative writing, most current methods of literary analysis writing do not place a high value on personal experience beyond the inclusion of brief anecdotes. Yet experience is the major pathway by which an individual forms their worldview, which then informs the ways in which they interpret the world—and by extension, text. This dissertation both establishes and examines the use of Experiential Critical Theory (ECT) in pedagogical application for the purposes of literary analysis: “Experiential Critical Theory in literary analysis [involves] the intentional use of episodic and autobiographical memory […] to[analyze] literature or cultural artifacts” (Batten (self), 2021, non-published). Results of this dissertation study indicate that students incorporating ECT traverse and embody literature in strong, engaging, and meaningful ways. A four-tiered mixed methods approach was utilized to provide both quantitative and qualitative data. In this study, 10 student participants from introductory American Literature 1000 courses provided both ECT and non-ECT based literary analysis writing samples, which were analyzed using metrics from the fields of both Cognitive Science and English. Findings revealed that students incorporating ECT in essay production met or exceeded multiple American Colleges and Universities (AACU) collegiate standards, reaching a level of second year “Benchmark” performance for all metrics tested. Students also showed prominent levels of authenticity, analytical thinking, clout, and perception. These results suggest that incorporating ECT in pedagogical methodology has a measurably beneficial impact on student performance. Future research should include longer instructional time, a larger pool of participants, a diverse rater population, and more overall classroom integration of the theory.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

Barry Mauer

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Texts and Technology

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Identifier

DP0053114

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