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April 30, 2007
EL312: Lit to teach: blog carnival bungee jump
Tiffany posted a blog carnival question, as our gracious host, and I'd like to respond even though I'm not an "ed major" here at SHU. (Although I was at one point and decided that I didn't want to teach secondary education, but instead post-secondary education.)
I want to teach writing, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to teach a lit. class every now and then (if they'll let me, wherever I work in the future). By the time students reach college, I would hope that they'd have a general grasp of how to take apart a piece of literature in order to interpret it--generally, at first, and then hopefully with more vigor and greater detail as we move through a course.
If I were to introduce a literary work to my students--The English Patient, say (which we read in Advanced Study of Literature this year and is my favorite book of the semester)--I would most likely ask the students to delve into the pages without much prep from me. I hope they would experience not only the stylistic shock but also the so-called unnatural stance that the story takes. It's during WWII, but not in the middle of the action. The war happens concurrently with the story in the novel, which we see, but the war is not a character, so to speak, in the novel (though it is a force).
After they read the first fifty pages or so, I would ask them to look at the work objectively (as objectively as possible, that is ;)) and ask them about the historical aspect. Perhaps it would be interesting, at this point, to contrast the authorial intent (as discerned by the students) and the historical (and perhaps new historical) aspects of the text.
To answer Tiffany's question: yes, I would definitely use more than one technique to introduce a work to my students. With college kids one must be sharp and willing to be flexible (n'est-ce pas?) in order to 1) keep their attention, 2) create interest in the work itself (and not just in the pieces of the work), and 3) help them help themselves (and each other) understand. (Am I right on any of these, Dr. Jerz?)
Generally, I would do my best to work with where I find the students are interested in and then work against it to challenge them. I couldn't stick within certain criticisms, since that would be an unreasonable limitation, but I would try to incorporate them when possible so that the teachable moment would not pass.
Posted by KarissaKilgore at April 30, 2007 4:47 PM
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