In response to Monday’s Sci Fi and Fantasy post, my colleague Kisha Tracy notes that she
too is teaching some excerpts from Lord
of the Rings this semester. And then she went ahead and created this awesome Storify for her class
and plans!
In response to Wednesday’s post on my Am Lit II syllabus shift, Rob Velella writes, “In my opinion as a non-professor [Ben
adds: not yet!], I think that's a good swap. I've come to love tales and find
novels a bit more frustrating as far as time commitment. I'm sure your students
think similarly, even if they don't express it. Hypothetically, I've thought
I'd teach by reading aloud sections that are crucial, hoping that the drama of
the scene would inspire them to go back and read the rest.”
Following up the same post, Irene Martyniuk agrees, noting that in a Victorian Lit course “the only big book I assigned was The Moonstone because it's silly and
important. Dickens, Stevenson, Conan Doyle, etc—all short stuff. And yet, only
2 or 3 out of 18 read all of The Moonstone. I get their reasons. I really do.
But by skipping so many big novels, they really miss a big part of Vic Lit. I
feel guilty about that for the few who are thinking of grad school. No three
deckers, no Trollope, few women. I don't have a solution, just more sighs.”
A high school English teacher adds, “Engaging readership is tricky, practically
impossible at the high school level as Sparknotes pretty much beats me to the
punch daily. I will ask the students to find a section they find interesting and
write about it, we call it ‘commonplace book’ entries. They have to read a
section, analyze it and write about it looking at text, structure of sentences
and paragraphs, but most importantly how it reflects the book as a whole.
Granted, they can randomly choose from the book using the inny-minny-miney-moe
method (and probably do) but at least I know they had to look at a section and
read deliberately. Another trick up my rapidly diminishing sleeve is to make
them responsible for teaching a specific motif to the others. They have to
track it through the book like in Lahiri they track names and trains. Then they
have to examine the use, the lead in and exit from the use of it, and what
she's trying to communicate through its use. But my fav is asking them to
redesign the book into a new form of media. So Frankenstein becomes a child's story, Dracula is a folktale. They have to go beyond plot to retell the
story in a new form of media.”
In response to Thursday’s
post on my new Writing II syllabus and its unit on advertising, Ian Wilkins
writes, “In my prepracticum classroom last semester, the teacher did a
lengthy unit on this very thing with his AP class. It was focused mainly on a
book by Neil Postman called Amusing
Ourselves to Death, then supplementing that with a bunch of smaller
pieces. My recollection is that there were some very though-provoking ideas put
forth in that book, which relate directly to those questions you are talking
about. One area of this that I think is especially interesting is the very
contemporary concept of individually
targeted online advertisement (web analytics, email account-based ads,
sponsored Google search links, etc.). These are the most subversive forms of advertising
and consumerism to date, and they raise all kinds of important, open-ended
questions for me. Sounds like this focus will be highly generative in terms of
thought for your students.”
Nancy Caronia also
follows up that post, writing “Have
you seen the documentary Miss Representation? Deals
with gender, advertising, etc. Might be a good jump start in that first section.”
Special
MLK-inspired series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. So what’s on
your spring calendar?
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