[This week
marked the final classes of the Spring 2016 semester, so this week on the blog I’ve
offered some semester reflections, focusing on new texts or ideas I tried in my
courses. Leading up to this special post previewing my Fall semester—please
share your own previews, or more Spring reflections, here as well!]
Three requests
for help with my Fall 2016 courses-in-development!
1)
Senior Seminar on Analyzing 21st
Century America: For my second ever English Studies Senior Seminar, I’ll be
turning last
summer’s hybrid grad class into a semester-long undergraduate syllabus. I
know I’ll have a through-line of texts and discussions focused on race, using
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah,
Michelle Alexander’s The
New Jim Crow, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me,
and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen
as our focal texts. And students will be presenting on a contemporary movie
or TV show of their choice. But there’s plenty more room for texts (from all
media), issues and themes, and other aspects of the course—so I’d love your
suggestions!
2)
Honors Seminar on the Gilded Age: I got to teach
our Honors
program’s literature seminar for the first time last fall, and will be
doing so again this fall. While I’m keeping the same main texts and units,
however, I’m hoping to make two significant changes: shifting from individual
student discussion leadings in every class meeting to panels of student voices
once every few weeks; and adding in multimedia texts here and there, such as screening
an
episode of Deadwood to round off
our unit on the West. Neither of those are things I’ve done in any prior
literature course, though, so I could really use some advice and perspectives
on either or both!
3)
ALFA Class on Salem: In conjunction with a
program field trip to the city, my Fall Adult Learning in the Fitchburg Area
class will focus on some
of Salem’s many compelling sites,
histories, and texts.
As those and many other Salem posts in this space illustrate, I certainly have
my own starting points for what I should include in this course’s five weeks of
topics and materials. But I remain very open to suggestions, as always!
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Previews or reflections you’d share?
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