[As another semester
concludes, a series recapping some of the wonderful texts we read in my
classes, along with some other Spring work of mine. Leading up to a preview of
coming attractions for the Summer and Fall semesters. I’d love to hear about
your work, past, present, or future, in comments!]
I wrote in my preview
post for this class about my choice to focus entirely on short works,
rather than the novels I usually use. To my surprise and delight, that allowed
the students to really dive into those shorter works, with some in particular
receiving far more thoughtful readings than I have generally found when they’re
included alongside longer works. Here are three examples:
1)
Stephen Crane, “The
Open Boat”: When I include Crane’s story alongside a novel, I usually
excerpt it, and perhaps that’s part of the problem; the story’s slow build to a
gripping conclusion is certainly part of its appeal. In any case, students had
a number of really compelling things to say about identity and community in the
story, and about how Crane pits his four protagonists against both the sea and
their own minds and fears. I came away with a newfound appreciation for this
story, which is a pretty rare and wonderful thing in a class I’ve taught as
many times as I have American Lit II.
2)
Sarah Piatt, “The
Palace-Burner” and “A
Pique at Parting”: Longtime readers of this blog know how
much I love Piatt, and believe we
should all read her dense, dialogic, wonderful poems. So I include them on
my American Lit II syllabus every time I teach the class; but the truth is that
when they’re located alongside a novel we have only a few minutes to discuss
each of these two poems, and that’s just not enough time to do them justice. In
extended Blackboard post analyses, however, the online students could really
delve into these poems and their speakers, styles, and themes of gender and
identity, and the result were the best student readings of Piatt I’ve yet
encountered.
3)
William Faulkner, “Barn
Burning”: “Barn Burning” isn’t Faulkner at his toughest (not
by a long shot), but it’s still Faulkner, still a modified stream
of consciousness narration, still a tough read to be sure. Once again, in
my regular sections I excerpt the first few pages of the story, giving students
even less time to get into that narration and the world it guides us through.
But in this online section, students read the whole story, and really thought
through both the narration and the cultural and historical themes, analyzing
how the story’s form and content work together to create an immersive reading experience.
One more way, like all these, that this online teaching experience will help me
further strengthen my in-person classes as well.
Last recap
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What have
you been or are you working on?
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