[Another Spring semester is upon us, and with it my annual Spring semester previews. This time I’ll focus on one skill I’m excited to be teaching as part of each of these courses. Please share what you’ve got going on this semester and year as well!]
This is
one of the Literature courses I’ve taught the most times and over the longest period,
as I believe I had a section in my first Spring at Fitchburg State (20 years
ago!). A lot has changed in what and how I teach it across those decades, but
one thing that hasn’t is the second weekly post I have the students write for
each of our authors and texts: after a more analytical/standard first week’s
post, the second one asks them to imitate the author’s style in order to think a
bit about some key aspects of how each of our authors writes (this second post
is entirely ungraded so they don’t have to worry about whether they’re doing it
“right”). That’s not an easy thing to do, especially when some of our authors
have particularly unique and challenging styles (I’m looking at you, Theodore
Dreiser and Sylvia Plath). But I think it’s an incredibly rewarding one, not
only for what it can help us see and analyze, but also and especially because it
requires empathy, imagining ourselves into a different perspective and person.
Not sure there could be a more important skill to hone in 2025.
Next
preview post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What’s
on your radar?
No comments:
Post a Comment