The biggest experiment in this class will be the use of freewriting and focused freewriting, which we'll do (almost) every day. I took a fantastic workshop at Bard's Institute for Writing and Thinking which introduced me to this technique, and consultants from IWT came and worked with our faculty on it (and other things) over the summer, as we all prepare for teaching our first-year seminars for the first time. I don't know if anyone else has converted as fully as I have, but I'm really looking forward to the experiment.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Saturday, August 21, 2010
teaching, again
The fall semester is upon us, and I'm teaching two sections of a class I'm really excited about: Twice-Told Tales, Fairy Tales in Literary and Popular Culture. I'm just focusing on one fairy tale (Cinderella), and I've had a terrible time narrowing down the syllabus. What I've got still feels like a work in progress, but classes start Monday so it's as done as it's going to be for now.
Friday, June 19, 2009
late to the party
I know Louis Menand's piece on the creative writing workshop (ostensibly a review of Mark McGurl's book, The Program Era, which sounds fascinating) has already been discussed all over the place. After all, it came out three weeks ago, and in internet time that's an eternity. But I am getting to my New Yorkers late, and I have a bizarre aversion to reading them online, so I just finished the piece this morning.
As someone who occasionally teaches a creative writing workshop (in nonfiction, I hasten to add!), I suppose I have a dog in the fight--though, as Menand presents it, in the end it's not much of a fight. Creative writing workshops are doing something, and they're not going away, so whether or not creative writing itself can be taught actually turns out to be sort of beside the point. But there's almost a throwaway line in his piece that I found very helpful, actually: "Creative-writing courses follow naturally from the 'learning by doing' theories of progressive education: they add practical, hands-on experience to traditional book learning" (109). I've been thinking a lot about progressive education lately, and this rings true to me. It also suggests that maybe in literature courses we ought to be making our students, say, write a sonnet or attempt some fiction. (I think this might be the Bennington approach--Terry?) It's an approach I have to admit I've resisted, because it's 1) not the way I was taught and 2) therefore would have me teaching something I'm not sure I know how to teach. Always a tricky thing.
But, as Menand's next-to-last paragraph reminds us, workshops can "teach [us] about the importance of making things, not just reading things"--and that is, I think, an increasingly valuable skilln(112). Matt Crawford might not think of fiction-making as the same kind of soulcraft that he identifies in manual labor, but there is a satisfaction to making, even making sentences and paragraphs, that I think it's important to acknowledge. And sometimes when students try to write something themselves, they gain an awareness of their reading as made object; they start to be able to look into the craft of it. And that, in turn, can improve their writing as they pay more attention to their own craft.
Sometimes in my children's lit class I've had students do a project taken from Molly Bang's Picture This! How Pictures Work, in which they have to make a picture that tells a story, using cut paper in only four colors. They laugh at themselves for enjoying such a kindergarten assignment so much, but it does give them some insight into what the illustrator's craft requires. I may have to revive that one, and maybe play around with some other hands-on assignments, this time through.
As someone who occasionally teaches a creative writing workshop (in nonfiction, I hasten to add!), I suppose I have a dog in the fight--though, as Menand presents it, in the end it's not much of a fight. Creative writing workshops are doing something, and they're not going away, so whether or not creative writing itself can be taught actually turns out to be sort of beside the point. But there's almost a throwaway line in his piece that I found very helpful, actually: "Creative-writing courses follow naturally from the 'learning by doing' theories of progressive education: they add practical, hands-on experience to traditional book learning" (109). I've been thinking a lot about progressive education lately, and this rings true to me. It also suggests that maybe in literature courses we ought to be making our students, say, write a sonnet or attempt some fiction. (I think this might be the Bennington approach--Terry?) It's an approach I have to admit I've resisted, because it's 1) not the way I was taught and 2) therefore would have me teaching something I'm not sure I know how to teach. Always a tricky thing.
But, as Menand's next-to-last paragraph reminds us, workshops can "teach [us] about the importance of making things, not just reading things"--and that is, I think, an increasingly valuable skilln(112). Matt Crawford might not think of fiction-making as the same kind of soulcraft that he identifies in manual labor, but there is a satisfaction to making, even making sentences and paragraphs, that I think it's important to acknowledge. And sometimes when students try to write something themselves, they gain an awareness of their reading as made object; they start to be able to look into the craft of it. And that, in turn, can improve their writing as they pay more attention to their own craft.
Sometimes in my children's lit class I've had students do a project taken from Molly Bang's Picture This! How Pictures Work, in which they have to make a picture that tells a story, using cut paper in only four colors. They laugh at themselves for enjoying such a kindergarten assignment so much, but it does give them some insight into what the illustrator's craft requires. I may have to revive that one, and maybe play around with some other hands-on assignments, this time through.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Why I do what I do
Sometimes my students ask me if authors really think about "that stuff" (symbolism, metaphor, allusion, intertextuality) when they write their books. Here is the unequivocal answer: yes.
John Green rocks.
John Green rocks.
Friday, November 07, 2008
More on YA
Yes, it's been talked to death. But I asked my students today what they thought characterized YA literature, and they pretty much agreed with Jen & MR in comments, below. Age of protagonist, teen--check. Subject matter, a little edgier, deeper, more emotionally intense than children's lit--check. They also think of YA literature as more realistic, longer, less illustrated, and more complex than children's literature, although we were able to think of many counter-examples for all of those qualities. Finally, they believed that YA literature was less clear-cut, more morally ambiguous, or less structurally "closed" than children's literature. They pointed to Weetzie Bat's rejection of "happily ever after" as a primary example. Again, though, I can think of some children's books--The Giver comes to mind--that are also a little less closed than, say, a fairy tale.
The issue then is, what's the difference between adult and YA literature? Does it really have to boil down to the age of the protagonist? My students were unwilling to call Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Dickens's Great Expectations, YA. But they agreed that they fit the criteria they had themselves outlined. They also talked me into listing The Lord of the Flies as YA, though I still resist the label. Again, why?
I love YA literature, and I think I know it when I see it. But at the moment I'm cribbing John Green's characterization of it from a recent blog post: "smart teenagers who talk fast and do stupid shit." That leaves a lot out, I'm sure, but it also brings a lot in, and for the moment it will have to do. (By the way, the whole post--about manic pixie dream girls--is fabulous.)
The issue then is, what's the difference between adult and YA literature? Does it really have to boil down to the age of the protagonist? My students were unwilling to call Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, or Dickens's Great Expectations, YA. But they agreed that they fit the criteria they had themselves outlined. They also talked me into listing The Lord of the Flies as YA, though I still resist the label. Again, why?
I love YA literature, and I think I know it when I see it. But at the moment I'm cribbing John Green's characterization of it from a recent blog post: "smart teenagers who talk fast and do stupid shit." That leaves a lot out, I'm sure, but it also brings a lot in, and for the moment it will have to do. (By the way, the whole post--about manic pixie dream girls--is fabulous.)
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Again with the literacy debates!
I'm linking to Tricia again, but this time it's just because she got to this article on high school English before me. When I read the article last week (titled: "We're teaching books that don't stack up") I found myself nodding in agreement with the article, but really frustrated by the title. As happens so often, the debate is framed as one about the canon: defenders of the canon are cast as woefully out of touch, forcing irrelevant works on their defenseless (and bored) students. And hip young teachers--or not-so-young ones--are cast as the proponents of relevance, teaching works to which their students can "relate" so as not to lose them to reading altogether.
I think it's a false dichotomy. The so-called canon is full of works that are thoroughly "relevant" to today's teens. Walden confronts them with a slacker environmentalist, Romeo and Juliet with love-struck teens, Catcher in the Rye with a teenager yearning for authenticity, and so on. The problem is not with the books but with how they are taught: as the article goes on to say (and here's where it's much smarter than its title), teens are turned off by "The reading quizzes that turn, say, "Hamlet" into a Q&A on facts, symbols and themes." Exactly.
I didn't know how true this was until I had a daughter in public high school. Her overworked teacher was covering material unfamiliar to her; she wasn't pedagogically innovative; her students had already "learned" that English was boring. So she resorted to quizzes and paper topics that merely skimmed the surface, in part because she had probably not gone much beyond that herself. When Mariah got excited about a text--Beowulf, say, or "The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"--she found herself alone, without support from either teacher or peers. And yet these are texts that have inspired teenagers for generations--Wikipedia cites at least nine rock/pop songs that reference Prufrock, and without Beowulf we wouldn't have The Lord of the Rings or "Dungeons and Dragons." It's criminal--but, sadly, all too common--that these texts can be made boring by high school English. But it's not the texts' fault.
When I teach children's literature I use a fabulous textbook titled The Pleasures of Children's Literature, by Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer. Nodelman and Reimer have taught me how to focus on pleasure in the context of analysis--how to help students understand that "picking texts apart" can actually increase our pleasure when we do it thoughtfully and carefully, and--especially--when we are given the right tools. I don't have a secret decoder ring for poetry, but I do have some techniques that can help make it make more sense--and that, in turn, will make it more enjoyable. I try to remember these lessons, as well, when I'm teaching so-called "adult" or canonical literature--pleasure is, after all, why I do what I do, and if I can't convey that to my students I'm not doing my job. I'm only sorry that it often takes this long before they hear that message.
I think it's a false dichotomy. The so-called canon is full of works that are thoroughly "relevant" to today's teens. Walden confronts them with a slacker environmentalist, Romeo and Juliet with love-struck teens, Catcher in the Rye with a teenager yearning for authenticity, and so on. The problem is not with the books but with how they are taught: as the article goes on to say (and here's where it's much smarter than its title), teens are turned off by "The reading quizzes that turn, say, "Hamlet" into a Q&A on facts, symbols and themes." Exactly.
I didn't know how true this was until I had a daughter in public high school. Her overworked teacher was covering material unfamiliar to her; she wasn't pedagogically innovative; her students had already "learned" that English was boring. So she resorted to quizzes and paper topics that merely skimmed the surface, in part because she had probably not gone much beyond that herself. When Mariah got excited about a text--Beowulf, say, or "The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"--she found herself alone, without support from either teacher or peers. And yet these are texts that have inspired teenagers for generations--Wikipedia cites at least nine rock/pop songs that reference Prufrock, and without Beowulf we wouldn't have The Lord of the Rings or "Dungeons and Dragons." It's criminal--but, sadly, all too common--that these texts can be made boring by high school English. But it's not the texts' fault.
When I teach children's literature I use a fabulous textbook titled The Pleasures of Children's Literature, by Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer. Nodelman and Reimer have taught me how to focus on pleasure in the context of analysis--how to help students understand that "picking texts apart" can actually increase our pleasure when we do it thoughtfully and carefully, and--especially--when we are given the right tools. I don't have a secret decoder ring for poetry, but I do have some techniques that can help make it make more sense--and that, in turn, will make it more enjoyable. I try to remember these lessons, as well, when I'm teaching so-called "adult" or canonical literature--pleasure is, after all, why I do what I do, and if I can't convey that to my students I'm not doing my job. I'm only sorry that it often takes this long before they hear that message.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Teaching at Hogwarts
Well, I don't teach at Hogwarts, of course--my building is neo-Gothic, not medieval--but I have some fun considering Harry and Ron as students in my latest over at Inside Higher Ed.
Friday, March 21, 2008
teaching and tae kwon do
At first I didn’t mention it at work. I think I felt a little silly about it: a middle-aged woman — an English professor! — taking tae kwon do. But then one day a colleague asked about a small bruise on my arm and, unthinking, I told him I’d blocked a kick with my forearm. It hadn’t been a smart move in tae kwon do, but as I told him about it, I could see the respect in his eyes. I began to think I should bring in my broken boards, leave them in the office, maybe mention how easily my palm had just gone through the wood. It couldn’t hurt.
Read the rest here..
(Cross posted at Midlife Mama)
Read the rest here..
(Cross posted at Midlife Mama)
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Meme: Passion Quilt
The amazing Tricia Stohr-Hunt, my friend and colleague who blogs at The Miss Rumphius Effect, has tagged me for a meme. Here are the rules:
So, here's the thing. I noticed while we were in Oxford how many closed doors, locked gates, and forbidden entrances there were throughout the various colleges of the university. It began to seem like a metaphor to me: there is knowledge being created, disseminated, and shared here, it said to me, but only among those who have the keys, the right credentials. Now, I realize that credentialing is necessary; we want our pilots to know how to fly, our engineers to understand bridge-building, our doctors to be up on the latest about disease and prevention. But I work in a field where the baseline credential is simply the ability to read. Too often, I'm afraid, we English professors scare our students with technical jargon, complex terminology, arcane knowledge; when we do that, we say to them, "this door, this book, is closed to you." How much better if we showed them an open book, an open door; if we talked about the pleasures of the text, the additional doors that reading a book can open? How much better if we acknowledged that not everyone comes to the text with the same tools, the same experiences, and if we tried to make some more tools available? Some of those tools are indeed theoretical ones, some involve arcane knowledge--but they should be all about increasing access, not denying it.
I stand by my closed doors. Quite literally, I think--some days what I want to do as a teacher is simply to stand by a closed door and indicate that it can be opened. Like Alice trying to get into the beautiful garden in Wonderland, or Mary Lennox trying to find the door to the Secret Garden, or Lucy finding the door to Narnia and then losing it, or Will cutting doorways into other worlds, we all know that doorways can lead us to amazing adventures. Closed or open, the very first step is knowing that they are there.
So here are three more doorways, all in their own way representative of my hopes for my teaching.
- Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
- Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
- Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
- Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.
So, here's the thing. I noticed while we were in Oxford how many closed doors, locked gates, and forbidden entrances there were throughout the various colleges of the university. It began to seem like a metaphor to me: there is knowledge being created, disseminated, and shared here, it said to me, but only among those who have the keys, the right credentials. Now, I realize that credentialing is necessary; we want our pilots to know how to fly, our engineers to understand bridge-building, our doctors to be up on the latest about disease and prevention. But I work in a field where the baseline credential is simply the ability to read. Too often, I'm afraid, we English professors scare our students with technical jargon, complex terminology, arcane knowledge; when we do that, we say to them, "this door, this book, is closed to you." How much better if we showed them an open book, an open door; if we talked about the pleasures of the text, the additional doors that reading a book can open? How much better if we acknowledged that not everyone comes to the text with the same tools, the same experiences, and if we tried to make some more tools available? Some of those tools are indeed theoretical ones, some involve arcane knowledge--but they should be all about increasing access, not denying it.
I stand by my closed doors. Quite literally, I think--some days what I want to do as a teacher is simply to stand by a closed door and indicate that it can be opened. Like Alice trying to get into the beautiful garden in Wonderland, or Mary Lennox trying to find the door to the Secret Garden, or Lucy finding the door to Narnia and then losing it, or Will cutting doorways into other worlds, we all know that doorways can lead us to amazing adventures. Closed or open, the very first step is knowing that they are there.
So here are three more doorways, all in their own way representative of my hopes for my teaching.
Keep the doorways clear .
a poem is a doorway
keep the book open
I'm thinking of several teacher types to tag, even if most of you don't blog about teaching or aren't currently employed as teachers. So, Caroline, Susan, Dawn, Lilian, and Jo(e), feel free to take this on. But you can also consider yourself tagged if you're reading this and are involved in teaching--as a parent, a workshop leader, a teacher, a librarian, or just a wide-awake person. There are lots of kinds of teaching, after all.
a poem is a doorway
keep the book openI'm thinking of several teacher types to tag, even if most of you don't blog about teaching or aren't currently employed as teachers. So, Caroline, Susan, Dawn, Lilian, and Jo(e), feel free to take this on. But you can also consider yourself tagged if you're reading this and are involved in teaching--as a parent, a workshop leader, a teacher, a librarian, or just a wide-awake person. There are lots of kinds of teaching, after all.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
What I'm doing this month
Later this month I'm going to a conference on fantasy. I've never done that before, and I have to say I'm intrigued. And excited: the two keynote speakers are Neil Gaiman and Jack Zipes!
However, in order to go, I have to write a paper. It's called, "Teach the Children: Education and Knowledge in Recent Children's Fantasy," and it's about how magical children learn. Or how they are taught. Or not taught. Or something.
So I'm working on it, and reading all kinds of interesting things. My primary texts are Harry Potters I and VI, A Hat Full of Sky, and The Golden Compass, though so far I have also already made mention of The Dark is Rising and A Wizard of Earthsea. I'm sure there are more books I could talk about but I'm already over my page limit and have hardly said half what I want to about the Pratchett and Pullman books. (Of course much of what I have will be junked before the conference, as is the way with my writing, so no worries there.) I'm really digging into this work right now, and it's a lot of fun, but I'm also at that stage in the paper when I'm convinced nothing I've written so far is any good but I probably won't have time to make it better, so this will be the conference where I finally and thoroughly embarrass myself. (Since I go through this stage every time, and since it hasn't happened yet, I'm handling it ok. I think.)
Because I am working on the paper, I have not yet posted on kid-friendliness in children's books, though I am thinking about it a lot. I'm also not joining NaBloPoMo or NaNoWriMo, much as I was tempted. I am, however, knitting when I'm not reading or writing. Christmas is coming, after all!
However, in order to go, I have to write a paper. It's called, "Teach the Children: Education and Knowledge in Recent Children's Fantasy," and it's about how magical children learn. Or how they are taught. Or not taught. Or something.
So I'm working on it, and reading all kinds of interesting things. My primary texts are Harry Potters I and VI, A Hat Full of Sky, and The Golden Compass, though so far I have also already made mention of The Dark is Rising and A Wizard of Earthsea. I'm sure there are more books I could talk about but I'm already over my page limit and have hardly said half what I want to about the Pratchett and Pullman books. (Of course much of what I have will be junked before the conference, as is the way with my writing, so no worries there.) I'm really digging into this work right now, and it's a lot of fun, but I'm also at that stage in the paper when I'm convinced nothing I've written so far is any good but I probably won't have time to make it better, so this will be the conference where I finally and thoroughly embarrass myself. (Since I go through this stage every time, and since it hasn't happened yet, I'm handling it ok. I think.)
Because I am working on the paper, I have not yet posted on kid-friendliness in children's books, though I am thinking about it a lot. I'm also not joining NaBloPoMo or NaNoWriMo, much as I was tempted. I am, however, knitting when I'm not reading or writing. Christmas is coming, after all!
Thursday, October 04, 2007
again with the complaints
Apparently The Christian Science Monitor hasn't been keeping up. Now it's their turn to publish yet another complaint about how kids are being forced to read depressing books.
Didn't anyone else just revel in depressing books as a kid? I know I did--nothing like a good cry over a book rather than your real life. And for a professor of creative writing to admit to not actually reading the books in question...well, the argument fell apart right there for me. If not before.
Ah, well, at least she's not just making a list of the dirty words. (Why, yes, it is Banned Books week! And no, I'm not linking to parents against bad books in schools, though I do find their website highly amusing...when I don't find it scary.)
Didn't anyone else just revel in depressing books as a kid? I know I did--nothing like a good cry over a book rather than your real life. And for a professor of creative writing to admit to not actually reading the books in question...well, the argument fell apart right there for me. If not before.
Ah, well, at least she's not just making a list of the dirty words. (Why, yes, it is Banned Books week! And no, I'm not linking to parents against bad books in schools, though I do find their website highly amusing...when I don't find it scary.)
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Hey, writers--
My friend Masha Hamilton is teaching two ten-week novel-writing classes this fall--don't they look great?
Take a ten-week novel-writing class online from Masha.
Dates: Sept. 4 through Nov. 13.
Novel Writing I is right for any writer who has been thinking about starting a novel or is up to halfway through. The class will include weekly lectures, critiques, and exercises aimed at helping you see your work freshly. We'll motivate you as we cover discovering the essence of your novel (and learning how to convey it in a single sentence), as well as the importance of the opening chapter. We’ll discuss where to start the story, how to create a strong protagonist, the dramatic arcs of major characters, choosing a point of view, and exploring the voice of your novel as well as individual characters within it. We'll analyze scene and delve into the dramatic possibilities created by strong dialogue. We'll also look at setting, pacing, profluence and psychic distance. Finally, we’ll consider the business end – where and how to market your novel manuscript – and you’ll get guidance on the next step. Limited to 10-15 students. $500 for ten weeks.
Novel Writing II is for the writer who has more than half of a novel completed and is looking for a critical, helpful eye before the manuscript reaches the agent or editor. In this class, more of your work will be critiqued, and you will be called upon to write detailed weekly critiques yourself. Lectures will spring more naturally from the nature of the work. We'll talk about motivation in the soggy middle of our manuscripts. This will be a chance to workshop a large portion of your completed work, and resubmit if you choose. We'll focus on the skills of revision and layering your novel, as well as how to become our own teachers, learning by reading the work of others. The class also will include guidance on what to do once the manuscript is finished. Limited to 6-10 students. $650 for ten weeks.
Classes are small to allow for lots of individual attention to manuscripts. Please email Masha at masha at mashahamilton dot com for more details about either class.
----------------------------
Masha has taught novel-writing privately, on-line, and for Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City, 92nd Street Y/Makor in New York City, Ann Arbor Writers’ Workshop in Ann Arbor, MI, Pima Writers’ Workshop in Tucson, AZ, Willamette Writers in Portland, OR., Ocean Park Maine Writers’ Conference near Portland, ME., Poets and Writers League, Cleveland, OH, and others.
Take a ten-week novel-writing class online from Masha.
Dates: Sept. 4 through Nov. 13.
Novel Writing I is right for any writer who has been thinking about starting a novel or is up to halfway through. The class will include weekly lectures, critiques, and exercises aimed at helping you see your work freshly. We'll motivate you as we cover discovering the essence of your novel (and learning how to convey it in a single sentence), as well as the importance of the opening chapter. We’ll discuss where to start the story, how to create a strong protagonist, the dramatic arcs of major characters, choosing a point of view, and exploring the voice of your novel as well as individual characters within it. We'll analyze scene and delve into the dramatic possibilities created by strong dialogue. We'll also look at setting, pacing, profluence and psychic distance. Finally, we’ll consider the business end – where and how to market your novel manuscript – and you’ll get guidance on the next step. Limited to 10-15 students. $500 for ten weeks.
Novel Writing II is for the writer who has more than half of a novel completed and is looking for a critical, helpful eye before the manuscript reaches the agent or editor. In this class, more of your work will be critiqued, and you will be called upon to write detailed weekly critiques yourself. Lectures will spring more naturally from the nature of the work. We'll talk about motivation in the soggy middle of our manuscripts. This will be a chance to workshop a large portion of your completed work, and resubmit if you choose. We'll focus on the skills of revision and layering your novel, as well as how to become our own teachers, learning by reading the work of others. The class also will include guidance on what to do once the manuscript is finished. Limited to 6-10 students. $650 for ten weeks.
Classes are small to allow for lots of individual attention to manuscripts. Please email Masha at masha at mashahamilton dot com for more details about either class.
----------------------------
Masha has taught novel-writing privately, on-line, and for Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City, 92nd Street Y/Makor in New York City, Ann Arbor Writers’ Workshop in Ann Arbor, MI, Pima Writers’ Workshop in Tucson, AZ, Willamette Writers in Portland, OR., Ocean Park Maine Writers’ Conference near Portland, ME., Poets and Writers League, Cleveland, OH, and others.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
More summer reading, and some Harry stuff
I've added a few more books to the sidebar since that last post, but it's true that my reading has slowed down a bit. We've had visitors to host, weddings to go to, kids to ferry...and then, I did re-read books I-VI of the Harry Potter series. Nick is within 100 pages of finishing his re-reading, too, which means it looks like he'll get the 7th book before Mariah. (I may have some trouble enforcing that...)
I've also been reading around some of the pre-Potter hype here and there (and contributing to it). This recent piece in Inside Higher Ed annoys me--why is it ok to write about Harry Potter without having read a single one of the books? I agree with McLemee that our job as educators is to introduce students to the world beyond "the familiar, the readily available, the comfortingly familiar"--one way to do that, as he surely knows, is to subject what seems familiar to close analysis, to study its pre-texts and sub-texts (as the students he's referring to quite obviously are doing), to read it against the grain. Teaching children's literature is one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I have, for precisely that reason: students learn to open their eyes and explore the strangeness in the world they've taken for granted.
I'm not staying up until midnight for the next book--I pre-ordered it months ago and will be happy to see it on my doorstep Saturday morning. (I am tempted by the party at BookPeople, though!) I haven't seen any of the films since the second one. I'm not dressing up as Luna Lovegood. But I'm not apologizing, either, for spending a chunk of my summer reading and re-reading Rowling, and I'll be taking a little break to speed through Book VII this weekend. How about you?
I've also been reading around some of the pre-Potter hype here and there (and contributing to it). This recent piece in Inside Higher Ed annoys me--why is it ok to write about Harry Potter without having read a single one of the books? I agree with McLemee that our job as educators is to introduce students to the world beyond "the familiar, the readily available, the comfortingly familiar"--one way to do that, as he surely knows, is to subject what seems familiar to close analysis, to study its pre-texts and sub-texts (as the students he's referring to quite obviously are doing), to read it against the grain. Teaching children's literature is one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I have, for precisely that reason: students learn to open their eyes and explore the strangeness in the world they've taken for granted.
I'm not staying up until midnight for the next book--I pre-ordered it months ago and will be happy to see it on my doorstep Saturday morning. (I am tempted by the party at BookPeople, though!) I haven't seen any of the films since the second one. I'm not dressing up as Luna Lovegood. But I'm not apologizing, either, for spending a chunk of my summer reading and re-reading Rowling, and I'll be taking a little break to speed through Book VII this weekend. How about you?
Friday, April 06, 2007
Easter
I'm a little early with this, but this is my Easter post, courtesy of Julius Lester. This is a paragraph of a speech he gave recently at the University of Massachusetts. Read the whole thing, maybe a couple of times. It's lovely. This is just a taste.
All we have to offer each other is the quality of who we are as human beings. Literature is the place where what it is to be human is presented in stories told in language that goes from the heart of the writer to the heart of the reader.
All we have to offer each other is the quality of who we are as human beings. Literature is the place where what it is to be human is presented in stories told in language that goes from the heart of the writer to the heart of the reader.
Friday, March 16, 2007
So you think you know Jane Austen?
Is apparently the title of a new book by John Sutherland and Deirdre LeFaye. Here are some questions from it. I had a little trouble with question #3, the answer to which proves Mrs. Gould (11th grade English) wrong in her claim that the French Revolution & Napoleonic Wars had nothing to do with Jane Austen. (Bitter, me? Still? Perish the thought.)
I'm not sure yet if I want to read The Annotated Pride and Prejudice. I usually insist on scholarly editions of texts when I teach Victorian literature, and I find the notes in Penguin, Broadview, or Oxford Classics editions useful. Norton Criticals usually get a little too interpretive for me, and I fear--based on the article--that this new Pride and Prejudice would as well.
By the way, the Times writer who thinks Dickens doesn't attract the same cultish devotion as Austen has never been to a Dickens Universe. As a grad student there I was amazed by the folks we called "the postilion people" whose every question was about various modes of transportation, distances between coaching inns, etc. Just as obsessive as the Jane-ites, believe me.
I'm not sure yet if I want to read The Annotated Pride and Prejudice. I usually insist on scholarly editions of texts when I teach Victorian literature, and I find the notes in Penguin, Broadview, or Oxford Classics editions useful. Norton Criticals usually get a little too interpretive for me, and I fear--based on the article--that this new Pride and Prejudice would as well.
By the way, the Times writer who thinks Dickens doesn't attract the same cultish devotion as Austen has never been to a Dickens Universe. As a grad student there I was amazed by the folks we called "the postilion people" whose every question was about various modes of transportation, distances between coaching inns, etc. Just as obsessive as the Jane-ites, believe me.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Fear of Failure
I broke two boards in my tae kwon do test yesterday (green belt!): one with the palm of my hand, another with my elbow. I didn't expect to break them. I knew I could break one with a kick--my legs are pretty strong--but I didn't think my upper body strength could match that.
I also thought that, because I didn't think I could break a board, I wouldn't be able to. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all. But in fact it was easy; I broke each one on the first try.
I think the reason it worked had almost nothing to do with strength, and nothing at all to do with confidence. I broke them because I wasn't afraid of failing to break them.
I'm not afraid of failing at tae kwon do. This is a new experience for me. I like to do things well, and I mostly don't do stuff that I don't do well, or at least well enough for my standards (they are lower in many things--say, cleaning?--than others). I know what it is to fear failure, in other words. But I practice tae kwon do because it's fun, it's good exercise, and it's a way of doing something with Nick, and I don't worry a whole lot about being really good. The teacher is very kind, and he makes it easy not to worry about failing, too--although he corrects me (often!), he does so after praising me, after telling me what I did right. I messed up my patterns (memorized sequences of movements) in my test yesterday, adding extraneous moves to even the most basic one, stalling for a moment in both of the others--and he just had me do them again. Calmly, easily. And I did them fine the second time, and then I broke the boards. No sweat.
The flip side of my success yesterday is another experience, though. I've been grading papers this past week. I have good students this semester, for the most part: they have taken English classes before, they like to read, they contribute well to discussion. And many of their papers were really quite good. The ones that weren't, though, seemed to suffer not from an inability to read the poems, or to analyze them, but from a fear of getting something wrong. They were too cautious, too plodding, too slow; they said little that was right, for fear of saying something that was wrong. They spent four sentences where one would do, trying to "prove" an idea that was apparent at first glance. They made obvious (and, mostly, perfectly accurate) points, but didn't take any chances, go out on any limbs, to make more interesting claims, to push their arguments a little further.*
These aren't bad students, as I said. But their caution weakens their writing.
So, a paradox: I succeed by not fearing failure; they fail to succeed (by their terms--we're talking B- and C+ papers here, mostly) by fearing to fail. They wouldn't say they fear failure, of course, so much as they desire success. But the paradox is clear, at least to me: the desire to avoid failure prevents success. They need to be able to take a risk, to flirt with failure, in order to achieve.
How can I get them not to fear failure, though? Nothing's riding on my tae kwon do class, after all; if I don't progress, it's my problem and my problem alone. If they fail English (or even get a B, some of them), they stay in school longer, or don't get into grad school, or disappoint their parents, or don't get the job they want...etc. It's hard to convince them that it's worth taking a risk when they think the stakes are so high--and when, to be honest, they don't really know how to take those risks.
I've got my work cut out for me.
*One of the poems they could write about was Browning's "Andrea del Sarto," which is all about this. In class, almost no one got that the poem's subtitle--"called, the faultless painter"--represents a criticism, not a compliment. Andrea is good at what he does, but he doesn't try to do anything harder or more interesting; he knows that's not quite enough, but he's afraid to take risks, and that makes him "faultless" but not, as he recognizes, great. The essays about this poem were particularly weak, now that I think about it. Hmm.
I also thought that, because I didn't think I could break a board, I wouldn't be able to. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all. But in fact it was easy; I broke each one on the first try.
I think the reason it worked had almost nothing to do with strength, and nothing at all to do with confidence. I broke them because I wasn't afraid of failing to break them.
I'm not afraid of failing at tae kwon do. This is a new experience for me. I like to do things well, and I mostly don't do stuff that I don't do well, or at least well enough for my standards (they are lower in many things--say, cleaning?--than others). I know what it is to fear failure, in other words. But I practice tae kwon do because it's fun, it's good exercise, and it's a way of doing something with Nick, and I don't worry a whole lot about being really good. The teacher is very kind, and he makes it easy not to worry about failing, too--although he corrects me (often!), he does so after praising me, after telling me what I did right. I messed up my patterns (memorized sequences of movements) in my test yesterday, adding extraneous moves to even the most basic one, stalling for a moment in both of the others--and he just had me do them again. Calmly, easily. And I did them fine the second time, and then I broke the boards. No sweat.
The flip side of my success yesterday is another experience, though. I've been grading papers this past week. I have good students this semester, for the most part: they have taken English classes before, they like to read, they contribute well to discussion. And many of their papers were really quite good. The ones that weren't, though, seemed to suffer not from an inability to read the poems, or to analyze them, but from a fear of getting something wrong. They were too cautious, too plodding, too slow; they said little that was right, for fear of saying something that was wrong. They spent four sentences where one would do, trying to "prove" an idea that was apparent at first glance. They made obvious (and, mostly, perfectly accurate) points, but didn't take any chances, go out on any limbs, to make more interesting claims, to push their arguments a little further.*
These aren't bad students, as I said. But their caution weakens their writing.
So, a paradox: I succeed by not fearing failure; they fail to succeed (by their terms--we're talking B- and C+ papers here, mostly) by fearing to fail. They wouldn't say they fear failure, of course, so much as they desire success. But the paradox is clear, at least to me: the desire to avoid failure prevents success. They need to be able to take a risk, to flirt with failure, in order to achieve.
How can I get them not to fear failure, though? Nothing's riding on my tae kwon do class, after all; if I don't progress, it's my problem and my problem alone. If they fail English (or even get a B, some of them), they stay in school longer, or don't get into grad school, or disappoint their parents, or don't get the job they want...etc. It's hard to convince them that it's worth taking a risk when they think the stakes are so high--and when, to be honest, they don't really know how to take those risks.
I've got my work cut out for me.
*One of the poems they could write about was Browning's "Andrea del Sarto," which is all about this. In class, almost no one got that the poem's subtitle--"called, the faultless painter"--represents a criticism, not a compliment. Andrea is good at what he does, but he doesn't try to do anything harder or more interesting; he knows that's not quite enough, but he's afraid to take risks, and that makes him "faultless" but not, as he recognizes, great. The essays about this poem were particularly weak, now that I think about it. Hmm.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
ten books
Well. Michele at Scholar's Blog says World Book Day is coming up soon in the UK, and that they want to know what ten books you couldn't live without. That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. This list is a mix of personal and professional books--professionally, I also can't live without M.H. Abrams' Glossary of Literary Terms, or the Norton Anthology of English Literature (or, currently, the Broadview Anthology of British Literature, take your pick), or the lovely MLA Approaches to Teaching Children's Literature. This semester I can't live without some Anne Lamott and Stephen King on writing, or without Tennyson. But this more mixed list would hold me through a sabbatical as well as a teaching year, I think.
(Also seen at: The Miss Rumphious Effect and Big A, Little A, so far.)
Persuasion, Jane Austen (but if I could have all six Austen novels bound together, I'd take them all)
A good study Bible.
The Book of Common Prayer (especially the one I have, which also has a hymnal in it)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Grimm's Fairy Tales
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
Gilead, Marilynn Robinson
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
Even as I get ready to push "publish" I wonder, would I rather have Great Expectations than Jane Eyre? Adam Bede rather than Middlemarch? Could I recite the Sendak book and save that spot for Dickens? Where's Charlotte's Web, which I have called--more than once--a perfect novel? Pullman made the list because he inspired my current research project, but would I really rather read Pratchett? I'm not taking this to be the only books I'd ever have, just the ones I most need, for whatever reason. But enough. I'd probably do it differently tomorrow, but this is today's list and it's done.
(Also seen at: The Miss Rumphious Effect and Big A, Little A, so far.)
Persuasion, Jane Austen (but if I could have all six Austen novels bound together, I'd take them all)
A good study Bible.
The Book of Common Prayer (especially the one I have, which also has a hymnal in it)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Grimm's Fairy Tales
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
Gilead, Marilynn Robinson
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
Even as I get ready to push "publish" I wonder, would I rather have Great Expectations than Jane Eyre? Adam Bede rather than Middlemarch? Could I recite the Sendak book and save that spot for Dickens? Where's Charlotte's Web, which I have called--more than once--a perfect novel? Pullman made the list because he inspired my current research project, but would I really rather read Pratchett? I'm not taking this to be the only books I'd ever have, just the ones I most need, for whatever reason. But enough. I'd probably do it differently tomorrow, but this is today's list and it's done.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
teaching and learning
I've never had a knitting lesson, and it shows. I can do the basic stitches (wrong, as it turns out, until fairly recently), and I can count (sometimes), but changing colors or actually shaping anything eludes me. This is fine with me, at the moment, though I'm starting to feel the itch to do the work better. Practice helps, but a lesson would help even more. I know it in my bones.
My brother sat down with my daughter not too long ago and told her the same thing. He's self-taught on guitar, and has always enjoyed just playing around. "But every lesson I take," he told her, "I get almost exponentially better." Sometimes it just takes five minutes for someone to show you how to do something you've been struggling with for hours, maybe years.
Mariah is taking voice lessons now. Voice lessons always seemed like a luxury to me. Everyone knows how to sing, right? It's like talking, only a little more interesting. It's not as if you have to learn where to place your fingers on the keys, or strings, or frets: it's almost magical, how the voice finds its way.
Only it's not, of course. Learning anatomy and breath control and projection and phrasing can make a huge difference. Being self-taught can be personally satisfying, but study can increase both satisfaction and quality.
Teaching writing is a little like teaching voice, I think. The people who study writing, like the people who study voice, have already been doing the thing for some time. They know how to manipulate words, to put them together on the page; they read a lot (or they should--as the voice students listen to music) and they've picked up a lot just from being around words all their lives. Sometimes writers resist learning new things, as musicians do, fearful of losing the unpracticed spontaneity that has served them so well so far. Sometimes the exercises feel forced, the practice is boring. It's the easiest thing in the workload to blow off, if you're already good at it; you figure you'll skate by, as you always have, on talent.
Studying tae kwon do has taught me a lot about learning. It's something I came into with no prior knowledge. Oh, yes, I know how to stand upright and to walk and sit down, but kicking and punching are foreign notions. I felt awkward and slow for months after I started going to class with Nick (for whom, I must say, kicking and punching seemed a lot less foreign).
The other day, though, we played dodge ball in class and I learned that I do know something useful for tae kwon do. I was great at dodge ball in elementary school. I have brothers, after all: I know how to get out of the way. And it all came rushing back to me in our small studio space, as we dodged a pair of balled-up stinky socks. Through two rounds, I remained untouched, still standing after everyone else was out. Carytown champion of dodge ball.
It helps to know you know something when you're trying to learn. It was nice to know my instinctive dodging was actually a valuable skill. But it also helps to practice with some humility, to know what you don't know. A friend told me the other day about "white belt excellence: The ability to let go of everything you know and be open to something else." When I began to study tae kwon do I paid attention, I watched what everyone did, I even asked Nick to break things down for me at home so I could practice again. I can break a board with a kick, now. I have a decent roundhouse and a pretty good front snap kick. I've got some techniques beyond instinctive dodging, and I couldn't have gotten them without studying, practicing, making mistakes. I have a long way to go, too, and it's only going to get harder.
Writing's like that, too. It often feels instinctive, especially for readers. Too often words just flow out and they seem right because they made it to the page. Most of them, though, are just instinctive dodging, unpracticed knitting: they work, for a while, but they're not very polished and they won't get you far.
This piece is itself unpolished and raw, of course. I've got some metaphors, maybe too many, some thoughts, but I haven't assembled them as I'd like. I need to do some research, I think, and mull over this more, but I'm (as always) both impatient and rushed, and this will have to do for now.
My brother sat down with my daughter not too long ago and told her the same thing. He's self-taught on guitar, and has always enjoyed just playing around. "But every lesson I take," he told her, "I get almost exponentially better." Sometimes it just takes five minutes for someone to show you how to do something you've been struggling with for hours, maybe years.
Mariah is taking voice lessons now. Voice lessons always seemed like a luxury to me. Everyone knows how to sing, right? It's like talking, only a little more interesting. It's not as if you have to learn where to place your fingers on the keys, or strings, or frets: it's almost magical, how the voice finds its way.
Only it's not, of course. Learning anatomy and breath control and projection and phrasing can make a huge difference. Being self-taught can be personally satisfying, but study can increase both satisfaction and quality.
Teaching writing is a little like teaching voice, I think. The people who study writing, like the people who study voice, have already been doing the thing for some time. They know how to manipulate words, to put them together on the page; they read a lot (or they should--as the voice students listen to music) and they've picked up a lot just from being around words all their lives. Sometimes writers resist learning new things, as musicians do, fearful of losing the unpracticed spontaneity that has served them so well so far. Sometimes the exercises feel forced, the practice is boring. It's the easiest thing in the workload to blow off, if you're already good at it; you figure you'll skate by, as you always have, on talent.
Studying tae kwon do has taught me a lot about learning. It's something I came into with no prior knowledge. Oh, yes, I know how to stand upright and to walk and sit down, but kicking and punching are foreign notions. I felt awkward and slow for months after I started going to class with Nick (for whom, I must say, kicking and punching seemed a lot less foreign).
The other day, though, we played dodge ball in class and I learned that I do know something useful for tae kwon do. I was great at dodge ball in elementary school. I have brothers, after all: I know how to get out of the way. And it all came rushing back to me in our small studio space, as we dodged a pair of balled-up stinky socks. Through two rounds, I remained untouched, still standing after everyone else was out. Carytown champion of dodge ball.
It helps to know you know something when you're trying to learn. It was nice to know my instinctive dodging was actually a valuable skill. But it also helps to practice with some humility, to know what you don't know. A friend told me the other day about "white belt excellence: The ability to let go of everything you know and be open to something else." When I began to study tae kwon do I paid attention, I watched what everyone did, I even asked Nick to break things down for me at home so I could practice again. I can break a board with a kick, now. I have a decent roundhouse and a pretty good front snap kick. I've got some techniques beyond instinctive dodging, and I couldn't have gotten them without studying, practicing, making mistakes. I have a long way to go, too, and it's only going to get harder.
Writing's like that, too. It often feels instinctive, especially for readers. Too often words just flow out and they seem right because they made it to the page. Most of them, though, are just instinctive dodging, unpracticed knitting: they work, for a while, but they're not very polished and they won't get you far.
This piece is itself unpolished and raw, of course. I've got some metaphors, maybe too many, some thoughts, but I haven't assembled them as I'd like. I need to do some research, I think, and mull over this more, but I'm (as always) both impatient and rushed, and this will have to do for now.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Does YouTube hate me?
Twice yesterday I tried to post this video here, because I thought it might be an example of Creative Nonfiction. (My class and I are having trouble, as always, with definitions.) I dutifully signed up with YouTube and told them where my blogs were, etc. They informed me that it would be appearing on the blog soon. That was around noon yesterday, so I'm thinking "soon" is a relative term--or, I did something wrong.
In any case, you can see the video by going to YouTube as usual. Truly, the machine is using us. Sigh.
In any case, you can see the video by going to YouTube as usual. Truly, the machine is using us. Sigh.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
public and private losses
I'm thinking a little about how we memorialize public figures--and private losses--these days, having spent last week teaching Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H.. Ericka Lutz navigated that public/private divide beautifully in her column about her grandmother, Tillie Olsen (also memorialized as a more public figure on the LiteraryMama blog, by Marjorie Osterhout). Would Tennyson have used pictures, if he'd been writing for Hallam today? I think he might have blogged, publishing fragments of his mourning at a time, though perhaps not. [edited to add: or maybe a hypertext?] It took him 17 years to write In Memoriam; a young man when he died, Hallam would have been 40 by the time Tennyson published his elegy. Would it have had more impact in fragments, in pieces as they came out, or less? Did Tennyson share them along the way, getting comments from family and friends? The poem reads as if he did, as if he were responding to his critics when he incorporates their voices, like comments: "He loves to make parade of pain,/That with his piping he may gain/The praise that comes with constancy.'"
Tennyson lets the comments stand, but finally moves beyond private grief to public accountability and hope: "Ring out a slowly dying cause,/And ancient forms of party strife...Ring out false pride in place and blood,The civic slander and the spite;/Ring in the love of truth and right,/Ring in the common love of good."
We're not there yet, over 150 years later. But those words are just as good a memorial to Molly Ivins as any, I think.
Tennyson lets the comments stand, but finally moves beyond private grief to public accountability and hope: "Ring out a slowly dying cause,/And ancient forms of party strife...Ring out false pride in place and blood,The civic slander and the spite;/Ring in the love of truth and right,/Ring in the common love of good."
We're not there yet, over 150 years later. But those words are just as good a memorial to Molly Ivins as any, I think.
Emperor of What?
From Terry, this amazing piece of spoken word poetry. Watch it now. I mean it.
The Chronicle had a less-optimistic take on education and the internet. But check out the video first, really.
The Chronicle had a less-optimistic take on education and the internet. But check out the video first, really.
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