First Couple Weeks: Creating English Scholars

The first couple weeks of my teaching have been going very well. My three preps are so very different–it’s kind of amazing, and it makes every day a veritable potpourri of teaching variety. My writing lab class, which in content and student body is quickly becoming my best-loved hour of the day, is a creative, process-based elective for high schoolers. This is where I can create the curriculum of my dreams: a writing workshop where I can guide every step from inspiration to publication for my community of writers.  The seventh graders are a treat that is new to me–they still very young, confused, and playful, and an absolute breeze as far as classroom management goes. Everything is new to them. The seniors–low on motivation, high on sass, but smart as whips–are my special challenge and in some ways my other favorite. I am determined to be the teacher that, during this last, vital year, leaves the door open for Language Arts in the hearts and minds of these students as they enter the adult world.

With the seniors, I spent the first week centered completely around WHY we study literature in the first place. I know I certainly didn’t understand or even think about the reasons behind literary study as a high schooler. In fact, I avoided AP lit by taking a theater class instead. I just didn’t get it. And either did my current students. While there’s still a long way to go, I felt some glimmers this week, some hints that they are starting to think about the value of the written word, and that makes it all worth it.

My two best recommendations for “Why Literature” lessons:

1. Selections from Mario Vargas Llosa’s essay “The Premature Obituary of the Book: Why Literature?” This is, when approached from an open-minded point of view, a staggering argument for literature that students enjoy both debating and considering. It contains such gems as this, which made my literary geek heart swoon: Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of the human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanity’s multi-faceted creativity. Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure, of course; but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness.

2. I had my students, in groups of four, come up with at least ten reasons why someone might want to study literature. Then, I fused all the good reasons together and published it, giving each student a copy and posting it, LARGE SIZE, on the wall. As I explained to them, “If I came to teach every day just to get paid and go home, I’d be a poor teacher. Just the same, if you come to school each day just to pass and go home, you’ll be substandard students.  To be good at something, you need to find a reason behind it. Here are your reasons for literature. Dig deep and find one, or more, that work for you, and you might surprise yourself by the wealth that you find!”

Here’s our list… Is your reason on there?

THE POINT OF STUDYING LITERATURE

by English 12, Hours 3 and 6

1. To seek answers to unanswered questions.

2. To expand our imaginations.

3. To feel or express an emotion.

4. To reflect on the state of the world around us.

5. To expose ourselves to viewpoints outside our own.

6. To appreciate the artistry of great authors.

7. To learn passion.

8. To understand other cultures.

9. To improve our society.

10. To imitate the masters in our own writing.

11. To explore different value systems and philosophies.

12. To learn how to live or how not to live.

13. To stand out.

14. To approach important ideas.

15. To hear a good story.

16. To gain reading and critical thinking skills.

17. To think about something strange, deep, or interesting.

18. To learn about other historical periods.

19. To experience something we’ve never physically encountered.

20. To see ourselves reflected back to us, with both flaws and admiration.

21. For comfort or encouragement.

22. To be respected by others.

23. To expand vocabulary.

24. To escape into an alternate reality.

25. To read and write poetry.

26. To delve into the minds of greatness.

27. To teach others.

28. To maintain a set number of intellectuals in our society.

29. To learn different genres and styles of writing.

30. For inspiration.

31. To challenge ourselves.

32. To become more intelligent.

33. To learn about famous authors.

34. To learn about new or little-known authors.

35. To impress members of the opposite sex.

36. As part of a career.

37. To better visualize a thing, place, or idea.

38. Because it’s been studied for centuries.

39. To stay out of trouble.

40. To pass Ms. H’s class and graduate from high school.

Field Trip

I recently visited my city’s public museum, a well known collection of natural and cultural artifacts. Having not been to the museum very often since my youth, this was my first time looking at the museum as a teacher. And I found two things of interest to my English-teaching self: one specific object and one broad realization.

First, the artifact.

This is a writing desk and quill from the Lewis and Clark expedition. The quote on the inserted sign is from a letter written to Meriwether Lewis from Thomas Jefferson before the journey. It reads: “Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy; to be entered distinctly and intelligibly, for others as well as yourself…” Isn’t it interesting that Lewis and Clark’s most important “assignment” required some of the same essential features that we still require in writing? Thoughtfulness, accuracy, clarity, and mindfulness of one’s audience as well as one’s own feelings and goals: I don’t think I could ask for a much better general set of writing guidelines!

And the realization…

As I strolled the museum, I found so many things that felt new and intriguing, from the spectacular dinosaur skeletons to the subtler, small things, like the antiquated silverware pictured above. It reminded me that observation and reflection are a huge part of thinking in a literary way. It is so important to have an open mind when approaching tasks like creative writing or taking alternative viewpoints in a discussion on literature. And part of that mind-opening process is being able to step back and think about the world, the people in it, and the countless strange, amazing things that surround us. Exploration is an underrated concept, I think, in our society today. We should be able to walk about and discover things every once in a while. Natural and cultural wonders are part of our textual universe. When you look at things in this light, is much easier to see how science, sociology, and history overlap with this (practically subjectless) subject we call English. I mean, aside from the hardware skills of reading, writing, interpretation, and discussion, “English” is really about EVERYTHING, about our world. And we need to explore our environment to understand it–both philosophically and physically. English isn’t found in the classroom. It’s found everywhere. And I found it at the museum.

So, what was accomplished here?

1. A re-affirmation of my theory that the universe is a text, and we English scholars are obligated to explore, interpret, and create what we can.

2. Every subject, even science, can lead to an English lesson. *Evil laugh of satisfaction*

3. Career goal: Come up with a field trip (such as a trip to the museum) that will allow both time for exploration and education. Kids will want to have a free for all, obviously, but maybe that’s part of living that’s intergral to the process of literary creation and interpretation. I want to harness the inherent passion for discovery and learning that every child has, and use it to aid learning. There is so much energy in young people–why waste effort squelching it when it can be developed and employed?

The beauty of language and ideas is everywhere… we just have to look closely.

Putting the “fun” in Formalism

I’m now realizing that formalism has suffered from a bad reputation. And I don’t really wonder why. We’ve all probably had enough formalism/structuralism shoved down our throats in the early part of our English study to last a lifetime. I remember hating it. Learning dry facts about meter, for instance, seemed to kill poetry. As a high school student, I was filled with resentment and confusion about these teachers who (to my mutinous, adolescent eyes) were trying to turn English into math. Though I excelled in my literature classes, I loathed them. I remember how much I rejoiced when I got to college and found out that there was more to literary study than just a strict analysis of how the words were put together.

Considering things from a teacher’s perspective, I understand why formalism was such a frequently used focus: it’s safe. Rules exist. Feelings don’t have to get involved. Parents won’t call to complain. Bland? Perhaps. Simple? Yes. Secure? Definitely. Hence, probably why a lot of teachers stress formalism in their English classrooms and avoid the thought-provoking but risky idealogical discussions that I so savor.

But that being said, when one learns the reasons behind it, formalism does have a fascinating side. It doesn’t have to be “blah.” If we blend discussions of formalism with the text’s larger themes or other aims, things get a whole lot better. Sometimes, I think, just simply going that extra step further to why a certain device was used makes discussion much more fulfilling. Part of the reason that I was so bored with formal elements as a student was that I never understood how they connected to the parts of literature that mattered to me: themes, truths, characters’ struggles, and my personal response to the reading. The connection between form and function never solidified for me in high school. If it had, maybe I’d be a published author by now. (Besides the blog–ha ha!)

Since the path I’m on is the one of the teacher, I’m hoping to sensibly balance safety and risk in my practice, and hopefully illuminate some of the “why’s” of literature that were never explained to me until college. I think it’s possible, but not easy, to put the fun in formalism. Form is where meaning begins, not where it ends.

Kindred Spirits

In my reading of Deborah Appleman’s Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literacy Theory to Adolescents, I found some quotations that really support this blog’s theme of navigating the “universe as text.” I have shared them below.

“Reading this postmodern culture requires that we reconsider which artifacts or elements of culture actually can and should be read. In other words, we must refine ‘texts’ to include a variety of forms, both print and non-print, literary and nonliterary” (Appleman 104).

“[F]or many deconstructionists, the traditional conception of literature is merely an elitist ‘construct.’ All ‘texts’ or ‘discourse’ (novels, scientific papers, a Kewpie doll on the mantle, watching TV, suing in court, walking the dog, and all other signs that human beings make) are of a piece; all are unstable systems of ‘signifying,’ all are fictions, all are ‘literature’” (Barnet, qtd. in Appleman 104).

“Once ‘text’ is conceived of as a cultural artifact, any text, past or present, classic or popular, fiction or non-fiction, written, oral, or filmic, can be admitted to the English classroom for legitimate and regarding scrutiny…” (Boomer, qtd. in Appleman 104).

“It is not only for the survival of our profession [as English teachers] but for the survival of adolescents as well that our students, now perhaps more than ever before, need critical tools to read the increasingly bewildering and text-filled world that surrounds us. Those texts can range from the literary to a galaxy of artifacts in the external world” (Appleman 105).

We have to learn how to read our world, through books as well as outside of them. Otherwise, the discussion and definition of texts is irrelevant frivolity. Life is what is important. Hopefully, my teaching will find a way to reflect that.