The
Teaching of Literature
ENGL 610, Section 002
Spring
2006
Thursdays,
7:20 - 10:00 PM
Fine
Arts Bldg. 112
Professor
Chris
Thaiss
Office:
A423 Robinson
Office
Hours: M 9-10 AM, W 10-11 AM, and by appt.
Phone:
(703) 993-1273
Email:
cthaiss@gmu.edu
Description
Welcome to
your first semester of teaching ENGL 201, Reading and
Writing about Texts. This course, ENGL 610, supports your teaching of
that course, but it also, and more importantly, gives you the
opportunity to think deeply and creatively about this enterprise we
call the teaching of literature. ENGL 610 should help prepare you for
the many challenges you will face as a teacher of literature and of
literacy.
As the
title of ENGL 201 states, an introductory college course
in "literature" is about reading and
writing, or should be. All of you are readers and writers--your writing
deepens and varies your reading, while your reading enriches your
writing. Too often this symbiosis doesn't happen in literature courses,
where students are expected to "cover" many pages of assigned reading,
but without learning how to read critically and creatively--or why they
would wish to. Writing in such courses often occurs after the act of
reading has supposedly taken place, and the assigned writing is often
merely "about" the reading, rather than "because of," "in
dialogue with," or "building upon" the reading. In ENGL 610, we'll
think about literary study as a symbiosis of reading, writing, talk,
listening, and other language modes. My intent in this course is not to
proselytize for one way to teach literature, but to have us
encounter and discover a range of ways to help our students become
better (and happier?) workers in the word.
Books, Materials,
and Online Resources
Blau,
Sheridan. The
Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003.
Murfin,
Ross and Supriya Ray. The
Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 2nd. Ed.
Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2003.
The
E-200 Website: Resources for Teaching 200-Level Literature at George
Mason University
(
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/english/e-200 )
Incidental
expenses for xeroxed copying
of handouts and drafts.
The
University Library System: databases in
all disciplines.
Those of you who will
be including the Text and Community selection, Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, will want to use the
resources on the program
website: http://nmge.gmu.edu/textandcommunity/2006/
.
Further,
if you are
not
already a member of the National
Council
of Teachers of English, I strongly urge you to visit the NCTE
website
and learn about the advantages of and procedures for joining. Students
may do so at a greatly reduced rate.
Pre-Semester
Workshop, January 17-20
The
major intent of these four days is to ready you for the beginning
of classes and help you map out the semester. If you have met my
request to send a draft of your syllabus for my comments, then
these four days will help you flesh out your course outline and refine
your objectives, schedule, and assignments.
DAY ONE: Tuesday, January 17: 10
AM - 12 Noon and 1:30 - 3:30 PM (We
will meet in the English Conference Room, A447 Robinson)
Morning:
Review of Syllabus Requirements and Workshop on Syllabus
Revision
Please
have reviewed the relevant sections of the e-200 website
(I have sent you an email with the username and password). Bring with
you four copies of your draft syllabus for peer review in class.
Afternoon:
Teaching Fiction
Have
reviewed the fiction assignments on the e-200 website and the
relevant section of the literature anthology you will be using in 201
(including any instructor's materials the anthology appends). Be ready
to discuss elements and techniques of fiction you plan to emphasize in
your sections.
DAY TWO: Wednesday, January 18:
10 AM - 12 Noon and 1:30 - 3:30 PM (We
will meet in Fine Arts 112 or TBA)
Morning:
Teaching Poetry (Guest Presenter: Zofia Burr)
See
previous section on Fiction and have read appropriate materials for
teaching poetry on e-200 website and in your literature anthology. Be
ready to discuss elements of poetry you plan to emphasize in your
sections.
Afternoon:
Using Student Writing in Teaching Fiction and Poetry
We'll
continue the discussion of the morning, then move into discussion
of the various roles of writing in improving critical reading. Have
read the Introduction and Chs. 1, 7, and 8 of Blau, The
Literature Workshop (see below).
DAY THREE: Thursday, January 19:
9 AM - 12 Noon and 1:30 - 3:30 PM (In
the morning we will take part in the all-faculty 201 workshop directed
by Zofia Burr, location TBA; in the afternoon we will meet in Fine Arts
112)
Morning:
All-Faculty 201 Workshop
The
workshop will give you the chance to meet other faculty and hear
from experienced teachers of 201. Part of this workshop will be devoted
to ways to incorporate the Text and Community selection, Jon Krakauer's
Into
the Wild, into your
sections, if you are planning to do so.
Afternoon:
Teaching Drama
See
previous paragraphs on Fiction (Day One) and Poetry (Day Two). Have
read pertinent sections of e-200 website and your literature anthology,
plus handout from Thaiss and Davis, Writing
about Theatre. Be ready to
discuss elements of drama you
plan to emphasize in your sections.
DAY FOUR: Friday, January 20: 10
AM - 12 Noon and 1:00 - 3:00 PM (We
will meet in the English Conference Room, A447 Robinson, in the morning
and in Innovation Hall 318 (computer classroom) in the afternoon.)
Morning:
Teaching Nonfiction
See
previous sections on other genres and be similarly prepared. Have
read handout on teaching nonfiction. We may discuss, among other
specific topics, how you plan to include Into
the Wild into your
201s.
Afternoon:
Other Topics and Final Prep
As I
have secured a computer classroom for this PM session, we
will register on the Townhall
online forum and discuss
use of
electronic tools in the literature classroom. We will definitely use
part of this time for your questions and concerns in regard to any
issue we have covered in the workshop.
Semester Schedule
(Thursdays
from 7:20 to 10:00 PM in Fine Arts 112)
Jan. 26 Reports on
First Classes: Issues and Questions
Discussion
of Assignment Design: Bring to class for workshop 13 copies of an
assignment you will give within the next three weeks. Attach to each
copy a one-page explanation of your specific goals for this assignment
and how you expect this assignment to provoke original student writing
to meet those goals.
Begin
choosing of topics for class demonstration lessons.
The
Townhall forum will begin this week.
Feb. 2 No Class
Feb. 9 Fostering the Dynamic
Classroom: Encouraging Meaningful Talk, Responding to Writing: Be
prepared to talk about your discussions of works in class--what's
working? what isn't?--and your first responses to student writing about
their reading.
Have read
Blau, Chs. 3-4.
Submit a
one-page description of your plans for the demonstration lesson in this
class. Include a working bibliography of 3-4 specific sources on
teaching the works, genres, techniques in question. We will create the
schedule of demonstrations this week.
Feb. 16 Responding to and
Grading Student Writiing about Literature: Circulate ahead of time (one
copy in each of our boxes) 13 copies of a "troubling" student paper on
which you'd like commentary from the class. This copy need not include
your comments to the student, but be sure to bring to class one copy
that does contain your written feedback.
NOTE--MY
VISITS TO YOUR CLASSES: I will be setting up visits to your classes
this week. The visits will occur between Feb. 20 and March 30. Please
ask me to visit early if you feel that you are having particular
problems on which you'd like my feedback.
Feb. 23 "Meaning" and
"Interpretation": Your Students and the Texts You've Assigned
Have read
Blau, Chs. 5-6.
Seminar
demonstration lessons begin.
NOTE--YOUR
OBSERVATION OF ANOTHER 201 TEACHER: No later than this date you should
let me know whose class you will be observing and when. See Assignments.
March 2 No class
March 9 Mid-Term Achievements:
We will write and talk in class about how far you and your students
have come since the beginning of the semester.
Have read
Blau, Chs. 9-10.
Seminar
demonstration lessons.
March 16 Spring Break
March 23 No Class
March
30 Assignment Design Revisited: Bring to class for
workshop
4 copies of a formal paper assignment you will give to students within
the next three weeks. Attach to each copy a one-page explanation of how
this assignment represents an advance in design over the earlier
assignments you've made this semester.
Seminar
demonstrations lessons.
April 6 No Class
April 13 Results of Teacher
Observations: Bring to class your 750-1000-word report on your visit
to another teacher of 201. We will discuss issues and questions raised
by the visits.
Seminar
demonstration lessons.
April 20 No Class
April 27 Seminar demonstration
lessons.
Hand in
(1) your one-page (500-word) demonstration lesson description for the
class anthology, (2) your 500-750-word review of two articles on the
teaching of a specific work, author, genre, or technique, and (3) your
750-word position paper on your philosophy of teaching literature.
May 4 Seminar Final Review
Seminar
demonstration lessons.
There
will be no final exam in this course.
Assignments
Communal 'Blog (20
% of course grade) on
Townhall Electronic Forum
From Jan. 26 onward you’ll
take part in a weekly (sometimes twice-weekly) Internet forum
(asynchronous)
based on the topics and readings for that week’s class. I ask you to
write
at least one full screen from one assignment to the next as part of a
conversation among the
members
of the seminar.You’ll be responding both to the assigned material and
to
one another’s comments. Hence, I’d like you to log in twice during each
forum, so
you can contribute in the early and more advanced stages of the
conversation.
These commentaries should be thoughtful, incisive
reflections on the
topics
in relation to your own teaching, reading, and writing.
I’d like the tone of
these
remarks always to remain thoughtful and congenial. It’s fine to
disagree
with a colleague or with me, but I ask you to do so in the spirit of
collegiality.
I'm calling this forum a "'blog," as a variable medium for informal
writing. This blog
will
be atypical, since it's not a collection of individual websites that
each
student creates, but a single website to which we all contribute. Feel
free to use your space not only for your written entries, but also to
insert
images, links, etc., pertinent to our discussions.
Townhall
is a web-based discussion program that is used by many GMU teachers to
conduct both real-time (synchronous) and non-concurrent (asynchronous)
forums for students. We will devote part of one class in the
pre-semester workshop (Jan. 20) to a
real-time
discussion on Townhall and to instruction in how to use the program for
our weekly online conversations.
Seminar Presentation/Demonstration Lesson
By
our second meeting of the semester (Feb. 9), I'd like you to have
chosen a subject
for
a thirty-minute presentation/demonstration pertinent to the teaching of
literature. The demonstration can focus on an author, a literary term
or trope, a specific work, or a genre; it can focus on a common
teaching concern; e.g, building good discussion, working with
multicultural classes or ESL students, running peer response
groups.
The
presentation/demonstration should include two parts: a very brief
overview
(no more than 10 minutes) of the issue and summary of several sources
(books,
articles) you have consulted, and a "hands-on" activity (about 15
minutes)
that shows how you'd apply your idea to the classroom. You should leave
about 5 minutes for questions. Let me emphasize that these
demonstrations
are experimental--first drafts as it were. They are an opportunity for
you to share with us techniques that you are thinking of using in
current or prospective classes. Choose a topic that will teach you
something new about teaching: if you've been teaching, don't give us
the lesson you know will work (though we'd love to hear about that
elsewhere in the course), but try out the lesson you're thinking of
using with your students.
Plan
to ask us to read a short work (no more than six pages) or give us some
other
type of homework (e.g., a writing or research exercise) in preparation
for the presentation. You'll have to make enough copies of readings for
the class, including me.
In
preparing the presentation, I'd like you to consult at least three
print
or online
sources closely pertinent to the subject. Your working bibliography of
sources must be handed in for my comments at least two weeks prior to
the
scheduled date of your presentation. To facilitate
your
search, I urge you to become familiar with the search tools on the
Mason
Libraries databases. The e-200 website and the NCTE website can also
lead you to good sources on teaching literature. The CompPile database developed by Rich Haswell and Glenn Blalock
of Texas A&M Corpus Christi is focused primarly on the teaching of
writing, but also has some resources for the teaching of literature in
relation to writing.
You
may work with one other person on this project, if you so choose. If
so,
the pair of you will have an hour for your presentation, and I'd expect
you to consult and include in your bibliography at least seven sources.
The additional time will allow you to give a more detailed intro and
allow
us more time for the "hands-on" exercise. If you do a joint
presentation,
it must be clear that there has been equal participation by both
persons.
At
the time of the presentation, please distribute to the class and to me
a one-page document (as one of your handouts)
that briefly summarizes your lesson and that lists the works you
consulted.
At our next -to-last class (April 27), hand in a
one-page, single-spaced description of your presentation/demonstration
organized in three sections: Background, Description, and Rationale.
I'll explain each section in class, where I will also explain specific
formatting. This document will become part of a class teaching
anthology.
Position
Paper on the Teaching of Writing
On April 27, you will hand in a 750-word
statement of your "position" as teacher of literature: your
goals,
your sense of the issues, your sense of the students' needs, your
ongoing questions,
your doubts, your joys--anything that helps to define you as a teacher
at the "present" moment--the end of your first semester as a teacher of
ENGL 201. You will have been thinking through writing all semester
about your 201 classes as they take shape and evolve, and this
assignment gives you an opportunity to take stock of how far you--and
your students--have come in that time
Review of Two Professional Articles
At
the next to last class (April 27), hand in as part of your folders a
three-page
analysis
(about 750 words) of two substantial articles about teaching literature
that you have read
during the course. You choose the articles for their relevance to your
immediate or future needs as a teacher. Please approve your
choice with me as early in the semester as you can. Write the
analysis
as if you were reviewing the articles for a professional journal (e.g.,
The
English Journal, College English).
Focus on specific
benefits the articles would have for other teachers (or students,
parents,
policy makers, etc.). What do the articles lack that you feel they
should
have?
What questions do they raise in your mind? How might you use the
articles?
If you wish, feel free to submit a discovery draft of your analysis up
to two weeks before it is due, for my comments.
Visit to a Teacher
of ENGL 201 Whom You Admire
Before or on April 13, please hand in a detailed report
(about 1000 words)
on a visit you have made to a class taught by an experienced teacher of
201 whose work with students you admire. Before the class you visit, be
sure to study the syllabus and, if possible, talk with the teacher
about his/her goals and methods. Describe
in detail and reflect on the class session. How
was learning taking place in the class? What did the teacher do? The
students?
What ideas or techniques would you adapt to your own teaching? How
might
you modify what this teacher was doing? Why? Include your
reflections
on the syllabus and your talk with the teacher as part of the report.
Feel free to ask me or other
members of the seminar for suggestions of such teachers, if you don't
readily know whom you'd like to visit.
Seminar Participation
Your
full, active, well-prepared, and thoughtful participation in our
discussions
is essential toward both the success of the course and your own success
in it. I look forward to many evenings of productive, intense,
enjoyable
discussion and to excellent online conversations as well.
Grades
I'll
base your grade on holistic assessment of all the work you hand in; on
your active, thoughtful participation in the pre-semester workshop and
semester-long seminar, both in class and
online; and on your presentation.
Since so much of the work is experimental and exploratory, I'll be
looking
most closely for experimentation and exploration: speculative thought,
trying out different ideas (including those you might feel initially
uncomfortable
with), asking questions, probing your assumptions and those of others,
writing with imagination and a sense of possibilities. I encourage you
to express your reactions and opinions in regard to readings, issues,
etc.,
but don't be satisfied (I won't) with just expressing your impressions.
Look at pros and cons and try to entertain alternative points of view.
All the issues we deal with in this course are controversial, and I'd
like
you in your writing to try to see through the eyes of persons who hold
different views from those you bring to the discussion of each issue.
Please
don't hesitate to ask for my feedback or that of others. Final letter
grades
mean
the following:
B
= completion of all requirements on time and according to instructions
given above; active involvement in class and online discussions of
readings and issues;
clear, competent writing
A
= completion of all requirements on time and according to above
instructions,
plus clear, consistent evidence of imaginative intellectual engagement
in writing, discussion, and presentation;
C
= completion of less than all requirements on time and according to
instructions.
Plusses
and minuses will be given according to GMU policy.
Top
of
Syllabus