A Freewrite: Let's Challenge Our Textbooks
Written by เมื่อลมแรง...ใบไม้ก็ร่วง
//www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-239x251.jpg
An MSN conversation I had last night with an Internet friend who is currently a lecturer at a Thai university last night drove me to write todays blog. He, for the first time teaching Background to English Literature, asked me what topics I would cover on the first day of class. Well, with no teaching experience, but with avid interest in approaches to teaching literature, I said, I dont know, but I can offer you some suggestions. In my Literary Studies class [the equivalent of his Background of English Literature], we talked about literature in general and read a couple of short excerpts in class. Then, the professor spoke of how Practical Criticism could be applied to the act of reading those excerpts. Also, I added, If I were to teach, I would assign my students to respond to the question, what is literature? in a form of a short essay.
Well, he said that thats pretty much what he, too, would do: he would talk about literature in general, covering the two questions, what literature is and why we read it. So, basically, we shared the same thoughts. And because of that, I was curious about his answers. So, what are the answers? I subsequently asked.
His response read something like this: The word literature derives from the Latin litteratura, which means a book.
(Mr. Socrates and Mr. Eagleton stop arguing now--we've got the answer! But wait a minute, What? Literature is a simply book?! Finally, a century-long debate is rendered to a simple conclusion as such? Isn't that too shallow an answer? So, Dragonball Z is literature, because its a book? And so are Playboy, Time Magazine, and Image?)
I didnt tell him my thoughts, but I did say to him, Really? Well, he replied, according to the class textbook which students and I are supposed to use, literature is defined as a book. (And thats what he would tell his students to remember
)
I was not trying to show off my knowledge, but I told him that philosophers had been for several years (since Plato, if I am not mistaken) debating on this issue, and no definitive conclusion had yet been reached. So, wouldnt it be great to have the students join the debate? I would not want to argue with what the department thought should be taught, replied he.
Well, thats understandable (because after all, he said, it is fortunate enough for him, holding the post for less than two years, to teach a sophomore class). But if we continue letting supposedly sacred textbooks dominate our thoughts, what would be the point of teaching The Teaching of Literature seminars or of participating in monthly teacher conferences, when we can just teach what is written in the textbook? (I cant imagine also what if the textbook is out-of-date? Inaccurate? Using textbooks, we must constantly remind ourselves that they were written by a group of people at a particular time and moment.)
Now, some people may ask me to understand that this is Thailand, not America, and most students are not used to thinking. So, textbooksand remembering the inscribed contentare, well, inevitable. No, I am not suggesting that we discard the use of the textbooks. But at times, we should teach our students to challenge those textbooks, and thereby the authors, who wrote them. We can use them as a point of departure for further discussion.
In fact, especially in literature classes, by helping our students question their textbooks, we, the teachers, are simultaneously and subtly engaging our students in the world of advanced literary criticism (ALC), because one of the questions that has generated numerous hotly-contested debates among the students of ALC is, who has the authority to write a particular text and what constitutes that authority?
6/14/2006
(c) 2006. เมื่อลมแรง...ใบไม้ก็ร่วง. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this article may be reproduced, by any process of technique, without the express written consent of the author (in.dialogue@yahoo.com).
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What most professors use in Background classes---Brit or Am---is an anthology, such as Norton's, Longman's, etc. So, one of the questions that might be interesting to ask is "who decides what's to be included in an anthology? Who judges whether something is so "good" as to be included in the Brit or Am lit canon?
Should Native American myths and stories, or Black people's writings, for example, be present in the Brit or Am canon?
What about women writings? Women, especially in the Middle Ages and Renaissance period, did write, but their works were not thought of as being on the same par as those of male writers.
On the other hand, looking from the teacher's side, in an Intro (to Brit or Am Lit) class like this, should we prescribe only widely-recognized works for students to read or for us to teach, such as Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's plays, Milton's Paradise Lost, Wordsworth's the Prelude, Dickens, Hardy, etc?
Should students be required to read, along with the works mentioned above, Christine de Pizan, Marie de France, Magaret Cavendish, Anne Finch, etc.
Realizing that an intro course cannot cover all writers/works in all lit. periods, I would encourage teachers to pick out one major writer and at least one minor writer to teach for each lit period, so that the students see and appreciate the differences in terms of subject matters, worldviews, styles, etc.