/lit/ - Literature

>>1462867

*Modernist, rather, since I'm talking about shit from like the early 1900's.

I would probably do a unit on modern British literature. I like the idea that there is a hopelessness we have endured since the very beginning that different poets & writers of the time try to decipher. I would probably spend some time on imagists for that reason, bitches like Ezra Pound. & I'd do a couple days on T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men & Wasteland. & then probably some WWI stuff with Siegfried Sassoon, because that shit's dank, too.

I think I would consider doing something about... I don't know... tragedies of the twentieth century? focus on things like colonialism and genocide. read, like, Heart of Darkness, Eichmann in Jerusalem, maybe If This Is A Man, maybe Things Fall Apart and some other postcolonial literature. Make them watch Battle of Algiers.

Either that or just Literature of War - war poets, war novels, etc. Easier to teach, I imagine.

Finnegans Wake. Two books per semester. Books IV and I first semester, books II and III second semester.

Book IV is the best place for new readers to start in FW. The language is simplest and the prose is most beautiful. The story is also easier to follow.

In classes, we would read a page or so out loud every day. We would work from Joyce's published notes and drafts, going backwards from the published text to the original root idea and source text for each line.

We would research allusions, study myth, and read excerpts from books that inspired the more interesting or dense passages.

Nightly reading would be supplemented by Joseph Campbell's Skeleton's Key to Finnegan's Wake.

The walls of the classroom would have a map of Dublin noting important locations, a map of Ireland, a map of the British Isles, and a world map. All would be heavily marked up with red ink lines. There would also be a timeline stretching over all four walls noting ancient civilizations and the corresponding thunder word for each.

Each student would be required to recite from memory a two page section of the wake at least three times every semester.

The final project would be a short (~20 page) FW-alike book. Like Joyce, students would begin with a basic plot outline and lay out a base story. Their job would then be expand on each line adding allusions, myths, and cycles from those they've studied all year. For extra credit, they can recite their entire book from memory before the class.

>>1462888
>20 page mini book
>in high school
>high school

Do you realize what you are asking? Writing can be difficult work for some people, much more so when you are FORCED to write.

Also reciting a book from memory?

>>1462888

Recite Finnegan's Wake? Are you high? You'd be one of those teachers that students drew mean cartoons of, except for the couple of kids who go all Dead Poet's Society & want your balls in their mouths.

I'd teach a class like the one I teach now: basic essay writing. Not the academic essay; the Montaignian essay.

Readings:

"On Seeing," Annie Dillard
"Cool Like Me," Donnell Alexander
"Life Story," David Shields
"Notes Toward the Making of a Whole Human Being," John D'Agata

>>1462895
My sophomore year of high-school we had to write a 10 page short story, a 20 page childrens' book, and a one act play.

Junior year we had to write a 30 page research paper, 10 page satire based on a book we'd read that year, and a 40 page biography of our family.

Senior year we had to write multiple 20 page short stories, a three act play, and a 30-poem poetry collection of our own work.

I don't think asking seniors to make one 20 page project, with coaching and prompting, is that big of a deal.

>>1462926
Yeah because length is what matters most in writing.

>>1462902
>>1462895
2 pages of Finnegans Wake isn't that hard to memorize. Their is a rhythm to the entire book that anyone can find after reading a few pages out loud. By keeping that rhythm in mind memorizing is a breeze.

>>1462926
Have fun reading 1,000 pages of student writing.

>>1462933
No one said length is what matters. My point is that 20 pages shouldn't be some insurmountable obstacle for high school seniors. They're nearly adults at that point. They can handle it.

>>1462934
It doesn't matter whether it's hard or not. How about the fact that it doesn't serve any educational goals in the least?

>>1462937
I think you're sorely mistaken. What does being an adult have to do with being able to write 20 pages? Most adults can't write a solid 20 page essay. Also, the typical college-level essay is around five pages. Why not assign something you can actually read and give feedback on? You know, so you can teach them something.

College-level writing teacher here.

Proto-Science Fiction Lit

Frankenstein, Invisible Man, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, War of the Worlds, and for the final: A Voyage to Arcturus.

>>1462933
>>1462935
A good teacher doesn't just drop big assignments on the students without preparation. They don't say, out of the blue, "There's a 20 page assignment due by Friday!"

The whole point of the assignment is to teach students how to plan and write a significant piece of writing. The teacher should set small goals far in advance. A month or weeks in advance they should require a basic premise for the piece. It's part of your grade to get that premise turned in on time. Some time later they're required to turn in research around that theme: notecards with sources and facts or something like that. After that, students have to turn in a full outline, with research from their notecards integrated and referenced. After that, there's a rough draft. Then another rough draft. Maybe a third rough draft if there's time. Finally, a final version.

By the time the final product is turned in the teacher knows each student's plot and writing. The teacher has read the premise, the research, the outline, and the rough drafts. He doesn't need to go over the final version too carefully - the final isn't even that big a percentage of the grade.

As a teacher you're trying to teach the process. The writing doesn't matter nearly as much as the skills needed to write well.

>>1462944
Being an adult means they can persevere and do something impressive. Have you seen the look on a high school student's face when he's holding a 20-page research paper he made on his very own? He's so proud.

If you plan and teach it right, no one has to pull an all-nighter to get the paper finished. They do it in small pieces, really get to know their research, and come out learning a lot about both writing and whatever subject they're writing about.

>>1462960
You're talking to a teacher. I know.

That still doesn't justify assigning unnecessarily long projects. If the writing itself is less important than the process, then why not assign something shorter? Or why not assign many different assignments that culminate in a well-rounded, well-drafted, well-thought-out portfolio. You could also assign an additional written component in which the student documents her experience with the drafting and revision process, and explains why she made the decisions she did.

20 pages is academic article length. It's longer than everything I'll write in grad school, other than my thesis.

>>1462969
That wasn't my experience in high school, and that hasn't been my experience as a tutor and educator for the past four years.

Short stories, boatloads of them. I'd fit as much variety and as many different authors as I could into the course. And then maybe at the end of the year I'd have them read a novel by one of the authors we read earlier.

>>1462971
>20 pages is academic article length. It's longer than everything I'll write in grad school, other than my thesis.

Really? Cause undergrad here, and I've already had to write a 20 page paper & will have to write a 30-to-40 page paper for my BA.

>>1462969
Yes, and then you will have to grade it. And chances are because of the simple fact that not everyone is a good writer all those 20 pages will get is a C or D

>>1462971
>>1462971
>why not assign many different assignments that culminate in a well-rounded, well-drafted, well-thought-out portfolio.
That's exactly what this does. Instead of 4 different 5-page essays you get one essay (or story, or play, or "book" in the Finnegans Wake class) in the end.

Space things out well, tell the students your doing and why you're doing it, and they'll go along with it. They might groan, complain and roll their eyes but they'll be damn proud of themselves in the end. This is my experience.

>>1462977
>>1462977
Where are you going to school and what are you studying?

>>1462983
University of Chicago political science.

>>1462982
A portfolio isn't the same as one long essay, though.

>>1462980
Students are graded on the quality of their research, outline, and drafts. The final copy is a small portion of the grade compared to everything else.

If you are a good teacher you catch the bad writing in the drafts and give helpful suggestions. The final draft should be good if you are a skilled teacher.

I'd do a class on Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois.

I'd organize the class in 7 different units:

I - Biography, general introduction, cosmology, critique contra Hobbes,
II - Regime typologies: republics, monarchies, despotisms
III - Political education and how regimes survive: virtue, honor, fear
IV - Two concepts of liberty, separation of powers and the English Constitution
V - Meteorological climate theory and geography
VI - General spirit, morals and customs
VII - Commerce and money

Primary Bibliography:
The Spirit of Laws by Charles de Montesquieu

Secondary Bibliography:
Montesquieu (1689-1755), Louis Desgraves
Stages of the sociological thought, Raymond Aron
Montesquieu's Science of Politics, David Carrithers et al
Introduction à De L'Esprit des Lois de Montesquieu, Bertrand Binoche
Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism, Thomas Pangle
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought, David Miller et all
Problems with Principles: Montesquieu's Theory of Natural Justice, Sara McDonald

Dear /lit/,

Anon suggested teaching high school seniors nothing but Finnegans Wake for an entire year, and all you manage to complain about is the 20 page paper he wants to make them write for the final?

Are you all so deluded?

>>1462996
To RECITE TWO PAGES of Finnegan's Wake from memory, no less!

>>1462986
I got a BA and a BFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and I didn't write anything that was over 15-20 pages. Except for my BFA thesis, which, with critical preface ended up being in the mid-30s. But that wasn't one piece of writing, it was a collection.

I'm studying at Columbia College Chicago now. I'm in the MFA Nonfiction program.

>>1462989
>The final draft should be good if you are a skilled teacher.

This is true. The last draft gets the least-thorough reading.

Another problem with the long-term writing project: What if a student chooses a topic, then halfway through the semester decides she doesn't like her topic or is losing steam?

The benefit of shorter assignments is that you can get students producing a bunch of different kinds of texts.

I find what works best is 3 major essays somewhere between 5-10 pages. Each essay begins as a series of in- and out-of-class writing exercises (free writing, journaling, reading response, classmate interview, imitation, etc.) that get pieced together into something longer and then workshopped.

>>1462996
Yeah, this too.

How will reading Finnegan Wake supplement any of the kinds of writing they'll be doing in the class? It won't. If they're reading it primarily for response-based assignments, you're going to get a lot of fluff and bullshitting around on the page. Be prepared to fail half of your class.

>>1462989
This sounds arrogant so I'll try to rephrase.

I mean, "If you have been carefully reading the drafts and offering suggestions, the final draft will be bad only if the student has been fighting the teacher the entire time." If the student hasn't been revising based on your suggestions, he deserves a bad grade on his final. That's not the teacher's fault. That failure belongs to the student.

>>1463032
Response to Finnegans Wake passages directly is not the plan.

Response will be based on the sources Joyce based his work on.

Finnegans Wake is a good pick because it leads to so easily to other literature. So many students go all through their literature classes without ever getting to a non-western book. The Wake lends itself easily to literature ancient and modern, east and west. You get introduction to myth, non-fiction, and medieval literature.

Students can research or write based on any of those sources. They can also research Joyce's motivations.

>>1463089
Good luck watching that plan crash and burn bro

Finnegans Wake bro is expecting too much from high schoolers.

>>1462888
if i had a teacher try and do this in my high school we wouldve shanked him no doubt

Finnegans Wake bro is actually the collective consciousness of /lit/ made animate and given a voice.

don't care what this thread i about.

OP must deliver sauce of Pic. Those books used to scare the shit out of me. And the fact that Gorey illustrated the series didn't help either.

>>1463190
John Bellairs is the author you're thinking of. Really, really, really good for YA supernatural-horror-fantasy type stuff. I mean, the man was a really good writer. I think this specific pic is from one of the Anthony Monday books.

>>1462888
While this is this posters wet dream:
Learning outcomes?
Money?
Time?
This would be impossible to present to a mixed skills group too. It's idiotic.

i'm usually wrong

>>1463197
THANK YOU! here's an Updike/Gorey

>>1463205
For an honors/AP level class of seniors who has been taking honors/AP level classes throughout high school, a course like this is completely manageable.

>Learning outcomes?
The same as any other literature class: a strong command of important works of literature and the messages contained in those works; an improved ability to plan and complete large pieces of writing.

>Money?
Using only one book throughout the year is cheaper than buying the dozen or more books used in a typical year-long high school literature course. Campbell's guide only adds one book to the list. Any supplemental materials (books involved in allusions, mythology used, critical essays) can be photocopied under fair-use laws.

>Time?
The course is a year (two semesters) long. That's more than enough to finish the book, explain what the hell is going on, chase allusions, and make one damn good project for every student in the class.

>>1462895
>>1462902
>>1463002
Memorizing is great for teaching writing and reading. Especially a book like Finnegans Wake.

The language is so rich in the Wake that memorizing comes almost naturally. The rhythm takes over and the words fit into the pattern - it's obvious the second you've made a mistake.

To memorize well and get the order of passages and the seemingly (at first) unrelated sentences correct, you have to analyze and read deeply. You need to find a way to connect the words together in your mind and memory.

Because every word is a pun, you need to focus on each and every syllable to recite properly. This forces a memorizer to see each word and the spelling of each word as important. It also teases out allusions and puns that wouldn't otherwise make themselves obvious.

Finally, when was the last time you heard of a good poet (especially) or writer (most of the time) who didn't have a large stock of poems and passages memorized? Good writing flows and is memorable, and good writers recognize good writing. They recognize it because they've internalized it.

>>1463358
What is this, 1900?

Memorization hasn't been taken seriously for decades. Especially not in composition.

These days when a teacher assigns a memorization, it's because they want you to remember facts or dates. Memorization teaches nothing about the structure of sentences or the flow of language. Either that or they do it because it's a campy throwback to an antiquated style.

I also don't know of anyone who has things memorized. They remember lines and snippets, and can quote their favorite authors, but they don't remember entire passages.

>>1463309
>For an honors/AP level class of seniors who has been taking honors/AP level classes throughout high school, a course like this is completely manageable.
Like everyone else say, manageability isn't the issue, it's that it's a massive waste of time

>The same as any other literature class: a strong command of important works of literature and the messages contained in those works; an improved ability to plan and complete large pieces of writing.
Apart from planning (why do you think completing the work is a learning outcome?), those aren't learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are specific, those are airy fairy and general.

>Using only one book throughout the year is cheaper than buying the dozen or more books used in a typical year-long high school literature course. Campbell's guide only adds one book to the list. Any supplemental materials (books involved in allusions, mythology used, critical essays) can be photocopied under fair-use laws.
For the money spent, you get to analyse 1 text from 1 perspective. Photocopies cost money and will get damaged. I was also giving you the benefit of the doubt, but you haven't taken into account being able to compare and contrast with other works. You should look up Bloom's taxonomy.

>The course is a year (two semesters) long. That's more than enough to finish the book, explain what the hell is going on, chase allusions, and make one damn good project for every student in the class.
Only if you want them to have superficial knowledge, which is useless.

>>1463358
>Memorizing is great for teaching writing and reading.

Confirmed for not knowing what you're talking about.

Close reading is good for teaching writing. Because you can evaluate a student based on their ability to write in response to a piece of writing, to consider the decisions made by the author and the techniques used, and to weigh and defend their own ideas about a text.

Memorization shows how well a student can come up with mnemonics and practice.

>>1463372
The post you're responding to explains the rationale. Read it, and respond to that rationale. You've only responded to the general idea of "memorizing" without actually addressing any of the points.

>>1463380
Okay:
>Memorizing is great for teaching writing and reading. Especially a book like Finnegans Wake.
Nope. Unsupported claim.
>The language is so rich in the Wake that memorizing comes almost naturally. The rhythm takes over and the words fit into the pattern - it's obvious the second you've made a mistake.
Memorizing is apparently easy, okay. But why is it good to memorize?
>To memorize well and get the order of passages and the seemingly (at first) unrelated sentences correct, you have to analyze and read deeply. You need to find a way to connect the words together in your mind and memory.
You could do this with a compare and contrast essay and get more out of it. Memorizing doesn't require deep reading or understand either, which is one of the criticisms of learning by rote.
>Because every word is a pun, you need to focus on each and every syllable to recite properly. This forces a memorizer to see each word and the spelling of each word as important. It also teases out allusions and puns that wouldn't otherwise make themselves obvious.
Again, so what? And it learning by rote teases out nothing.
>Finally, when was the last time you heard of a good poet (especially) or writer (most of the time) who didn't have a large stock of poems and passages memorized? Good writing flows and is memorable, and good writers recognize good writing. They recognize it because they've internalized it.
If you go and see poets, some have their own work memorized, some don't. It has nothing to do with being a good poet. Internalizing is not the same as memorizing, and internalizing has nothing to do with "good" writing.

>>1463380
Fine, I'll piecemeal it.

>The language is so rich in the Wake that memorizing comes almost naturally. The rhythm takes over and the words fit into the pattern - it's obvious the second you've made a mistake.

This only shows that Finnegans Wake is good for memorizing. Memorizing isn't a useful learning exercise, so it's moot. Finnegans Wake is also good as a paperweight, but using it as a paperweight doesn't do anything to teach a student about how to write or how to interpret texts. Memorization teaches students how to memorize.

>To memorize well and get the order of passages and the seemingly (at first) unrelated sentences correct, you have to analyze and read deeply. You need to find a way to connect the words together in your mind and memory.

Analysis is not necessary for memorization. At all. Why would a student need to think about diction, syntax, or juxtaposition when all they're being asked to do is recite? How is memorization a transferable skill?

>Because every word is a pun, you need to focus on each and every syllable to recite properly. This forces a memorizer to see each word and the spelling of each word as important. It also teases out allusions and puns that wouldn't otherwise make themselves obvious.

Same as before. The student is just being asked to repeat words.

>>1463380
>Finally, when was the last time you heard of a good poet (especially) or writer (most of the time) who didn't have a large stock of poems and passages memorized? Good writing flows and is memorable, and good writers recognize good writing. They recognize it because they've internalized it.

When is the last time you heard of an English teacher using memorization as an actual learning exercise? Memorization gets used for learning legal code, because what's important is learning what the code says and learning the precise wording of it.

I don't know how you want me to break this down. You're just wrong.

You're promoting rote learning, when the clear goal of every English and literature program across the country is critical thinking. That is, the production and presentation of a student's own thoughts and opinions, not just the regurgitation.

This is especially bad since you're not even asking them regurgitate ideas. You're asking them to regurgitate a text. Memorization just isn't necessary anymore. Texts are too easy to reproduce and too easy to attain. The time would be better spent engaging with the material than learning what essentially boils down to a pretentious parlor trick.

>>1463375
I guess I don't actually know what you mean by "learning outcome" then. Can you explain it? Is this some phrase they teach you in Education School?

One major point of choosing the Wake is to be able to branch into so many different pieces of literature from it. You get to analyze myth from every country and civilization known in Joyce's time. You get to analyze the literature of every nation. You get to analyze culture as it existed in Dublin, in Ireland, in England, in France, in Switzerland, in the United States, etc.

If you're really worried about the cost of photocopies, we can scan them to PDFs and sent them to every student and make them print them at home if they really want hard copies.

Compare and contrast is easy. You can compare and contrast with the supplemental criticism that will be introduced into the class, with the books he includes and alludes to. You can contrast those included works against each other. Joyce himself compares and contrasts countless pieces of literature within the book.

"Superficial knowledge" is the result of poor teaching, not time. A year is certainly long enough. Many high schools read a dozen books in two semesters, many of which are over 400 pages long. You think they aren't getting superficial knowledge there?

>>1463408
>I guess I don't actually know what you mean by "learning outcome" then.
While it's subject specific lexis, I have never been to "Education School", just take my own learning seriously. Think of the learning outcomes as skills. Could they apply what you've taught in class to other situations? Oversimplified, but that's good enough.
>One major point of choosing the Wake is to be able to branch into so many different pieces of literature from it.
Getting those texts costs money and take time to go through.
>If you're really worried about the cost of photocopies, we can scan them to PDFs and sent them to every student and make them print them at home if they really want hard copies.
Equal opportunity out the window. Parents would also hate you.
>Compare and contrast is easy. You can compare and contrast with the supplemental criticism that will be introduced into the class, with the books he includes and alludes to. You can contrast those included works against each other. Joyce himself compares and contrasts countless pieces of literature within the book.
You don't understand what compare and contrast is.
>"Superficial knowledge" is the result of poor teaching, not time. A year is certainly long enough. Many high schools read a dozen books in two semesters, many of which are over 400 pages long. You think they aren't getting superficial knowledge there?
First point, correct, your whole idea is hideously poor teaching. Second point, no, because they'll have class discussions, the texts would not be presented in a vacuum, and they don't waste time memorizing crap. The class will have been designed to get deeper understanding. Again, look at Bloom's taxonomy.

>>1463408
Learning outcomes are essentially the realizations of your goals a teacher. What is the student going to take away from your class?

>One major point of choosing the Wake is to be able to branch into so many different pieces of literature from it. You get to analyze myth from every country and civilization known in Joyce's time. You get to analyze the literature of every nation. You get to analyze culture as it existed in Dublin, in Ireland, in England, in France, in Switzerland, in the United States, etc.

Does this mean you would be reading other texts? Or just finding these examples within Finnegans Wake?

Either way: what is your goal? If your goal is just to expose students to different kinds of text, you're misguided. Exposure isn't enough to encourage thought or learning, and exposure isn't something a student can take away with them.

This is why high school AP courses get assigned Absalom, Absalom! and the students take nothing away from it because their teachers pretty much had to hand them an interpretation and encourage them toward some phantom text the teacher imagined based on his or own ideas.

But at least they get to read it, right?

Wrong. They're probably not going to walk away thankful their experience. This is high school, remember? They're more likely to hate it and resent the teacher, and walk away with a negative view of literature because they were never given tangible goals for the class.

Hey >>1463419
It's >>1463421

>>1463425
If you're the teacher guy, sounds like you're an awesome teacher. Good job!

>>1463435
Yeah I am. Thanks.

>>1463437
I meant I am the teacher guy.

>>1462888
This idea is so absurd. It reads like one of those "what's your novel about /lit/?" threads.

Some of you guys must have gone to shitty high schools. In my English classes most of the people enjoyed the books we read, contributed good things to discussion, and even if they were overwhelmed or upset with an assignment they understood that it was designed to get them to learn a valuable skill.

The people in this thread are either vastly underestimating high school students, or I simply had a great high school experience.

>>1463589
Probably a mix of the two.

I'm basing my opinion largely on my interactions with college students.