Although we, i.e. teachers, ask students to collaborate on lots of different assignments and, in general, are vigorous proponents of collaboration, the opportunities for collaborative work at the college level, involving college teachers, are strangely limited. Collaborative work seems more frequent, and institutionally supported, when it comes to scholarly collaborations, in particular in the sciences. Yet when it comes to teaching, collaboration is given short shrift.
Doug and I had an incomparable opportunity when we got a Dean's Program Initiative Grant to team-teach this course in Reading. I was apprehensive and not at all apprehensive going into the semester. This might seem a strange contradiction, but here's why: I completely trusted Doug going into the experience; I trust him as a teacher, scholar, friend, and this meant that even when I wondered what was going on, even when I felt in deep water with some of the class material, I knew we'd be fine. I knew that even if we flopped, whatever that might mean--but we've all experienced classes that flopped--we'd still be fine as collaborators and colleagues.
This, in my mind, is one of the most important ingredients of team-teaching: trust. And I can't even take credit for this insight, because it's one Doug formulated first.
The other is compatible teaching-styles. Such compatibility is not a given; in our case, we developed it over the span of several years, exchanging ideas and observations about teaching.
A third that comes to mind is the desire to learn from each other. I had already learned a lot from my conversations with Doug about teaching, but I had not seen him in action. Nor did I really understand what English Education research looks like. In particular, I had no idea, no real idea, about its emphasis on observation and listening and reflection. Once I understood that, my role as team-teacher became much clearer to me because I became more comfortable with the role of observer, listener, and thinker. We don't always need to stand at the helm, guide discussions, tell, tell, tell--instead we might drink coffee, as Kate suggested.
We'd like your help to figure out what team-teaching makes possible (and what it doesn't), what worked really well, and what less so, the benefits and challenges of a team-taught class for you, as students, and anything else that you want to share with us about your experience and perception of this team-taught course.
What are your thoughts? Let us know.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
The Trouble with Twilight
I've been thinking a lot about our conversation about the Twilight series last week. My thoughts are a bit jumbled, really an indication of how confused I am about this topic.
I told you that Jessica introduced me to the series--or to thinking more seriously about the series--in my grad. course on literature theory. Her use of feminism and psychoanalysis to analyze the series, particularly Bella's pregnancy, was so intriguing that I decided to read the books.
I got the first book in the series (forgot the name) from a relative ( a woman in her forties) who was, as she admitted, absolutely besotted with Twilight and, in particular, loved the male lead and vampire, Edward.
Another friend of mine, in her early fifties, also adores Twilight and is unfazed by all the criticism that "thinking" women have levelled against it. It's about love, about the desire for eternal love, something we all long for, she told me. I've been meaning to spend a Saturday with her watching the entire series of movies while sipping Daiquiries. (No luck, so far).
My niece, a young and very confident woman told me, some years ago, that she is reading Twilight in English. Not only am I learning a lot of English, she told me, but I simply love the books. We've been wrong about vampires... she concluded--half tongue in cheek.
When I started reading book one, on the ride back from Lexington Kentucky, I couldn't put it down. I was pulled in, almost reluctantly, and while my critical side would occasionally scoff at the writing and what i thought of as Bella's brainlessness, the depictions of Edward did pull me in, as did the plot. I don't remember that much of the books (in fact, I would not reread them), but I do remember the scene where Bella and Edward are out in the woods and he takes of his shirt. His skin is glimmering in the sunlight and he tells her not to touch him...I thought of this as an interesting comments on, and in some ways bending of, gender. Edward, here, is clearly the object of desire, and while he has been stalking Bella, he also does not permit her to touch him; they do not even kiss, if I remember correctly, all because doing so is bound to unleash this terrible power in him (as it does, when they finally consumate their love sexually).
The way Twilight circulates in university English Departments is as a text to be resisted, to be analyzed in terms of its gender, class, racial ideologies, which need to be exposed for what they are and resisted. I know some of my colleagues have taught the books--one even required her students to see the movies. I am curious "how" the novels entered the classroom and I imagine, perhaps wrongly, that the focus was the ideological construction of gender and class in the novels. The novels were texts to be analyzed, exposed, and demythologized; nobody, to my knowledge (myself included) ever admitted to pleasure in reading them.
But isn't that the real question? Why, even if we are aware of what's problematic about Twilight, are we drawn to reading it? And by "we," I mean women, since I have not met a single male who has read or admitted reading the novels. Is Twilight a kind a "soft porn" for young adult and adult women (and who voluntarily admits to reading such stuff?). And what is it about Vampires that's so attractive--not just to women, but also to men? Wouldn't it be interesting to find out?
I told you that Jessica introduced me to the series--or to thinking more seriously about the series--in my grad. course on literature theory. Her use of feminism and psychoanalysis to analyze the series, particularly Bella's pregnancy, was so intriguing that I decided to read the books.
I got the first book in the series (forgot the name) from a relative ( a woman in her forties) who was, as she admitted, absolutely besotted with Twilight and, in particular, loved the male lead and vampire, Edward.
Another friend of mine, in her early fifties, also adores Twilight and is unfazed by all the criticism that "thinking" women have levelled against it. It's about love, about the desire for eternal love, something we all long for, she told me. I've been meaning to spend a Saturday with her watching the entire series of movies while sipping Daiquiries. (No luck, so far).
My niece, a young and very confident woman told me, some years ago, that she is reading Twilight in English. Not only am I learning a lot of English, she told me, but I simply love the books. We've been wrong about vampires... she concluded--half tongue in cheek.
When I started reading book one, on the ride back from Lexington Kentucky, I couldn't put it down. I was pulled in, almost reluctantly, and while my critical side would occasionally scoff at the writing and what i thought of as Bella's brainlessness, the depictions of Edward did pull me in, as did the plot. I don't remember that much of the books (in fact, I would not reread them), but I do remember the scene where Bella and Edward are out in the woods and he takes of his shirt. His skin is glimmering in the sunlight and he tells her not to touch him...I thought of this as an interesting comments on, and in some ways bending of, gender. Edward, here, is clearly the object of desire, and while he has been stalking Bella, he also does not permit her to touch him; they do not even kiss, if I remember correctly, all because doing so is bound to unleash this terrible power in him (as it does, when they finally consumate their love sexually).
The way Twilight circulates in university English Departments is as a text to be resisted, to be analyzed in terms of its gender, class, racial ideologies, which need to be exposed for what they are and resisted. I know some of my colleagues have taught the books--one even required her students to see the movies. I am curious "how" the novels entered the classroom and I imagine, perhaps wrongly, that the focus was the ideological construction of gender and class in the novels. The novels were texts to be analyzed, exposed, and demythologized; nobody, to my knowledge (myself included) ever admitted to pleasure in reading them.
But isn't that the real question? Why, even if we are aware of what's problematic about Twilight, are we drawn to reading it? And by "we," I mean women, since I have not met a single male who has read or admitted reading the novels. Is Twilight a kind a "soft porn" for young adult and adult women (and who voluntarily admits to reading such stuff?). And what is it about Vampires that's so attractive--not just to women, but also to men? Wouldn't it be interesting to find out?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
What's the value of reading and responding to poetry?
After our class discussions of Rukeyser's "St. Roach" and Darwish's "Jerusalem" last week, I wondered: what's the value of what we do when we sit down and read poetry together?
For instance, I really enjoyed our conversation of "St. Roach," but being one of the teachers in the classroom, and the one who had chosen the poem, I began to wonder: where is this conversation going? When do I know it's over? Do I have certain objectives in mind (I didn't--except seeing what would happen when we discuss the poem). And as much as I enjoyed the free-wheeling conversation, I became almost (not quite) uncomfortable with the nagging thought that it should go somewhere...but where, and why?
So where do, or should, our conversations of poetry go and why?
This is a question about context, purposes, and value.
It seems to me that as teachers of literature we take the value of literature, and reading it, for granted. After all, it's what we do (talk about literature, getting students to "read" it) and so the question of its inherent value and the value(s) of reading, responding to it, talking and writing about it, is not on our minds in the way it should, perhaps, be--and is for many of our students, especially those who have not chosen "literature" as a field of study and who are not convinced--or pay lip service to the idea-- that the encounter with Literature, as with all great art, is somehow inherently good for us, inherently edifying.
I'd like to know: what are your thoughts on the value of reading and responding to poetry?
All of us read "St. Roach" and "Jerusalem" together: what's the value of doing so? What do you remember of our class discussion, for instance? What do you remember of your thoughts and feelings while we talked about the poems and read them aloud? Were there things you would have liked to have said and didn't? Were they points when you "checked out" and decided that the conversation was no longer of interest to you--why?
For instance, I really enjoyed our conversation of "St. Roach," but being one of the teachers in the classroom, and the one who had chosen the poem, I began to wonder: where is this conversation going? When do I know it's over? Do I have certain objectives in mind (I didn't--except seeing what would happen when we discuss the poem). And as much as I enjoyed the free-wheeling conversation, I became almost (not quite) uncomfortable with the nagging thought that it should go somewhere...but where, and why?
So where do, or should, our conversations of poetry go and why?
This is a question about context, purposes, and value.
It seems to me that as teachers of literature we take the value of literature, and reading it, for granted. After all, it's what we do (talk about literature, getting students to "read" it) and so the question of its inherent value and the value(s) of reading, responding to it, talking and writing about it, is not on our minds in the way it should, perhaps, be--and is for many of our students, especially those who have not chosen "literature" as a field of study and who are not convinced--or pay lip service to the idea-- that the encounter with Literature, as with all great art, is somehow inherently good for us, inherently edifying.
I'd like to know: what are your thoughts on the value of reading and responding to poetry?
All of us read "St. Roach" and "Jerusalem" together: what's the value of doing so? What do you remember of our class discussion, for instance? What do you remember of your thoughts and feelings while we talked about the poems and read them aloud? Were there things you would have liked to have said and didn't? Were they points when you "checked out" and decided that the conversation was no longer of interest to you--why?
Saturday, February 18, 2012
teacher understanding of student understanding
Hamel's piece helps me envision the kind of research I might undertake on "reading."
I also love the fact that Hamel brings up Gadamer, a literary theorist whose work I have just recently rediscovered for myself and who thinks in really interesting and productive ways on what it means to understand something--anything really, but particularly a literary text.
Gadamer introduces the concept of "Horizon." We each understand a text from our point of view, beyond which we are unable to see. In other words, what we can see or understand is shaped by where we "stand." Gadamer argues that the inevitably circumscribed nature of our understanding is not a disadvantage or advantage, but simply the only way in which we can understand another text (or another person). Understanding then means that we use our biases and pay extra attention to the moments when our biases or preconceptions are challenged. From a "hermeneutical" point of view, it's important to be attentive to the places where we encounter phenomena or behavior that don't seem to make sense or that cannot be immediately subsumed within our way of understanding. At such moments, we are compelled to adjust our horizon in relation to "other possible horizons," and our consciousness changes. Thus Hamel writes:
"Studying teacher understanding of student understanding, then, ... is less a matter of objectifying or testing teacher's partial knowledge in relation to a research base on student understanding, although attention to research can be both useful and powerful. To understand understanding involves, instead, richer interaction with teachers' starting points in thinking about students, and attention to ways in which teachers can identify their own horizons in relation to other possible horizons" (52).
So Gadamer is interested in understanding understanding and that's what Hamel's research project takes on as well.
I also love the fact that Hamel brings up Gadamer, a literary theorist whose work I have just recently rediscovered for myself and who thinks in really interesting and productive ways on what it means to understand something--anything really, but particularly a literary text.
Gadamer introduces the concept of "Horizon." We each understand a text from our point of view, beyond which we are unable to see. In other words, what we can see or understand is shaped by where we "stand." Gadamer argues that the inevitably circumscribed nature of our understanding is not a disadvantage or advantage, but simply the only way in which we can understand another text (or another person). Understanding then means that we use our biases and pay extra attention to the moments when our biases or preconceptions are challenged. From a "hermeneutical" point of view, it's important to be attentive to the places where we encounter phenomena or behavior that don't seem to make sense or that cannot be immediately subsumed within our way of understanding. At such moments, we are compelled to adjust our horizon in relation to "other possible horizons," and our consciousness changes. Thus Hamel writes:
"Studying teacher understanding of student understanding, then, ... is less a matter of objectifying or testing teacher's partial knowledge in relation to a research base on student understanding, although attention to research can be both useful and powerful. To understand understanding involves, instead, richer interaction with teachers' starting points in thinking about students, and attention to ways in which teachers can identify their own horizons in relation to other possible horizons" (52).
So Gadamer is interested in understanding understanding and that's what Hamel's research project takes on as well.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The ethics of "Performative Literacy"
When I read Sheridan Blau's essay "Performative Literacy: The Habits of Mind of Highly Literate Readers," I noticed that the words Blau uses to describe the critical literacy required of today's students carry explicit and implicit ethical meanings. For instance, critical literacy "requires students to become active, responsible, and responsive readers." Moreover, the capacities, required and cultivated for "performative literacy," which he identifies as "an enabling knowledge," include habits that are not merely cognitive but ethical as well: the willingness to suspend closure, the willingness to "respond honestly," "intellectual courage," "tolerance for failure," "tolerance for ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty," "intellectual generosity and fallibility." The teacher, in turn, is asked to "foster in students ... respect and capacity for tentativeness...."
I don't have a problem with this, but I think it's interesting.
Is it true, or at least inevitable, that our "theories" of what works in the classroom are bound up with ethical values? Gee would say, "yes," I think.
I'd like to ask Blau about the implied ethics of his views on literary literacy instruction tomorrow.
I don't have a problem with this, but I think it's interesting.
Is it true, or at least inevitable, that our "theories" of what works in the classroom are bound up with ethical values? Gee would say, "yes," I think.
I'd like to ask Blau about the implied ethics of his views on literary literacy instruction tomorrow.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Is meditation a literacy practice?
Rereading Brian Stock's essay “Minds, Bodies, Readers," I wondered what class members would say about it: why are we reading this? What does healing and meditation have to do with reading? What does the history of medicine and pre-modern mind-body theories and practices have to do with reading?
And while I cannot answer these questions directly, I found myself, again, very intrigued by Stock's comments on the early, pre-modern western practices of meditative reading and visualization, which apparently were abandoned as time passed (I am still not quite certain why).
Stock's historical survey of body-mind concerns in relation to the history of reading makes me aware that reading is an activity that does involve the mind and the body; yet we forget about the body, even though, or precisely when, reading is pervasively understood as a cognitive skill.
We have all experienced, however, how profoundly our bodies respond to, and are engaged with, what we read--and not only in moments of narrative suspense. When we describe reading as a refuge or an escape, we also describe a way of feeling about ourselves--relaxed, perhaps, at ease, comfortably or pleasurably engaged.
What might meditative reading be like? Perhaps a bit like what Newkirk describes as "slow reading?" Reading in which we linger over a text, in ways that allows us to forget ourselves or connect with ourselves as deeply as we might in meditating, when we enter a realm that is no longer merely the personal self--when we become self-forgetful?
I don't know--but I am intrigued and agree with Stock that we should find out much more about reading as a body-mind practice.
And while I cannot answer these questions directly, I found myself, again, very intrigued by Stock's comments on the early, pre-modern western practices of meditative reading and visualization, which apparently were abandoned as time passed (I am still not quite certain why).
Stock's historical survey of body-mind concerns in relation to the history of reading makes me aware that reading is an activity that does involve the mind and the body; yet we forget about the body, even though, or precisely when, reading is pervasively understood as a cognitive skill.
We have all experienced, however, how profoundly our bodies respond to, and are engaged with, what we read--and not only in moments of narrative suspense. When we describe reading as a refuge or an escape, we also describe a way of feeling about ourselves--relaxed, perhaps, at ease, comfortably or pleasurably engaged.
What might meditative reading be like? Perhaps a bit like what Newkirk describes as "slow reading?" Reading in which we linger over a text, in ways that allows us to forget ourselves or connect with ourselves as deeply as we might in meditating, when we enter a realm that is no longer merely the personal self--when we become self-forgetful?
I don't know--but I am intrigued and agree with Stock that we should find out much more about reading as a body-mind practice.
Gendered readings
I find myself amazed, reading the excerpt from Mellor, Patterson, and O'Neil's Reading Fictions, how deeply gendered my own reading of "A Lot to Learn" was. I guess I have a lot to learn! I assumed that the scientist, by the name of Ned, was male (not surprisingly, but still--if "Ned" had been an elementary school teacher I might have allowed for the possibility that "Ned" is the shortened form for a female teacher). And, given that first assumption, I found myself in a brief shock when an actual girl appears in his miracle machine: a naked eight-year old girl with freckles and a brace (what kind of brace? I cannot really imagine that). Two readings that immediately popped into my head were: a. Ned is caught up short by his sexist assumption about women as "girls," available to him whenever he wishes for them (like money, a martini or bottle of beer); b. Ned is actually a pedophile and got exactly what he asked for. The reading that did not occur to me, but that instantly occurred to me when Ned became Nell, is that he/she wanted a child (of course, the wish for a member of the opposite sex--that's still a bit weird, even if we think of Ned as Nell).
But then why say "hell"?
The entire exercise or experiment made me deeply aware of how my readings of texts are shaped by gendered expectations, much more so than I thought.
What brought me up short right away, however, was the reference to "opposite sex"--a dead give away, in my mind, that the story's, or at least Ned's, expectations about gender are heterosexual (or what is sometimes called "heteronormative"). The assumption is that there are two sexes, each of them opposite to the other--some might call this a very rigid, binary model, that does not allow for the fluidity or even multiplicity of gender.
What if Ned is a transgender scientist seeking to confuse the machine he created?
But then why say "hell"?
The entire exercise or experiment made me deeply aware of how my readings of texts are shaped by gendered expectations, much more so than I thought.
What brought me up short right away, however, was the reference to "opposite sex"--a dead give away, in my mind, that the story's, or at least Ned's, expectations about gender are heterosexual (or what is sometimes called "heteronormative"). The assumption is that there are two sexes, each of them opposite to the other--some might call this a very rigid, binary model, that does not allow for the fluidity or even multiplicity of gender.
What if Ned is a transgender scientist seeking to confuse the machine he created?
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