At 9 a.m. I teach from a Norton anthology so old that the pages have gone all soft, and some are falling out or so scribbled-on they're barely readable--but if I want to find a specific passage, I know exactly where to look.
At 1 p.m. I teach from a brand-new Norton anthology so pristine that the spine crackles when I open the book and the pages still have that new-book smell, but I've never taught these texts before so I can't always put my finger on the specific passage I seek.
Teaching from a new text poses certain challenges, but a new text in a class I've never taught before raises a whole new set of issues. This is the situation in my Literary Theory class, which is going well so far--but we're only a week into the semester.
The class was taught for ages by a colleague who retired a few years ago and is no longer in the area, so I don't have anyone looking over my shoulder to tell me I'm doing it all wrong. Further, it fulfills no General Education requirement and isn't even required for the English major, although it's strongly recommended for students planning to go to grad school and those seeking certification to teach high school English. This results in a small cadre of students (nine), all English majors and all interested in teaching or graduate study, and they're all motivated to maintain a high gpa. Further, they know each other from other classes so they're comfortable asking questions. I can't imagine a more congenial situation in which to teach a class for the first time.
When I planned the syllabus, I thought long and hard about what these students need from the class. They need to be familiar with important ideas associated with specific literary theorists and they need to be able to put concepts in conversation with each other, so that means they'll take a few exams (three). But they also need practice in applying theories to specific literary works, which means they need to write some papers (five, roughly a paper every three weeks). Since it's not a Writing Proficiency course, we don't have to devote time in class to peer review of drafts, but they realize the value of getting feedback on their writing so I've encouraged them to meet outside of class for that. So far, so good.
But these students are in the class because they're interested in graduate study or teaching, which means they need to know how to explain ideas to others and how to engage others in meaningful discussion, so I added a set of assignments requiring students to serve as discussion leaders for specific works. Twice over the course of the semester, once before Spring Break and once after, each student will briefly introduce a text and then guide the rest of the class through a discussion of that text. I gave them a list of texts and asked them to rank their top three, and I was able to give most of the students their top choice. (The only wrinkle arose when three of them wanted to lead the discussion of Freud, but that was resolved without resorting to fisticuffs.)
On the date assigned, the student has to come to class equipped with written questions, so we spent some time last week talking about what makes a good discussion question and practiced writing some; however, I've reminded them that sometimes the best discussions veer sharply away from our best-laid plans, so they'll have to demonstrate their ability to guide a discussion even when it doesn't follow the rules. I've also encouraged them to support each other by responding to questions (and, if necessary, to bribe their classmates), but based on what I've observed so far, I don't believe they'll have a problem getting the class to talk.
In fact, my students' careful reading of the texts has come in very handy when I'm struggling to locate a specific passage in a book so new that all the pages all look alike. I'm up there fumbling through the pages and asking where the author says some interesting thing, and sure enough a student jumps in and tells me a page number.
That's my kind of class. I knew there had to be an advantage to teaching from a brand-new book that sometimes makes me feel a little lost: if we're all a little lost sometimes, we can all learn the benefits of helping each other out, taking turns leading the way toward enlightenment.
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