We Love Literature (in English!) Strategies for effective teaching

1. We Love Literature(in English!)Strategies for effective teaching Prof. Rebecca Charry Roje

2. Why study literature? Life is hard! Maybe literature can help.

3. Emotional engagement “feeling is first” -- e.e. cummings “a poem begins in delight, inclines to the impulse, runs a course of lucky events, and ends in wisdom.... a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.” -- Robert Frost

4. Teaching Tips • Choose literature you love • Choose a variety of styles, periods, and subjects – “something for everyone” • Encourage active reading and note-taking • Tolerate and encourage dissent: art is subjective. You don’t have to like it.

5. Do not insist on rote memorization of trivia: author’s year of birth. Rather, focus on understanding the author’s life and times, his style and legacy. Robert Frost (1874-1963) Meet the authors; use photos, audio and video whenever possible.

6. Walt Whitman

9. Appeal to the senses Find free audio clips online: authors reading their works. Poets.org website. Read text aloud and encourage students to read(but don’t force them.)

10. Use music “Richard Cory” E.A. Robinson 1897 “Richard Cory” Paul Simon 1966 (rock song) Discussion: “fair” copying Assignment: write an “updated” version of a poem we read in class.

11. Creative assignments Inspired by Whitman “I Hear America Singing” Student assignment: “I Hear Croatia Singing?” Write the same poem from another character’s point of view

12. Creative class activities Small groups (10 minutes) on each character, choose a passage you found important or interesting, then share Act out a passage of a play Watch the film after you read the book. Discuss the differences.

13. Testing both sides of the brain logic and creativity • Vocabulary in context: beyond translating • Author identification (matching)

14. Literary terms Plot Character Alliteration Rhyme Imagery Metaphor Examples from reading or create their own examples

15. Testing for comprehension Surprise quizzes on readings (did you do your homework?) Test: match passage to assigned text Short essays (one paragraph) on readings

16. Testing for creative understanding “surprise” poem or short story Vocabulary is given One hour to write an interpretive essay Let them struggle with the text, engage and react

17. Some literary theory “A Haunted House” Virginia Woolf The birth of modernism and the end of representational art “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller Tragedy and comedy

18. Longer works Drama, novels Read together as a group Assign outside reading carefully! Presentations to the class

19. THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.We real cool. WeLeft school. WeLurk late. WeStrike straight. WeSing sin. WeThin gin. WeJazz June. WeDie soon.

20. My Papa’s Waltz   The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

21. Feeling is first! Be passionate about what you teach!

22. Thank you Rebecca Charry rebecca@acmt.hr