Web 2.0 Teaching Roundtable
Happily, I’ll also be presenting the results of my pedagogical experiments in EN/HU501 this term at the 2010 ASECS conference in Albuquerque! Last night, we explored the basics of the Omeka resources database, and virtually the entire class has taken a look; everyone seems interested in participating in this experiment by contributing to it, so I’m going to revise the archive assignment to reflect this. It seems unecessary to have students turn in a hard copy of all their resources to me if they will be available in the archive.
I also introduced zotero to my students, and no one seems to have had much prior experience with it; additionally, no one seems inclined to bring personal laptops to class, so I think I’ll have to reconsider how the class library will work. I’ve altered the library settings to be open to everyone. Next class, we’ll browse through it and if students don’t have zotero accounts, I can walk them through the process. I’ll know more after our Wednesday meeting, and from any emails I receive in response to the archive assignment.
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Paper at ASECS
Just got the good news that my paper, “’Things without Head, or Tail, or Form, or Grace’: The Hypercorporeality of Farce on the Early Eighteenth-Century Stage,” has been accepted for the 2010 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference in Albuquerque! My work, particularly invested in theater overwhelmingly about the body and its metamorphoses, the theater of farce, will be read in a panel “The Whole Show on the Eighteenth-Century Stage.” Here’s my proposal:
Tobin Siebers’ useful model of “the body aesthetic” (University of Michigan, 2000) allows us to think of creative practice as always a practice of “making and remaking…the human” (3). In the early eighteenth century, farcical afterpieces routinely turn on or build to a crucial act of violence comically staged—an act of comic violence that draws our attention to the processes by which the human is made and remade. Often, this is a literal violence—bodies are kicked, cudgeled, and tossed in blankets. Sometimes the violence of farce is less conventionally apparent as such, taking the form of verbal abuse that far overreaches the merely indecorous, scenes of humiliation and the abasement of the human, scenes playing on the fine line separating life and death. And sometimes the violence of farce is directed
against language itself, one of the most telling signs of all that is human and civilized and capable of being reformed by the dulce et utile.
In the eighteenth century, as Siebers has noted, “more often than not, the object of art is the body.” Farce thrives on the actions of bodies that, in their very embodiment, problematize the imagined integrity of the human. Instead of insisting that the beautiful body is the fittest vehicle for the legitimate work of the stage, farce extols the im/perfections of the flesh. In doing so, these bodies also confront us with another spectrum of the human, a spectrum in which
corporeality figures as its most fundamental refuge—and thus, the most fundamental refuge of art and expression. In this essay, I argue that early eighteenth-century farce consciously explores the power of the distressed body, especially the power of the distressed body to inspire not just amusement and entertainment, but even a kind of art.
Taking farce seriously, this essay looks closely at a handful of the most popular farcical afterpieces on the legitimate stage—especially work by Centlivre, Hill, Griffin, Bullock, Johnson, and Carey—to suggest the aesthetic contours of the form as a function of its hypercorporeality. This corporeal aesthetic is one framed by questions about the uses to which the human body can be put. In the bodies of farce, affliction and artistry collide, conjuring an image of the human as somehow outside of or critical toward emerging aesthetic norms.
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Midterm in Discover
Sadly, I’ve been less-than-dilligent about posting to this teaching blog–in part because of the chaos of my recent move, but also because this term has been busier in the classroom than most. My students seem to be slowing down a little, which isn’t surprising around this time of year; nonetheless, I think each group is coming along swimmingly.
Imagination, as someone is said to have noted, is more important than knowledge, and I can’t think of a better place to discover a critical sense of creativity than in the film class. This term, I’m working very hard on encouraging my first year students to test the waters–especially in terms of their own skills and abilities, but also in terms of their approach to research and coursework. Though I shouldn’t be, I’m often surprised when students freeze up or become shy in the face of a new idea or an unfamiliar task; it’s my hope that after this term, these first years will have acquired the academic self-confidence to play with new ideas, to dive into an assignment that asks one to learn new technologies, new skills, new ways of challenging themselves.
My DSC101 students completed the first essay project, and while many slightly missed the goals of the assignment–to organize their narrowed film analysis around a single point, generally the overall implicit or explicit meaning of Night of the Living Dead–I was happy to see most working hard on their ideas. (One student made her first trip to office hours in college with me!) I received a lot of responses that more resembled collections of observations than thesis-driven essays. And then again, this isn’t a writing class–though everyone should be simultaneously taking Composition 101. If I teach this course again, I’ll probably spend more time talking with the class about what they’re doing in Composition, just to help connect the dots.
We’re beginning work on the collaborative commentary project, and spirits seem to be picking up a little–I’m excited to see what everyone comes up with, and how the group dynamics pan out. The hardest thing about this project will be organization and staying on task.
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Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
After four long weeks, we’re finally through with Conrad in EN/HU501! We spent quite a bit of time with the piece, using it as a tool to more fully explore the nature of literary analysis, close reading, generating good essay topics, brainstorming, and so on. One thing I’ve done differently in this iteration of the course is spending more time discussing how students read and take notes–literally–and I think it will prove helpful when we move on to the next portion of the class.
The first essay is in, and my students worked extraordinarily hard on their drafts–revising, revising again, meeting with me, commenting on peers’ work, revising, editing. In general, I’ve got a wide array of approaches and skills, which makes the class invigorating–but it can also be difficult to determine exactly where to pitch; the best meetings are the ones where I don’t have to lecture, but can let the discussion happen under supervision, a process that naturally bridges the spaces between skill levels and familiarity with the discipline. What I find wonderful about this group is their ease with one another, their energy and committment to discussing their work and giving feedback. At the beginning of the term, we had some meetings that somehow became dominated by my voice, but after workshopping the first essay, I think we’ll really be able to explore the joys of the seminar environment. And, of course, the delicious food is an unadulterated plus.
On to Pope!
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Discussing Film Form
I was very impressed with my Discover 101 students today, who seemed really to get into the film analysis portion of our class–we watched the first ten minutes of Night of the Living Dead, and used it as a springboard for discussing some of the basic concepts of film analysis, locating patterns, key elements in the film, variations in the established patterns, and the four levels of meaning we’ll be working with throughout the term.
Almost everyone spoke, and had good things to say; a small handful were quiet, so I’ll have to draw them out next class! In general, there was an initial leap toward the grandly symbolic, so another thing we’ll have to continue to focus on is concreteness and specificity. Next class we’ll talk more about narrative development, plot patterns and segmentation, characterization, cause and effect.
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Instead of lecturing on the introduction–part of my larger goals this term to avoid lecture as much as possible, in favor of stimulating discussion that works outwards from the text–I’d like to focus our class time on Petrarch’s letter in which he describes the mountainous ascent he undertakes with his brother, as well as some of the major thematic patterns that emerge in his Canzoniere. I hope to be able, in each of the pieces we read from the anthology, to foreground different features characteristic of the Renaissance, ideally not to overload students with generalizations that we can’t really locate in particular instances. Tomorrow, I want to focus on the way that Petrarch explores his sense of self, as well as the way he negotiates the tensions between earthly desires and spiritual goods. We’ll also be going over the first short essay assignment, and ideally, the class discussion will model a relevant approach.
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Night of the Living Dead
Tomorrow in Anatomy of a Film, I’m planning to show a clip from Night of the Living Dead that should work as a good springboard for a discussion of the key elements of film form, which students should have read. We’ll discuss conventions and prior experience; the way we register emotion within the film and in our own responses; the differences between referential, explicit, implicit, and symptomatic meaning; the concept of interpretation; the nature of evaluation; and especially the basic issues of function and motivation, similarity and repetition, difference and variation, development, and unity.
Farah will spend a bit of time at the beginning of class going over some issues of adjustment that the students might be facing, and I’ve also got to go over homework assignments as well as discuss the portfolio project. Should be a fun class–I’m hoping we’ll have time for it all!
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Building Textual Interpretation
Our first 501 course meets this evening, and I’m eager to get a sense of my student’s experience with literature, literary history, literary research, and literary analysis. I’ve asked everyone to read an essay from Falling into Theory on the history of the discipline, as well as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and a few other bits and bobs, including a fascinating and frightening documentary on the Belgian Congo.
We should have quite a bit to discuss, and I don’t want to over schedule the class, so I think we’ll start off by considering the history of the discipline–that should make for a good self-reflexive conversation about the class and its goals. I think a good segue from that into literary analysis will be the introduction to Conrad’s novella–it goes into some depth regarding the “Conrad Controversy,” voices of which we’ll be engaging later.
After the break, I want to model some of the technologies of analysis, like ManyEyes (perhaps also introduce them to a few other tools we’ll be learning over the term–Zotero, Omeka, and more), as a springboard for a discussion of the text and methods of approaching it. We will have to go over the literary terms assignment for next class, so I’ll model my illustration of irony. And of course: signing up for food/drink!
Finally, homework for next class, The Craft of Research, and things to look forward to in the next 14 weeks!
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Tags: 501, class plans
I’m determined, this term, to not fall into either the 1.) going-over-the-syllabus-the-first-day cop-out or the 2.) jump-right-in-to-lecture cop-out, both of which so often become standards (usually because we’re so busy prepping courses, finishing syllabi, or participating in the pipe-dream of having all the basic course plans for the entire rest of the term in some sort of presentable shape. My plans for the first day of classes — tomorrow I have Anatomy of a Film and World Literature: Renaissance through Enlightenment — are really to get right into the material from a practical standpoint.
In Anatomy, I’d like to focus attention on the basic content as well as the expectations of the college classroom by having students break into pairs to read and present on segments of a short article from The Atlantic called “Don’t Fear the Reaper”; this should impress the idea that these films do have an important cultural location. Then I want to leap into the major assignment by showing students a clip from a similar set of projects by GW students. I’d then like to ask for some reflective writing, a “letter to self” that will become, by the next class, a draft of the personal statement for the portfolio. Then, for a few minutes, I’ll show them the Bb site and the blog, just to make sure they know where everything is. Homework should be pretty straightforward: reading, revising the personal statement, browsing the Bb site/s, and reading the syllabus/policies online.
World Literature, I hope, will have much the same shape, though students should have a good sense of the college classroom dynamic by now. I plan to put on the board four or five key features of the Renaissance, as discussed in the Norton Introduction, and try to get a sense from the class of what they understand about those features. Then, we’ll listen to the Italian of a poem by Petrarch–perhaps the first Canzoniere, read it aloud in English, and try to come up with a list of ways the poem might fit into (or expand!) those basic articulations of context. Grasping the “plain sense,” as I. A. Richards describes it in Practical Criticism, will I imagine prove the biggest hurdle, and so I’ll go over some tools and expectations (via Jason Jones on ProfHacker). I also want to introduce students to the possible alternative 2nd essay assignment they might begin thinking about, as well as the complexities of our Bb site–which I’d love to migrate to WordPress…. Ah, well–the future must hold some new projects!
On a side note, I finally finished my Routledge ABES annotation for Ildiko Csengei’s “‘I will not weep’: Reading through the Tears of Henry Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling.” Yay!
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Fall 2009 courses
This fall, I’m teaching three courses: DSC101, EN203, and EN/HU501. DSC 101 is a first-year seminar organized around the analysis of popular horror films, which I’m very eager to get started on. As an introduction to college coursework, the course seeks to make analysis, close reading, and research a little more interesting; as an introduction to college as a new kind of learning space, the course seeks to encourage collaboration, lateral thinking, and effective use of technology (not limited to computers, but tools of all sorts!).
EN203 is my survey course, World Literature: Renaissance through Enlightenment; I likely won’t re-organize this course in any broad way this term, as I’ve got the DSC101 and EN/HU501 to focus my attention.
Final, a graduate course on research, writing, and analysis in the seminar environment, EN/HU501. Check that out online!
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Recent Entries
- Web 2.0 Teaching Roundtable
- Paper at ASECS
- Midterm in Discover
- Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
- Discussing Film Form
- Petrarch, Interiority, and the Tensions between Earthly and Spiritual
- Night of the Living Dead
- Building Textual Interpretation
- Overcoming the First Day Syllabus Blues
- Fall 2009 courses
- A new term and…a clean desk?
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