Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literature. Show all posts
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Celebration
nb is not celebrating because the literature exam is over, nb is celebrating because at 5:15, when her students came out smiling, one of them commented, 'oh... now we won't have lit classes anymore.' ;)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The next leap
Our year 12s graduated last night. As I watched them walk across the stage, it really hit me for the first time that I am leaving, too.
Endings are strange beasts. There is a sense in which your years of work are condensed into one small, rosy snapshot and the reality is lost amidst the tearful hugs and warm thank yous.
A number of parents hugged me last night, asked if they could take photos of me with their children, expressed regret that I was leaving, asked me if I would be coming back, thanked me for the relationship that I had developed with their son, daughter or children. It's all lovely, and gratifying, albeit a little weird at times, but it can also make it difficult to extricate yourself from the fuzzy feelings that arouse the doubts- am I doing the right thing? Will I find a community like this again? Will I teach kids like these again?
My Year 12 Literature class surprised me with a bound collection of the stories that they had written as part of their study. They had taken great care to make it look authentic, from the dedication, the blurb, the publication details, the formatting... it was a literature teacher's nirvana.
The epigrah they had chosen was a quote from Cyril Connolly: 'while thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living'.
So, perhaps leaving behind a trace like that should make it easier, not harder, to take the next leap.
Endings are strange beasts. There is a sense in which your years of work are condensed into one small, rosy snapshot and the reality is lost amidst the tearful hugs and warm thank yous.
A number of parents hugged me last night, asked if they could take photos of me with their children, expressed regret that I was leaving, asked me if I would be coming back, thanked me for the relationship that I had developed with their son, daughter or children. It's all lovely, and gratifying, albeit a little weird at times, but it can also make it difficult to extricate yourself from the fuzzy feelings that arouse the doubts- am I doing the right thing? Will I find a community like this again? Will I teach kids like these again?
My Year 12 Literature class surprised me with a bound collection of the stories that they had written as part of their study. They had taken great care to make it look authentic, from the dedication, the blurb, the publication details, the formatting... it was a literature teacher's nirvana.
The epigrah they had chosen was a quote from Cyril Connolly: 'while thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living'.
So, perhaps leaving behind a trace like that should make it easier, not harder, to take the next leap.
This is the use of memory:
For liberation—not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country
Begins as attachment to our own field of action
And comes to find that action of little importance
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.-T.S. Eliot (Little Gidding, Four Quartets)
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Numbers
I got some wonderful news last week.
The head of senior school came into the English faculty staffroom today to announce that we had enough students for two full Year 12 Literature classes next year, and two classes at Year 11. I did a bit of a happy dance.
Each year, the numbers have continued to grow steadily from five years ago, when there was one combined class of 11 and 12 Literature, consisting of about 12 students- total. One could argue that the recent changes to 'Englishes' from VCAA which allow students to study either Lit or English at Year 12 level, rather than having to do both could be the reason for the growth since students could find it easier to 'fit' Lit into their timetables... except for the fact that most students who are electing to do Literature are also choosing to do English as well. So, I'm going to choose to believe that the development of the curriculum of our Year 10 Literature course and Year 11 Lit course in recent years has been a big part of it, and I'm feeling pretty good about that. The students feel encouraged to engage with literary texts in all kinds of ways and are developing so much more confidence in their own readings.
I think that another factor is that the teaching of the subject has also become far more open in recent years, on a collegiate level. It's not hoarded by one person as the 'secret' highbrow literature subject anymore. I'm working in a team with my favourite colleagues- our knowledge is shared and teachers have the chance to 'follow their kids through' into year 12 if they wish to. I think that the students are really aware of the fact that we work together so closely too, and our collective passion for the subject comes through to the students.
All of this popularity is wonderful, and particularly the fact that students seem to be heeding our message that they should choose subjects that they love and not make choices according to which subjects get scaled up the most is great, but becoming so popular so quickly has its challenges. Teaching in an environment in which numbers are- if not quite everything- then pretty damn important, has sent a cold chill down my spine once or twice this year as the range and variety of students that we get wanting to study literature these days continues to widen. It takes guts to stick to your guns and not get caught up in the numbers game and the fear campaign which whispers in your ear to contain those classes to the cream of the crop, rather than open up the doors. But it's worth the stress, in so many ways.
The head of senior school came into the English faculty staffroom today to announce that we had enough students for two full Year 12 Literature classes next year, and two classes at Year 11. I did a bit of a happy dance.
Each year, the numbers have continued to grow steadily from five years ago, when there was one combined class of 11 and 12 Literature, consisting of about 12 students- total. One could argue that the recent changes to 'Englishes' from VCAA which allow students to study either Lit or English at Year 12 level, rather than having to do both could be the reason for the growth since students could find it easier to 'fit' Lit into their timetables... except for the fact that most students who are electing to do Literature are also choosing to do English as well. So, I'm going to choose to believe that the development of the curriculum of our Year 10 Literature course and Year 11 Lit course in recent years has been a big part of it, and I'm feeling pretty good about that. The students feel encouraged to engage with literary texts in all kinds of ways and are developing so much more confidence in their own readings.
I think that another factor is that the teaching of the subject has also become far more open in recent years, on a collegiate level. It's not hoarded by one person as the 'secret' highbrow literature subject anymore. I'm working in a team with my favourite colleagues- our knowledge is shared and teachers have the chance to 'follow their kids through' into year 12 if they wish to. I think that the students are really aware of the fact that we work together so closely too, and our collective passion for the subject comes through to the students.
All of this popularity is wonderful, and particularly the fact that students seem to be heeding our message that they should choose subjects that they love and not make choices according to which subjects get scaled up the most is great, but becoming so popular so quickly has its challenges. Teaching in an environment in which numbers are- if not quite everything- then pretty damn important, has sent a cold chill down my spine once or twice this year as the range and variety of students that we get wanting to study literature these days continues to widen. It takes guts to stick to your guns and not get caught up in the numbers game and the fear campaign which whispers in your ear to contain those classes to the cream of the crop, rather than open up the doors. But it's worth the stress, in so many ways.
Wednesday afternoons
I spent a lovely afternoon with a small group of my beautiful Year 12 Lit students. We sat around a table, drank hot chocolate, ate tim tams and talked about Antigone. We are going to make it a regular Wednesday afternoon thing. 
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Disquieting 'truths'
I should be marking more Year 10 English exams, but what the hey.
I have spent some time over the past few weeks contributing to a multi-voice review of 'The Literacy Wars' by Ilana Snyder, so the contemporary landscape of literacy education is on my mind, particularly the furores that have roared around critical literacy over the past few years.
My Literature class has just finished their latest assessment task, in which they write an analysis of a critical review of a set text, unearthing the assumptions and comparing it to their own interpretation. It's quite a challenging task, requiring close reading of both the set text and the review/critical essay, as well as confidence in their own reading. The text they studied was Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which I have already drooled over in this blog, and the review that I found could be roughly described as a post-colonial reading of the text, a fabulously controversial essay by Jane Marcus-Delgado.
It worked so well, because the majority of my students absolutely hated her reading. They hated what they saw as her selective use of textual evidence, railed against the lens that she had 'subjected' Bel Canto to, and were quite indignant about what they viewed as her complete disregard for the author's intention. It was certainly a polarising interpretation and it really enabled the students to consider a perspective on the text that was drastically different from where they were coming from.
Bel Canto is a beautifully written text about, well... beauty. In all its forms. For my students, reading a review about a text they loved which had turned that beauty into something quite monstrous- well, at first it was like something had been stolen from them. Their initial reactions reminded me of how I felt after I read 'Wide Sargasso Sea' for the first time. It was as if Jean Rhys had stolen Jane Eyre. It is these sudden realisations, these alternative ways of seeing, that the traditionalists/canon preserversationists would rather we didn't have. And yes, they can be painful revelations. About the comforting, familiar stories that we love, about ourselves. It also brings to mind a student's voice in Deborah Appleman's wonderful book, 'Critical Encounters in High School English' (NCTE, 2000) after using deconstruction in the classroom: 'Why did you teach us this? I'm so sorry I know about this. How could you have told us about this? What are you trying to do- destroy us? How am I supposed to live with this knowledge?' (pp. 112-113).
Theory is uncomfortable. Theory can make us feel uncomfortable, because it makes us ask questions. It exposes wounds, belief systems, values, silences. It unsettles my students. It makes us talk about 'uncomfortable' topics in the classroom- race, gender, power, versions of history, identity, knowledge, truths... as my students and I discussed Delgado, we realised in the middle of our conversation that we were doing the very thing that she accuses Patchett of (and what Delgado is also guilty of)- privileging certain kinds of beauty and knowledge over others. 'But that's not the point of using opera in the book,' we tried to reassure ourselves. 'She's not using it as an example of high culture, she's using it to suggest that in opera, language doesn't matter... ' After horrifying my students with Delgado's failure to be seduced by the beauty of music, the interesting thing was what this did to their own readings. How fiercely they wrote, how determinedly they flipped through pages to prove her wrong. They found a new level of confidence. Was this a result of our blind determination to cling to a text that we identified with? Or was it simply our frustration with the way Delgado's reading reduced the text to a binary opposition? I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that the uncomfortable, challenging conversations produced some of the best, and most thoughtful, writing that I have seen all year.
I understand why some conservatives are so frightened by the prospect of young people engaging with critical theory. Get rid of theory, and nostalgia- a single, pleasant, banal truth -rules.
Critical theory has been invariably linked to some of the most uncomfortable, and rewarding, moments in my classroom over the past five years. It has shaken preconceptions, opened up possibilities, challenged both my students and myself. I can't imagine teaching and learning without it.
I have spent some time over the past few weeks contributing to a multi-voice review of 'The Literacy Wars' by Ilana Snyder, so the contemporary landscape of literacy education is on my mind, particularly the furores that have roared around critical literacy over the past few years.
My Literature class has just finished their latest assessment task, in which they write an analysis of a critical review of a set text, unearthing the assumptions and comparing it to their own interpretation. It's quite a challenging task, requiring close reading of both the set text and the review/critical essay, as well as confidence in their own reading. The text they studied was Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which I have already drooled over in this blog, and the review that I found could be roughly described as a post-colonial reading of the text, a fabulously controversial essay by Jane Marcus-Delgado.
It worked so well, because the majority of my students absolutely hated her reading. They hated what they saw as her selective use of textual evidence, railed against the lens that she had 'subjected' Bel Canto to, and were quite indignant about what they viewed as her complete disregard for the author's intention. It was certainly a polarising interpretation and it really enabled the students to consider a perspective on the text that was drastically different from where they were coming from.
Bel Canto is a beautifully written text about, well... beauty. In all its forms. For my students, reading a review about a text they loved which had turned that beauty into something quite monstrous- well, at first it was like something had been stolen from them. Their initial reactions reminded me of how I felt after I read 'Wide Sargasso Sea' for the first time. It was as if Jean Rhys had stolen Jane Eyre. It is these sudden realisations, these alternative ways of seeing, that the traditionalists/canon preserversationists would rather we didn't have. And yes, they can be painful revelations. About the comforting, familiar stories that we love, about ourselves. It also brings to mind a student's voice in Deborah Appleman's wonderful book, 'Critical Encounters in High School English' (NCTE, 2000) after using deconstruction in the classroom: 'Why did you teach us this? I'm so sorry I know about this. How could you have told us about this? What are you trying to do- destroy us? How am I supposed to live with this knowledge?' (pp. 112-113).
Theory is uncomfortable. Theory can make us feel uncomfortable, because it makes us ask questions. It exposes wounds, belief systems, values, silences. It unsettles my students. It makes us talk about 'uncomfortable' topics in the classroom- race, gender, power, versions of history, identity, knowledge, truths... as my students and I discussed Delgado, we realised in the middle of our conversation that we were doing the very thing that she accuses Patchett of (and what Delgado is also guilty of)- privileging certain kinds of beauty and knowledge over others. 'But that's not the point of using opera in the book,' we tried to reassure ourselves. 'She's not using it as an example of high culture, she's using it to suggest that in opera, language doesn't matter... ' After horrifying my students with Delgado's failure to be seduced by the beauty of music, the interesting thing was what this did to their own readings. How fiercely they wrote, how determinedly they flipped through pages to prove her wrong. They found a new level of confidence. Was this a result of our blind determination to cling to a text that we identified with? Or was it simply our frustration with the way Delgado's reading reduced the text to a binary opposition? I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that the uncomfortable, challenging conversations produced some of the best, and most thoughtful, writing that I have seen all year.
I understand why some conservatives are so frightened by the prospect of young people engaging with critical theory. Get rid of theory, and nostalgia- a single, pleasant, banal truth -rules.
Critical theory has been invariably linked to some of the most uncomfortable, and rewarding, moments in my classroom over the past five years. It has shaken preconceptions, opened up possibilities, challenged both my students and myself. I can't imagine teaching and learning without it.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Escaping the 'Garua'
I managed a number of lucid thoughts today and feel as though I am finally leaving the fog of this term behind. I still have another 40 Year 10 essays and 16 Year 12 passage analyses to provide feedback on for Monday, but I'll get there, and then I'll be able to frantically write a review for Scott before I get the two lots of Year 12 sacs and year 10 exams that I'll need to assess over the long weekend.
I rarely get sick enough for it to affect my day-to-day life, but losing my voice for over two weeks was the most frustrating experience. It was particularly frustrating because there was absolutely nothing that I could do to fix it. I got so sick of trying to talk that by the end of each school day I simply wasn't interested in having a conversation with anyone, everything centred on trying to preserve as much of my voice as possible for the next day, and that wasn't much fun, for me or my house mates! It's so nice to have it back, and this week even my upper register returned so I am able to sing again without my voice cracking.
I am feeling really good about the way that the new 'context' part of the Year 12 English course, 'The Imaginative Landscape' is panning out. It's been tough (as it always is this part of the year) trying to keep my kids from going off the deep end due to their huge sac load and upcoming Unit 3 exams, but they are producing some wonderful writing, even if some of them aren't quite prepared to admit it yet. I think that this new part of the course is far more rich and complex than 'writing for different purposes and audiences' has become over the past few years (at least when you compare what we have been doing at our school over the last few years, to what we are positioning the students to achieve this year). They are thinking deeply about some really interesting concepts, and this isn't just improving the depth of their writing, but is also allowing them to explore texts and make connections between their 'literary landscape' and 'societal landscape' in some really lovely ways. It's bringing the notion of 'the writer in their world' to life for them. It's been so nice to be able to talk to my students about their writing, and the concepts that they are making their own, and feel my mind stretch.
My Lit class is really breaking ground at the moment, too. In a class populated by musos, the beautiful Bel Canto is really working for them. Many of them are starting to capture the musical lyricism of the novel in their own writing on the text, and that is so, so gratifying. The pressure of teaching Year 12 Lit in a school with so many kids who just love it and want to be part of the class but where the pressure to achieve 'results' is never allowed to be forgotten has weighed on me more heavily than I was expecting at certain times this year. It has kept me awake at night on a number of occasions, when I should have been revelling in the conversations, the passion, the fact that I have this group of kids who look forward to being in the same room as me to talk intensely about Sophocles, or laugh about the muffin scene in Wilde, or sigh over the language of Patchett.
I rarely get sick enough for it to affect my day-to-day life, but losing my voice for over two weeks was the most frustrating experience. It was particularly frustrating because there was absolutely nothing that I could do to fix it. I got so sick of trying to talk that by the end of each school day I simply wasn't interested in having a conversation with anyone, everything centred on trying to preserve as much of my voice as possible for the next day, and that wasn't much fun, for me or my house mates! It's so nice to have it back, and this week even my upper register returned so I am able to sing again without my voice cracking.
I am feeling really good about the way that the new 'context' part of the Year 12 English course, 'The Imaginative Landscape' is panning out. It's been tough (as it always is this part of the year) trying to keep my kids from going off the deep end due to their huge sac load and upcoming Unit 3 exams, but they are producing some wonderful writing, even if some of them aren't quite prepared to admit it yet. I think that this new part of the course is far more rich and complex than 'writing for different purposes and audiences' has become over the past few years (at least when you compare what we have been doing at our school over the last few years, to what we are positioning the students to achieve this year). They are thinking deeply about some really interesting concepts, and this isn't just improving the depth of their writing, but is also allowing them to explore texts and make connections between their 'literary landscape' and 'societal landscape' in some really lovely ways. It's bringing the notion of 'the writer in their world' to life for them. It's been so nice to be able to talk to my students about their writing, and the concepts that they are making their own, and feel my mind stretch.
My Lit class is really breaking ground at the moment, too. In a class populated by musos, the beautiful Bel Canto is really working for them. Many of them are starting to capture the musical lyricism of the novel in their own writing on the text, and that is so, so gratifying. The pressure of teaching Year 12 Lit in a school with so many kids who just love it and want to be part of the class but where the pressure to achieve 'results' is never allowed to be forgotten has weighed on me more heavily than I was expecting at certain times this year. It has kept me awake at night on a number of occasions, when I should have been revelling in the conversations, the passion, the fact that I have this group of kids who look forward to being in the same room as me to talk intensely about Sophocles, or laugh about the muffin scene in Wilde, or sigh over the language of Patchett.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Back to school (100 words- 4, 5, 6, 7)
Ok. Well. Hmm. Of course. The kids come back to school and my blogging resolution falls in a heap. Typical. My students came back on Thursday, and so I've only had two days of teaching, and in those two days I've only actually taught two of my four classes. It's been one assembly/swimming carnival sign-up/tutor group after another. No time for academic classes. Good fun though. Week one down. Only seven weeks to go. This is going to be a crazy term!
The year 12's came back with pages of holiday homework (which I have spent today reading) and new resolutions, which should last them for a couple of weeks at least! As always, I felt very nervous and strange the day before I was teaching (this always happens to me at the start of the year) but of course once I was actually in the classroom everything was fine again. My year 10's and I did some thinking/talking/writing while analysing some reality tv clips that I had grabbed from youtube- from Big Brother to the 'Corey phenomenon' which is currently sweeping the entire country. It was a really positive first meeting, especially since I haven't taught any of this year level before. They come into Year 10 and have to 'integrate' back into the senior school after learning within a very different culture and environment at our Year 9 centre. This is my resolution for my teaching with my two year 10 classes this year- I want to be really conscious of drawing on their experiences and knowledge from year 9 as much as possible. It's so easy for it all to get lost amidst the pressures, procedures and levels of organisation that confront them as soon as they step into our senior school.
It was lovely to chat to my Lit kids again, and that's basically what we did for most of the first lesson. I had planned to begin by going around the room briefly and asking them to make a couple of comments about their summer reading, but of course what should have taken 10-15 minutes blew out into a conversation that trickled along through most of the lesson, and the close reading activity that I had planned to get their brains back into 'Lit mode' was clearly not the right choice for the remainder of the lesson. So, we talked while I collected the writing that I had asked them to do over the break. They are in love with Ann Patchett's novel 'Bel Canto' already, which I knew they would be because I am too, and it is clear that Antigone is also going to be a favourite. We'll get stuck into 'The Importance of Being Earnest' next week (they are obsessed with the muffin scene, and we haven't even started yet. It's going to become a running joke, I know it).
Ok, well, that's 461 words. Too easy.
The year 12's came back with pages of holiday homework (which I have spent today reading) and new resolutions, which should last them for a couple of weeks at least! As always, I felt very nervous and strange the day before I was teaching (this always happens to me at the start of the year) but of course once I was actually in the classroom everything was fine again. My year 10's and I did some thinking/talking/writing while analysing some reality tv clips that I had grabbed from youtube- from Big Brother to the 'Corey phenomenon' which is currently sweeping the entire country. It was a really positive first meeting, especially since I haven't taught any of this year level before. They come into Year 10 and have to 'integrate' back into the senior school after learning within a very different culture and environment at our Year 9 centre. This is my resolution for my teaching with my two year 10 classes this year- I want to be really conscious of drawing on their experiences and knowledge from year 9 as much as possible. It's so easy for it all to get lost amidst the pressures, procedures and levels of organisation that confront them as soon as they step into our senior school.
It was lovely to chat to my Lit kids again, and that's basically what we did for most of the first lesson. I had planned to begin by going around the room briefly and asking them to make a couple of comments about their summer reading, but of course what should have taken 10-15 minutes blew out into a conversation that trickled along through most of the lesson, and the close reading activity that I had planned to get their brains back into 'Lit mode' was clearly not the right choice for the remainder of the lesson. So, we talked while I collected the writing that I had asked them to do over the break. They are in love with Ann Patchett's novel 'Bel Canto' already, which I knew they would be because I am too, and it is clear that Antigone is also going to be a favourite. We'll get stuck into 'The Importance of Being Earnest' next week (they are obsessed with the muffin scene, and we haven't even started yet. It's going to become a running joke, I know it).
Ok, well, that's 461 words. Too easy.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Like Swallows
Or this one. 'Like Swallows' by Laura Henry. The description she provides of her creative vision is wonderful:
This piece is based on how the first portable typewriter played an integral part in the human aspect of WW1. I found letters that had been written by soldiers from the trenches ,still maintaing a poetry, whilst the noise and horror of war surrounded them.
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