Month: September 2011

Twitter in the Literature Classroom? Part 1

Twitter lends itself to discussion. It’s quick, easy, and—with its strict structure and economy of space—forces writers to condense their thoughts while maintaining coherence. Unlike other social networking sites, Twitter does not require you to follow (or “friend”) others in order to see their posts; Twitter allows you to read the conversations of anyone you’d like, mitigating some (though, not all) of the privacy issues that might lead us away from using social media sites in the classroom. There has been a considerable amount of discussion on various sites and academic blogs about using Twitter in academic settings (see the Profhacker blog: here, here, or most recently, here), Bill Wolff’s blog, the site, Emerging EdTech or here at Bedford Bits and Lit Bits. Some bloggers have discussed how to use Twitter for research and engagement among academics, while others have examined how and why to use Twitter as a classroom tool. Over at Kelli Marshall’s blog is a candid and detailed post on using Twitter as a discussion tool in some of the film courses Marshall has taught. She explains that while some students have resisted using the site, they have generally produced great comments about the course’s content and have participated in thoughtful conversations, even beyond the classroom. As Marshall also teaches literature courses, I asked her a few questions about her experience using Twitter and how it might be applied to a literature classroom.

Hetland:  How might Twitter benefit our classroom / students / student discussion?

Marshall: Giving shyer students a voice. Continuing in-class discussion outside the classroom. Forcing students to get to the “meat” of their argument/opinion (i.e., the 140 character limit). Encouraging students to interact with others online, i.e., classmates, me (!), students in other parts of the US/world, celebrities, film directors, etc.

Hetland:  How could Twitter be used in a literature classroom?

Continue reading “Twitter in the Literature Classroom? Part 1”

The Big Picture: Teaching Creative Writing to Undergrads

Every so often I find myself reflecting on the most basic pedagogical questions: What is this course for? What do I hope my students will walk away with? (Apparently my reflections tend to end in prepositions.)

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) recently came out with its 2011 Director’s Handbook, which contains a document that helped me think through some of these questions: “AWP Recommendations on the Teaching of Creative Writing to Undergraduates.” The document covers an array of key issues in the teaching of creative writing.

While I wasn’t sold on 100% of its recommendations, I was nodding my head a lot as I read—particularly when reading the part about the different aims of a graduate workshop versus an undergraduate one:

Whereas the general goal for a graduate program in creative writing is to nurture and expedite the development of a literary artist, the goal for an undergraduate program is mainly to develop a well-rounded student in the liberal arts and humanities, a student who develops a general expertise in literature, in critical reading, and in persuasive writing. Continue reading “The Big Picture: Teaching Creative Writing to Undergrads”

Teaching the Literature of 9/11

Don DeLillo’s novel Falling Man (Scribner, 2007) begins with the main character, Keith Neudecker, walking out from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Dazed and slightly injured, Keith first appears to the reader emerging from the ashes of the terrorist attack, moving away from the destruction. But, DeLillo explains, as Keith moves away from the carnage of the World Trade Center he also enters into an entirely new world: a world created in the trauma and by the trauma of September 11, 2001.

DeLillo begins his novel by invoking the way in which 9/11 is collectively discussed in popular culture and media: as a day that we emerged from, changed; as a day we moved into a changed world. Like Keith, we’re told that we are moving away from the trauma and into a world colored by the political, social, and cultural aftereffects of that day. This emergent movement is detailed in DeLillo’s novel, and also in a growing body of literature that either directly or indirectly takes up the events of 9/11. These works of fiction, including Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Ken Kalfus’ A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, are increasingly being taught in literature classrooms across the country and are encouraging critical discussions about the pre- and post-9/11 world.

With the ten-year anniversary of 9/11taking place this semester, I would like to devote some space in this column to an ongoing conversation with those of you who have taught or who are teaching works of fiction that deal with 9/11. If you have experiences or thoughts on teaching a 9/11 text and would like to share them with your colleagues and peers, please post a comment or contact me via email (timhetland@gmail.com) or through Twitter (@timhetland).

Genre Fiction: Wizards? Private Eyes? Space Aliens?

We are finally—I believe—past the time of the unexamined assumption that literary fiction is automatically high art (and therefore worthy of our imaginations and ink), while genre fiction is intrinsically lowbrow or mind-wasting (and therefore not worthy of those things. Or not for academic credit, anyway).

My sense is that the past decade has seen a growing acceptance of genre writing in the workshop, or at least a growing acceptance of work that flirts with genre. And I wonder if this is because more writers who teach these workshops are themselves flirting more with genre. (Kim Wright recently published this essay about the phenomenon of literary authors jumping into the genre pool.)

Still, potential arguments remain for emphasizing literary fiction, particularly literary realism, in the workshop:

  • Literary fiction is generally more “character-based” than genre fiction.

 

  • Instructors are more comfortable teaching their own area of expertise, which is usually literary fiction.
  • Each genre has its own conventions that don’t necessarily cross genres or apply to literary fiction, whereas (the thinking goes) the lessons of literary fiction more readily apply across all genres.

Continue reading “Genre Fiction: Wizards? Private Eyes? Space Aliens?”

How Should We Choose Texts?

As the fall is upon us and most universities and colleges have just started classes, I thought it appropriate to consider something central to the planning of a literature course: choosing what texts to read in a class.

Of course, there are many reasons that we might decide to have our class read a certain text: the text meets departmental requirements, it’s important to a particular field of study, it’s a part of a traditional canon or it’s distinctly outside of a traditional cannon, it’s trendy (though would we admit that?), it’s a personal favorite, or it reinforces one of the goals of the class. But these reasons, no matter how important, only indirectly consider the primary members of the class: the students.

So, the question is: how much influence do/should the students of a class have on text selection?

During the recent barrage of posts appearing on my social media feeds these past few weeks relating to crafting new syllabi for the upcoming academic year, one particular message really stood out and spoke to this question. The message was sent out by Donna Campbell, a professor of American literature at Washington State University; in it Campbell wrote that after seeing that her class was composed of a variety of students from all academic levels and majors, she decided to cancel a particular Henry James text.

I was curious about her decision to nix the text from her syllabus just days before class, based on preliminary information about her students, so I asked Dr. Campbell about her choice. Her reply?  A striking example of student-centric pedagogy. She said, “I substituted another text because it seemed to me that with students at so many levels of preparation, beginning with an author as complex as James might tend to discourage some of them. We’d usually have some time to build up to James, but in this particular course he would have been nearly the first author they encountered, and I wanted them to have a more positive experience.” Continue reading “How Should We Choose Texts?”

Ah, the New Semester!

My favorite part of that first class session, during which my introductory creative writing students watch me with equal parts eagerness and trepidation, is when I tell them, “Regardless of your major or why you signed up for this course, for the next fifteen weeks, please consider yourself a writer.”

I tell them this because for the next fifteen weeks they will be writers, in that they’ll be doing what writers do: writing, trying stuff out, getting stuck, staying stuck, getting hit with inspiration, revising, revising some more, hating what they’ve written, loving what they’ve written, being completely unsure what to think about what they’ve written.

Many of them will also be doing something else that all writers do at least some of the time: coming up with reasons to put off writing.

One key difference between less experienced writers and more experienced writers is that the latter know full well the sin they’re committing. Newer writers, however, often harbor the comforting belief that their writing comes out better if put off and done last-minute. Even advanced undergraduates will sometimes enter class claiming that their best work gets done the night before an assignment is due. Adrenaline, etc. Continue reading “Ah, the New Semester!”