On Literature and Teaching

  What’s your reason for 'doing' literature in your class? What’s your reason for handing out this or that text? For doing this or that project around literature? For example, you have this great project in the bovenbouw, centred around the First World War – a staple of English classes in this country. WW1 saw a school of poetry emerge (the Great War poets, unsurprisingly) that other countries didn’t, or certainly not on the same scale. So out come Wilfried Owens, and Sassoon, and the Poppy Fields, and the sadness of it all. Out come the chronologies, and facts about that war, and tales of battles lost and won, and tales of death. But what, exactly, precisely, are your reasons for this project? Are these reasons to do with Literature-reading, literature-interpreting, literature-as-instrument? Or are the reasons to do with ideas about what learners should know historically and culturally? Is it to say 'War is bad, death is terrible', or do you want to explore the

I said last week that a distinction needs to be made between a Readable text and a Teachable one. Of course, my approach to using fiction in class (which you can read more about here ) puts a premium on developing critical thinking, awareness of the other and, generally speaking, focuses on aspects of citizenship, so those will be my criteria. In that sense, ‘Teachable’ means (but I simply repeat what I wrote earlier) a text that offers guidance and nuances, while leaving space for the reader to co-create the meaning of the text. And it is in that act of co-creation that a mind can flourish – that is, open up. This act of opening up is paramount here, since it really means ‘ Shifting your perspective ’, ‘ Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes ’, ‘ Trying to think like someone else ’, ‘ Trying to understand someone else ’ (among others). Those things require, from the reader, a certain dose of curiosity and willingness of course, something we teachers are here to foster,

Be more jazz - Lesson plans and freedom As a student-teacher, one of the first things you are made to learn is how to phase a lesson: in terms of content (what to teach), goals (why teach it) and timing (how long for each phase of the lesson). Typically, that results in a Lesson Plan: a document listing your goals and learning aims for the learners, and showing how the lesson will go step-by-step. The idea is: if your lesson plan is well-designed, follow through with it and everything will be fine. As a teacher - and certainly as a more experienced teacher - your lesson plans tend to become shorter, with fewer details and fewer timings. You know by now that when you plan something for e.g. 10 minutes, a more realistic view of classrooms dictates that you can never be quite sure that those 10 minutes will be 10 minutes. Anything could happen, and 10 could become 2, or 20. But it remains your choice of course: phasing is important for variety, change of rhythms and focal points, and ther