This week's chapter "Students Who Teach Us..." was very interesting because it shows how composition professors and English departments are beginning to recognize how new technology and computers change the way students learn and add new types of composition for teachers to consider teaching.
One particular passage that held my attention in the chapter is that "...technologies over the last two decades has changed not only political and social structures that characterize our world, but also the ways in which people understand this world, make meaning, and formulate their own individual and group identities" (location 1176). This related back to early in the semester when we began to imagine how emerging literacy affected the day-to-day culture when alphabets and print emerged.
I understand a lot of David's self-taught understanding of computers and computers programs. While this chapter feels most relevant to teachers who are not fully aware or accustomed to digital technologies, there is another important lesson to be taken from this chapter that everyone, in all contexts, can use to their advantage.
The main point is that we can learn from our students. I think one important problem with education is that the students do not feel like they have a voice or that their education is not tailored to their day-to-day lives. I remember being bored in high school but feeling more engaged when I got to use computer programs and do internet research.
It seems like a good lesson for all teachers that if take a moment to understand the daily lives of students and what our students face every day, we can find ways to better connect and hold their interest more. While the overall article is about what the teacher learned from the students experience, the title could be taking more literally.
I felt like the article failed to discuss what happens when a student is actually teaching the teacher. Maybe I just read the title too literal and expected it to be more about something like showed in the youtube video.
Overall, this was an interesting chapter, and I really liked the autobiographies activity. I think it would be a fun assignment and would the type of assignment I'd be excited to do at home over reading a chapter or writing a short essay.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Some people hold too tight to the Canon
So, reading the article by James Black "The Monuments of a Culture" has made feel a need to respond in the written word. His love of the canon and hatred of "garbage" literature is a little infuriating. Maybe my literature classes have just been better then his instruction. But with many of the books studied in literature courses, a discussion has always been attached to the contemporary culture's response to the publication.
I am first reminded of James Joyce's Ulysses. I recall it being banned in America and being considered garbage literature. But now, we look at it as one of the best examples of Modern Literature and experimental in and even grand in its use of Stream of Consciousness (a favorite of mine).
Black's article is focused a lot of the need to continue teaching traditional and canonized literature. As an English major, I am always asked who my favorite authors are and or my favorite books. While I struggle to respond to that question every time, I usually go into a short speech about my preferences in reading 18th and 19th century British literature and predominantly literature written by female authors.
Many of these female authors were traditionally left out of the canon because their opinions were unnecessary in the very male dominated genre of literature. Jane Austen novels were considered pop culture and trivial in their time of publication. But now they are somewhat included in that 'canon' of literature. If we did not open and expand the literary canon, I doubt that I would be ever have become an English major in college.
While I enjoy many of the traditional and 'expected' literary works in the English classrooms, I do so with a love of using it to analyze and think about culture. I read Shakespeare because the female characters and the portrayal of women's roles interest me when I compare them to contemporary literature.
I feel like the move toward comparative literature is the right move for English professors. The meaning of literature depends on the cultural lens you are using. What Shakespeare means today will be a different story in future classrooms. While I enjoy the traditional literary texts in classrooms, I enjoy them most when I think about what it says about culture.
I think the new emerging 'point' of a college education is the ability to understand and analyze culture. Before becoming an English major, I was left with a semester of the undecided declaration at Columbia College. I decided to take a variety of classes and apply to transfer to a university (mostly because I felt surround by students who did not take school seriously, that's only an opinion).
I had a cultural studies class and an Irish Literature course that semester, and it did not take very long for me to realize I was bound to be an English major. The cultural studies class included looking at many different things from films to books to corporate logos.
I think I could continue on and talk about this all day. But I guess I'll save the rest for class discussion tomorrow. End Rant.
I am first reminded of James Joyce's Ulysses. I recall it being banned in America and being considered garbage literature. But now, we look at it as one of the best examples of Modern Literature and experimental in and even grand in its use of Stream of Consciousness (a favorite of mine).
Black's article is focused a lot of the need to continue teaching traditional and canonized literature. As an English major, I am always asked who my favorite authors are and or my favorite books. While I struggle to respond to that question every time, I usually go into a short speech about my preferences in reading 18th and 19th century British literature and predominantly literature written by female authors.
Many of these female authors were traditionally left out of the canon because their opinions were unnecessary in the very male dominated genre of literature. Jane Austen novels were considered pop culture and trivial in their time of publication. But now they are somewhat included in that 'canon' of literature. If we did not open and expand the literary canon, I doubt that I would be ever have become an English major in college.
While I enjoy many of the traditional and 'expected' literary works in the English classrooms, I do so with a love of using it to analyze and think about culture. I read Shakespeare because the female characters and the portrayal of women's roles interest me when I compare them to contemporary literature.
I feel like the move toward comparative literature is the right move for English professors. The meaning of literature depends on the cultural lens you are using. What Shakespeare means today will be a different story in future classrooms. While I enjoy the traditional literary texts in classrooms, I enjoy them most when I think about what it says about culture.
I think the new emerging 'point' of a college education is the ability to understand and analyze culture. Before becoming an English major, I was left with a semester of the undecided declaration at Columbia College. I decided to take a variety of classes and apply to transfer to a university (mostly because I felt surround by students who did not take school seriously, that's only an opinion).
I had a cultural studies class and an Irish Literature course that semester, and it did not take very long for me to realize I was bound to be an English major. The cultural studies class included looking at many different things from films to books to corporate logos.
I think I could continue on and talk about this all day. But I guess I'll save the rest for class discussion tomorrow. End Rant.
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