What about Writing and Literature?

How do educators use literature to develop the intellectual growth of a student? For example, which method to teaching literature is proven to be the most effective? How do variables such as region, class, race and gender influence the effectiveness of the implementation of these individual methods? Finally, does writing serve as a place in the literature classroom? If so, then how do educators utilize the act of writing as a way to teach literature?

Scholars such as Elaine Showalter and Michael Berube explore these questions. Chapters one and two of Showalter’s Teaching Literature (2003) provides a brief overview of issues associated to educator anxiety, along with a brief overview of the theoretical approaches to teaching literature. From here, Michael Berube offers a personal account and critique of his method to teaching literature in his article, “Teaching to the Six” (2002). Here, Berube attempts to address the dilemma he encounters when focusing his pedagogical energies on his subject to the point in which he unfortunately finds himself only engaging with a small percentage of the class. While Showalter and Berube broadly address the aforementioned questions, scholars such as John Schilb, Kim Hensely Owens, Marc Bousquet and Joanna Wolfe focus on issues related to the role of writing in the literature classroom.

For instance, Owens’s article “Teaching to The Six-and Beyond” (2009) suggests that Berube neglects to discuss the role of writing as a way to overcoming the challenge of speaking to the few. Here, Owens proposes a method to “scaffold student writing” in literature thus, “providing legs for students to stand on as they reach new intellectual heights” (Owens 391).

While Owens focuses on the implications of writing on the student, John Schilb’s “Preparing Graduate Students to Teach Literature” (2001), is concerned with the training of future literature professors. Here, Schilb sheds light on the lack of pedagogical training in the field of literary studies. While he recognizes the distinguishing characteristics between composition studies and literary studies, he also suggests that the literature discipline could benefit from writing instruction as way to actively engage students with the literary text. Finally, Marc Bousquet’s “The Figure of Writing and the Future of English Studies” (2010) focuses on the implications of writing in the field of college English. Here, he suggests that employing the figure of writing would provide “a tremendous opportunity for the expansion of the mission, disciplinary healing and employment justice in English” (122).

My brief summary of these aforementioned works do not do them justice, thus I would like to unpack issues brought up in these articles in later posts. From here, I would like to engage a further discussion with Joanna Wolfe’s “A Method for Teaching Invention in the Gateway Literature Class.” Here, Wolfe uses the classic rhetorical notion of topoi as a system of invention in the literature classroom. Interpreting the taxonomies of special topoi, Wolfe provides a framework to teaching the literary argument.

The taxonomies of special topoi include appearance versus reality: what appears, is not always what is real; paradox: two things that are seemingly different but serve as the same function; paradigm: conceptual template used to describe the details of another text; ubiquity: defining a pattern or device within a corpus of works; context and intention: understanding the historical/cultural context and understanding the writer’s implied audience; social justice: how literature reveals the human condition and literature as form of social change; mistaken critic: treatment of past interpretive theories” (Wolfe 406-11).

To my mind, this framework provides teachers with a way to provide what Owens calls a “scaffold” to help students develop a literary argument. Hence, I am inclined to try this out in the literature courses I am teaching this semester. The courses, Literature 219W: Literary Analysis and Literature 278W: Modern African American Literature are both “W” course which signifies that these are writing intensive courses.

I have taught both of these courses in the past. In both classes, students are introduced to critical approaches to literature. By the end of the semester, students submit a final paper in which they have developed an interpretive argument about literature.

In the early years of teaching these courses, I found that more of my students were having trouble distinguishing between what constitutes as “literary argument” versus a mere book report.  At the same time, students were finding it difficult to develop a complex literary argument that challenged them to engage with the text. I have addressed this challenge over the years by modeling my research and writing process in the classroom. Additionally we have analyzed the work of literary scholars, not just paying attention to what they are arguing, but how they are arguing. I also continue to conduct both guided peer-review sessions and one-on-one conferencing, which decreases the possibility for students to begin the paper the night before the due date. While these techniques have proven to be beneficial, I still find that some students are still having trouble with trying to come up with complex arguments about literature. I think presenting these taxonomies as various approaches to developing the interpretive argument would make explicit the conventions of the literary argument while demystifying the process of developing interpretive argument about fiction.

I plan to employ much of Wolfe’s methods, with minor differences. I plan on not referring to this framework as “special topoi.” I am thinking of using, “Approaches to Developing the Interpretive Argument.” I am going to use this method when teaching the final paper, so I am going to be thinking of ways to introduce students to this taxonomy before it is formally presented. I also need to develop an assessment technique so students can respond to this this method.

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265239102/are-e-books-killing-reading-for-fun