English Literature & Composition - PopulationMe.com

Chapter 4: General Strategies in Literary Study
Inrecognizing the value of treating their journal as a projection of themselves, urge students
once a week (or more often, if they feel so inclined) to use their "log" for reactions that are either
academic or personal. If they reflect on their reactions to the class, here is an array of starting
points: "How does this class fit with other courses you are taking? What are you enjoying
about the discussions? Reflect about any classmates you find interesting. How do you react to
the teacher's approach to the literature?" Or, in the more personal sphere: "Reflect on your life
as it stands right now. Are things looking up for you? Share the good news. Life turning sour?
Use those private pages to vent./I
There are other uses of an initially nonliterary nature that can contribute to this sense of
one's journal as a place to explore one's take on the world. A "fun" assignment that our students
have enjoyed is a once-a-semester "outside project" -anexperiential encounter that they
can then write up (both description and evaluation) in their journal. The exercise has little if
anything to do with literature, but these "real world" encounters allow them to apply their explicit
critical judgments to an alternate context. They could see a movie and write a review; they
could go to a local rock concert or a symphony performance and do the same. They could attend
a dinner theatre and critique both the food and the play. They could visit a cemetery and
do a survey of city populations and gravestone designs from a century ago.
SETS OF MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
After a few of the works in the following chapters, we have also included some sets of multiple
choice questions. These are introduced primarily for their pedagogical value: They are useful
as follow-ups to classroom discussion of the works involved although they could also be
employed as a preliminary quiz after you have assigned that work to be read. But they can serve
two other purposes. Because the first hour of the AP Literature exam consists of multiple choice
questions, these serve to introduce the format. You can also use them as models for students to
create their own sets of questions, as a learning exercise for analyzing the text. You might suggest
that students work in groups one day in class, or have them create one or two questions on
their own overnight to 1/test" their classmates the next day. The exercise is an excellent way for
students to come to grips with the text involved. Better yet, being forced to identify the
IIright" answer as well as come up with a "distractor"-a tempting but incorrect or merely
partial answer-is like a Nautilus machine for working the critical thinking muscles.
QUICK WRITES
To build students' confidence and skill at timed writings, we suggest short, 10- to 15-minute writing
exercises in which students respond to two or three big questions about a text before you've
discussed it as a class. Quick writes check how well students have read, introduce the focus for
the discussion, and prompt students to think on their feet (or at their desks). We use quick writes
once every week or two and grade them quickly, too, with pluses, checks, or minuses.
OPENING SALVO: A SUGGESTED BEGINNING FOR THE COURSE
You are teaching a class called AP Literature (or maybe just AP English), so an appropriate place
to begin is with a question of definition. What, you might ask students during the opening few
days of class, is literature? Give students some time to collect their thoughts, and then help them
to refine, by making more complex, their thinking. You might hear student comments about literature
being fiction. Okay. What elements does fiction contain? Does nonfiction contain any of
19