#literature classes

[sandramiksaauthor]

How to Annotate Texts and Books for University (12 Ways)

[ursulinasum]

Following up on my previous post with tips on close reading. for @coffeeandpies

I grabbed a page of one of my favorite books that I read during college, My Antonia by Willa Cather, and quickly showed how I would have annotated it. You can see a couple of things here.

My notes are not perfect.

I respond to the text. “Ouch, that’s harsh. Where’s the empathy?! Ugh, Jim, why are you judging her? He’s an ass! #TeamAntonia“

I wrote down questions. What exactly is an object of pity? How do you become one? Do they have any control over that in their society / is it different from today?

How does the narrator’s perspective affect my own? Answer - it makes me hate him.

Underlining key words that show foreshadowing (even for the next paragraph, “we avoided all evening”) and emotion or perspective “bitterly, disappointed, Poor Antonia!, object, pertly, high heels”.

Summary. What does this page do? It shows us how the narrator’s perspective has evolved and how he judges, analyses, and remembers. 3 different women

[kelseyridge13]

Here’s the thing that doesn’t get said enough in literature classes: you don’t have to like the reading.

There are works that are seminal in their fields or genres, works which will be important for you to have read and understood, which you will hate reading and will never want to read again.  That is completely fine.  You just finish reading it anyway.

Historically important, artistically important, and enjoyable are neither mutually exclusive nor necessarily overlapping sets.  And that is fine.  You don’t have to like the reading. You just have to do it.

[thought-but-not-said]

My creative tasks in literature classes are honestly just shitposts.

[juxtaposingwords]

Teaching woes

On the one hand, I want my students to learn the skills like prioritizing, which is why I’m explicit with them about the reading they can and should do--none of them are English majors, I don’t give quizzes because that’s not what my class is about, and they really only have to read one book per unit to do the necessary work. (Now, is their grade going to be better if they read all the books? Of course, and I tell them that. But they’re adults and they can decide what to read and what not to read, rather than just whine about the reading.) 

But on the other hand, it makes class discussions so much more difficult when no one can contribute anything because no one read. 

[bomberqueen17]

Pretty please with a space cherry on top explain the Alien Sex class you took

HAA oh yes. It was a 200- or 300-level English class cross-listed with gender studies and film, and was an exploration of the representations in television, movies, and literature of “alien” forms of sexuality, and the takeaway was that nobody has any originality and they were, spoiler alert, just mostly using rhetorical framing to talk about fears and concerns about human sexuality.

However this was a good uh, 15 years ago now maybe, so I might be forgetting something. It was taught by a former writer for Star Trek TNG though, so she knew of what she spoke; a phenomenal professor, she specialized in speculative fiction, with a focus on medieval forms thereof, because honestly there is nothing new under the sun. 

[teyriantimelord10]

Professor: "Print this and read it for our next class. It's only 50 pages"

[unboundbooks]

Lourdes Rambles about Life...College Classes Edition

I was just casually perusing our course catalog for classes next fall and stumbled on the literature departments page. You would think as an avid reader I would be quite familiar with this page, but what with my materials science and engineering major and my theater minor and the scheduling conflicts that arise from both of these, I have yet to take a literature class in college and I'm a rising senior. I know, appalling!

Next semester, my schedule is very afternoon-heavy and I couldn't find any writing classes that fit, which made me sad so I thought to look at the lit department classes. I've tried to take their intro to fiction course before but I've never been able to because of aforementioned conflicts. I thought to myself, "hey this fits into my schedule let me just see the reading list for next term," and lo and behold at the top of the list is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone! That's right, only my favorite book in the whole world! This is the closest I'll ever get to taking a Harry Potter related class in college and I'm so excited!

Also on the reading list are The Hobbit, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Peter Pan, Ozma of Oz, The Wind in the Willows, and The Dark is Rising. The theme of the class appears to be children's fantasy literature and I couldn't be more excited. Now I just have to get into the class, but hopefully since I'm a senior, I'll get priority.