tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8944798.post885675461101719658..comments2024-01-18T05:18:48.819-05:00Comments on Wombat's World <small>(a blog for writer K. A. Laity)</small>: I should have known better...K. A. Laityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05983280397279864583noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8944798.post-51588858156716481322008-10-23T09:45:00.000-04:002008-10-23T09:45:00.000-04:00I think on the positive side, this confusion arise...I think on the positive side, this confusion arises from a coherence in our teaching philosophies, because you're right -- I'm as likely to have those moments when I'm *not* teaching the same topics (though perhaps a bit less frequently). This surprises me because I don't really think of myself as someone with a coherent teaching philosophy (and in fact tried to discourage a student who recently suggested using me as a model of how to teach -- gaah!).<BR/><BR/>I would like to hear some student opinions, too. I think I will force them from the upper divisions course -- what else is a captive audience for?<BR/><BR/>I do end up doing a mash-up of survey and depth in the lower division medieval classes, because I still have about 700 years to cover and the early part is <I>so</I> very different from the later part and I have to teach a lot of history, cultural context and highlight themes that inevitably get taken down as notes to "define" the period and fall far short of the complexities of reality.<BR/><BR/>But what else can we do?<BR/><BR/>Our students are not our peers. They are not going to have the understanding of the periods or topics we're teaching that would allow them to have the kind of conversations we long to have. Yet sometimes I think we have unrealistic expectations in that direction when we should be cheered to prick curiosity in them.<BR/><BR/>I think all we can do is take them up to the ledge and shove them over. They have to fly on their own. Some won't. So it goes.C. Margery Kempehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15910282257993793334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8944798.post-29341143430696374722008-10-23T09:06:00.000-04:002008-10-23T09:06:00.000-04:00I love this, because even when I'm teaching totall...I love this, because even when I'm teaching totally different courses (hello, teen film vs. the big fat novel), I run into the same problem. Did we discuss performativity in here, or am I hallucinating?<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, I'm fascinated by your reading of the enorme survey. Since I'm poised on the other end of the literature teleology, I always imagined that the emphasis is on the importance of early literatures---as in "you haven't really gotten Literature until you've read the foundations." Now I have to rethink everything. Thanks a LOT. <BR/><BR/>I wish some students would weigh in on this. What I hear, anecdotally only, from some is their frustration with the excerpts that they get in surveys, as opposed to the full-length texts they get in our current topics courses. Is that also the plight of the thousand year survey?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com