Notes on Teaching Literature and Music

[jriggenbach]

This is a new thread created in response to Phil Coates's explicit request in Post #219 in the “Rand’s Notions of Kant & Hume” thread.

Phil began by quoting me, from Post #197 in that thread, where I had inadvisably written: "Remind me sometime to tell you about my conversation with Phil a decade or so ago about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese."

Phil replied: "I know what my -current- views are, having taught the book a little over a year ago, but don't remember my discussion with you. Why don't you post it on the Great Literature thread, since that's the topic? (I'd much rather talk about that than the crapola that has been going on here)."

So here I am in a new thread on teaching literature. We'll see how much interest it generates.

As I remember our conversation, Phil had just read Sonnets from the Portuguese for the first time and was tremendously excited about it. He spoke of working it into the curriculum he had been developing for teenage students of literature at a private school in Silicon Valley, and I innocently asked him (having never myself read the entire work - only selected sonnets from it, none of which I had ever analyzed and none of which I remembered very well) whether it consisted of Italian or English sonnets. It emerged that Phil didn't know the difference, or even that there was more than one kind of sonnet. It emerged further that Phil didn't know what a sonnet was - in the sense that he could not state a definition of the word "sonnet," and perhaps cite some notable examples of it outside of the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When I confessed to feeling somewhat flabbergasted by this information, Phil asked me, with an air of perfect guilelessness and innocence: "How would knowing what a sonnet is help me better appreciate Sonnets from the Portuguese?" (These probably aren't Phil's exact words, of course, but I believe they capture the essence of his attitude and the essence of what he asked me.)

In reflecting on this exchange afterward, it seemed to me that Phil's orientation was almost entirely in the direction of what Ayn Rand would call the "theme" - the abstract, conceptual meaning - of both the work (Sonnets from the Portuguese) as a whole and the individual sonnets that comprised it.

On one level, of course, this is exactly as it should be. The three main activities of literary criticism, properly understood, are description, analysis, and evaluation. And all three of these must be focused on the abstract meaning of the work before them or they must lose their focus entirely and devolve into meaningless listing of qualities and characteristics.

On the other hand, there is much more to competent teaching of literature than merely describing the abstract meanings of various specific literary works. It is necessary, first of all, to help students understand what means were employed to convey the abstract meaning in question - and how those means worked. In the case of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, part of the analysis of the means must include discussion of the nature of the sonnet form. Browning did not write Limericks from the Portuguese, after all, or Sestinas from the Portuguese. Why didn’t she? Why did she choose the sonnet form to express the thoughts and feelings she wanted to express in this sequence of poems? Is there anything peculiar to the sonnet form that makes it particularly useful in the expression of the theme(s) Browning wanted to express? And why did she make the choice she made between the Italian sonnet and the English sonnet? How does this choice relate to her expression of her theme(s)?

Another issue: Elizabeth Barrett Browning is generally regarded by critics and scholars of Victorian literature as something of a mediocrity, much less worthy of reading and study by the modern reader than her husband, Robert Browning. Sonnets from the Portuguese is generally regarded as a rather mediocre work – though perhaps one that is up at the high end of mediocrity. I agree with these assessments. And I think that if one is going to take it upon oneself to teach literature and one chooses to spend a substantial amount of time on an author and a text that are not held in particularly high esteem by the acknowledged experts in the field, one is duty bound to tell one’s students that this is the case. One should acquaint one’s students with the majority view on the author and the text at issue and explain why one considers that view wrong (or irrelevant to one’s purposes in this particular class).

One needs always to remember, I think, that one’s principal duty as a teacher is to provide one’s students with the information and instruction that will make them “culturally literate” (in E.D. Hirsch’s sense) in the field one is teaching. When I taught Music Appreciation (Introduction to Western Classical Music) at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco in the ’90s, for example, I included the Danish composer Carl Nielsen as an important figure in early 20th Century music. I told my students that Nielsen was not generally regarded in this way, but that I regarded him in this way and believed they needed to know about him, as well as about the composers of the same period – Sibelius, Stravinsky, Mahler, Strauss, Schoenberg, Debussy, et. al. – whose works are currently more relevant to the concept of cultural literacy in the field of classical music. I hoped by doing so to help them to understand that conventional opinion was not always right in such matters and that there was an informed way to disagree with the experts.

One must always concern oneself, when teaching, with the fact that one’s students will go on with their educations after leaving one’s class behind. If some of my students were to go on to study musical history on a more advanced level, I didn’t want to send them to their next teacher knowing about Carl Nielsen but utterly ignorant of Schoenberg simply because the teacher of their introductory course loved Nielsen’s music and was indifferent or hostile to most of Schoenberg’s. Their next teacher, upon encountering this, would probably conclude – with good reason – that their first teacher had been incompetent. The same would be true of students who began a more advanced study of Victorian literature well informed on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese but utterly ignorant of the poetry of, say, Robert Browning and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Phil wrote:

"Or maybe you'd rather create a new thread.

"Entitled: 'Phil's Totally Ignorant and Worthless Conversations Over the Years - transcribed Verbatim from drunken flashbacks by his Occasional Biographer'? :-). Subtitled: 'Why Didn't I Just Walk Out of the Room?'

"Then, if you have still more to say, you could supplement it at your leisure with threads called: 'Phil's Worst Posts--Literature' and 'Phil's Totally Ignorant Posts--History.'"

For the record, I have never found Phil’s in-person conversation to be worthless. I’ve always liked Phil, in fact, and found his company and his conversation to be thoughtful and thoroughly congenial. In person, you see, he makes no extravagant claims about how knowledgeable he is regarding subjects he obviously doesn’t know particularly well. The anecdote about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese stuck in my mind precisely because it was so unlike Phil. He seemed to me to be blundering, half-blind, into territory he knew little or nothing about, with what seemed to me a dangerously naïve idea of what it would be to know something about that territory. This was noteworthy. It’s exactly what one would expect of the Phil who posts here, but it wasn’t what I had come to expect of the Phil I had known personally for several years.

JR

[Robert Campbell]

Jeff,

I think you were just ahead of the curve on Carl Nielsen.

Until the 1960s, his music wasn't played or recorded much outside of Denmark. Since then, the number of recordings has grown steadily and, in the pages of Fanfare or the Gramophone—I'm not conversant with what gets covered in Music 210 courses—Nielsen is now treated as canonical.

On a visit to Copenhagen, I had the distinct pleasure of buying a CD of Nielsen's music with money that had his picture on it (he's on the front of the 100 kroner note).

Will US currency ever have Ives or Gershwin or Copland on it? Doesn't seem likely...

Robert Campbell

[9thdoctor]

whether it consisted of Italian or English sonnets. It emerged that Phil didn't know the difference, or even that there was more than one kind of sonnet. It emerged further that Phil didn't know what a sonnet was - in the sense that he could not state a definition of the word "sonnet," and perhaps cite some notable examples of it outside of the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When I confessed to feeling somewhat flabbergasted by this information, Phil asked me, with an air of perfect guilelessness and innocence: "How would knowing what a sonnet is help me better appreciate Sonnets from the Portuguese?"

As in that there should be 14 lines, or just that there are different defined rhyme schemes? I’d be flabbergasted too if an english teacher couldn’t explain that, it’s like a music appreciation teacher not knowing what sonata form is (as in Exposition, Development, Recapitulation, Coda).

Here’s the most famous of the EBB’s, sorry but it’s awfully soppy.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Let's try and figure it out.

Standard Italian Sonnet: first the octave: a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, then the sestet, typically: c-d-e-c-d-e or c-d-c-c-d-c

Standard Shakespearean Sonnet: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g

This one, a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-c-d-c-d, the sestet’s a bit debatable, I’ve treated the “use” on line 9 as wrenched. Anyway, it’s Italian, definitely not Shakespearean. Pretty basic stuff.

BTW a fun book that explains the nuts and bolts of poetry is Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled.

Here you’ll be treated to a reading of a Shakespeare Sonnet, preceded by gratuitous Dr. Who references. Listen carefully for the rhyme scheme, there’s going to be a quiz.

Edited May 18, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[George H. Smith]

Jeff,

Excellent post.

I should mention that I always like Phil personally as well. Aside from seeing him at your Beer Busts in SF, I also debated him twice on the anarchist/minarchist controversy -- once at Laissez Faire Books in SF and another time at an IOS Conference. Those debates remained cordial, as I recall.

Having said this, there is something about Phil's manner of writing posts that can drive me up a wall. I don't take kindly to being instructed on how I should write posts, or on how I should read Peikoff, especially when I know a lot more about the subject under consideration than Phil does.

Of course, Phil regards this an "an argument from authority," but that's just Phil. Having published a book on history yourself, you are keenly aware of how virtually every historical judgment we make depends on some "authority" (i.e., historian) or other, and how appealing to these authorities is not a logical fallacy -- though such appeals could be, if used improperly.

You are also aware of how, after you study a certain aspect of history for a while, you can develop a keen sense of which historians can be trusted and which cannot, at least provisionally. This part of historical judgment is an art -- indeed, writing history is itself an art -- and it can be difficult to explain to someone who is unfamiliar with how good history is written.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Stop the presses! Stop the presses! Phil and George agree on Something.

> virtually every historical judgment we make depends on some "authority" (i.e., historian) or other, and how appealing to these authorities is not a logical fallacy -- though such appeals could be, if used improperly.[Also] after you study a certain aspect of history for a while, you can develop a keen sense of which historians can be trusted and which cannot, at least provisionally. This part of historical judgment is an art -- indeed, writing history is itself an art -- and it can be difficult to explain to someone who is unfamiliar with how good history is written. [GHS]

George, I agree with everything you just said.

I wouldn't call any of that on the face of it "argument from authority". Just like I wouldn't say I believe Egypt is a country in Northeast Africa or Russia suffered under communism arguments from authority because I got them from authorities.

Edited May 18, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Uh-Oh, More Disagreements...(Sigh)

Jeff, I think you've given a good thoughtful defense of your positions, however it looks like I am going to differ fundamentally with most of your viewpoints in post #1.

I'm just going to summarize very tersely at first, since it's way too many topics for one post. (I can elaborate or defend subsequently.)

--I would prefer not to join together teaching literature and music in one thread - they are too different and the parallels don't take us too far. And teaching literature alone is a major topic which includes poetry, drama, novels, short stories, belles lettres and sometimes even non-fiction like essays for contrast.

--I don't think rhyme schemes are always a major focus in teaching the occasional poem (as opposed to an entire course on poetry), nor do I think the issue of whether or not a sonnet is in Italian form is something many non-specialists will care about or should be required to retain. [i agree a teacher should at least mention that this is a sonnet and not a quatrain or another form and give a definition.]

--I don't think cultural literacy is the primary goal of teaching in any subject. I think some of what Hirsch and others think of as cultural literacy is too many facts and not enough relevance of them. It needs to exist, but needs to be more selective.

--I suspect your statement that EBB is viewed as 'mediocre' may be oversimplified.

--More importantly, whether that's true or not, I think it's dangerous to rely too much on the supposed experts in one's evaluations of literature.

--I think you would need to read SFP in its entirety and see the progression before concluding it's mediocre.

--I don't agree that one always needs to devote more attention to the more critically respected authors in a literature course. One does need to be selective in a short course, but that's not necessarily the primary criterion.

Edited May 18, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Rich Engle]

Oh my.

I just did some power-skimming and that was so far enough to get the gist of the current level of Phil-beating(s).

And, I can say, in that I generally remain (will remain, likely) an avid participant of such activities, because he endlessly deserves them, that there are a few basics one has to realize.

1. I'm starting to think he likes it. It is one of the few possible explanations. Yes, that might mean he has masochistic tendencies.

2 Regardless of whether "1." is true or not, it is reasonable to think that he will not stop it. He just does it.

3. There is no hope in my mind that he will ever abandon his pedantic tone.

I will keep it brief. Those three are enough, but for one thing; being that I find the thought of him teaching any kind of classes or private instruction (any subject), particularly music and literature, to be thoroughly horrifying. I know he would make my students start running after the first class. There is no way they could take it, nor be expected to do so.

Now run some edits, Phil: I threw a few ones in there just to give you something to do. I suggest printing it out, then using a Shaprie and circling it..."Cumbersome." There are a few. It's like a "Where's Waldo" puzzle for you to work on.

I stuck stuff in front of other stuff then sometimes I did that backwards, with stuff. I ended verbs with prepositions. Sometimes. Then, other times I just used parantheses. I was going to start up on anapests and spondees and dactyl trisyllables, but then I realized if I didn't, I could just leave my office and go watch Caligula (notice lack of bold, or underline, or italics or anything) and wait for the Anneka and Lori scene with my wife. After that you see what happens, either way it is historical and hot, two things that you aren't. So in the end it comes down to properly selecting entertainment values.

rde

Edited May 19, 2010 by Rich Engle

[dan2100]

This is a new thread created in response to Phil Coates's explicit request in Post #219 in the "Rand's Notions of Kant & Hume" thread.

Phil began by quoting me, from Post #197 in that thread, where I had inadvisably written: "Remind me sometime to tell you about my conversation with Phil a decade or so ago about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese."

Phil replied: "I know what my -current- views are, having taught the book a little over a year ago, but don't remember my discussion with you. Why don't you post it on the Great Literature thread, since that's the topic? (I'd much rather talk about that than the crapola that has been going on here)."

So here I am in a new thread on teaching literature. We'll see how much interest it generates.

As I remember our conversation, Phil had just read Sonnets from the Portuguese for the first time and was tremendously excited about it. He spoke of working it into the curriculum he had been developing for teenage students of literature at a private school in Silicon Valley, and I innocently asked him (having never myself read the entire work - only selected sonnets from it, none of which I had ever analyzed and none of which I remembered very well) whether it consisted of Italian or English sonnets. It emerged that Phil didn't know the difference, or even that there was more than one kind of sonnet. It emerged further that Phil didn't know what a sonnet was - in the sense that he could not state a definition of the word "sonnet," and perhaps cite some notable examples of it outside of the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When I confessed to feeling somewhat flabbergasted by this information, Phil asked me, with an air of perfect guilelessness and innocence: "How would knowing what a sonnet is help me better appreciate Sonnets from the Portuguese?" (These probably aren't Phil's exact words, of course, but I believe they capture the essence of his attitude and the essence of what he asked me.)

I have yet to read Jeff's whole post here or think about it. Why? I almost laughed up my meal considering that Phil teaches this stuff and not only doesn't know the difference but appears to think it shouldn't matter. (No offense, Phil. And, hopefully, you've changed your mind since. I freely admit to often being ignorant and not seeing why a particular ignorance might blind me to something important. So, I'm not so much laughing at you as laughing at this particular type of insouciance so many of us suffer from.)

By the way, as an aside, regarding the sonnets of one particular poet, I highly recommend Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It looks to me like Vendler has OCD, but the rest of us can reap the reward of this. (She's also got a book coming out this fall that goes over many of Dickinson in September. I recall enjoying her "Emily Dickinson Thinking" in Parnassus. I'd like to see her also do Berryman in detail, especially his The Dream Songs. She already covered him in an earlier work, but I'd like to see her over a good chunk of The Dream Songs -- of course, including my favorites.) Vendler does believe the structure of Shakespeare's sonnets does reveal much about their meaning. She spends about four or five pages on each poem -- almost like a mini-essay per sonnet.

[jriggenbach]

This is a new thread created in response to Phil Coates's explicit request in Post #219 in the "Rand's Notions of Kant & Hume" thread.

Phil began by quoting me, from Post #197 in that thread, where I had inadvisably written: "Remind me sometime to tell you about my conversation with Phil a decade or so ago about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese."

Phil replied: "I know what my -current- views are, having taught the book a little over a year ago, but don't remember my discussion with you. Why don't you post it on the Great Literature thread, since that's the topic? (I'd much rather talk about that than the crapola that has been going on here)."

So here I am in a new thread on teaching literature. We'll see how much interest it generates.

As I remember our conversation, Phil had just read Sonnets from the Portuguese for the first time and was tremendously excited about it. He spoke of working it into the curriculum he had been developing for teenage students of literature at a private school in Silicon Valley, and I innocently asked him (having never myself read the entire work - only selected sonnets from it, none of which I had ever analyzed and none of which I remembered very well) whether it consisted of Italian or English sonnets. It emerged that Phil didn't know the difference, or even that there was more than one kind of sonnet. It emerged further that Phil didn't know what a sonnet was - in the sense that he could not state a definition of the word "sonnet," and perhaps cite some notable examples of it outside of the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. When I confessed to feeling somewhat flabbergasted by this information, Phil asked me, with an air of perfect guilelessness and innocence: "How would knowing what a sonnet is help me better appreciate Sonnets from the Portuguese?" (These probably aren't Phil's exact words, of course, but I believe they capture the essence of his attitude and the essence of what he asked me.)

I have yet to read Jeff's whole post here or think about it. Why? I almost laughed up my meal considering that Phil teaches this stuff and not only doesn't know the difference but appears to think it shouldn't matter. (No offense, Phil. And, hopefully, you've changed your mind since. I freely admit to often being ignorant and not seeing why a particular ignorance might blind me to something important. So, I'm not so much laughing at you as laughing at this particular type of insouciance so many of us suffer from.)

By the way, as an aside, regarding the sonnets of one particular poet, I highly recommend Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It looks to me like Vendler has OCD, but the rest of us can reap the reward of this. (She's also got a book coming out this fall that goes over many of Dickinson in September. I recall enjoying her "Emily Dickinson Thinking" in Parnassus. I'd like to see her also do Berryman in detail, especially his The Dream Songs. She already covered him in an earlier work, but I'd like to see her over a good chunk of The Dream Songs -- of course, including my favorites.) Vendler does believe the structure of Shakespeare's sonnets does reveal much about their meaning. She spends about four or five pages on each poem -- almost like a mini-essay per sonnet.

"OCD"?

JR

[Philip Coates]

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

[Philip Coates]

> I almost laughed up my meal considering that Phil teaches this stuff and not only doesn't know the difference but appears to think it shouldn't matter

Dan, I don't remember the conversation but I imagine the point I wanted to make is that you can teach a book of poems by a writer without making whether they are in sonnet form or quatrain form or whatever the primary subject of interest as opposed to the meaning of what the author wants to express, whether or not it's done in blocks of 4 lines or 14 or 8, whether its done in free verse or rhyme. Sometimes the rhyme and metrics are central, though, but not always. I don't think it's a good idea to hold people to things they muse about or say in casual conversation as opposed to after they have written and polished it and its for publication. Unless they are like Rand often was in regard to precision, often people say things in a conversation in a more telegraphic or incomplete or unqualified or woozy or otherwise inaccurate manner. I also don't think you should go public with private conversations for the sake of mockery, going thru them and quoting the silliest thing you can find. I don't have that good a memory for conversations from years ago and JR and I didn't have that many super-detailed ones. But I think he may have said some rash or over-the-top things to me from time to time that were silly or would get a good laugh if I posted them and it would be unjust for me to make them a matter of permanent record on the net.

Edited May 19, 2010 by Philip Coates

[dan2100]

> I almost laughed up my meal considering that Phil teaches this stuff and not only doesn't know the difference but appears to think it shouldn't matter

Dan, I don't remember the conversation but I imagine the point I was trying to make is that you can teach a book of poems by a writer without making whether they are in sonnet form or quatrain form or whatever the primary subject of interest as opposed to the meaning of what the author wants to express, whether or not it's done in blocks of 4 lines or 14 or 8, whether its done in free verse or rhyme. Sometimes the rhyme and metrics are central, though, but not always.

EBB's particular poems fall conveniently into what's known as formal verse and the sonnet form did seem to matter enough to her for her to write literally dozens in that same form. It's almost like if she were a painter who did a series of dozens of still lifes which you planned to teach to a class on art appreciation and you didn't know what a stil life is and also didn't think that this mattered for the case in hand. (Maybe not the best analogy as still life seems to me, with regard to painting, a far wider category than sonnet -- though both have subdivisions -- and still life is (usually) defined by its subject matter rather than its purely formal aspects.)

I don't think it's a good idea to hold people to things they muse about or say in casual conversation as opposed to after they have written and polished it and its for publication. Unless they are like Rand, often people say things in a conversation in a more telegraphic or incomplete or unqualified or woozy or otherwise inaccurate manner. I also don't think you should go public with private conversations for the sake of mockery, going thru them and quoting the silliest thing you can find. I don't have that good a memory for conversations from years ago and JR and I didn't have that many super-detailed ones. But I think he may have said some rash or over-the-top things to me from time to time that were silly or would get a good laugh and it would be unjust for me to make them a matter of permanent record on the net.

Oh, I mostly agree, though I hope you'll share some of the good laugh ones with us. Were I going to recall a private conversation of this sort, I'd probably have not named anyone specific.

[Barbara Branden]

Jeff, your post is very interesting, and I agree with most of it. But I have a couple of questions, You say that Elizabeth Browning's poetry is mediocre. Would you explain what qualities it possesses and/or what qualities it lacks that cause you to make that judgment? I don't disagree about many of her Sonnets -- but I believe that her "Grief" is in a different category-- and its last two lines make my heart all but stop:

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

That only men incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

Beat upward to God's throne in loud access

Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,

In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare

Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare

Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express

Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--

Most like a monumental statue set

In everlasting watch and moveless woe

Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:

If it could weep, it could arise and go.

Barbara

-

[Philip Coates]

Take a careful look at the poem Barbara just posted. Do you completely understand it? Unlike most straightforward prose, the meaning of a good poem is often not crystal clear on first reading. Poetry can be hard to teach because students have to get used to reading it more than once and unpacking all the hidden meanings, figurative language, etc. And students often don't see why they should do the work or come in resenting poetry for not being clear and simple and direct from the start. Those are important point regarding how to teach it. I'll come back to them.

I would like to discuss some aspects of how to teach in general, then how to teach literature, and finally how to teach poetry in another post. But first, in this post, I'd like to clear up some mistaken claims about "background", about experience and expertise.

Having Some Background

With regard to this thread and people telling me how I should have taught poetry, I think one should be careful about prescribing in too great detail from one's armchair how someone should teach a subject if they [the critics] have never taught before. On the other hand, I will try to give an extended response in a later post(s) to many of Jeff's points because he has been a teacher, he makes thoughtful points on this thread, and in past conversations it was clear he had thought long and hard about teaching. And because the topic is of great interest.

Jeff has repeatedy made the assertion on a number of threads that I should not give opinions on things I know nothing about and implying that - by contrast to me - he is expert in literature: In the case of teaching, I know that he taught for a time at the Academy of Arts College in San Francisco. His subject was not poetry but science fiction. In my case, my only job since about 2002 has been teaching. And it has been in a range of areas. Before that, I have had teaching as a part time activity throughout my adult life. I -have- taught poetry. To a number of different age groups. In the area of teaching literature, my focus has been on great literature, on classics, not just science fiction. I have not been restricted to poetry, but have taught drama, novels, short stories, and essays. I started at the middle school level and later taught at the high school level, including, for two years, two advanced or honors or Advanced Placement (AP) courses in literature. I have also taught literature at the adult level. I am doing that this year both in the spring and coming up in the fall.

I certainly have holes or gaps in my knowledge of literature. The field is enormously vast and, unless you are a specialist of long standing, it's impossible to have even read all of the classics or the extended canon. There are important writers across the centuries working in America, England, France, Russia, and numerous other countries, many of whom were incredibly prolific. Jeff may have gotten the impression that I knew nothing in conversation, because I was willing to admit some of those gaps in areas where he had done more reading than I. I spent a good amount of time listening to what he had to say in literature and mentioned that he seemed to know more than I did in several areas. I can be a good listener, when someone has a lot to say. He had a college course in which he read -all- of Shakespeare's plays, for example. I did not. He recommended Dickens to me some years ago. I may have had some 'lite' exposure to him from high school, but didn't retain it. So I went out and read and carefully studied Tale of Two Cities, which I now love and I included it in my curriculum in one course. Among literary types, areas of strength don't necessarily overlap and there can be disagreement on what is the required canon, both for the teacher and in the classroom.

Another point is that if you have taught a range of subjects, that can be relevant "background". It can both strengthen you in terms of overall teaching and it can provide connections and 'enrich' what you are doing, providing depth and opportunities for contrast-and-compare. In my case, having taught history and language arts (composition especially) not just being a literature "specialist" was enormously useful.

Edited May 20, 2010 by Philip Coates

[jriggenbach]

Jeff, your post is very interesting, and I agree with most of it. But I have a couple of questions, You say that Elizabeth Browning's poetry is mediocre. Would you explain what qualities it possesses and/or what qualities it lacks that cause you to make that judgment? I don't disagree about many of her Sonnets -- but I believe that her "Grief" is in a different category-- and its last two lines make my heart all but stop:

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

That only men incredulous of despair,

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

Beat upward to God's throne in loud access

Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,

In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare

Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare

Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express

Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--

Most like a monumental statue set

In everlasting watch and moveless woe

Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:

If it could weep, it could arise and go.

Barbara

-

Barbara, your question is a reasonable one, but I don't have time to answer it right now. I shouldn't have succumbed to the temptation to mention that I agreed with the establishment view of E.B. Browning; it was irrelevant to my purpose, which was making certain points about blundering into an intellectual field you know little or nothing about without even knowing what you need to know to proceed competently. It doesn't matter whether I think E.B. Browning is a mediocrity. What matters is the presumptuousness of trying to teach literature while not knowing much of anything about the subject.

For the record, I taught at the Academy of Art College {note the singular on "Art") for four years. I taught mainly English Composition, but also Music Appreciation (Introduction to Western Classical Music), an Introduction to Science Fiction & Fantasy in Literature, Film, and Video, and Introduction to Philosophy. Previous to that, I taught journalism at a community college (Pierce College) in Los Angeles and an extension course (also available for credit) in book, music, and film criticism at UCLA.

JR

[Philip Coates]

> What matters is the presumptuousness of trying to teach literature while not knowing much of anything about the subject. [Jeff R]

So it's a fair question to ask what then, in your view are the requirements one must demonstrate to be a non-presumptuous teacher of literature?

Do you need, a Ph. D. in that field to teach it at any level? Or is being a lifetime reader of the subject enough? Does the level at which you teach it - elementary, middle school, high school, university matter? Should you have to take courses in teaching, go to teacher's college/ serve an apprenticeship/intern/be supervised?

And did -you- have the qualifications you mention to teach those eight different subjects: Composition, Science Fiction as Literature, Science Fiction--Film, Music, and Philosophy? And also: Criticism in three different areas - books, music, and film?

Edited May 21, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Brant Gaede]

> What matters is the presumptuousness of trying to teach literature while not knowing much of anything about the subject. [Jeff R]

So it's a fair question to ask what then, in your view are the requirements one must demonstrate to be a non-presumptuous teacher of literature?

Do you need, a Ph. D. in that field to teach it at any level? Or is being a lifetime reader of the subject enough? Does the level at which you teach it - elementary, middle school, high school, university matter? Should you have to take courses in teaching, go to teacher's college/ serve an apprenticeship/intern/be supervised?

And did -you- have the qualifications you mention to teach those eight different subjects: Composition, Science Fiction as Literature, Science Fiction--Film, Music, and Philosophy? And also: Criticism in three different areas - books, music, and film?

Phil, he said the requirement was knowledge. Knowledge tends to be self-demonstrating. There is something of an art to recognizing expertise too. James Bond was described as willing to listen to an expert on any subject as part of his characterization. How would he know he was listening to an expert? I have the feeling you would ask the expert to fill out an application for expertise which you would first evaluate before proceeding further.

--Brant

[jriggenbach]

> What matters is the presumptuousness of trying to teach literature while not knowing much of anything about the subject. [Jeff R]

So it's a fair question to ask what then, in your view are the requirements one must demonstrate to be a non-presumptuous teacher of literature?

Do you need, a Ph. D. in that field to teach it at any level? Or is being a lifetime reader of the subject enough? Does the level at which you teach it - elementary, middle school, high school, university matter? Should you have to take courses in teaching, go to teacher's college/ serve an apprenticeship/intern/be supervised?

And did -you- have the qualifications you mention to teach those eight different subjects: Composition, Science Fiction as Literature, Science Fiction--Film, Music, and Philosophy? And also: Criticism in three different areas - books, music, and film?

Basically, Brant has the short answer down exactly right. The requirements are knowing what you're talking about. This does not require any particular degree - many Ph.D.s in English or Comparative Literature are far too ignorant to teach introductory courses in literature. This is particularly true of people who have earned their Ph.D.s in these fields in the last twenty years.

I've never taken any courses in teaching, so I can't comment on how useful or useless they might be. I think it is invaluable to closely observe the work of more experienced teachers - sit in on their classes, make notes on what you observe, perhaps discuss certain issues with them afterwards. I think it is useful to be observed and critiqued by more experienced teachers. I'm reluctant to say that either of these is "required" of an effective teacher, but I suspect most of us will become competent teachers a bit more slowly if we don't have access to these tools early on in our careers. And of course this disserves those who chance to be our students before we have fully learned our craft.

You ask if I "ha[d] the qualifications you mention to teach those eight different subjects: Composition, Science Fiction as Literature, Science Fiction--Film, Music, and Philosophy? And also: Criticism in three different areas - books, music, and film?"

The answers are disparate. I was very well equipped to teach young people how to improve their writing. My greatest weakness was that I had never thought much about how to translate my enormous knowledge of the practice of writing expository nonfiction into the structure of a series of classes and assignments. I went into the process with a few ideas and a few notions and I learned the hard way. After a couple of semesters I was a pretty good English Comp teacher by my own standards. After maybe four semesters, I was a very good one.

I was very well qualified by my own standards to teach science fiction and fantasy as literature. I had begun reading the stuff at the age of 12 in 1959 and had paid close attention to it ever since, reading not only the fiction, but also virtually everything that came out in the way of criticism, history, and other scholarship in the field. I had subscribed for decades to the principal trade magazines in the field. I had read the academic journals devoted to the field. I had served as the science fiction columnist of the San Jose Mercury News, a major daily in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time (the mid-1980s). I had known a number of famous science fiction writers personally, including Theodore Sturgeon and Samuel R. Delany. And I had done a lot of reading and thinking about how science fiction and fantasy fit into an overall theory of literature.

You asked earlier if "being a lifetime reader of the subject [is] enough?" No. One must also think about one reads. And one must do a lot of reading in the works of those others who have read widely and thought about what they've read. One must develop an understanding of what most people who have been through this territory have thought about it - whether one agrees with that consensus or not. When one's students pass along to more advanced study, the teachers they encounter will assume that if they have passed through a competently taught introductory course in the subject at hand, they will know certain things about that subject. It's my job to make sure that, whether they end up knowing these things or not, I did put these things before them for their consideration.

Creating that science fiction course at the age of around 50 was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was a challenge, because, though I knew the subject really, really well, there's nothing like teaching a subject to point up those areas (however small) in which your own understanding is not fully up to par. Teaching is one of the most educational activities I know - for the teacher. That's one of the reasons it's so great.

In the film part of the science fiction course, I was skating on thin ice. I've been a film enthusiast for many years and have seen many, many films. I've done a certain amount of reading in film biography, film history, film criticism, and the aesthetics of film, but not enough to feel comfortable passing myself off as any sort of authority on those subjects. My thinking was that the primary purpose of the course's film component was to acquaint my students with notable and interesting sf and fantasy films of the past, films they might otherwise not know about - to provide them with, in effect, a list they could use to begin their further education on the topic of sf and fantasy in film under their own power. I was competent to provide that, though little more.

Music? My mother was a would-be opera singer who gave up her career to marry my father. Her textbooks from the Detroit Conservatory of Music were part of our family library when I was a kid. I read them. So were classical recordings played on the phonograph (some at 78 rpm, others at 33-1/3 rpm). I listened to them. At 19, in 1966, I took my first job on a big city classical music radio station. The people who make classical radio stations function - the people who decide what music will be played on the air and when - are extremely knowledgeable about classical music. It is extremely challenging to learn enough fast enough to earn the right to continue in their company. It's a rite of passage I passed. Working off and on in classical radio from the late '60s through the early '90s, combined with insatiable reading about the history and theory of Western Classical Music, prepared me pretty well, I'd say, for teaching my course at the Academy of Art College in Music Appreciation.

Philosophy? Well, I completed around 15 units in it as an undergraduate, plus maybe another eight units or so in my M.A. program. Plus I read the stuff ravenously, indefatigably, for a number of years. I felt that in the late ’90s, an argument could be made for my barely fulfilling the necessary minimum requirements (by my own standards) for teaching an introductory course in Western philosophy. And the college needed someone to volunteer to take an unanticipated extra section. I felt challenged the whole semester. At times I felt as though I was in just slightly over my head. So it pleased me a great deal when I invited George Smith, who was living in San Francisco at the time, to come to my class as a guest speaker on the subject of atheism, and he agreed, and, in looking over my course syllabus, commented that my course looked to him to be about as rigorous as and generally about on a par with the introductory courses in philosophy he remembered from the University of Arizona in the 1960s.

The criticism class? It was supposed to be a “how-to” course in its basic orientation, for journalism students who wanted to get into reviewing and for extension students who thought they might like to write reviews on a freelance basis. I was 31 at the time (it was 1978) and had practiced all three kinds of criticism – of books, movies, and (classsical) music – professionally (that is, for money) in the major media of the day. I regarded the class as something of a failure. It was my first attempt to teach anything like that (previously I had taught only courses in radio production and writing), and I felt I had failed the assignment – that I had failed specifically to correctly anticipate the problems I would face and how I should approach them. Though I did receive one appreciative letter from a student after the class was over, telling me what a positive experience it had been for her, I went on thinking of it as a failure from which I needed to learn.

The point is, Phil, that I never embarked on a course in science fiction not knowing what science fiction was; I never embarked on a course in Western classical music not knowing what sonata form was or not having any idea how to explain the concept of tonality or “key.” I never embarked on a course in philosophy not knowing what epistemology was – any more than I would consider offering instruction on a world-famous sonnet sequence while having no idea what a sonnet was.

JR

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Qualifications and Training of a Teacher

I basically like Jeff's very detailed answer. He sounds impressive. Very much as if he would be qualified to teach some of those courses and as if he "learned on the job" in others where he wasn't initially qualified. But evaluating a potential teacher requires a good assessment process. Lots of candidates for any job can "talk a great game". They give great interview. And you can't just go on references or take their word for it. I'm not saying this is true of Jeff. In my limited conversations with him on education he has shown that he has thought a lot about what he has read.

> Should you have to take courses in teaching, go to teacher's college/ serve an apprenticeship/intern/be supervised?

To answer my own question, I agree that many Ph.D.s and graduates of teacher's college are not qualified to teach and many people who are "self-read" in a field or have hands on experience are. But you have to assess that by some kind of objective criteria to winnow out the "big talkers": My second full-time classroom teaching job was for a major private chain of schools (the largest in the country, I was told). They did not require a state teaching credential, but they did -four things- that were smart:

Pre Hire:

i) In the interview they asked not just content questions about subject matter, but about approach to teaching and teaching philosophy and how you would address a certain kind of problem or situation.

ii) They gave all prospects a several hours long and very challenging written test on a wide range of topics including content, method, and how you would solve a range of problems.

iii) They gave you a class in your field and observed you teaching in it for an hour or two.

After Hire:

iv) We (the teachers) attended a week-long summer workshop in teaching before out first year and then -every- summer. We had a mentor. We sometimes did observations. We had in-class coaching. We had regular 'in-service' education during the school year after a full day of teaching.

Jeff, as a classroom teacher, were you vetted, assessed, or trained in any of the above ways? Such as, prehire, were you given any tests at all to show knowledge in your field? Were you given any workshops or mentoring, prehire or posthire?

Another issue posthire is what the customer thinks, not only your principal but how the students respond to the teaching. What kinds of reactions does the teacher get in the classroom? Do they resist? Do they learn? Can he keep them awake? How do -they- evaluate him? Teacher evaluations are important and very revealing. (( If written evaluations weren't required by the school, I always would pass a form of my own around the class and tell the students some thing like this: "Don't sign your name; slide it face down into the middle of the folder. Be honest, both positive and negative; help me improve." ))

As Jeff acknowledges, having a lot of knowledge in a field through one's own reading is an impressive start, but there's more to teaching.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

?

[Jonathan]

How important do you think it is for teachers of arts courses to have experience creating art? I would say that by far, my best literature, music and film teachers were those who had a lot of experience creating, even if only at an amateur level, so, in reading this thread, I'm a bit surprised that hands-on creativity has not been mentioned as a qualification.

Can extensive reading about a subject make up for lack of experience? Could a person read enough about, say, music or cinematography to give him the equivalent of playing a instrument or of storyboarding and lighting a scene himself?

J

[jriggenbach]

Subject: Qualifications and Training of a Teacher

I basically like Jeff's very detailed answer. He sounds impressive. Very much as if he would be qualified to teach some of those courses and as if he "learned on the job" in others where he wasn't initially qualified. But evaluating a potential teacher requires a good assessment process. Lots of candidates for any job can "talk a great game". They give great interview. And you can't just go on references or take their word for it. I'm not saying this is true of Jeff. In my limited conversations with him on education he has shown that he has thought a lot about what he has read.

> Should you have to take courses in teaching, go to teacher's college/ serve an apprenticeship/intern/be supervised?

To answer my own question, I agree that many Ph.D.s and graduates of teacher's college are not qualified to teach and many people who are "self-read" in a field or have hands on experience are. But you have to assess that by some kind of objective criteria to winnow out the "big talkers": My second full-time classroom teaching job was for a major private chain of schools (the largest in the country, I was told). They did not require a state teaching credential, but they did -four things- that were smart:

Pre Hire:

i) In the interview they asked not just content questions about subject matter, but about approach to teaching and teaching philosophy and how you would address a certain kind of problem or situation.

ii) They gave all prospects a several hours long and very challenging written test on a wide range of topics including content, method, and how you would solve a range of problems.

iii) They gave you a class in your field and observed you teaching in it for an hour or two.

After Hire:

iv) We (the teachers) attended a week-long summer workshop in teaching before out first year and then -every- summer. We had a mentor. We sometimes did observations. We had in-class coaching. We had regular 'in-service' education during the school year after a full day of teaching.

Jeff, as a classroom teacher, were you vetted, assessed, or trained in any of the above ways? Such as, prehire, were you given any tests at all to show knowledge in your field? Were you given any workshops or mentoring, prehire or posthire?

Another issue posthire is what the customer thinks, not only your principal but how the students respond to the teaching. What kinds of reactions does the teacher get in the classroom? Do they resist? Do they learn? Can he keep them awake? How do -they- evaluate him? Teacher evaluations are important and very revealing. (( If written evaluations weren't required by the school, I always would pass a form of my own around the class and tell the students some thing like this: "Don't sign your name; slide it face down into the middle of the folder. Be honest, both positive and negative; help me improve." ))

As Jeff acknowledges, having a lot of knowledge in a field through one's own reading is an impressive start, but there's more to teaching.

Your "major private chain of schools" was admirably thorough, both in its effort to ascertain the competence of new teachers before hiring them and in its efforts to help preserve and further build upon that competence. The Academy of Art College was not so organized. Like Pierce College in L.A., where I had taught journalism in the '70s, the Academy of Art College hired me on the strength of an interview and a recommendation from a member of the faculty who knew me. Once I was "in," the chair of the Liberal Arts department (or, later, her deputy) sat in on one of my classes once each semester and gave me a face-to-face critique later. Student evaluations were collected at the end of each term and were made available to the instructor a few weeks after the end of the term.

JR

[jriggenbach]

How important do you think it is for teachers of arts courses to have experience creating art? I would say that by far, my best literature, music and film teachers were those who had a lot of experience creating, even if only at an amateur level, so, in reading this thread, I'm a bit surprised that hands-on creativity has not been mentioned as a qualification.

Can extensive reading about a subject make up for lack of experience? Could a person read enough about, say, music or cinematography to give him the equivalent of playing a instrument or of storyboarding and lighting a scene himself?

J

The Academy of Art College insisted that all its faculty be working artists in the particular subject areas they taught. Those of us who taught in the Liberal Arts Department were exempt from this very wise policy, up to a point. The Academy did like to employ professional nonfiction writers to teach English Comp when they could find them. One of our Music Appreciation teachers was a singer; another was a pianist. But in the case of courses like Music Appreciation and Science Fiction & Fantasy, the thinking seems to have been that, since the courses weren't intended to teach students how to compose music or write SF & Fantasy, but rather were intended to teach students the history of these subjects and to render them culturally literate with regard to the important artists and works in each category, this could be handled competently by teachers who were not artists themselves.

JR

[Philip Coates]

[Jeff, Post #22]: "Your "major private chain of schools" was admirably thorough, both in its effort to ascertain the competence of new teachers before hiring them and in its efforts to help preserve and further build upon that competence...the chair..sat in on one of my classes once each semester and gave me a face-to-face critique later. Student evaluations were collected at the end of each term and were made available to the instructor a few weeks after the end of the term."

The one thing that school didn't do was the last thing you mentioned, formal student evaluations. In fact, of the places I've taught stretching back some decades ((if I'm not forgetting any-- early Alzheimer's!! )), it was only the college level ones (two community colleges, The New School for Social Research) which did this and then took seriously and evaluated me and the other teachers on what the students thought.

On the high school level, I think the students always appreciated it when I handed my own sheets out and told them I would take them seriously and learn from them. What surprised me was when I got a good evaluation from students who had not gotten good grades from me!

,,,,,,,

As long as the thread seems to draw interest -- as judged by at least two or three people posting; I don't have time to post on silent threads -- I'll probably try to write next on my history and progression through teaching as a basis for [ii] some of my views on teaching in general and subsequent to that on [iii] teaching literature and poetry. The thread may not last that long or such obsessive-compulsive long-windedness may try the patience of yourself and other readers, in which case I'll stop, but I think that progression of topics makes sense, at least to me...Does any part of this project sound interesting to anyone reading this?

Edited May 23, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

Jeff covered the credential requirements at the Academy of Art College. In my case, it varied at each school and level where I taught.

1. Four-year colleges: The "senior" or regular colleges where I taught a course (or in one case was a 'guest lecturer' for several classes under the aegis of a regular professor) were UCLA and The New School. They departed from the pretty standard policy of you have to have a Ph.D. in the exact academic subject (adjuncts can sometimes get by with less; and so can those who are 'names' in their field). In my case, they accepted the fact that I was a professional/had experience in the subject I wanted to teach. In the case of TNS, which is in New York City, I taught a course in Systems Analysis and Databases & I was working at the time in that field (computer systems and software.)

2. Community colleges/ career colleges/ junior colleges: They usually wanted a Master's in the field. So, in one case, they would only let me teach Math. In another, it was sort of a hybrid, informal, adult ed type of place and they accepted my previous experience in teaching below the college level.

3. Below the college level, what they require and required of me varied: Sometimes it can be less than a degree in that field, but instead some combination of experience, in terms of teaching something related or publications or a related major.

For me personally, teaching below the college level was much more challenging intellectually. (I'll hold off on that topic for now.)

Edited May 23, 2010 by Philip Coates