{"id":148,"date":"2008-03-17T12:38:55","date_gmt":"2008-03-17T17:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/03\/17\/elbow-and-experimentation\/"},"modified":"2008-03-17T12:38:55","modified_gmt":"2008-03-17T17:38:55","slug":"elbow-and-experimentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/03\/17\/elbow-and-experimentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Elbow and Experimentation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Elbow’s Breathing Life into the Text<\/em> argues for a less conventional approach to the literature classroom.\u00a0 In his essay, Elbow calls for more experimental and engaging activities in the reading process.\u00a0 For Elbow, it is not enough for students to simply read a text and then write a response paper.\u00a0 This conventional approach does not take into account the complex interactive process between the text and the reader.\u00a0 If students are to fully engage the text and simultaneously develop their own meta-knowledge of reading, then a new dynamic in the classroom is necessary.<\/p>\n

Elbow’s opening discussion about “discussions” reflects my own experience with teaching literature.\u00a0 My college classes are all basic English Composition courses that feature the traditionally limited five-paragraph essay.\u00a0 The course requirements do not allow a great deal of time for literature.\u00a0 Nevertheless, our class reads short essays and stories to generate discussions and ideas.\u00a0 When I first began teaching, I would distribute the essays and hoped for a lively discussion.\u00a0 The results were similar to Elbow’s experience: random or little interaction or engagement with the readings.\u00a0 After a semester or two with these results, a change was needed.<\/p>\n

Like Elbow, I decided to experiment with different activities.\u00a0 These began with simple changes, such as letting the class pick the readings or the topics, but I currently try something new every semester.\u00a0 Some of these experiments don’t work at all, and many of them only work for particular groups of students.\u00a0 For example, I tried an activity a few years ago that required the class to break into several groups.\u00a0 Beforehand, the class had read a short essay critiquing McDonalds.\u00a0 Each group was required to create a list of descriptive words or phrases describing McDonalds (this was part of a Description Essay assignment).\u00a0 During that semester, I tried this activity with two different classes.\u00a0 One class was energetic and argued about the depictions of the restaurant in the essay and the responses from other groups.\u00a0 Thinking, engagement, and reflection were taking place.\u00a0 The other class seemed disinterested and even described the activity as “silly”.<\/p>\n

I tend to agree with Elbow.\u00a0 Even if these activities turn out to be failures or yield mixed results, they are worthwhile to try.\u00a0 The one thing I know from teaching is that the old practice of read and respond does not generate learning within the classroom by itself.\u00a0 I find Elbow’s activity of prewriting as a form of prereading to be particularly interesting.\u00a0 In future semesters, I plan to try this activity in the classroom.\u00a0 The one aspect that Elbow stresses is being honest with his students.\u00a0 It is vital to be honest with students.\u00a0 It may appear to be “cheating” to let the students know the rationale behind a particular activity, story, or lesson; however, this lifting of the curtain engages students and makes them a part of the entire learning process.\u00a0 In course evaluations, I always receive comments from students that they valued the ability to shape the learning process.<\/p>\n

Elbow’s activity involving the rearranging of words in a text seems artificial.\u00a0 Ironically, this is the exact word he uses to describe the objections against cutting-and-pasting.\u00a0 In my courses, there is no consistent predictor of the success rate of these experiments.\u00a0 As a teacher, the old system of trial-and-error always manages to be the basic approach.\u00a0 Hopefully, as more and more teachers publish and share their experiments, educators can cover new ground and learn from each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Elbow’s Breathing Life into the Text argues for a less conventional approach to the literature classroom.\u00a0 In his essay, Elbow calls for more experimental and engaging activities in the reading process.\u00a0 For Elbow, it is not enough for students to simply read a text and then write a response paper.\u00a0 This conventional approach does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[81],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}