The CEA Forum (College English Association, Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Connecting Writing, Psychology, and Printmaking: An Effective Interdisciplinary Model
No full textThis article presents an effective model for a manageable interdisciplinary project that shows students the connections among art, English, and other disciplines; gives composition students an external audience for their writing; and emphasizes the importance of research in the process of creating arguments and art. This interdisciplinary project model provides the opportunity for interested faculty to engage in interdisciplinary teaching without directly challenging institutional structures
Violating Pedagogy: Literary Theory in the Twenty-first Century College Classroom
No full text“Violating Pedagogy: Literary Theory in the Twenty-first Century College Classroom” discusses the challenge of teaching literary theory to undergraduate and graduate students in a cultural atmosphere that may at times feel simultaneously anti-intellectual and overpopulated with competing scholarly concerns. Approaching theory as a guiding force for individualized inquiry, we can embrace the fragmentation of the field by organizing courses according to major topics of interest that are addressed by multiple schools and movements, allowing for idiosyncratic theoretical fusions to occur. Further, the teacher of literary theory can assist students by acknowledging that the study of theory can be enlightening but also intellectually disruptive, creating more questions than it answers and forcing investigators (including the instructor) to reassess their own systems of belief in ways that may be disquieting or even painful
"I\u27m scared and I like it": Using Fear to Empower the Freshman Writer
No full textWhile a thematic approach to teaching is not a novel idea, the specific needs of the developmental writer and a diverse student body can find the continuity of a theme especially beneficial, and the theme of fear has proven particularly successful. The typical developmental composition course at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University includes a broad range of student ages and experiences, though they often share discipline interests and career goals in the fields of engineering and aviation. To engage and unite such a group, the theme of fear allows individuals to share unique knowledge bases as they consider the appeal of fear as well as its use as a manipulative tactic in politics and the media. This article examines how fear can be applied thematically in the developmental writing course through a three-unit structure that develops communication skills, writing mechanics, and critical thinking
On Unknowing Creative Writing Pedagogy
No full textThis article questions the authority of the current-traditional creative writing workshop, with its process of readings and discussions of student texts in the presence of a master teacher, and offers mentoring as an alternative to this marginally functioning pedagogy. The traditional workshop can marginalize student writers, allowing the master writer to serve as the primary voice of response. Often these masters direct their students to write in a style that imitates them. Wendy Bishop defines the traditional workshop that relegates the apprentice writer to imitation of the master’s style as “elitist, often sexist, and falsely collaborative†(Released into Language 87).
Providing alternatives to the traditional workshop that focuses on finding fault and avoiding communication, this article positions the mentor/protégé relationship in juxtaposition to the traditional master/apprentice relationship. A mentoring pedagogy is distinctive, providing the protégé with professional and personal support, allowing the mentor to serve as a role model for the protégé. Dismissing the authority of the workshop for the discipline of mentorship, the author embraces opportunities to develop professional and personal relationships with students and their writing, opportunities to teach into the unknown space outside of the current-traditional workshop, toward the future of creative writing pedagogy
Theme-Based Approaches to Teaching the Sophomore Literature Survey
No full textIn the last decade or so, the university culture surrounding traditional core curriculum offerings has changed. English departments have begun to reconsider general education or core literature courses that were traditionally organized around literary periods and nationalities. English departments needed to change the way they thought about the literature survey. What emerged for our department at Coastal Carolina University is English 205, Literature and Culture, which has quickly grown into a course that attracts a wide variety of majors and non-majors who wish to fulfill their core with a literature class. This article discusses ways to make the theme-based literature survey fit the university\u27s expectations for a multicultural, humanistic elective while meeting faculty standards for academic rigor, and at the same time successfully introducing students to the pleasures and rewards of reading literature
“You are asking me to do more than just read a bookâ€: Student Reading in a General Literature Course
No full textIn this article, the authors discuss the results of a study of student reading in a general literature course at a mid-sized state university. Data collection and analysis included 216 samples of student writing from four sections of the course and interviews with six teachers of the course. Results indicate that when students chooses texts to read outside of a course, they choose texts that will entertain them or help them acquire knowledge on a topic of interest. Most students who discuss what they prefer to read say they prefer reading texts to which they can relate. Some students identify themselves as disliking reading, which many attribute to their experiences of having had no choice in what to read in past literature courses. Teachers recognize the need for making literature relevant to students’ lives and wish to give students autonomy in choosing some or all of the texts they read in the course. Drawing on students’ and teachers’ perspectives, the authors argue that a general literature course has value within a liberal arts curriculum because it gives non-English majors the opportunity to develop reading habits that will benefit them beyond the course itself
Beyond the Alphabetic: Using William Blake\u27s The Tyger as a Way to Teach Modal Affordances
No full textScholars and teachers often focus only on alphabetic texts in the classroom (Palmeri; Alexander and Rhodes; Jewitt; Selfe; Shipka); however, we do our students a disservice if we do not prepare them to compose with and understand the rhetorical consequences of using a variety of modes. In this article, I argue that we need to teach our students to be critically aware of the affordances of each mode as well as the ways in which those affordances affect communication. With this in mind, I offer an example introductory assignment using William Blake\u27s "The Tyger" to help students gain a critical awareness of modal affordances. Utilizing Blakes poem, three versions of his etching, a choral version of the poem, and YouTube video of a dramatic reading of the poem, I analyze the ways in which meaning making is affected by changes in and juxtaposition of different modes. I suggest that this same kind of analysis could be conducted with students, helping them discover how different multimodal texts lead to different meanings and consider how the meanings could have been made clearer or made different
On Teaching Early Gothic Fiction and Non-Empiricist Aesthetics
No full textThe aesthetic judgment that Gothic fiction fails to adhere to the standards of modern empiricist realism is usually paired with a consequent moral or social anxiety, that reading Gothic fiction will disturb young readers’ sentiments and lead to absurd or morbid behavior. While teaching courses on Gothic novels, I find my students often feel caught between the demands of realism and the pleasures of terror. While succumbing to the latter may seem to be the anti-intellectual choice, I argue that indulging in a sympathetic reading of Gothic fiction provides students with an alternative to the normative “common sense” of empiricist realism. Students take particular notice of the ways in which the Gothic attempts to provide space for the affective and imaginative experiences of non-normative characters (persons of non-conforming gender and/or sexuality, immigrants, women, people of color, political radicals, religious dissidents, disabled people, young people, etc.) whose experiences have been so often silenced or marginalized in mainstream literary fiction