“The Secret of Good Humanities Teaching”
By Julius Taranto and Kevin J.H. Dettmar
September 14, 2015 in the Chronicle for Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Secret-of-Good-Humanities/233097
This authors of this article claim that the most effective literature teachers (the title says humanities, but the article actually seems to emphasize literary reading) are able to present the material of a text through a 2 step hierarchical process. First, a teacher must take the class through a basic reading of the text, focusing on context, plot, and the general information. After this initial reading, and only after, can the class do a second and more in depth reading that unpacks the nuances of a text and emphasizes close reading of specific passages and sections.
I found this to be true on some level, but I would argue that the process should be adapted slightly. The authors of the article suggest that the class must work through the entire text together first, then return and re-read the entire text from a critical lens. While I agree that there should be a hierarchy in undergraduate level literary teaching, I do not think that these two process need to be sequential. I think that the process of understanding the contexts of a text can be integrated into the discussion of deeper themes and that as long as a teacher is successful at presenting an understanding of both levels then the class is a success. I can recall some of my favorite undergraduate professors drawing stick figures on the board in order to represent Shakespeare characters in order to establish surface level understanding, but by the end of the same class period we could be digging into a specific line of a play and developing complicated ideas.