I'll be teaching Creative Writing this summer for CSN, one of the trickiest and most enjoyable classes I teach. The classes tend to be small, and students tend to be at various levels, which means gauging backgrounds and lots to discuss. But that’s not the problem.
The scope of the critiquing is difficult in a small class. Not only are we reviewing the pages under submission, but we’ve got to consider them in the context of what came before and what should come after. If we’re discussing lesson four, for example, you really need figure out how that builds from lesson one, which we engaged in three weeks ago. However, even that’s not the problem.
The problem, at the moment, is that I added to the lectures and exercises, a discussion of Harper Lee's book, To Kill a Mockingbird. Everyone writing today should be familiar with To Kill a Mockingbirdhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird. Certainly if you’re writing a literary novel. This has been widely reviewed as one of the 20th century classics for it's excellent writing.
But how on earth to incorporate reading a novel into a ten-week class? This has been what’s preoccupying me over break. I can’t assign the entire book to read. There’d be an insurrection. We could read part of the book. Normally I’d suggest reading the opening 50 pages, but I think the beginning of Lee's book while interesting is not necessarily the most inviting part of it. Quite honestly, I think only think she as a Southerner could get away with a slow paced beginning. I considered having each class member read a different twenty pages and report back, but that would deny us all a certain narrative thrust. So this summer, I will be re-reading along with my students one of the great American classics.
It's time I started to read the American classics.
ReplyDelete10 weeks to read a book should be okay. Set each student a section each to read.
When does the class start?
I remember that book, and, of course, the movie. It starred Gregory Peck, but it strayed from the book on more occasion than not.
ReplyDeleteBooks almost always have more information than a movie, since they provide colorful verbage to help the reader create images in their mind, which in my opinion puts the reader into the story, rather than just reading it.
It's an interesting project for a class, but I have no idea how to incorporate it sucusssfully. I do know, however, it it can be done, this writing instructor could certainly pull it off.