I've just come from a first year writing class. We spend the first dozen weeks reading articles and writing about them. And then, in this last unit, we explore poetry and fiction, as a way to get our first semester writers ready for the challenges of their intro to lit course, a required course in the humanities.
I won't bore you with the readings we covered today; they're just your typical freshman-level, big-ass-anthology sorts of things, the kind of short fiction and poetry that English teachers teach to students who don't want to read or think.
I assigned three poems and a story last week and today we sat down in our classroom to talk about them.
Crickets.
I asked some questions. "What about the main character? Why is he so tormented?"Nothing.
"What about his fear of his friend, his inability to meet him face to face?"
I had already done the thing all English profs have to do when they teach lit, encourage students to use their creative and critical thinking abilities. After all, wasn't it Wordsworth who said the world is something we have perceive and half create? So I remind them, "Come on. Just try out some ideas. What do you think the story's about? What makes the main character want to avoid his friend?"
Quiet. That's okay. I'm patient.
Finally, one young man in the back raises his hand: "Maybe his friend's a vampire."
Now, I guess I should set this up better. The story is set in 1990s America. It takes place in a remarkably normal suburb, with people who have normal names, do normal things. It's a happy place. Any angst is sort of benign. It's a subdued and subtle piece that is probably just about loneliness.
Then another student raises his hand. "Or a ghost."
"Wait," I said. "What?"
"Maybe his friend's a vampire and he doesn't want to get killed."
"Or his friend is dead and a ghost, and that frightens him."
Heads begin to nod in the classroom. They're latching on to this.
"Well," I said. "What evidence do you have for these ideas? Remember when we talked about the claims we make earlier; you must have textual evidence to support any claim you make."
"Maybe his friend is gay," someone suddenly offers, and the heads nod again.
"Evidence?" I say. "Okay, you think the friend is gay. Why? Is there anything in the text that would support that, anything the author has done with language, any scene, any dialogue, any actions that would suggest the main character's friend is gay. Anything from the title?"
There's quiet for a minute. Some students flip pages. I look up at the clock. It seems to have stopped moving.
A girl in the back raises her hand. "Maybe the main character is a ghost."
Another girl beside her says, "Yeah, or maybe he realized he's gay."
The clock starts moving backwards.
I am SICK of the endless hetero-normative qualities of this blog. It pointedly avoids the issue of the gay and lesbian professoriate and in this post above actually celebrates a clueless "proffie" who is so closed off to the interest and inquiry from at least 2 LGBT students that he/she mocks them by rejecting a perfectly reasonable claim that perhaps the characters are gay, and that's causing their torment.
ReplyDeleteTypical homo-bashing!
I'm a proud gay American, and I have rights, and your students do, too.
What makes me sickest is the claim that the story in question is about "normal" people, hence, there can be no gays in that world. Gays aren't normal!
That's what this post (and in the very same way the whole blog) supports, and I reject your narrow view of the world.
I hope that all of the other gay/lesbian professors see through your subtle and insiduous hatred of gay Americans like me and your students.
Disgraceful.
At that point, I look at the class and say, "OK, embarassing question: how many of you did the reading." And because they've never seen me angry, they answer honestly: one good, reliable student, a few who wiggle their hands to indicate partial or attempted reading, and a lot of sheepish, but good-naturedly guilty grins. And I sigh, suppress my rage again, and punt.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I lecture the material anyway, without discussion. Sometimes I dismiss them, with a warning to be prepared next time. I never tell them what I really think.
Can we not get through a day without some idiocy?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to assume the way-over-the-top rebuttal to Yona means that anonymous has (momentarily) changed their CM-id once again.
ReplyDeleteWhen I face this sort of response I ask the same question - "has anyone done the reading?" - and if they haven't, I say, "fine. We are now going to read the entire damn thing, together, out loud. Get out your books. Okay, sit beside someone who's got one."
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth they think they're getting out of the class when they haven't read it or even brought their texts, I'm never really sure, but at least for one day, I'll know they've read it.
How this would qualify as university-level teaching is another question, of course.
I'm with Jonathan here. It sounds like people simply hadn't read... and I'd have made my students sit there and read the story (and provide a summary of it by the end of the class) as an "exercise" in what happens when they don't do their homework.
ReplyDelete@Reg: No, not possible! It adds to the misery!
@gay-nonymous. I'm guessing that if the story actually CONTAINED gay vampires or ghosts, the proffie would have been happy to engage students in that discussion (in my experience, English proffies are the least heteronormative group, at least in our department that's the case). This is, indeed, evidenced by the students' willingness to venture that the character is gay (had they known the proffie wasn't open to this, they wouldn't have even gone there), but since students were simply guessing ridiculously, there was no point in encouraging that sort of conjecture. The fact that students thought the story was about ghosts, or vampires or about someone gay (when in fact, it wasn't even plausible, judging by the description of the plot), should probably be a commentary on how students lump gay people in with ghosts and vampires, rather than a professor's unwillingness to use that as a springboard to educate students about what it means to be gay every time someone SAYS the word 'gay.'
@Merely, I'm not sure what you mean by "How this would qualify as university-level teaching is another question, of course." Are you implying that by expecting students to contribute to a discussion on the literature they were supposed to have read that this isn't university-level reading, or are you saying that students aren't functioning at the level required in a university-level course? I'm confused by your closing statement.
@ Rimi (gay-nonymous)
ReplyDeleteDon't you think you are over-reacting here? It seemed that Yona's point was that the students did not do the reading and that it became clear from the bizarre discussion that was engaged.
Not everything with the word 'gay' in it is evidence of a hate crime.
And, while I'm at it...
I seem to remember posting something not too long ago about a problem student (the crack-head soccer mom). I was called a misogynist for posting that article. Ridiculous! We all have problem students. If they happen to be female, does that constitute misogyny?
Guys, please do not stoop to the level of those who shout "discrimination!" over every little thing. We are supposed to be better than that.
And Rimi, I know you were concerned about the accusations I was making about inappropriate behavior by the Dean "without any evidence what-so-ever." My God! What do you want? A videotape as proof? How often do you see evidence coupled with someone's post?
Maybe you should start your own blog if you hate it here so much.
@Ack - I think Merely was saying that his/her suggestion of making the students read the text aloud was of debatable academic merit. Meaningful discussions of readings (whether humanistic or scientific literature) is the holy grail to which we all attain.
ReplyDelete@ Ack
ReplyDeleteI think Merely is referring to the read-alongs.
Actually, we would like to thank GN/Rimi for politely bringing the rampant heteronormative discrimination on this site to our attention. In fact, if we may go further, we would also like to chastise all of you for not even noticing the real victim here, the silent, oppressed minority—the undead.
ReplyDeleteHow DARE you all ignore the possibility that, just because it wasn't EXPLICITLY stated, the otherwise normal persons in the story WEREN'T ghosts or vampires? Unnatural abominations created through dark rituals of forbidden magic have rights too—and we resent the suggestion that they aren't "normal." It's bad enough that sunlight and garlic seriously impact their night-to-night lives—they don't need YOU adding more difficulties!
Undead Awareness, people. Stop the discrimination.
This is what happens when students do not know the question before class begins. They need to know the question (as in a study guide) and they need to have written an answer in some way -- a journal entry, a study guide response, a response to a key quote ... anything that is at least a couple of paragraphs long. When students show up in class without a meaningful response to a study guide question (which I can find out by calling on a student to answer the question), then the student must leave class and do the homework. If this happens 3 times, I drop the student from class.
ReplyDeleteMany of you think that rebuttle was over the top. I for one understood it perfectly, and while I have more cynism and less rage because the heteronormative world has weighed me down...
ReplyDelete... I just thought I should point out that there is a valid point there. The assumption that in a "normal" place homosexuality is as wild an answer to the question as being a ghost or a vampire has ugly implications.
What makes me sadder is that I am no longer capable of spending as much emotional energy being angry about it because it does me no good. I guess I'm just a sad lesbian instead of an angry one.
This is what happens when students do not know the question before class begins
ReplyDeleteI call snowflake poop.
Jesus I feel bad.
ReplyDeleteA) I'm not Rimi. I'm the same asshole I've always been.
B) I'm not a proud gay American.
C) It was all a spoof of how blog comments often spin out of control based on the commenter's particular issue, bent, etc.
Wow, I thought I'd enjoy this more.
Did I miss something? I don't see any hate in this article whatsoever. I'm sorry, but I just don't.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do see is an instructor venting about snow-flakery.
Granted, the student comments were inapropriate, but venting about student behavior and gay-bashing are two different things.
The students were the ones making bad remarks about gayness. The instructor was just trying to lead a discussion.
This is an excellent example of guilt by association. Everyone else in the room hates gays so lets assume the instructor does too! Just a little more critical thinking would clear up the matter, but we ourselves are often guilty of not thinking critically. (Deans and Administrators, you know who you are!)
@ anonymous
ReplyDeleteNext time I get evaluated, I'll ask the Dean if it's a spoof.
@Aethelfrith
ReplyDeleteHilarious...you clearly got the spoof.
I do feel bad for Yona since that class has happened to me, too.
I missed it entirely because I have people at my college who react EXACTLY like gay-nonymous. They're mad about the meat eaters, the people who put aluminum cans in the trash; they believe American Idol voters are misogynists.
ReplyDeleteYona's story was not about gay bashing. Good fucking grief. But I never blinked when I read gay-nonymous's rant.
I have to tell you that I'm liking him more and more, despite the stupid moniker. He's made me chuckle a few times, and that's worth something.
Too much earnestness makes me puke, and these comments sometimes go down that road.
Just an opine.
I don't get it...is Yona upset because his friend was a werewolf?
ReplyDeleteI've had too many beers tonight to start reading comments about Twilight. Please don't.
ReplyDeleteAnastasia's back! (Running around the room flapping my arms like a crazed chicken).
ReplyDeleteAs an ennui-filled homosexual American, let me salute Aethelfrith. I hope to see us all use the phrase "differently alive" from now on.
@anonymous. I never thought I'd hear you say you feel bad. That makes this whole post seem kind of worth just THAT.
ReplyDeleteDamn, anonymous, if you'd kept the gag up a bit longer I was going to bring the shit down on ya - and in all my years on RMP and CM, I've only ever felt compelled to do so one other time, when I urged Nanaimo Nick to Fuck Off.
ReplyDeletehttp://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2008/07/some-summer-readers-hang-nanaimo-nick_9744.html
Okay, I'll bite...
ReplyDeleteHe's avoiding his friend because his friend is... **gasp!** Captain Sulu's Communications Officer, and he's like damn! that bitch is ugly.
How's that for a lack of earnestness?
Hey, Gay-nonymous--instead of ranting about the heteronormative-ness of CM through a comment on someone else's post, why don't you write a post of your own? Then we can get a good discussion going without hijacking someone else's post.
ReplyDeleteI understood Merely Academic's last comment to mean that the class reading aloud from the book was elementary school-level teaching, and a waste of MA's time.
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised, though. One of my wife's students asked her, in regard to a math problem, what a 'product' was.
It's been said here before, and it's true. Too many high school graduates are not prepared for college-level work. How someone could get through twelve years of school and into college, and still not know that the result of multiplying two numbers is the product is beyond me.
@Gary, I just taught a creative writing class where 3 students out of 24 knew what a sonnet was. It's hard for me not to laugh and just put my head down on my desk.
ReplyDeleteI'm queer and I did not think this post was heteronormative at all. The students might have been but the proffie was not. The comment that the story was about "normal" people was in reference to the supernatural, not homosexuality.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I still stick by my belief that it was misogynist when Hologram insinuated that female students give sexual favours for good grades and other perks.
@ issyvoo
ReplyDeleteThen you misunderstood my post.
I was complaining about one student in particular.