Teaching Strategies
Before we begin, I will provide 1) a very short overview of Modernism and the Modernist movement in literature, 2) a brief biography of Conrad, and 3) introduce them to the historical and geo-political context of the novella. (Enduring Understanding 2, above) This is necessary because many of my students will have some general knowledge of European and American imperialism but not the specific history of Belgian encroachments on the Congo and the devastating effects of the Belgian government's policies and practices on the native African population. This will be the starting point for students to explore the broader issue of the effects of imperialism on both the perpetrators and its victims. Finally, using Heart of Darkness, students will learn to look closely at the literary devices used by Conrad to arrive at some understanding of the questions raised by the work, themes that they may encounter on the Advanced Placement English Literature Examination, which they are all required to take in May.
Class Discussions: Whole Class, Socratic Seminar, Fishbowl
I love having my students engage in class discussions. They are a wonderful way to get students thinking and to practice putting their thoughts together in words coherently and logically, and to do it more quickly than they thought they could. They learn to articulate their opinions in academic language and to support their ideas with evidence from the text, which they must read closely and deliberately in order to participate cogently and thoughtfully.
At the beginning of the school year, I provide students a list of phrases that they use to help them converse like literary critics. At first they make a big show of using the phrases and we all laugh, but it quickly becomes part of their discussion lexicon. These phrases become an integral and necessary part of maintaining a college-level classroom culture, one in which students own the language of literary criticism.
At the very least, students will have engaged in whole-class discussion by the time we begin our study of Heart of Darkness. Usually, I lead the first formal, graded one. Sometimes, however, I will have a student whose behavior in informal discussions makes me think he or she will be particularly adept at running a discussion with minimal guidance and participation from me—and very rarely will that student disappoint. I use whole class discussion at the beginning of the school year to gauge students' comfort level with participation and to begin getting them comfortable with participating verbally since they are required to do so quite often in class.
In a fishbowl discussion, I choose ten students to begin in a circle discussion. They will need to bring discussion questions and their text(s) in order to participate. In order for a student on the outside to enter the discussion, he or she must "tap out" a student in the circle. This teaches students not just manners but also how to listen closely to argument and how to segue smoothly, with as minimal disruption as possible to the flow of conversation.
Of the three discussion formats,(39) the Socratic seminar is perhaps my favorite method. Because of the size of my classes (it is not unusual to have 35 students in a class), the seminars are conducted over two days, with one group (the quiet ones) going on the first day and "the talkers" on the second day. Neither group is immutable; students may, based on their performances in prior seminar and discussions, be moved (or ask to be moved) from one group to another.
In general, before they come to me in AP English, students have not had much opportunity for formal class discussions, and few students have even participated in informal class discussions. Because of this lack of experience, I spend 15-20 minutes detailing for them the procedures and my expectations.(40) More importantly, it is an excellent method to get students accustomed to college-level dialogue about books. The Socratic seminar also addresses many of the impending Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English-Language Arts, especially when used in conjunction with Heart of Darkness and the essays above. Requiring them to support their interpretations with evidence from the text helps them learn to synthesize ideas to come to perhaps a new or better understanding of the text.
Oral Reading
Because of the difficult nature of the text, I will read much of chapter one aloud while students follow along in their books (although, if I have particularly strong readers, I may call on them periodically to read part of a paragraph or short section), stopping often to ask comprehension questions. This oral reading is a crucial step, necessary before students are assigned to small groups of no more than four to work through chapters two and three together. I do this to model for them how to handle Conrad's long, syntactically complex sentences, and to demonstrate the importance of slowing down and attending to punctuation, something they often ignore in their attempt to "just get through the chapter," and so they will know how to read when they are working together. Though group readings may seem to slow down the process, students benefit from their discussion about how they see the text and what they see in it to help them in interpreting what they see.
Dialectical Journal
"Dialectic" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation," or, more simply, "an intellectual exchange of ideas."(41) Dialectical journals are an excellent way for students to write succinct responses to short passages. They may make connections to the text (text to text, text to self, text to world), or they may analyze a particular literary device or technique. Dialectical journals are also useful in preparing students for class discussions. It focuses them on a specific text and requires them to read closely. Students are allowed to use their journals during discussions to help them pinpoint where in the text a particular idea and supporting quote can be found, allowing their conversations to be organic and academic at the same time.
In-class essays (i.e., "timed writes")
For each of the Advanced Placement subjects, the College Board administers examinations that purport to evaluate a student's mastery of the subject matter. For English Literature, the examination includes a multiple-choice section and an essay section that requires students to respond to specific prompts on a poem or pair of poems, a short prose passage, and a thematic question (often referred to as "Question 3") for which they choose an appropriate piece of literature. So, every year, before I return students' first in-class essays to them, I ask them what "AP" stands for, and every year the first verbal response (because their first response is to look at me like I have lost my mind) is "Advanced Placement." That is when I tell them they are both right and wrong.
For our purposes, I tell them, they need to add a second definition of what "AP" stands for: "Answer the Prompt." They laugh when I tell them this, and so do I. But when I pass back their essays with both a letter grade and number score based on the AP scoring guide, their laughter quickly dies out; some quietly share their scores with the person next to them; others shrug and shake their heads in response to silent inquiries about how they did. I introduce the essay this way not to discourage them as much as it is to humble them a bit, to break them of their preconceived notions that the way they have "always" written in their past English classes, that the process that has gotten them the "As" they so covet will be "good enough" in AP. They quickly learn that 1) even the highest achieving of them need lots of practice in writing responses that adequately address the prompt, 2) grammar and mechanics count even on timed essays, and 3) 40 minutes to write an essay on a prompt as complex and involved as the AP prompts is not an easy task but is a doable one. Students, therefore, will write several in-class essays to prepare them for the AP exam essays.
The timed essays, however, are more than just preparing for the Advanced Placement exam. Like discussions, the timed essays are a way for students to practice expressing cogently and thoughtfully their interpretations of the text.
Comments: