Sometimes I wish you could just be mean to your students, old style mean.
If any of my students are listening, I don't really "mean" it, of course.
(If I really thought it would be helpful I would do it!)
I have a hard time making my expectations transparent.
Respond to the text. That's it. Don't tell me when García Lorca was born because I already know that. You could easily tell me something I've never thought of about a Lorca poem, but you could never come up with an original insight into Lorca's date of birth.
true dat.
ResponderEliminarJonathan,here's one of my Lorca poems I'd like to share.
ResponderEliminarAn Evening With Lorca
They knocked on the door
and told the person who opened it,
“We know Federico is here,
tell him to come out, or we will
drag him out!” Federico appeared.
“Come with us!” they ordered him.
Two miles away, behind a nondescript building,
they made him face an old brick wall.
In the darkness, Federico could see
the wall, the hands of the laborers
who piled the brick, the green moss
cool to the touch if he dared touch it.
Then, a pop mixed with silence
and an unknown feeling took hold of him.
He begin to think, “There’s nothing like dea…
That's an excellent way to put it, Jonathan: students fall back on facts, when the facts are what the teacher already knows. It's interpretations that will surprise the teacher—perhaps even get him or her to change his or her mind!
ResponderEliminarBut are you sure you really know when Lorca was born? :-)