Category: Literature

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Collaborative Project for Literature Classroom

Last semester, I had students construct presentations of terms and historical events in my Early American Literature survey course. I have a posts on the assignment itself and on some of the projects that students created. This semester, I am tweaking that assignment in a couple of ways. Rather than having students present on specific terms and presenting during the last week of class, … Read More Collaborative Project for Literature Classroom

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Why We Teach: Literature and the Presidential Election

In the Republic, Plato famously claims that there is a longstanding quarrel between philosophy and poetry, even stating that poets are nothing more than imitators and cannot relate truth to their audience, thus perverting them: “the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Nature (1836), … Read More Why We Teach: Literature and the Presidential Election

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Tumblr, Blogger, and Wikis in the Literature Classroom

Over the past few months, I have posted different pedagogical approaches that I have implemented in the classroom from the elevator pitch in the composition classroom to the use of archival materials in the literature classroom. Today, I want to take the moment and expand upon a couple of projects that I have used in the literature classroom.

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Lydia Maria Child’s “Chocorua’s Curse” and America’s Literary Presence

Previously, I have written about calls for distinctly American literature in the early part of the eighteen hundreds and the role of newspaper reporting in Lydia Maria Child’s “Slavery’s Pleasant Homes.” Today, I want to take a moment and look at Child’s “Chocorua’s Curse,” a short story that originally appeared in The Token in 1830. (Page 257 in the link.) Child’s story, short as … Read More Lydia Maria Child’s “Chocorua’s Curse” and America’s Literary Presence

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Archives and Collaborative Documents in the Literature Classroom

Last Tuesday, I wrote about some of the ways I have been implementing technology into my composition and literature classrooms. Today, I want to speak about a couple of more ways that I am incorporating the Internet and Web 2.0 tools into the literature classroom.