English

When Lesson Plans Go Awry - Harry Rollison

I recently taught on the first year undergraduate module ‘Why Write? The History and Theory of Creative Writing’. Given that it was my first time teaching, my planning and notes were inevitably exhaustive. Though the seminar was a daunting two hours, with a fairly rigid lesson plan in place, I felt relatively confident heading into the session. All was going swimmingly until, reaching the end of my lesson plan and glancing up at the clock, half an hour remained. I panicked, frantically searching through my notes to see if I had overlooked anything, which, of course, I hadn’t. With all the students looking at my expectingly, I had a decision to make: double down on my lesson plan and repeat my notes—which, in hindsight, would have been an exercise in futility—or adapt.

I then remembered that, earlier in the seminar, I’d made an off-handed comment about a writing task that, though well-received by students, in my blinkered adherence to the lesson plan, I had ignored. So, deviating from all my preparation, I set the task. Thankfully, it had many positive outcomes beyond simply filling the remaining time. Being a creative writing task, it differentiated from the textual analysis of the literary criticism essay that was the focus of the seminar. In that, the task rejuvenated student engagement that had admittedly started to wane; there was also participation from students who had not yet volunteered to speak. It additionally led to productive class discussion, both in terms of writing craft and how it related to the essay. Ultimately, the task opened up new avenues of critical thinking, particularly how the essay related to students’ own writing practice, which in turn deepened student understanding of the reading.

The experience taught me that teaching rarely goes the way you anticipate, and that, rather than trying to resist this and vehemently stick to our lesson plans, we should, within reason, instead trust ourselves as experts, and the process itself, as more often than not, these deviations will have outcomes that are not only productive, but perhaps even more so than the intended plan. Ultimately, what I took away from the experience was not the importance of a lesson plan, but the importance of recognising when to deviate from one, and in that, just how crucial adaptability and versatility are in teaching.

Response: This was a very interesting observation and I found your ideas to resonate with my own experience, particularly when identifying the possibility of over-planning! Adaptability in regards to lesson planning and then execution is of course key.

(James Ellis, Music)

Overpreparing vs. Confidence – Jade Hainsworth-Walsh 

At the beginning of the year, I taught a few sessions on Literature of the Fin de Siècle module. I had spent a very long time preparing for the seminars, reading additional texts on the subject and creating pages of notes, interesting sources and other relevant quotations I thought might be useful. The vast majority of prep work ended up being unused and unneeded, and took up a significant amount of time which could have been used for something more beneficial. In hindsight, I overprepared, because I wasn’t assured of my ability to stand in front of a class and answer questions, in case I didn’t know the answer. I felt that if I didn’t know the text inside out and all relevant sources to it, that I shouldn’t be teaching it. 

However, this is a ludicrous and ‘perfectionist’ expectation. I cannot prepare for every possible question or query that might come up. If I was teaching full-time, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to read lots of additional sources around every text or create pages and pages of additional notes. Therefore, confidence in what you do know, and ability to adapt is key for moving forward. Confidence is built by making these errors and reflecting upon them – by making these mistakes, I know how to improve for teaching in the future. It is important to balance out your preparation time to ensure you do enough, but don’t let the preparation become overwhelming and fruitless.  

I found Teaching at University: A Guide for Postgraduate Students and Researchers a very useful text to help with this, as it puts teaching within the context of your PhD work and how to balance both. 

Response: 

Hi Jade - Thank you so much for sharing this reflection about your teaching on the Literature of the Fin de Siècle module; I very much empathise with your entry and see many parallels with the way I felt when preparing for teaching in the Media Arts department. It's really useful to know that the sense of over-preparation and uncertainty is a shared experience. 

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the sense of confidence that we as postgraduate students have to build alongside the idea of ourselves as Visiting Tutors or teachers and it's so helpful to read your empowering affirmation and advice. I also found the Kate Morss and Rowena Murray's book was useful in navigating the various identities and responsibilities. Additionally, for thinking about teaching after the PhD as an Early Career Researcher (which I imagine will present further questions about roles and balancing workloads), I found Lynn McAlpine and Cheryl Amundsen's Identity-Trajectories of Early Career Researchers (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) really informative and inspiring. 

Thank you again for your interesting reflection on how to balance ideas of ourselves as PhD students and teachers! I strongly feel it's a peer-to-peer conversation that needs to happen more often, so it's wonderful to have the space here to be able to do so.

Polly Hember (Media Arts)

On Tutor Expertise in Seminar Sessions - Michael Wheatley

Last semester, I taught the First-Year English Literature module, 'Thinking as a Critic', alongside five other postgraduate seminar leaders. After each session, we would meet to discuss our development and our classes. It soon became clear to me, by virtue of the freedom allowed by our course and our respective interests, just how much our seminars had started to differ. And the thought followed that by embracing these distinctions, by being unafraid to introduce our own expertise, the students could gain a much more rewarding experience.

While the topics of each week were standardised, enabling ourselves to make adjustments helped bring the sessions to life. For instance, Week 6 of the course focused on the subject of 'Genre'. With my PhD and previous dissertations specialising in horror fiction, I decided to theme the session around that genre (it was also the day before Halloween). A colleague did similar with Shakespeare. Rather than trying to construct a session around Romantic Fiction, of which I know comparatively little about, by acknowledging what I could uniquely offer as a seminar leader, the class were enabled to explore the subject in a heightened level of detail.

Across the module, I strove to maintain a student-led approach to the seminars, always thinking how the class could develop as critics. To introduce my own interests, I feared, would be to veer into narcissism and megalomania. However, my staff observer encouraged me to break away from such anxieties - we are practising academics for a reason, and part of enabling the students is acknowleding our own strengths as teachers. As a student, with only your own classes to experience, you overlook just how much a session can differ from teacher to teacher.

The seminar leader can make an incalculable difference to students' enjoyment and engagement of their seminars. We constructed a list of stock tropes commonly found in horror fiction, and even those students who did not gravitate towards the genre were fully engaged by virtue of the shared energy within the class. And, I was able to supplement their responses with additional detail from my own research. Far from narcissism, to acknowledge one's strengths as a critic is to allow the students to learn from you at your best.

Response:

This is an interesting and inspiring post, Michael! I know from my own teaching experience that it used to be quite intimidating for me to put my individual stamp on seminar sessions by drawing on my personal areas of expertise. I teach research methods in the Politics Department, and we are given the seminar exercises to a large extent, with only little room for creativity. However, I have always been convinced that only authentic teachers can truly inspire their students for a subject. Thus, I try to refer to my own research interests whenever possible, for instance, if I need to provide the students with additional examples to make abstract concepts feasible for them. What I really think makes the biggest difference with regard to students’ engagement and excitement, however, is that we not only radiate more competence when we talk about our areas of expertise, but also more PASSION and UNIQUENESS, both characteristics that students value in their teachers and can be powerful motivators.  

Diana Bartmann (Political Science) 

Framing and Context in Analysing Poetry: UG seminar practical workshop – Chloe Osborne

Whilst teaching the first year UG module ‘Introduction to Poetry’, it became clear that students were unclear on the extent to which they should be drawing on historical and biographical contexts to frame critical readings of selected poetry. The module was invested in drawing students away from A-Level models of analysis which focused specifically on the methods used to convey and nuance specific themes towards a more holistic analysis of form, language, and the gestural effects of poetry. However, in speaking to students and after marking their first assessments, it became clear that they found having a basic understanding of historical and biographical context of each poem very useful for making at least informed introductory statements about the period and the major generic forms of the poems they were focusing on in their essays. I led a seminar on ‘researching context’ where I asked them, in groups, to do some basic Google research to find out the context of the poems which were spotlighted for that week. This allowed us to work through:

1.     Which sites were and were not academically rigorous enough to draw biographical and historical information from to use in academic work

2.     How to deploy knowledge of this context properly in a critical analysis of poetry

3.     How to weave historical information into a reading of formal generic features

4.     What information was relevant and what wasn’t

5.     How to cite secondary sources correctly within the essay using proper referencing systems

6.     How to include these sources in their bibliography

The students in attendance reported back in informal feedback questionnaires that I sent round that this exercise was especially useful for approaching the final assessments as it clarified expectations around how to discuss issues like the division between the poet and the poem’s speaker; how to write about the poet’s manipulation of form and the political implications of this given the period in which they were writing (for instance, how a Victorian poet’s subversion of the Elizabethan Petrarchan sonnet allowed them to critique contemporary gender norms).

Response:

This is an interesting post, Chloe ! I have had similar experiences in trying to steer students away from the things they have learned in A levels, and I have found this somewhat difficult because (in Psychology) their A level knowledge and skills are not necessarily incorrect, but are not always appropriate for an undergraduate course. I find it useful to explain why this is the case, and work on showing how some A level skills are a small element of what they need at undergraduate level, so that they understand it is good to ‘zoom out’ on their thinking. It sounds like your 'researching context' seminar was incredibly useful for your students, and I look forward to incorporating of the points you made into my own teaching. (Elizabeth, Department of Psychology).  

Practical Approaches to Teaching Postcolonial Literature - Yasmin Akhter 

Scholarship on postcolonial pedagogies poses continues to debate the most appropriate ways to teach postcolonial literatures to undergraduates at universities in the Global North, but this is an especially difficult task for PGR seminar leaders teaching one or few postcolonial texts to first-year students, especially on introductory or literary survey courses. Over the last academic year, I have found that a dialogic approach works particularly well, particularly for classes which include a mixture of ethnic and social backgrounds, like both of my first-year seminar groups. For each class, I first circulated a comprehensive handout of secondary research on each text by email before the seminar to emphasise the texts’ adjacency to - rather than difference from - more ‘canonical’ works we had already come across. Including some ideas from postcolonial thinkers on how to ‘read’ postcolonial literatures helped ground students in a new research field they were embarking on. One concern of mine was to avoid positioning myself as an authority of knowledge (and, therefore, make students feel daunted to express their own ideas in case they were different from mine) and so I structured my seminars around small-group discussions and regular plenaries. Students could respond personally to the texts within their groups, away from the spotlight of speaking to the whole class before I asked for each group to provide some insights. It was more important for us to hear from different voices; here was an opportunity for students to express any concerns or shortcomings they feel as researchers, whilst directly engaging in conversation with students of a social or racialised minority (who generally enjoyed the texts more and felt more confident speaking about them). I have found that allowing students to centre their small-group discussions on the formal qualities of the text, i.e. what they have learned throughout the course and are more familiar with, creates lively discussion and I used the whole-class discussions to help them link their ideas back to the contexts and histories that shape the postcolonial text. Seminar tutors must be familiar with some of the discussions around postcolonial pedagogies but there is also a need for an engaging and welcoming classroom environment, with the recognition that not everyone is always right about everything. 

Further reading 

Aegerter, Lindsay Pentolfe, ‘A Pedagogy of Postcolonial Literature’, College Literature, 24.2 (1997), 142–50

Chowdhury, Kanishka, ‘Teaching the Postcolonial Text: Strategies and Interventions’, College Literature, 19/20.3/1, Teaching Postcolonial and Commonwealth Literatures (1992), 191–94

Keown, Michelle, ‘Teaching Postcolonial Literature in an Elite University: An Edinburgh Lecturer’s Perspective’, Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 7.7 (2014), 102–9

Newell, Stephanie, ‘Postcolonial Pedagogy and the Task of Decolonisation’, Decolonising Modern Languages and Cultures <https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/decolonisesml/2021/08/30/postcolonial-pedagogy-and-the-task-of-decolonisation/#_ftn1>

Starter Activity: Student-Led Secondary Reading (Gemma Holgate)

When marking my first-year students' first round of essays, I found a general lack of engagement with secondary criticism, and very little evidence of independent research. Up to this point, I had tended to include an extract from a secondary source in my seminars, in an effort to familiarise them with discussing critical opinions. However, I had not anticipated that students would not necessarily know how to find relevant literature themselves, and where they did use secondary reading in their essays, it was almost always from a source I had included on a handout for them.

Recognising this skills gap, I decided to try to integrate student-led secondary reading into the seminars. Drawing up a weekly schedule, I asked two students per seminar to find, read and summarise a journal article relating to the primary text under discussion. By putting the students in pairs, I hoped that those less confident using the library/ journal databases would be able to seek peer support in the first instance, but they were also welcome to contact me for further guidance if necessary. At the start of each seminar, I asked them to introduce their journal article to the rest of the group, explaining its main argument (and whether they agreed with it) as well as any particularly interesting points, for a maximum of five minutes.

Though the activity only took up five minutes of each seminar, it turned out to be beneficial in several ways. Firstly, it encouraged students to practice their research skills, learning from each other as to how to go about finding sources for their essays. Secondly, it required them to read carefully for an article’s argument, and think critically about its strengths and weaknesses – this is rare in first-year essays, which often mention sources superficially. Finally, it introduced the rest of the group to a range of sources that could be used in their own essays if relevant (which they did, as I found in later essays!). Learning to research, and to engage meaningfully with sources, are complex skills that students develop in the long term, but I think this activity is a simple, efficient way to help them make progress.

Response

Thanks for this interesting post, Gemma. Student-led research is a great Idea – I’m going to give this a go! I’ve had similar issues related to widening research and reading practices, with students relying heavily on a short list of resources when writing essays and preparing for exams.

Building on what you say about this helping students to engage meaningfully with sources and think critically: I also like that student-led work such as this allows confident class members to consolidate their learning through explaining to others, and thus less confident students should learn from their peers and develop their own communication and analytical skills. So, I can see this being a really beneficial addition to seminars.  

– Katy Mortimer (History)

Response

I completely agree with Gemma's idea of giving the students the opportunity to find their own reading material. I can tell from my own experience that this student-led approach has been very useful, especially in the post-graduate seminars that I took.  It was helping us to gain confidence and a feeling of responsibility. I am definitely considering using this method in the undergraduate seminar I will give this year (Evrim Bayindir, Philosophy)

Anti-Racist Pedagogy in Shakespeare Studies (Nour El Gazzaz)

In this contentious moment of our collective human history, when global tensions across racial lines are reaching their breaking points – think of the murder of George Floyd in the US, the Israel-Palestine conflict in the Middle East, and the neo-Nazi metropolitan police officer, Benjamin Hannam, in the UK – having open, healthy discussions about race in our classrooms is not only “innovative” as this blog post requires us to address, but crucial. As a critical race theorist, I actively engage in anti-racist pedagogical tools that teach my first-year Shakespeare students racial literacy. That is, arming the upcoming generations of students with the correct foundations in being able to talk about race not only in the dramatic and literary works of Shakespeare but also in the contemporary events happening around them and shaping their lives today. For example, racial literacy allows my students to draw links between Othello’s metatheatrical ‘sooty bosom’ (Othello, 1.2.70) and the Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) blackface parades in the Netherlands today; or how Shylock’s profound ‘hath not a Jew eyes’ (The Merchant of Venice, 3.1.49-67) speech speaks to Palestinians living in Israel’s apartheid state and the subsequent rise of anti-Semitic hate crimes because of it. Let me be clear, these topics are not easy, fraught for teachers and students alike; they can spiral out of control very quickly in classrooms unless correctly scaffolded with racial literacy. Incorporating the works of prominent anti-racist Shakespeare scholars, such as Ayanna Thompson and Kim F. Hall, which are often neglected from the standardised reading lists of Shakespeare courses, facilitates these rigorous classroom debates. Ultimately, in my Shakespeare classes, I strive to cultivate a classroom space where the fear of addressing race is removed, a community of respecting differences is ensured, and the bonds of social solidarity are formed.

References

Hall, Kim F., Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996)

Thompson, Ayanna, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Response:

Thank you for this post, Nour. In the class I taught this term I was the only person of colour in the seminar. This was not at all rare for me as a student studying an Arts subject in higher education – and I know that it is very likely to be common as a teacher of an Arts subject in this sector. After the class, I thought about whether this could be a reflective moment for myself with the students, and how I could go about initiating a discussion with the class in regards to race and structures of access and power at the university. I think I would need to be led by a text that the students and I were discussing and relate that to contemporary events, as you suggest, and then open out the discussion from there. The facilitation of this discussion is absolutely key. (Amaan Hyder, English)

Great post, Nour. As we all know, 'decolonising' the curriculum begins in the classroom. I find your approach of creating spaces of empathy, solidarity, and compassion an excellent example of how we, as educators, can contribute to this wider task of anti-racist and anti-colonial pedagogy. (Yasmin Akhter, English)

Making Learning Enjoyable: An Approach to Teaching Sonnets (Adele Ward)

I teach an introduction to poetry course to first year undergraduates in seminar groups of 14 and the name of the course is slightly misleading as the poems are often complex and the students need to learn how to discuss form as well as meaning so that they can complete their summative assignments confidently. This can be difficult for some of the students who have taken the course as it’s compulsory rather than because they feel confident with poetry.

One method I’ve devised is to have fun with the poems with a ‘spot the difference’ activity that I hoped would catch the students’ interest by showing the difficulties for Victorian women poets writing love poetry to men, seeing as they were writing in a tradition that had a predominantly ‘male gaze’ approach to the muse.

I use Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese: 43’ (‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’) and the first sonnet in Christina Rossetti’s sequence ‘Monna Innominata’ so the group can consider the different techniques the poets have adopted.

To start, I have a Powerpoint showing the muses of well-known poets, including Robert Burns and William Butler Yeats as well as Sappho. The final slide is of Robert Browning and the students usually laugh as they spot the difference. They then break into smaller groups to discuss and feed back on whether it’s clear from both poems that the writer is a woman and that the muse is a man.

Browning’s poem was written under a pseudonym at first (‘the Portuguese’) and I give a handout of the poems for the students to work from so they can see the difference between this and Rossetti, who put her name to her poem. The students also notice that Rossetti openly states in the poem that the beloved is a man, while Browning’s poem could be from either a man or woman to either a man or woman.

This exercise brings out some strikingly insightful comments from the students when they talk together and then tell the whole group their ideas. They find subtle interpretations in the poems that indicate the gender of writer and muse, which can lead to some interesting discussion.

The gender-based approach to the sonnets has so far worked at getting students involved, and it’s then possible to bring in considerations of metre and rhyme scheme, starting with a ‘spot the difference’ on whether they’re in Petrarchan or English/Shakespearean sonnet form or another form of the poet’s devising.

Scanning the iambic pentameter of the traditional sonnet form and identifying rhyme schemes can be one of the tedious parts of teaching and studying poetry but we look at it to see which poet we feel is most innovative, both in terms of subverting the male gaze approach to writing to a muse and also in inventing or manipulating the technical aspects.

While Browning deviates from iambic pentameter in ways that enhance the meaning and also help teach other metres, Rossetti is seen by students as being risk-taking in her open declaration of love to a male muse. 

The students identify the rhyme scheme in pairs on their handout and discover Rossetti’s unusual and innovative ABBA ABBA CDDECE arrangement, where the long delay between the C rhyme words in the final six lines imitate the long wait for the lover to arrive. 

Finally I ask them which poem they prefer and there’s quite an even division between those who opt for Browning and Rossetti. They also give their reasons, from innovative form to how the poets have approached revealing whether or not they are a woman and whether the addressee is a man.

I have written more on this subject on my blog https://candidteacher.blogspot.com/

Response:

Thank you, Adele, for sharing this excellent method of encouraging students to learn and be willing to contribute to discussions. When I studied English Literature in my home country, it was stressful and frustrating since my lecturer taught based on the era and showed only one plain text poem at a time. It was challenging to understand the main ideas and compare poems which later lessened learners' motivation. Thus, with a language barrier or first time learning English poetry, this 'spot the difference' activity would help me enjoy studying poetry if I were your student. In addition, some students have different cultures and backgrounds, so I believe it would be even more helpful to see the picture or visit a similar setting where the poem was composed. For example, I realised how appealing the offers of 'The Passionate Shepherd to His Love' were when I visited the UK countryside during the springtime :) (Tippayanet Sorosrungruang, Marketing)

‘Stance’ or ‘Opinion’ groups in English seminars (Tim Moore)

One methodology I employ that I find particularly effective in seminars is to divide the students up into what I call ‘stance’ or ‘opinion’ groups. At the start of the seminar, I’ll present students with a question that demands they take a particular stance – e.g in Smith’s Accidental, I asked which of the four main characters they found most compelling; for Henry James’ Turn of the Screw, I asked whether they interpreted the novella as mainly a ghost story (i.e. Quint and Jessel are ghosts) or a psychological thriller (i.e. Quint and Jessel are imagined/hallucinations) – or, whether they remained undecided. Stressing there was no right or wrong answer, I would then ask students to silently, and without consulting friends, write down which of the given stances they most identified with. I would then ask them to move to a specific corner according to their choice, and for the rest of the seminar, I would address each group collectively as a stance, and encourage them to interact with the different stances of other corners. 

In seminars with this format, I have nurtured some extremely useful and engaging class-wide debates. Putting students in these smaller groups of peers makes them feel less intimidated, especially as they know that everyone in their group takes the same stance they do. It has the effect that during more robust debate, students normally less confident at speaking out have a group identity to speak from instead of just their individual opinions, and were more confident at both answering challenges and creating provocative responses in return. 

Responses:

This is an interesting teaching approach and a good way of keeping students engaged in seminar discussions. How often do you utilise these sessions? I would expect that after a couple of these classes’ students would naturally begin to feel more confident and not have to rely on group identity for reassurance. (Amber Pierce, History)

I find this an excellent way of organising a group discussion. I wonder how the ‘undecided’ group is involved in the discussion, and if they might take on the role of the mediators between the other two groups. That way they would be leading the discussion by contributing their arguments/concerns. (Juliane Hennig-Breitfeld, Earth Sciences)

This is an excellent idea for building student confidence. Perhaps one idea might be to try “assigning” stances that may not fit the student’s natural inclination and ask them to argue for, or consider, the “assigned” stance. This might be a great way of getting students to consider other viewpoints. (Lydia Yeoman, Media Arts)

This sounds like a very effective technique to engage students who might otherwise be intimidated in a large classroom setting. I have found that putting students in pairs helps mitigate this, but it sometimes means that one student is the designated speaker. A small group setting as you describe might allow more students to feel comfortable contributing to the discussion. (Monica Cardenas, English)

I was very interested in this approach as it in some way mirrors what attempt to do, but in three small groups rather than individually. My only concern is the time spent in them discussing the ideas, which works for the main body of a seminar rather than a quick introduction, which is what I use. (Stephen Pearce ,History)

Peer learning strategy in English literature seminars (Timo Uotinen)

As the seminar environment is focused on allowing the participants to express their thoughts and ideas, it is an obvious place to employ a peer learning strategy. The seminar situation in English revolves around a central text; in the courses I taught it was either a Shakespeare play or a piece of literary criticism/theory. From the first seminar session I underlined the difference of the seminar situation to the lecture and that as first-year students their focus should be on learning how to express themselves regarding the text they read. As this was a new situation to them (being new to university), I boiled the peer learning strategy into the form of three seminar maxims: respect, listen/read, and contribute.

The first, respect, is about interpersonal relationships and the situation they are in: they need to recognise each other (as well as the seminar leader and lecturers) as peers with differing levels of knowledge and areas of expertise. Respect does not entail agreement but rather keeping in mind that they can always learn something from interactions with others. Presenting myself (and the lecturers) as a peer to them is important because they need to learn, on the one hand, that authority is based on argumentation, not simply hierarchy, and, on the other hand, that although they are ultimately individually responsible for their learning, it is greatly enhanced by a supportive, respectful community. The second maxim (listening and reading) builds upon this community by emphasising preparation for the seminar (attending the lecture and doing the reading) and being present there, listening to others and building on what they have said. This leads to the final maxim of contribution, which can be in the form of a question or opinion stemming from the readings or from the discussion. The idea is to develop the contribution (with the help of the seminar leader) from saying something out loud to an argued position of a text. In order to facilitate the discussion and build the students' confidence I would start off the class by having the students discuss in pairs and small groups to end up in a larger discussion (with the view of giving more time for group discussion as the semester proceeds). It is crucial for peer learning to build trust and the students’ confidence—but it is also the most hard part.

Responses:

Thank you, Timo, for this interesting post. I really like your focus on peer learning. I think your points about building trust, respect, and supportive community are very well put. I like the idea about moving from discussions in pairs to whole group conversations and have been trying this out in my seminars too.  I sometimes also find that leaving the room for a minute while the students start talking can help those that feel less confident to find a voice. (Edward Armston-Sheret, Department of Geography)

The division of your seminar into the three maxims respect, listen/read and contribute is a great idea. It condenses the oftentimes unknown concept of a seminar into a clear structure and lays out the expectations. The way you have articulated the relationship students and tutors should have – that is, not based on hierarchy – is exactly what I try to emphasise. I find students respond well to this as it makes contributing in class less intimidating if they know we are all there to explore ideas and learn together. I am somewhat weary of setting work for students in pairs as often this results in one contributing more than the other or complete silence as everyone works independently. To combat this, I swap paired work for time to gather thoughts individually and then require everyone to contribute at least one thought/ idea. (Rebecca Feghali, Media Arts)

New Critical experiments in introduction to poetry seminars (Mae Losasso)

I teach a (compulsory) introduction to poetry course to undergraduates and I find, each year, that most English Literature students are not particularly well acquainted with poetry, and few have much passion for it. In the first part of the term, it can therefore be a challenge to get students to engage with poetry as a literary form. While sticking to the syllabus, and keeping my seminars within the short, 50 minute time slot, I also try to think of ways to get the students excited about poetry, rather than simply teaching them the fundaments - students learn most effectively when they feel passionate about the subject matter; and poetry has so much potential for stimulating passion. 

One method that I have used, and which I found to be very successful, was a repurposing of I. A. Richard's New Critical approach to poetics, first developed at Cambridge in the 1920s. The task is to give the students a poem, without title, author, or date, and ask them to attempt some close readings of the text without any context. In the activity, I hand out the poem to the students and ask them to discuss the text in pairs or small groups. The lack of any specific focus can make the task challenging, but it also gives the students a degree of creative freedom in the way that they approach to the text, which many students have found stimulating. We then feed back as a larger group and, because the rubric is so open ended, the responses to the text tend to be more varied than if set a more focused task. After disucssing the poem in this way, I finally reveal the context of the poem (date, poet, etc), and we discuss the effect that this information might have - would it change the students' readings of the poem had they known this information before, etc? 

This activity was successful for a number of reasons: firstly, it demonstrates the creative freedom that students can have when producing close readings of a text, which is something that I encourage them to consider in their written work (so it gets them thinking about how to write essays on poetry); it introduces the importance (or unimportance - depending on the students' critical inclinations!) of context to a literary text in a practical way; and it starts to acquaint first years with complex literary theory in an approachable way. Underpinning all of this, I find that this activity makes students excited about the study of poetry, since it demonstrates the variety of readings that a single text can generate - and this is one of the biggest challenges to teaching literature (and especially poetry), since students often feel resistant to the possibility of multiple critical interpretations and want to place the text entirely in the hands of authorial intent.

Richards, I. A., Practical Criticism: A Study Of Literary Judgment, London: Kegan Paul, 1929.

Response:   Poetry has always been one of my favourite forms of expression.  I appreciate your discussion on the challenges of teaching poetry, having students creatively interpret works, create new material and write essays on it.  In my self-reflection essay, I thought alot about the socratic concept that has a basic underpinning idea that for learning to take place, a teacher must foster the desire to learn - this is reflected in your comment and your journey in getting students excited about poetry.  It seems you balanced your lesson well by fostering that desire, as well as encouraging your class to step out of their comfort zone. (Kayla de Freitas, Department of Geography)

George, Lynda. “Socrates on Teaching: Looking Back to Move Education Forward.” Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 174 (February 2015): 3970–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.1142.

Response: This strategy both maximises student engagement and creates a playful learning environment. In addition to introducing students to poetry, it provides them with practical experiences they can use as a springboard for tackling with the important question of authorial intent. So much has been written and said about this topic that encouraging students from the get-go to move past superficial agreement or disagreement with “authoritative” texts is a must. (Lucía Camacho, Department of Music)

Response: 

Hi Mae, 

I am a jazz saxophonist, doing a PhD in Music Dept. My thesis is about writing and composing musicals; thus, my area involves literature and music. As far as poetry goes, I always thought that the title, author and era of a piece means as much as the sequencing of the words. This argument may be valid for musical compositions or other works of art as well. The artist's personality and lifestyle, plus the Epoque that s/he lives in, create the saga's whole context. I would never imagine that anonymizing a poem would give students creative freedom when they approach the text. It is a highly innovative method to generate engagement, and I am looking forward to trying this technique when I teach jazz improvisation. Thanks for sharing.

Onur Yuce (Music Dept.)

Response: This kind of blind reading forces the reader to confront the poem as an object devoid of even the author's own mark, which is the title, thus giving the poem the illusion of a hermetic and mysterious inscription. Depriving students of familiar interpretive oxygen could get them to read the poem according to their own acuity and fancy, the latter of which is an underrated dimension of literary criticism; having an odd collision or resonance which provokes an entire interpretation. Of course, this has to be filtered through layers of acceptable literary critical procedure. This approach would only work with certain kinds of poems; while all poems should theoretically pass this test, certain poetic forms, especially strains of modernism, could become especially impenetrable with multiple languages, scripts, and layers of references and other esoterica subsisting in a single stanza. Definitely seems like a sink-or-swim approach, so productive but possibly risky for less forthcoming students. (William Jamieson, Geography)

Enhancing Remote Learning Through Embodied Research (Briony Hughes)

My first year of teaching on an undergraduate course was characterised by the coronavirus pandemic. As we moved into additional national lockdowns and seminar sessions remained online permanently, I began looking for ways to innovate the remote seminar experience. In particular, after encountering Crystal Hall’s 2020 article ‘From zoom fatigue to belly breaths’, I hoped to take elements of the workshop away from the screen. 

Whilst Hall identifies that a number of pedagogical techniques can ‘translate’ onto a conferencing platform such as Zoom (in my case, Microsoft Teams), she also insists that ‘some [online approaches] should be rethought, especially when students may be starting and ending their day staring at a screen’.[1] I decided to test out the possibilities of embodied research within the space of the seminar. Within my academic discipline [Creative Writing], embodied research is a methodology which places the body of the researcher/student at the forefront of their academic practice – it can often be characterised by tactile and movement-based approaches to research topics.[2] It was my hope that by incorporating an embodied research activity into the space of the seminar, not only would my students have a break from the screen, but they would encounter a new mode of practice-based research. 

Overall, the exercise was generative. The seminar was on the topic of Alice Oswald’s Dart, a poetic sequence responding to the River Dart in Devon. My students were encouraged to spend five minutes physically interacting with a water source available to them – a glass of water, a tap, a puddle outside. This was followed by a ten-minute period of free-writing. Once complete, this activity was used as a tool to discuss the importance of Oswald physically walking the length of the River Dart as part of the poetic process. 

[1] Crystal Hall, ‘From zoom fatigue to belly breaths: Teaching away from the screen’, Teaching Theology and Religion, 23 (4) (December 2020) p. 294. 

[2] For an overview of Embodied Research, I would recommend Ben Spatz, ‘Embodied Research: A Methodology’, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 13 (2) (2017).

Using the Seminar to Strengthen Essays (Monica Cardenas)

I lead a seminar for a literature survey course for first-year students. I found they were quiet and often struggled to get through some of the less contemporary material, such as Pamela and The Italian, but that they were much more engaged with Room and even North & South. I used three techniques to help students remain connected to the class and the reading. First, I made the seminar a place to brainstorm for essay content. Second, I set an expectation that everyone contribute. Third, I used extracts from the reading to demonstrate how they might be applied in an essay. 

From the outset I encouraged the students to use the seminar as a platform to discuss ideas they might use to build arguments for their essays. I repeatedly returned to this theme as we worked through the texts, using both a class-wide discussion, and also breaking them into small groups or pairs to conduct a textual analysis. I found this helped them to develop ideas in a less intimidating atmosphere, and then to share those ideas with the wider class. 

I also began calling on individual students to answer a very long-winded question, giving them an opportunity to consider a response without feeling too cornered. This also set a tone for the class that anyone could be called upon at any moment, which forced more engagement in the seminar and with the texts. 

Finally, after engaging students in a discussion on a particular theme, I would ask them to read a corresponding extract from the text aloud. This gave students the opportunity to apply these new ideas to a text and a scene, and demonstrate how it might be used in an essay. Often essays are riddled with extracts but lack an explanation of how it applies to the essay’s argument. This practice in the seminar helped students to see how to correct this issue in essay format.  

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Response: I thought this seemed a particularly astute way of guiding the students’ mindset towards persuasive, rather than simply exploratory, writing – it manages to focus the participants on the nature of the task without having to explain it. You also reflected something which has been a particular focus of mine this year – finding a more student-centric approach. The session seemed designed to put students at ease, and the small-group analysis task seemed an ideal way of pooling the group’s knowledge & ways of understanding the text at hand. (Sam Messer, Music Dept.)

Response: This is a particularly effective strategy to enable students to explore texts they might not feel confident speaking aloud on. Students benefit from clear structure and clear expectations which reduces cognitive load (e.g. spent on wondering / worrying what will happen next) and having these stages which they can confidently work through allows them to be more adventurous with their contributions and analysis. (Theadora Jean, English Department)

Response: I think this is a great way to give feedback on ideas during the course rather than just when assignments are due. Often, though ideas in a paper are good, they are lacking in development. This real-time discussion of ideas in a seminar setting allows students to further develop ideas before writing the essay and get critical feedback from the lecturer and other students before submitting. (Tori Bovalino, English Department)

Response: I find this approach extremely helpful - I often ask myself questions concerning the inclusivity of the classroom and how to avoid cornering students but to let them understand that their opinion is welcomed and expected. Sometimes what is enough is to engage students by encouraging them to speak out loud - hearing one's own voice ofen breaks the barrier and encourages others to be attentive and open. (Agnieszka Jakimiak, Theatre and Drama Department)

Using Technology To Support Learning (Theadora Jean)

At the start of every seminar, I ask each student to give a comment on the text we are focusing on that week. The majority of my students are willing to do so, and this encourages them to start talking throughout the seminars, in an egalitarian way – much more preferable to putting students on the spot. However, when moving to group tasks the same voices tend to contribute more often, leaving those less disposed to speak to fall silent. These students are more likely to be female, LGBTQ, low-income, BAME, as well as those who may be simply shy and intimidated about expressing their insights in from of their more confident peers.

Using a free website (mentimeter.com) which can automatically create word cloud presentations, I create the opportunity for students to contribute using technology without needing them to speak aloud. For example, I set up a word cloud on a topic such as ‘the uncanny’ and the students use their phones / laptops to go to the website and enter the code (visible on my presentation). From there, they have multiple opportunities to present their ideas. Some of the entries I received on the uncanny included ‘unhomely, unfamiliar, unsettling, unknown, strange, ghostly, disturbed, peculiar.’ And many more. I then invite the students to respond to the word cloud and collectively we move towards an agreement about the topic. This is particularly useful when thinking about ideas about genre, and / or many of the critical terms that we use in English which are complex and not so simple to pin down. This tool allows each student to contribute to the discussion, and receive feedback, without needing to speak, and also retaining their anonymity. The aim is to foster inclusiveness through the technology.

One set back may potentially be that students who have no technology on them may not be able to participate. However, in my experience, every time I have used this tool every single one of my students has had a phone or laptop on them and has been able to join in. I also have my phone on me and offer to the group to give me their ideas if they are do not have the technology. I also try to inform my groups in advance so they are aware they will need to have their phone charged, etc.

In the academic community, quite often we see technology as a distraction from study. However, by using the technology that students are already familiar with, this allows our students to feel comfortable contributing in an academic setting, especially the students who perhaps may not be willing to voice their opinions readily. Furthermore, once students have seen their comments on the screen and have had feedback as well as confirmation that they were correct in their ideas about the topic, this may encourage students to participate in seminars more readily.

I have asked my students what they think about this tool and I have had the following comments:

‘Allows us to see more of what our peers think’ 

‘Gives us more time to muse over ideas’

Building Up to Close Reading  (Nat Reeve)

Here’s an exercise I trialled when teaching poetry to first-years, adapted from a fruitful conversation with course convenor Professor Redell Olsen.

My aim was to encourage the students to embrace close reading. Because other modules focused on big ideas and contexts, the students weren’t as confident about working with ‘the words on the page’, and tended to intuitively dodge the practice where possible.

This exercise broke close reading into two stages. Firstly, I split the class into small groups, and gave each group one line from that week’s poem. The groups devised multiple interpretations of the line, focusing only on punctuation, word choice and structure. Secondly, I gave each group a short pre-written argument about the poem, and they collected textual evidence to support it, making sure their evidence was as minute as their work in stage one. 

This exercise was successful for several reasons. Each part honed half of a whole; at every stage of the process the students had inbuilt support (a designated line, a pre-existing argument) which kept them on track. The emphasis on multiple options eliminated the pressure to come up with a ‘good answer’ – or, worse, the ‘right answer’ – and introduced productive playfulness to the seminars. The students emerged with a clearer sense of how to close read, and new open-mindedness about testing multiple arguments. I adjusted the exercise in subsequent seminars as their confidence increased, making it increasingly student-led; eventually, to my delight, they invented both readings and arguments independently.

Response: Thanks for sharing this, Nat. It reminds me of a similar concern I had this term, but in almost the reverse context. In the 'Introduction to Ancient Philosophy' course, we studied the Presocratic Philosophers. Their thought sometimes unveils in aphorisms and proverbs (Heraclitus), and other times in poetry (Parmenides's famous poem about the concept of 'being'). The quality of students' essays showed that encountering complex philosophical ideas and arguments folded up in poetical devices familiarises them with the creative aspect of thought. (Kynthia Plagianou, Philosophy)

Thank you Nat, I too have been teaching close reading skills in poetry and found your ‘pre written argument‘ task, really helpful. It’s an insightful way to offer structure, and as you say, have that ‘inbuilt’ support, yet it offers the students enough freedom to be able to pick out their evidence without thinking they are wrong.  I am sure it was interesting to observe the differing evidence that the students presented.  I will definitely try this idea as a way to develop close reading skills. (Agnieszka Studzińska, English) 

Breaking Down Argumentation (Amanda Reding) 

I have found that some students can feel overwhelmed by a final essay or what they feel to be a large writing assignment - especially when it is an argumentative research paper. To help make assignments seem less daunting, I will orchestrate various small activities that break down argumentation skills into simple exercises. 

One activity that seems to help a lot of students is aimed at highlighting a need for evidence and reasons associated with claims. For the activity, I provide a claim - it can be as simple as 'dogs are better pets than cats' or could have to do with an assigned reading, etc. Then, I ask the students to stand on one side of the room if they agree and the other side if they disagree. Depending on the class, I will then let each side form a group and from there ask students or groups to provide a list of reasons for their argument. After they have provided reasons, I then push for explanation or evidence to support their reasons and claims. 

At the end of the exercise, the students then go over their reasons (or main points) and we brainstorm on the best way to organize them within an argument. 

The activity has proven useful because it shows how simple the overall concepts are. It is also useful because it gets students up and moving and interacting which can help with a class who seems a bit detached.  The activity is also easy to build on for the next session or later on in the term by incorporating others' reasons as well (research). 

Utilising the familiar to introduce theory (Tori Bovalino)

I taught a section on the Children's Literature module introducing the students to critical examinations of young adult literature.  The study of young adult literature is still relatively new and growing, so the students were far more familiar with the literature in a casual sense than they were the critical interrogation of it. To start the students thinking about YA literature critically, I found it helpful to find what novels they were most familiar with and use them as specific references in the lecture.

In online spaces, I've found that students often feel awkward using the chat function on Teams or may be less likely to contribute.  To combat this, I made a Mentimeter quiz for the beginning of the seminar after we discussed the meaning of "young adult literature." On the Mentimeter, students were able to list as many YA books as they could. This helped them to see familiar titles and gain a broader understanding of the category. This was a useful activity as it allowed students to take the critical definition of YA and apply it to the books they read growing up. Once I had a better idea of the books they were familiar with, I was able to use examples from their texts to support my critical framework in the seminar. For example, we talked about agency of the main character and the removal of the mother. A text that came up frequently in the Menti was The Hunger Games. I used this as an example as, though the mother is physically present, she is emotionally absent, which has a direct impact on Katniss's emotional development in the trilogy.  In the discussion afterwards, the students' familiarity with The Hunger Games was also useful in talking about the political impact of YA. 

It can be daunting to teach theory about a subject that requires students to examine beloved pieces of pop culture, but utilising that familiarity can be especially helpful in bridging the gap between text and theory. 

Essay Writing 101 and Lively PowerPoint Presentations (Lucy Thomas)

As an undergraduate student, I often wondered what constituted an excellent essay. In a discipline as subjective as English, there really is no one model. However, in an academic support lecture for English students at all stages of their undergraduate degree, I shared some methods that allowed me, personally, to enter the first-class boundary. I provided students with an ‘Essay Success Writing Pack’, which included research resources, planning templates, and checklists. They also received an annotated copy of my example essay, could ask questions at the end of the live lecture, and view the recording on the English Academic Support Moodle page.

My advisor had asked me to lead this lecture, as I have only recently completed my BA and MA and have a closer insight into what difficulties students may face when writing essays. A lot of what I wanted was reassurance, knowing that essay writing is a muscle that builds over time with perseverance and, more practically, a toolkit of different methods to try.

I created some outrageously memorable slides – which included slippers, hourglasses, lifts, trees and leaves (after all, English students are more likely to remember bizarre metaphors, as opposed to dense text on a slide) – to lighten the mood and make the learning environment less anxiety-provoking and more conducive to learning.[1] Pairing a different colour with each criterion on the mark scheme, I visually broke up the whole lecture. Throughout, I included small parts of my essay on the slides to illustrate the way(s) in which it meets a criterion of the mark scheme; I then gave students practical tips on how to achieve this themselves. An example would be when I shared my process of engaging with critics – to pretend you are talking to a critic over a latte in Café Nero. Another instance would be when I mapped the structure of the essay’s argument onto an hourglass (which hopefully helped, in part, to address the frequent questions students have around introductions and conclusions).

I ended the lecture with some positive ‘takeaway thoughts’ (coupled with a ‘cheesy’ animation of a takeaway pizza box), reminding students that the writing process is a marathon and not a sprint. I hope that the above approaches fostered confidence and encouraged growth mindsets in the students, increasing the likelihood that they will write their own versions of excellent essays.[2]

[1] A. Fransson, ‘On qualitative differences in learning. IV—Effects of motivation and test anxiety on process and outcome’, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 47 (1977), 244–257 (p. 256).

[2] Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, upd edn (New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), pp. 6-9.

Choosing a Favourite Book (Lucy Thomas)

Through a discussion of the literary canon, I tackled the fixed mindset head-on with two of my first-year seminar groups.[1]

It went as follows:

1. I asked the students what their favourite text was and whether they thought it belonged in the canon. [Most chose texts in the canon]

2. I asked them to consider what adds value to a text. [The answers differed from student to student.]

3. We then discussed the concept of ‘bookcase credibility’ – essentially a belief that individuals choose a bookcase filled with texts in the canon to ‘look smart’ on video calls – which was also very relevant to pandemic times.[2] [Some students noted that they had seen a lot of Shakespeare on people’s bookshelves!]

4. We considered whether texts in the canon had become something of an accessory to try and show intellect. [There was a tendency for students to agree.]

5. I highlighted the way in which it was perfectly fine for them to have a favourite text that is not in the canon, especially as English students are there to unravel pre-existing notions in society. [Some students defended their original choices, expressing that they valued the contents of the text and were not choosing it as a result of its popular reputation. However, others admitted that they have ‘go to’ texts that are not necessarily their favourites but are, instead, something they think will appear as ‘acceptable’ to teachers and peers]. 

I think that the above process was partly involved in encouraging my students to practise metacognition and embrace growth mindsets.[3] At the end of the course, a few students said they now challenge their preconceptions and do not merely accept things at face value, be it in their degree or day-to-day life.

[1] Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, upd edn (New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), pp. 6-9.

[2] See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/arts/quarantine-bookcase-coronavirus.html and https://twitter.com/bcredibility.

[3] Dweck, pp. 6-9.

Increasing the Students’ Confidence (Cátia Rodrigues)

Last year, I co-taught a module on nineteenth-century gender and the novel. Before starting with the close-reading of novel excerpts, when students were to look for cues of gender norms of nineteenth-century society, we conducted an introductory session on existing knowledge and assumptions. However, instead of beginning this session with a lecture-style approach, the first task was to ask the students to share what they knew about the topic. The students did not have to share fully thought-through arguments or concepts – we suggested they share ideas, words, images they had come across, or any memory they had of the topic.

This activity was inspired by S. Brookfield, who supports a view of lecturing as not ‘authoritarian’, but as a way to creatively inspire the learners. [1] At this point, the students began sharing their views and ideas of gender in the nineteenth century. This initial task of asking the students to lead the session with their own voice helped to build their confidence for the rest of the module. [2] In subsequent activities of group discussion and targeted Q&A, it seemed the students were using the ideas shared during this initial session to build on their knowledge. For instance, I later introduced paintings as a way of discussing visual representations of nineteenth century norms. Similar to our initial approach, I asked the students what they thought was being conveyed in the paintings. Their responses showed they had confidence to develop their initial ideas and connect them to visual sources. 

The inclusion of the students in their own learning process led to a very successful module, with high levels of student participation. I am thus keen to discover and apply new methods of boosting the students’ confidence that ultimately lead to a successful learning experience.

[1] S. Brookfield, The Skillful Teacher (New York: Wiley, 2006) pp. 98-100.

[2] For further references to building confidence, see Kimberly D. Tanner, ‘Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom’, in Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning, 12, 2013, pp. 322-31.

An Online Annotation Tool: Hypothes.is (Amaan Hyder)

Last term, I taught a seminar on a Creative Writing module which focused on a set text. In order to have a discussion with the students about the text, I had prepared a PowerPoint presentation with slides that quoted excerpts from the text. During the seminar, I went through each slide and, in this way, I was able to discuss specific parts of the text with the students.

In the week after the seminar, I came across an online tool – Hypothes.is1 – that allows students and teachers to add their comments on a text as annotations to a PDF or webpage. As opposed to the class I taught in which students or I had to point at the PowerPoint slide, or to quote out loud the relevant word or phrase in the text, Hypothes.is allows participants to precisely add their comment as an annotation that is visible to everyone viewing the text in question.

What appealed to me about this was that if you had a mix of students online and in person, all of the students would have the same access to the text and would be able to make their annotations known without necessarily having to speak up. If I was teaching the class again, I would try incorporating this tool into my teaching to see if it would encourage further engagement from those in the class who may feel reticent in contributing orally. I could ask students to add their annotations to the text before the class and we could discuss those responses in the class setting. The tool might also help students to organize their own notes as they would be able to track which parts of the text provoked discussion in class. The tool could also spark interest in research into annotation and marginalia, as well as encouraging the practice of making notes while reading.

The possible problematic aspects of this tool may be that students are uncomfortable with their comments being made public. Students need to create a log-in to access the tool. Making use of the tool may also assume that all students will be able to access the technology equally, and as recent research as shown, that is not the case.2

1https://web.hypothes.is/education/

2https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/jisc-identifies-digital-divide-among-university-students

Response: Dear Amaan, thank you so much for posting about Hypothes.is -I also teach creative writing workshops and give seminars and lectures, so this could really come in useful and I'm looking forward to trying it out. As you say, it's perhaps a good homework task  - to ask each student to add one annotation. This way it doesn't become dominated by one voice and gives the quieter voices equal representation on the page.  I suppose if the student's weren't able to do it at home, then we could make it a class activity and do it as a group. The physicality of writing something onto a text can be very empowering, I'm excited to see how the students react to this new, collective process.  Thank you again for sharing this tool. 

From reading the comments above, it seems I am not alone in finding the task of engaging undergraduate students in a literature module somewhat challenging! I taught two ‘Introduction to Poetry’ seminar groups recently, 19 students in each. Although there were a small handful of students who seemed to engage with the material on the course, the majority appeared either intimidated by it or, dishearteningly for me, totally uninterested. Many of them had the A level vocabulary of poetry, labels of sibilance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and kept returning to these crutches as if the sum of a poem was its terminology. When it came to looking at a poem and discussing meaning, context, history or how it might sit in dialogue or in tension with other poems on their course, they were lost. 

In an effort to jolt the students out of their a) indifference and b) entrenched ways of approaching/discussing a poem, I decided to do something a bit different. I chose 6 poems from they syllabus spanning a vast range of time and voices, and, in the vein of I.A Richard’s New Criticism (but for different motivations), removed their ‘markers’ - so their author, title, or any visible sign of context or intention. I split the class into 5 groups, gave them each a poem, and asked them to discuss, as a group, what they think is going on in the poem. They were wary at first. But the moment I handed out the poems, the room became more energetic and debate within the groups started to emerge. The quieter students became more strident - I heard one female student mention how the uncertainty in her group poem meant it was probably a female poet ‘because women are brave with doubt.’

Everyone in the group had to make two contributions. I wanted to know what strikes them about the poem, what surprises them, what’s odd, in-keeping or inconsistent. Then I asked them, as a group, to use what they’ve inferred from the poem and guess at its title, the date it was written, whether the author was a man or a woman and what sort of age. Their findings were on the whole very accurate (although most thought Frank O’Hara to be alive today). They loved the  ‘the big reveal’ at the end when I filled in the blanks - especially of the year they were written. The following week we took two of those poems, which they now felt familiar with, and compared their treatment of place. Knowing their contexts made a significant difference, not only in terms of the level of engagement with the material, but also with each other as a class. I also noted a marked improvement on the quality of their observations and arguments, probably because they’d all actually read and engaged with it. The exercise also sparked some interesting thoughts about what we need to know to investigate a text - again, coming back to I.A. Richards. Debating the pros and cons of New Criticism in a lively way was a far cry from the first couple of seminars which felt very ‘uphill’. I would highly recommend this exercise if you find yourself in a similar boat. 

Group Activity – Identifying the Impact of Critical Approaches (Bethany Chadburn)

I noticed in early sessions that, when it came to analysing texts, my group tended to rely heavily on biographical information to help them form views on the text in question. I wanted to help them to see how this view can limit understanding of a text while maintaining the fact that this approach does have a place in analysis, at least sometimes.

I split the group into four groups and gave each group the same poem. I gave one group no supplementary information and just asked them to close read the poem generally. I gave one group a background of artistic tenements of the group to which the poet belonged. I gave the last two groups different biographies of the poet that I had written to focus on her artistic life or personal life respectively. I gave each group 20 minutes to close read and analyse the poem (without looking anything else up!).

We then came back together and discussed the poem as a class with each group bringing their own analyses to the table, not initially aware that they had been given different information and effectively ‘biased’ in certain way. Each group had understood the poem in different ways and each group had noticed at least one especially interesting feature that the other groups had completely dismissed. Ultimately, they worked out that they had been given different information and I explained what each group had been given. The class were generally quite surprised by just how different the different group readings were and how much their group hadn’t seen because of their assigned ‘lens’. This then naturally developed into quite a lively discussion of how possible it is in real world settings to ignore information you already know when analysing and the benefits and limitations of doing so.

Ultimately, I do feel this was successful as the class, through their own work and their practical experiences, developed an understanding of the importance of being aware of how they were tackling analysis.

If the session was longer, I would have liked to mix the groups so that each new group had one from the original group and I would have liked to ask these new groups to discuss their different positions, re-analyse and come up with a thesis statement. I think this would have helped them to organise ideas a little better – something that would carry across to essays - as well as allow all students to practice feeding back and ‘teaching’ their peers. I do feel that whole group feedback would be necessary to ensure learning objectives are reached, however, so did prioritise this and because of the seminar length. I’d be interested to see how this works out, however, and hope to try something like this in the future.

Response:

Dear Bethany, thanks for this post. It sounds like you managed to find a fantastic way of showing students how to approach a text, as opposed to just telling them. I agree, from my experience teaching on ‘Re-orienting the novel’, that first years need help being taught how to analyse, which is a difficult task in limited seminar time! If you do ever manage to try this again with the additional re-analysing stage and application to a thesis statement, I would love to know how it goes. I think applying analysis to a thesis statement is another area that we should work with first year English students on, in many ways we expect them to be able to do that before getting to us, but - like you - I’ve realised that’s rarely the case! (Anya Eastman, English) 

Starter Activity: Teaching Secondary Research Skills - Anya Eastman 

When I started eating on the first-year Undergraduate module ‘Re-orienting the Novel’, I was surprised by how difficult students found independent secondary research. I discussed this gap in knowledge with individual students and it appeared that the amount of support that students were getting from personal tutors, specifically with learning how to research at the level of higher education, was very varied. This meant that for many of them, the concept of searching for a text in the library (virtually or physically), using Senate House library, or the plethora of online resources available to them, was alien. 

My reading of Malcom Knowles’s work on adult education meant that I had a greater understanding of the jump between college/sixth form learning and university. When students arrive most of them are directed learners (i.e, they are told exactly what to do and given all the relevant materials to complete a task). I began considering what I could do, in the context of my seminars, to help move students on to being self-directed learners: someone who is told a problem (or given an essay question), can go away and research independently, plan how they are going to carry out the task, and evaluate the task when completed. It seemed to me that the aspect of study that was most preventing this to happen was that lack of ability to conduct secondary research. 

As a starter task (although admittedly it did take up a good chunk of the seminar because there were so many questions), I showed students some of the key ways to find secondary resources. I gave them the opportunity to give me topics that they were interested in, in relation to the texts that we were studying, and I showed them how I would go about finding secondary material. While doing this, I was commenting on the wide variety of ideas in the classroom. This showcased how independent secondary research enables essays to take on individuality and allows me (as a teacher and marker) to get a greater sense of each student as an individual researcher. I compared this to if they were all using the same set of secondary resources that are provided by the reading list and explained that by moving beyond set secondary reading, they give themselves a better chance to grow as scholars in their chosen subject. I consolidated this by giving the seminar 5 minutes to try using some of the search techniques that I had just shown them, giving them a chance to use search engines that they were unfamiliar with, while I was available to help them. 

Doing this was not an overnight fix, some students took to independent research a lot quicker than others, but by the end of the year I was starting to find that more students had the confidence to find what they wanted to talk about, rather than being restricted by seminar or lecture led discussion. From my perspective, this was great as it helped them grow as researchers, and also gave me more variety in my marking!  

Cut it Up & Poetry Guess Who? (Agnieszka Studzińska)

Teaching poetry and what a poem might be about always confronts an initial silence. I would advise to stay away from asking any student what a poem is about.  I believe the word about creates an initial obstacle because it implies that a poem has a singular focus: its aboutness. 

Here are some innovative approaches to teaching close reading skills in poetry and exploring its gestural qualities. Present the students with a cut up poem. The fragmentation of the poem could either be all the stanzas or the lines in one stanza, and ask the students to put it back together in the way they think it should be read for them. Ask them to title the poem. This will lead to an insightful and hopefully dynamic discussion on meaning, interpretation, form, structure, experimentation and general language use. From there you can move into the ‘original poem.’  Once inside the poem, ask the students to circle three words (found within the poem) that they think summarise the poem or are integral to the poem. Ask the students to pick a mood, colour and a smell, which reflects each stanza; or certain lines in the poem, ask them now to discuss this poem.

Alternatively, engage in a poetry version of Guess Who: Each student is given a poem on a particular theme: innocence, grief, war (there are two poems for each notion). The students have 5 minutes to ask each other questions about each other’s poem e.g. Is the poem’s narrator male? (how do we decide this? what will inform our answers as to why we think a narrator is male or female?), Is there music in this poem? Are there images of X or Y etc.? The questions could be abstract or literal. The students have 3-4 minutes to ask the questions then predict the poem’s journey, (theme) or what I call it’s footprint.  Students swap notes and reveal the poems to one another, then develop their discussions in light of their notes with additional questions from the teacher. 

Response: Dear Agnieszka,

Your approach was quite insightful as you considered the impact of semantics on the psychological interpretation and response of your students and how this could impact their performance. To have such consideration for your students regarding their perception of your wording demonstrates your commitment and focus on your students' achieving and working to their optimal performance. The activity of the cut-up poem is a refreshing and stimulating method to allow your students to experiment with new ideas and ways of interpreting and producing poems. Writing and restructuring lines is often an essential technique to use in the creative craft to allow reevaluation of given texts, such as authors experimenting with rephrasing and relocation of given lines to enhance the narrative; due to this, I found that your activity introduced your students to this technique in a fun and highly interactive way.

Kind regards,

Ashley Williams-Leon

Connecting With Students - Making Meanings meaningful (Kish Alam)

Many students find Shakespeare daunting.  And I  include myself in that  group. When I was younger, Shakespeare was something that I had to get done.  Since then I have fallen for the academic arguments of his greatness and have been moved by watching his plays.   But I still remember the past times and how having the key to understanding, first the language,  and then the meanings meant I could enter an exclusive club. The intellectual gravity that comes with appreciation of Shakespeare can still be a vehicle that divides. 

It was important to me as a seminar leader that I at the very least, should try to pique the interest of all my students. I had read Acts of Meaning by Jerome Brunner and the importance of learning through active experience. As well as it being incumbent on a teacher to encourage participation.  Trying to persuade a student by telling  them that they should learn about and read Shakespeare, either because I think he is great or that it is simply too important not to, is victorian thinking. 

To emphasise his influence, I set the students the task of finding Shakespeare in their lives. A few selected  contemporary interpretations of his plays that have been adapted for films, such as 10 things I hate about you and She's The Man, where the setting has been changed to modern high schools.  But by far the most interesting, student-led discussion was  about the commonalities between Macbeth and J K Rowling's Harry Potter series. of books  This was the only seminar where very student made a contribution and it surprised me because the links are subtle. Nevertheless, the connections made were apt, insightful and new knowledge for me. There are themes of prophecy, magic, and The supernatural. There are characters of witches, and of men who will do anything for power. All this is set against backdrop of the approaching ultimate war, between good and evil.

Finding a contemporary bridge that was meaningful to what may be considered heavy and fusty was the key that turned the lock of the club door. And that it was a part of popular culture made it inclusive, not base  It taught me to look beyond the obvious and the sense in making sure the students had the agency to set the path for the direction of the discussion. 

Brunner J (1980) Acts of Meaning

The Success of Group Effort  (Ashley Williams Leon)


I had the pleasure of teaching Introduction to Creative Writing this spring semester. This course taught students the art of the short story and introduced them to a wide range of texts, literary analysis, and engagement and practice of the creative craft. As Creative Writing is among one of the most personal of the Arts, naturally, students could be hyper-critical of their work and apprehensive about contributing. I wanted to make the classroom environment a safe, supportive, and productive environment, allowing them to see each other as prospective readers, critics, and advocates for their work as well as me. The students demonstrated this commitment to their work and each other's on a weekly basis through a deep level of engagement with each other. Using room geography and the theory of group work, I was able to have the students positioned in a 'U' shape formation in the seminars where they could collaborate and interact with each other.

When it was time to read and give constructive feedback, I would place the students into groups where they took the necessary time to reflect and provide their opinions. A prominent feature to note is in neurodivergence and social anxieties. Students who expressed their concerns to me about contributing to the class could still have their work assessed, critiqued, and praised by allowing other students to read out their work for them and speak on their behalf. This social support through the peers permitted the students to build a genuine rapport with each other and establish a trusting and motivational environment where the students are responsible for one another's learning and their own. Thus, the success of one student helps other students to be successful.

In addition, when the time came to give feedback to those students who required support, the other students would speak to them in a 1-to-1 manner due to the formation of the rooms. I could actively engage with them in class, working with their optimal performance while offering further support via office hours and line-by-line feedback. This combination of approaches served my students well and allowed them a positive learning environment conducive to success.
 

This experience taught me the value of the combination of teacher and student-centred approach with independent learning strategies to allow a well-rounded and balanced classroom environment. In addition, students were encouraged to trust themselves and each other with my support to grow in confidence about their creative crafting abilities which is essential for them as writers in their creative and critical work.


References:
 Gokhale, A.A. (1995) "Collaborative learning enhances critical thinking," Journal of Technology Education, 7(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.21061/jte.v7i1.a.2.

 Available at: https://doi.org/10.21061/jte.v7i1.a.2.

Response

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. A good point that I

didn't pay attention to is the importance of making the classroom environment a

safe, supportive, and productive space while I was teaching. Creating such an

environment is crucial for promoting effective learning and fostering

creativity. Group discussions play a significant role in enhancing creative

learning. A safe, supportive, and productive space helps create a positive and

enriching learning experience for all students. (Xiaoxia Cao, Management)

Response

Thank you for this post. I think it’s important that students are comfortable enough to be vulnerable in their creative work, without it causing them anxiety. Allowing students to read one others work out loud is a great idea and definitely one that I’ll consider using in playwriting classes. (Amy Terry; Drama, Theatre and Dance)

Impact of Time of Day on Student Learning (And Dealing with the Consequences) – Paul Hammond 

What time of day is most conducive to student learning? Common sense would seem to suggest that it varies from person to person, a view that is shared by Will & Shouppe (2011), who argue that ‘increased learning occurs when a student is taught and assessed at their preferred time-of-day’ (p. 1). Studies by Muhammed et al. (2020) and dela Cruz (2022), however, suggest that it is in fact early in the day when students, generally, perform at their best.

A contrasting view is purported Eide and Showalter (2012), who point to a ‘statistically significant’ relationship between sleep and student achievement. Meanwhile a 2019 article in Trinity College Dublin’s University Times makes a case for the abolishment of 9am lecture starts, arguing that they offer ‘no adjustment’ for those with ‘different chronotypes’ (Kearins, University Times).

As with most things, it would seem that there are varying opinions. And while it would be overambitious to try to offer a conclusive viewpoint in the space afforded here, what I can do is present a brief glimpse into my teaching experience this year.

I taught fiction writing to two undergraduate classes last term. One class was 9-11am; the other 4-6pm. The difference in the levels of attention and general liveliness between the two groups was so marked that I could not help but wonder if the time of day had something to do with it. In the hope of enlivening the morning group, we started class with a writing exercise based on that week’s fictional topic. Rather than asking the students to stand and read out their own work, I asked them to read out what their nearest neighbour had written. What really surprised me was how keen the students were to read out each other’s work – and how much fun they had doing it. Reflecting on it later, I think they felt less pressure when reading the writing of someone else.

Returning to the question posed at the beginning of this post, I must admit that I am working here with an extremely small sample size. It could have been, of course, that the morning group were simply quieter people, or were less interested in the subject matter. It is also true that what I am in a position to detect, as seminar leader, is only the external behaviour of the students. Perhaps they are having a rich, internal experience, and though it might not seem like it, they are taking everything in. Indeed, the final assessment portfolios submitted by the two groups were, in general, of a very similar standard. Maybe my morning group were listening after all.

References

dela Cruz, R A. 2022. ‘Class Schedule and Performance: Does Time of Day Affect Students’ Learning?’ IEEE-SEM. 10(2): 22-28.

Eide, E R. Showalter, M H. 2012. ‘Sleep and Student Achievement’. Eastern Economic Journal. 38(4): 512-524.

Kearins, A. ‘The Case for Abolishing 9am Lectures’. University Times. 21 May 2019. https://universitytimes.ie/2019/05/the-case-for-abolishing-9am-lectures/

Muhammad, N. Sidhu, G. Srinivasan, S. 2020. ‘Effect of the Time of Day of Instruction on Student Learning’. International Journal of Pedagogy and Teacher Education. 4(2): 126-137.

Wile, A J. Shouppe, G A. 2011. ‘Does Time-of-Day of Instruction Impact Class Achievement?’ Perspectives in Learning. 12(1): 21-25.