Teaching Literature
General Posts on Pedagogy
- “Why I Teach Literature” (February 9, 2008)
- Reflections on Blogging My Teaching (April 15, 2008)
- A Note on Teaching Evaluations as a Guide to Future Conduct (May 7, 2008)
- My Teachers: An Appreciation (June 5, 2008)
- Pedagogy, Evaluation, and What We Look for in ‘the’ Novel (October 15, 2008)
- Standing in Chartres Cathedral Unmoved (November 10, 2010)
- Hashtag #gradingjail (December 21, 2010)
This Week in My Classes: 2007-8
Fall Term:19th-Century Novel Dickens to Hardy; Victorian Women Writers (graduate seminar)
- September 12, 2007: Inaugural Post
- September 17, 2007: Trollope, The Warden; Oliphant, Autobiography
- September 24, 2007: Dickens, Great Expectations; Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Bronte
- October 1, 2007: Dickens, Great Expectations; Bronte, Jane Eyre
- October 9, 2007: Letter Writing Assignment
- October 15, 2007: Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret; Gaskell, North and South
- October 22, 2007: George Eliot, Middlemarch; Gaskell, North and South
- October 29, 2007: George Eliot, Middlemarch
- November 5, 2007: George Eliot, Middlemarch
- November 14, 2007: George Eliot, Middlemarch
- November 20, 2007: Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Oliphant, Hester
- December 3, 2007: Hardy, Jude the Obscure
Winter Term: Mystery and Detective Fiction; The Victorian ‘Woman Question’
- January 12, 2008: Introductions
- January 16, 2008: Collins, The Moonstone; A. Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- January 25, 2008: Collins, The Moonstone; Bronte, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- January 31, 2008: Sherlock Holmes; Wood, East Lynne
- February 5, 2008: Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; Wood, East Lynne
- February 12, 2008: Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; Trollope, He Knew He Was Right
- March 3, 2008: Hammett, The Maltese Falcon; Trollope, He Knew He Was Right
- March 10, 2008: Paretsky, “Dealer’s Choice”; George Eliot, Middlemarch
- March 19, 2008: James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman; Grafton, ‘A’ is for Alibi; George Eliot, Middlemarch
- March 27, 2008: Grafton, ‘A’ is for Alibi; George Eliot, Middlemarch; Trollope, “Novel Reading”
- April 6, 2008: Rankin, Knots and Crosses; Gissing, The Odd Women
Summer Term: Women and Detective Fiction
- June 11, 2008: Agatha Christie; Sayers, Gaudy Night
This Week in My Classes 2008-9
Fall Term: Introduction to Prose and Fiction; 19th-Century Novel Austen to Dickens
- September 11, 2008: Ian McEwan; Jane Austen, Persuasion
- September 17, 2008: Brent Staples, “Just Walk On By”; Austen, Persuasion
- September 29, 2008: Eli Wiesel, Night; Thackeray, Vanity Fair
- October 10, 2008: Night; Vanity Fair
- October 21, 2008: Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”; Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”; Bronte, Jane Eyre
- October 27, 2008: Dickens, Bleak House
- November 3, 2008: Carver, “A Small Good Thing”; Dickens, Bleak House
- November 14, 2008: Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day; Dickens, Bleak House
- November 19, 2008: Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day; George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
- November 25, 2008: Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day; George Eliot, The MIll on the Floss
- December 3, 2008: Review and Conclusions; Literature, Life, Aesthetics, and Ethics
Winter Term: Mystery and Detective Fiction; Victorian Literature of Faith and Doubt
(some links for 2009-10 still go to my old site — I’m working on it!)
- January 6, 2009: Introductions; Hopkins and Tennyson
- January 16, 2009: Collins, The Moonstone; Carlyle, Sartor Resartus and Past and Present
- January 25, 2009: Collins, The Moonstone; Dickens, A Christmas Carol
- February 5, 2009: Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; Tennyson, In Memoriam AHH
- February 11, 2009: Chandler, “Trouble is My Business”; Darwin, On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man
- February 20, 2009: Hammett, The Maltese Falcon; Browning, “Caliban Upon Setebos”
- March 3, 2009: P. D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman; George Eliot, Silas Marner
- March 10, 2009: Grafton, ‘A’ is for Alibi; Matthew Arnold, Poems
- March 23, 2009: Robinson, Rankin, McBain; Swinburne, D. G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti
- April 9, 2009: Auster, City of Glass; Hardy, Jude the Obscure
This Week in My Classes 2009-10
Fall Term: 19th-Century Novel Dickens to Hardy; Victorian Sensations
- September 10, 2009: Back to School Round-Up
- September 15, 2009: This Week In My Classes Revisited
- September 22, 2009: Gaskell, North and South; Collins, The Moonstone
- September 28, 2009: Dickens, Great Expectations; Collins, The Woman in White
- October 5, 2009: Dickens, Great Expectations; Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret
- October 16, 2009: Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret and Aurora Floyd
- October 26, 2009: George Eliot, Middlemarch; Wood, East Lynne
- November 3, 2009: George Eliot, Middlemarch; Wood, East Lynne
- November 17, 2009: George Eliot, Middlemarch; Sensation Fiction & Criticism
- November 25, 2009: Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Waters, Fingersmith
- December 3, 2009: Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Waters, Fingersmith
- December 24, 2009: This Term In My Classes–’Thank you for such an odd yet interesting course!’
Winter Term: British Literature Since 1800, Mystery and Detective Fiction, George Eliot (graduate seminar)
- January 6, 2010: Beginnings
- January 13, 2010: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Adam Bede
- January 26, 2010: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Aurora Leigh, The Mill on the Floss
- February 3, 2010: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Great Expectations, The Mill on the Floss
- February 10, 2010: Raymond Chandler, Great Expectations, Romola
- March 3, 2010: Modernism; Hammett, Grafton, Paretsky; Middlemarch
- March 8, 2010: Yeats, “Easter 1916″; Paretksy, Indemnity Only
- March 18, 2010: Police Procedurals; Questions of Literary Merit!
- March 22, 2010: Daniel Deronda
- March 30, 2010: Auster, City of Glass; McEwan, Atonement; Daniel Deronda
- April 6, 2010: Auster, City of Glass; Daniel Deronda
- April 19, 2010: Another Year of Blogging My Teaching
Spring Term: 19th-Century Novel Austen to Dickens
- May 31,2010: Antici–pation!
- June 14, 2010: Gaskell, “The Old Nurse’s Story”
This Week in My Classes 2010-11
Fall Term: British Literature Since 1800, Women and Detective Fiction (Course Outlines)
- September 10, 2010: Beginnings (Course Outlines)
- September 20, 2010: Keats and Shelley; Agatha Christie, 13 Problems
- September 28, 2010: Tennyson; Nancy Drew
- October 4, 2010: EBB, Aurora Leigh; Sayers, Gaudy Night
- October 15, 2010: Gaskell, Sayers, and Literary Research
- October 21, 2010: Worlds in Crisis–Mary Barton and P. D. James
- October 28, 2010: The Importance of Being Earnest
- November 7, 2010: A Mess of Modernists
- November 16, 2010: Grafton, Paretsky, Auden, Heaney, Rushdie!
- November 30, 2010: Atonement, Prime Suspect
- December 8, 2010: Not with a bang, but a whimper
This Week in My Classes 2011-12
Fall Term: Mystery and Detective Fiction, 19th-Century Fiction from Austen to Dickens, The Victorian ‘Woman Question’
- September 19, 2011: Back in the Saddle Again
- September 29, 2011: Modelling the Process
- October 5, 2011: Amidst the Mess, Three Mysterious Morsels (Futrelle, Chesterton, and Freeman)
- October 13, 2011: WMT, AC, and EBB (and a bit about scansion)
- October 25, 2011: Midterm Madness
- November 1, 2011: The Terrorists, Tenant, anticipating Hard Times, and a bit of “Goblin Market”
- November 7, 2011: Pacing Problems
- November 14, 2011: The Morals and the Stories (The Mill on the Floss, Hard Times, and An Unsuitable Job for a Woman)
- November 23, 2011: Work In, Work Out
- December 3, 2011: More Classes, A New Open Letters, a Book Club Fail, and a Happy Ending!
- December 15, 2011: Exams!
Winter Term: Close Reading, 19th-Century Fiction from Dickens to Hardy
- January 4, 2012: A New Year, A New Term!
- January 9, 2012: Poems and Prelates! (Barchester Towers)
- January 19, 2012: Contact Hours
- January 30, 2012: Fun with Fiction! (Characterization and Great Expectations)
- February 8, 2012: Men and Women and The Woman in White
- February 17, 2012: Close Reading Middlemarch
- February 20, 2012: No Classes! The To-Do List for Reading Week
- March 5, 2012: Middlemarch Everywhere!
- March 21, 2012: The Final Countdown (The Remains of the Day, Jude the Obscure)
- March 26, 2012: (How to Avoid) Reinventing the Wheel
- April 18, 2012: Not Blogging but Drowning (in Marking)
