An Introduction to Literary Criticism
"After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism." Joseph Brodsky
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I knew for the longest time that I wanted to add a Literary Criticism Unit to my English 3 curriculum - but I was daunted for a number of reasons. First, it would take an enormous amount of time to put together - next, as hard as that would be for me, as the teacher, I knew it would probably be the most difficult thing that my students did, intellectually speaking, all year. And perhaps that is exactly why I wanted to do it so bad. It is one of the major precepts of this website that students need to be challenged in order to grow - and throughout the course of the year they are challenged with learning how to read poetry, Shakespeare, to focus on the actual text of the literature that was written - and now, for a change, I wanted them to see what others made of the text - how they interpreted it - and its importance.
Teaching Literary Criticism was also a great way to extend our unit on our Shakespeare's Comedy Play that we had just finished in class. At first, that was The Tempest - and then that play gave way to Twelfth Night. Eventually, I hope to publish my Tempest-based Literary Criticism Lessons (along with my Tempest - the play lessons), but for now all of the lessons on Literary Criticism are built around either Macbeth (our first play) or Twelfth Night.
Because I knew this unit would be difficult for the students - I had to find a way to make it understandle and to maximize their learning with the limited amount of time that we had in the classroom. After much deliberation (and a lot of help from my student teacher at the time) I came up with a process that I honed and perfected over the years that I taught the unit. That method relied on two major components (and many minor ones). First - scaffolding. One idea - one school of criticism built on another. They all also built on things that we had done throughout the year. For instance, during our Unit on Macbeth - the Macbeth Made Easy lesson - is a perfect introduction to the ideas of Literary Critic, Stephen Booth. We've also used words like "deconstruct" a number of times over the year up to this point - and ideas like feminism, historicism, have also repeatedly come into play.
Though each Lesson varies - they essentially follow this form:
AT HOME: 1) Students read a summary of that school of Literary Criticism 2) Students also read an article (often abridged) from that school of criticism about an aspect of either Macbeth (once) or Twelfth Night (the rest of the time).
AT SCHOOL: 3) They take a quiz on what they read. 4) They do Group Work (though they all write down their answers - unlike the usual Group Work wherre there is one recorder) on their reading - which is great (to do it in a group, so they can maximize their knowledge and understanding with each member's expertise. These things are much easier to understand when done in a group. 5a) They can then get started on the written Solo Work that is also part of the assignment - the questions are aimed more at individual - rather than Group answers.
AT HOME: 5b) They finish their Solo Work. 6) They answer a few brief "Questions for Tomorrow" - designed to get them thinking about what they are about to read in the next school of Literary Criticism. 7) Free thoughts - a very specific paragraph where they can talk about anything related to this Day of Literary Criticism - as long as it is thoughtful and specific. 1 & 2 - They do the reading for the next day.
GRADING: There are two components that make up how this Unit is graded. The first part is the quiz. For each reading there is a quiz. Which, by-the-way, are the hardest (for me their author) quizzes that I write all year. As you may know, I believe quizzes (and small tests) should be designed soley to see if the student did the reading - not necessarily if they understood it. That makes something like Literary Criticism hard to write a quiz for. The "understanding" part will come in class with the group, solo, questions for today, etc. So my quizzes are merely testing if they did the reading.
The second component of the grading is made up of two Journal Checks. You will find the rubric that I give to the students as well as the handouts they get when the unit begins that explains in detail what my expectations are.
Three Tracks (Levels) of Work
I will try (eventually) and make available here the three different levels of difficulty (work) that I gave out for this Unit, so that you can choose (or make up your own). Though my favorite is the original difficulty level - there is also a reduced work level for Honors that came into being the last few years that I taught, and a nonhonors level that focused on the first (Macbeth) lesson and two of the other schools of Literary Criticism that I felt were the most important. I will start with the original track for now.
Some Thoughts on this Unit
I can honestly say that this is probably (with maybe the exception of the Research Paper) the hardest thing the students did all year. And yet, for some students - it was also be their favorite thing that we did all year. Some students love the scientific, nonfiction bent of literary criticism. They love the analysis, the challenging jargon, everything about it. It makes them think about an awful lot of things in a very short time - and some of the Lessons (schools of Literary Criticism) will challenge what they've been taught since their very first English class.
Students are instructed to put this rubric on the first page of their Literary Criticism Binders. There are two check-ins - two grades for this unit - both of them unannounced - so students should be up to date at all times. In addition to being a rubric - it breaks down in great detail - exactly what is expected of them - including how many questions (or readings) there are for each part of each day's entries: Readings for that Day (notes are graded), Questions for Today, Group Work Questions, and Solo Work.
Because you don't want to deprive students of their Journals during this unit - I usually do the first check-in (Grading) while they are watching the first part of Exit Through the Gift Shop - I will only collect as many as I can get graded during that time - and will grade the rest the next day - during the class period - asking them to take out the work and readings that they need for that class. The second check-in is not so rushed and I usually collect the binders after the Final Exam to grade them.
NOTE: I always gave students a chance to revise their binders (journals) if they did it BEFORE the final. I told them that I would change the grade they got for Check-In #1 (the only checkin that I offered this) to an average of their original grade with what they would have gotten with the revised journal. In other words, if they got a 50 on the first check-in - and then they revised it, gave it to me (before the final on Literary Criticism) - and the new assessment of their Journal lands them what would have been a 90 - I will change the recorded grade for that check-in to a 70.
A rebuilt (the original one that I presented to students was done using Adobe Flash (a prezi presentation) slide show of what the students can expect along with the passing out of the first handouts (both on how to do their journals - and the first Literary Criticism Readings) that they need to get started. I usually gave this short introduction at the end of another class - most likely after giving half of the class period over to the students to practice their Macbeth plays - we would have this introduction before their Macbeth Day performances - and they would have a long weekend to get started on their readings.
In order for students to have an appreciation (not to mention, understanding) for modern Literary Criticism, it's necessary to catch at least a glimpse of what has come before. Perhaps the most influential early literary critic of Shakespeare was A.C. Bradley - which, in turn, was a distilling of Aristotle and that Greek Philosopher's take on drama and tragedy. This Lesson's readings begin with a handout on some of A.C. Bradley's primary pronouncements on Macbeth. That handout can be found on the back of the Introductory Literary Criticism Handout (the last lesson) or below. The next reading (found below) is a short article by Bradley about the witches in Macbeth. Finally, the students will have read (for today) a modern critic's (Russ McDonald's) analysis of some of Bradley's ideas
Starting today - the articles will center on Twelfth Night - a topic they also know (and that most of them quite enjoyed). The excerpt that they read for today (after the introductory articles) talks about Feminist Literary Criticism and Twelfth Night and uses that play's modern retelling - She's the Man to illustrate the huge gap between the play and film in terms of portraying feminist ideals. The students respond to - and "get" the article because so many (when I taught over 75%) of them were familiar with the movie, She's the Man. Clement's article, however, asks them to take a close look at the movie (and Twelfth Night) through a feminist critic's lens.
From the very beginning of the year - with their first Group Work on the Anglo-Saxons through their study of Queen Elizabeth, I have emphasized the idea that knowing the historical background of the literature that we are studying - is NOT that important. In fact, it can be distracting and misleading. Now, they will get a completely different perspective (something that I love doing as a teacher). The critical school of New Historicism proposes that it is completely necessary to understand the historical context of a text - and without that knowledge, you may end up with a invalid interpretation of that work.
Having the students watch half of this movie - at this point in the Unit serves two main purposes. One, it gives them a breather in the intense work - yes, there are movie questions but those are due after their Journals have been turned in. The second reason for showing this film (Part 1) now, is to give them some very real and practical uses for their new found literary analysis skills. Though they won't be answering the questions - they will be reading them and seeing how some of the ideas they've talked about - humanism, feminism, new historicism - come into play - and this movie will definitely prepare them for what is to come down the road (in this Unit).
There are a handful of lessons in my class that ask students to reexamine everything they've been taught in English - since they began kindergarten. Today's activity is one such lesson. Up until college (though I'm sure it happens occasionally there as well) teachers will talk about what an author meant when they wrote something. What was their purpose? Similarly, past authors and artists are shunned (canceled) because of their horrible behavior - no matter what their art says or stands for. It is as though their hateful acts have somehow infected the words that they wrote. William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley propose that the art and the artist are two very separate things. Furthermore, you (or even the author) can never know what they "intended" or "meant" if even such a thing exists to begin with.
Since I've been teaching my Literary Criticism Unit, I've put "Shooting an Elephant" smack dab in the middle of it. Not because it directly speaks to its own school of criticism - but because instead it speaks to so many. Somewhere I must have my original text - covered with notes - but I'm not sure where that is, and frankly, it's just as well. I always felt, when having a class discussion about this essay, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ideas and important words that are in Orwell's text. It was only when I stumbled upon Vertexts, those Power Point Presentations that allow the teacher to put quotes up on the screen in front of the students, that I felt I could do justice to the words. And it is the most recent Vertext that I give you here.
Since I've been teaching my Literary Criticism Unit, I've put "Shooting an Elephant" smack dab in the middle of it. Not because it directly speaks to its own school of criticism - but because instead it speaks to so many. Somewhere I must have my original text - covered with notes - but I'm not sure where that is, and frankly, it's just as well. I always felt, when having a class discussion about this essay, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of ideas and important words that are in Orwell's text. It was only when I stumbled upon Vertexts, those Power Point Presentations that allow the teacher to put quotes up on the screen in front of the students, that I felt I could do justice to the words. And it is the most recent Vertext that I give you here.
In this pentultimate lesson for our Literary Criticism Unit we take a look at Marxist Literary Theory. By now it should be obvious that in the brief time, and with the background that the students have - the best we can do is a quick survey, often an over-simplification of very complex ideas. At the same time, it gives students a different perspective and allows them to flex their intellectual literary muscles in ways they may not have a chance to up to this point. After having been told there is no such thing as intention (Author Intentionality) and if there was - any meaning would "fall apart" (Deconstruction), today's theory says that there most certainly is - or at least should be - an intent. And that intent should be toward advancing a proletariat state. In other words - there should be no art "for art's sake". Instead, its purpose should be the betterment of mankind.
Intellectually, this lesson is the most important that we will do all year. There may be classes that grab more students in deeply and affecting ways - but without a doubt, the ideas of Stephen Booth will ask students to think deeply and to reject so much of what they've been taught in the English Classroom - from kindergarten onward. I like to think that all of my unit on Literary Criticism leads up this moment. All of my class up to this point in the school year (as well as what is to follow) is predicated on the words of Professor Booth. Put in its most simple terms - it is the words that make Great Literature, great. Not the stories, not the themes, not its "message". It is the words - the words that are chosen and how those words are arranged. Of course - we need that gripping story too - we need tales that address the lives of our students. The lesson is done as close to a lecture as I ever do in this class - complete with a very interactive Power Point, a short video, and sound effects.
Having the students watch half of this movie - at this point in the Unit serves two main purposes. One, it gives them a chance to read the Stephen Booth article on Shakespeare's Language - yes, there are movie questions but those are due after the final exam - they need these questions (and their answers to help them study).
The second reason for showing this film (Part 2) now, is to give them -as with Part 1 - some very real and practical uses for their new found literary analysis skills. Though they won't be answering the questions - they will be reading them and seeing how some of the ideas they've talked about - humanism, feminism, new historicism, Marxism, Text-Centered Criticisim - come into play.
So now comes the test of everything that has come before in this Unit. The quizzes were designed to see if the students did the reading - not if they understood it; the solo, group work, questions for today, the movie, the lecture, the readings - everything is designed to allow students to have an understanding - at least on a very fundamental level of Literary Criticism and this exam will determine whether that happened or not. Notice I said "allow them to have an understanding." You cannot force students to think - you cannot make them care about what they are learning. You can only give them every opportunity to do so. This exam includes questions on the entire Stephen Booth reading - though only 9 pages were assigned. By making the Total Possible Points of the Exam 400 points - while they can, if they get all of the multiple choice questions correct receive 450 points (by getting the nonrequired parts of the Stephen Booth reading correct). It's a quick and accurate way to give Extra Credit.
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