In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
“Give us peace in our time, O Lord” The English Book of Common Prayer
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In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway: Another of my original books that I taught. I remember when I first started teaching, asking a colleague if he thought it was a good book to teach - I had just read it in my college class a few months before and was blown away by its beauty, elegance, and the loose connections that existed between the stories. He told me to teach what I liked and that I believed was great literature for the students. I never forgot that - about this book, or about anything that I taught.
In Our Time was originally taught directly after All Quiet on the Western Front - and we would begin with "Soldier's Home" (which has already been taught by this point - right before The Things They Carried - as way of an introduction to that novel). I also remember calling the main character in "Soldier's Home", Paul Baumer (from All Quiet) instead of his given name, Harold Krebs. But he may as well have been called Ernest Hemingway. There are so many parallels between Krebs and Hemingway as well as the character Nick Adams (in this book and others) and Hemingway.
In Our Time is a series of short stories loosely connected by theme and by short little italicized vignettes that I called (maybe others too - I can't recall) interchapters. As we read the stories - I give the students biographical materials about Hemingway - not only to give insite into the stories but also as a wonderful way for students to help connect the stories to their own lives.
Lastly, In Our Time is the Unit which gave birth to The Illuminated Text - the first one ever being given to me by a student Jennifer Lee who did it (completely on her own) and asked me to take a look at it. The story its based on and the Illuminated Text are both "Cat in the Rain".
In Our Time Bookmark with Reading Schedule: (Docx PDF) that we read with due dates and references to poems and other related material that are, then, available at a glance - It allows them to plan their time and for students that need more time for reading - they can begin early (I try to give them the bookmarks a week early. The front has the due dates the back gives them some things to look for (ie connections between stories, connections with poems, imagery, etc.). Exactly the kind of thing you want the student to keep nestled in their copy of the book.
Two songs & seven poems. I try to make everything that we do in our class have lots and lots of connections. These poems (and songs) not only give us practice in analyzing poetry - but they also give a way to connect with the prose that it is to follow. As per usual, the class is broken up into groups - since there are only seven poems - groups may be as big as 4 students - they get into their groups, read through the poem - interpret it - and then report back to us (after reading the poem aloud for us) what they came up with. For the songs, we will listen and I will ask some questions or point things out as we listen. Finally, the poem and song titles can be found on their bookmarks that they keep in their books as they read - a constant reminder of what we did and the connections that are out there.
As I've mentioned before, this course used to be World Literature / Journalism. In Our Time was the perfect book as it was written by an author who did both (Literature and Journalism). Originally I tied a beautiful article by Ernie Pyle into this group work. When the course became solely World Literature, the emphasis shifted away from Journalism. And yet... The idea of fiction and nonfiction being two absolutes is often rooted in students' (and some adults as well) minds. This very short story from "In Our Time" accompanied by an article that Hemingway wrote for the Toronto Daily Star - on the exact same incident (Greek refugees in Turkey) gives students the chance to see how closely fact can be to fiction.
What an incredible, powerful story. I am a firm believer that literature - can, at its best - help us navigate the tough and painful times that will come in our own (and our students') lives. This is one such story. We begin the lesson (after the quiz) with a discrepant event (see my page on Class Discussion Methods). I ask the students to tear off a corner of a sheet of paper (about a 1/4 of a page). Then they are to write down one word that describes the emotion they felt, as a reader, when they came to the part of the text where the death of young father is described. After they write it - I then tell them to fold the paper in two so the word is hidden. We then arrange ourselves in concentric circles - one person in the center of the room - three around that person - six or seven around that circle - etc. until we have four or five circles of students. Next, everyone hands their slips of paper to the person in the center. I then ask that person, in the center, to read - in their normal voice to read one of the words. The next circle is instructed to repeat that word - only a little softer. The next circle softer than that - until the last (outmost's) circle's utterance can barely be heard. The effect is powerful and the perfect way to begin our discussion.
This is such a perfect follow-up to "Indian Camp" and our discussion about that story. With that story, it is pretty unclear why the Doctor would take his very young son to such a potentially (and actually as it turns out) tragic medical procedure. The story, "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" does a great job of explaining the "why". As always (or at least I'd like to believe), I try to have the students find out that reason for themselves by doing a very close dive into the text of Hemingway's story - along with bringing in what we talked about with "Indian Camp".
There is a big leap in time - with Nick - between "The Dr. and the Dr.'s Wife" and this story. He is a teenager - and if the last two stories were about the child, Nick and his parents - this story is about Nick starting to become an adult - and his first heartbreak. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that this story - over the years that I taught it - won so many of my students over - not only to the story, but to Hemingway as a writer and this book in particular. Often, students are working on other projects (Dante for instance) and to reduce the homework - we will read this story aloud in class - and then talk about it when we finish. Students will have their copies of In Our Time in front of them or the printed out story (found below) and take notes. Once again, proving that this book is much more than a collection of unrelated stories - this story is the foundation for what is to come next: "The End of Something".
There is a big leap in time - with Nick - between "The Dr. and the Dr.'s Wife" and this story. He is a teenager - and if the last two stories were about the child, Nick and his parents - this story is about Nick starting to become an adult - and his first heartbreak. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that this story - over the years that I taught it - won so many of my students over - not only to the story, but to Hemingway as a writer and this book in particular. Often, students are working on other projects (Dante for instance) and to reduce the homework - we will read this story aloud in class - and then talk about it when we finish. Students will have their copies of In Our Time in front of them or the printed out story (found below) and take notes. Once again, proving that this book is much more than a collection of unrelated stories - this story is the foundation for what is to come next: "The End of Something".
"Cat in the Rain" is an amazing story about a woman who is completely fed up with her husband's patronizing attitude. It is told from her perspective - and I often hold it up as an example to those who claim that all of Hemingway's writing contains toxic masculinity. This story certainly doesn't. The story is short enough that it can be read aloud in class (by the students) and discussed after the reading. I've also included a Group Work that I used once or twice when it was impossible for me to be in class. This is the story that inspired the first-ever Illuminated Text. After it was assigned, a student handed me a cd with the Illuminated Text (a Power Point animation) on it - and asked me to take a look at it. It was amazing, and started a revolution in explicating text.
As a teacher, nothing was more exciting to me than when a student discovered or understood something on their own. Hemingway's story, "Hills Like White Elephants", though not from In Our Time, gives students just such a chance. I remember first reading this in college - and I didn't "get it" - and it had to be pointed out by a friend of mine. But when I did see what was causing the underlying tension in the story - of course it all made wonderful sense. The story is also perfect for illustrating what Hemingway calls the "Iceberg Theory" - the idea that by leaving major plot points OUT of a story - it helps create even more tension than if it had been said explicitly. The partners read the story by themselves mark it up - then find a partner to complete the rest. If they get stuck there are some very helpful quotes that they can get from the teacher.
Now that students have done the ground work with Hemingway's "Iceberg Theory" with their last lesson on "Hills Like White Elephants" - AND they were told to watch for a similar omission in the story, "Out of Season" that they read for homework - it is time to see what they came up with - and how well the "Iceberg Theory" works. For many years, I did this lesson as a teacher-led (ringmaster) discussion with questions and answers - however, given the explosive part of the plot that Hemingway kept hidden from the text - I thought it made sense (and for other reasons) to do this as a Vertext instead.
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