On 10/28/09, Robert F wrote:

Today I found during discussion that some
> students had read the story, but had not understood it well.

[Were they quizzed on the assigned reading? I use matching
tests with 10 items on one side and 13 on the other. This avoids a
process of elimination. The quiz takes 5 minutes and determines
very well whether the students have read the assigned material.]

We
> are reading "The Devil and Tom Walker" and Irving is a bit coy
> here and there. After Walker's wife is killed by the devil, we
> learn that "Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property
> with the loss of his wife, for he was a man of fortitude." To
> understand, you need to know what "consoled" means, and have a
> sense of irony.

[You mean, I take it, that some or many students did not
know the meaning of "consoled". In-class reading of the first few
paragraphs of a story is always a good idea, and will resolve such
problems. Ask a student to rephrase a sentence, then another to
rephrase another. Perhaps you have assigned the whole story when
only part of it should be addressed with your group.]

It seems that a close reading was called for.

[Yes, definitely. Never be pressured into that
awful "covering of the material"; start slowly and precisely. With
that foundation, larger parts of the work can then be addressed.]]

> How do you proceed? In the past you've mentioned reading
> Shakespeare line by line. I don't think that is called for here,
> but even going a paragraph at a time leaves many students
> staring into space. How do I slow it down for some without
> making it excruciating for many?

[You won't know how many or how few are involved until you
give the quiz described above, then start with the first paragraph,
asking what a story beginning so might be about. At this initial
point, of course, the possible "paths" are many - but the exercise
is to have the student *defend* his "path" by pointing out words or
phrases in the first paragraph that give him his idea.]

[Look at the first paragraph of Conrad's "Secret Sharer":
it describes the confusion of shore-line and sea. When we see that
this is a story about the ambuiguity of law, its inability to judge
every case fairly because of the confusing complexity of some cases
(like this one of the secret sharer), we can see the possible art
and purpose of such an opening. I am sure there are other readings
of that first paragraph that anticipate parts of the argument in
the story that follows, but there is at least *that*. If the
teacher knows the story well - and he must know it as well as
possible - he will recognize in the student's projections something
he can give direction to, direction by continued questiolning of
individual students that "bends" the thought of the class to what
he wants them to see. There is NOTHING that can replace the
teacher's prior knowledge of the "shape" of the work he is
teaching; without that, he has nothing to direct the minds of his
students to - and *that*, of course, is the whole purpose of his
teaching: to re-create his own mind thinking out the problem into
the minds of his students, and this by questioning them to have
them "discover" what he knows and - above all - *how* he knows it.
This is teaching *par excellence*; there is literally nothing else.]

[By the way, "Secret Sharer" is a wonderful story to teach.]

[L. Swilley]

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