My First Love Encounter With Literature
In high school I had a literature teacher who, when reading a text would lift the words from the pages. He was not overly dramatic, but he had an intensity to his teaching that enthralled me. He made his students become a part of the action in the text. He made literature FUN. This teacher inspired me, motivated me and allowed me to be creative and imaginative. His words still resound when I am teaching. I hear him clearly in Henry V. I hope I can be to my students what that teacher was to me; a motivator.
I was able to connect with an excerpt from Hunger of Memory because of the love for books both the author and myself share. I left that excerpt rethinking the bases on which teachers limit the reading choices of our students.
Emjay
posted by emjay @ 6:44 PM
3 Comments:
I agree that it is wonderful when a teacher can make the words on a page come to life - lift them off the page, as you say. The more difficult question is, how exactly can we learn to do this in order to make the literature come alive for our students? I believe that incorporating some form of the humanities into the literature can help accomplish this; however, there just isn't a poem, painting or film for everything we teach; nor can we have our students dramatize everything. What else can we do to make our 21st century teen-agers love literature the way we do?
I agree with you I myself had a very similar experience. Teachers like these help shape students to what they want to be.
I think your comment of the teacher actually" lifting the words from the pages" is vital to teaching literature. When I was a manager of a fast-paced retail store, my old boss once said "The only way to inspire and teach is to LEAD by EXAMPLE". My boss' comment has actually become one of my personal mantras for teaching. Teachers inspire and spark interest in students by "Leading by example"-reading to them with confidence and "intensity" of their own.
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