How to Teach American Literature

I’ve thought for a long time that teachers need a detailed guide for teaching the discipline of high school literature. This book is the second in a series of four books for teachers of high school literature. The course work in the American literature teaching guide is designed to prepare students for the more advanced literature covered in my 12th grade British literature book. During my thirty-five years of teaching literature, many students who come into my classes have told me that they’ve never understood the point of studying literature, and they rarely understood what a piece of literature is about. They appreciate the value of learning mathematics (everyone must balance a checkbook and figure out taxes) or science (we have to understand how the body works or how to cure disease) or history (we need to know something about our past), but they fail to understand why they’re required to read poems, plays, and novels written centuries ago about people and situations that they regard as irrelevant to life today and often written in a language that’s abstruse. Of course, they don’t share these objections in such detail with their English teachers; most of them don’t even know they harbor them, but deep down inside they feel this way when they enter the literature classroom. What a challenge for the English teacher! Fundamentally, teachers want two things: They want students to like them and to like the subject. Forget the first part. Just teach and keep the bar high. Insist that your students perform to the best of their ability. If your standards are high, even exacting, they will respect you and flourish in your classroom. Years later, they will thank you…. 

I avoid getting bogged down with exhaustive lectures on American history. The editors of many literature textbooks introduce a period with a lengthy recap of every possible aspect of the age. For the purpose of this book, I include brief comments about the history and social customs pertaining to the literature of each period because students need to learn about some aspects of cultural life so that they can more readily enjoy and understand a work. Students of American literature should remember that writers do not write in a vacuum but reflect the conditions and values of a particular age. A caveat is pertinent here: Young people will judge a piece of literature according to their own attitudes and customs. To borrow Robert Frost’s comment about free verse, this mindset is like playing tennis with the net down; for example, one cannot fault Polonius for discouraging his daughter from accepting gifts from Hamlet because the Prince of Denmark is superior to Ophelia in social rank, and such a marriage would have been unthinkable in late sixteenth-century Denmark. Students should heed Coleridge’s advice and willingly suspend their disbelief in order to react appropriately to a literary text. How does one teach them to react in this way? By constantly reminding them to put aside their prejudices and ways of thinking about life and to bear in mind the customs and lifestyles of the period in which a piece of literature is written…. 

Here is a list of teaching techniques I frequently use for 11th grade: 

• Note taking: As I discuss each literary work, students take notes. How does one ensure they do so? I walk up and down the rows to check the note taking….
• Small study groups: During class, students exchange ideas and take notes about a topic.
• Brainstorming a topic: I raise an issue and students share their ideas as I write them on the board.
• Study Questions: I distribute several pages of questions on a specific work that students complete and return for grading. (See Romantic prose example in handouts.)
• Class presentations: Individual students are assigned a topic, for example a poem, to research and study. They prepare a handout of notes for the rest of the class. I require them to talk over difficulties with me before the presentation is due. I take notes and grade each student on the interest and comprehensiveness of the discussion. They should be prepared to answer other students’ questions on the piece….

I include review questions after discussion of each major literary work or unit—Puritan era, Enlightenment, and so on—with suggested responses. Some review questions could be included on tests or exams. I allow students to use their notes and books when answering review questions. At the end of each teaching guide, I include a glossary of literary terms, an index, bibliography, handouts used in the classroom, and tests…. 

Because final exams are looming, I review the course reminding students about major themes and concerns of each era. I make one final plea to find time for reading. Many of them get the bug and discover that reading is indispensable to their happiness. A few probably shake their heads mentally and vow never again to voluntarily pick up a book they aren’t required to read. I tell the class about a literary trip I once made to England. On arrival in John Bunyan’s home town, I expected to see all Bedford’s inhabitants walking along avidly reading The Pilgrim’s Progress. Imagine my chagrin when upon inquiring into the location of Bunyan’s birthplace, I was asked, “John who?” What can one say to obdurate non-readers? Well, one can always pass along Mark Twain’s comment: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” 

…. It is axiomatic to state that, to a significant degree, one’s character is molded by the books one reads. If young people read books that are ugly or perverted, those traits will be cemented into their characters. If they read books that contain beauty and wisdom, they will absorb those traits. Either way, today’s students will pass on their values to future generations.