ENG 260 Student-Led
Discussion
Guidelines
Each week in the second
half of this
semester we will have small groups of students, working together, lead
a discussion for 20
minutes at the start of class about the theory or theories covered in
the Oxford Handbook of Critical Approaches to
Literature readings for a particular week.
For student discussion
leaders:
Your
job is
to raise what you think are the most
interesting
issues about the theory/approach to literature studied that week. You
may focus
directly on the theory as a set of ideas, or on the particular
application of
it to something of interest in Turn of the Screw,
or on a blend of both. Be able to summarize what you think are some
most
beneficial things about the theory or theories studied that week, what
you like
best about them, what makes them useful for asking new and different
questions
of literature, and then think of some questions both you and the class
will
find interesting to consider about their limitations: what do they not
do so
well? Where do you disagree with the view they take of reading and
studying
literature? You will also be the experts for the day, so your job is to
be able
to at least try to answer any questions your peers have about the ideas
you all
have read and you raise.
If
you wish
to use handouts, online material via the class computer, that is your
option
but is not required. If you wish to tell students to focus on
particular ideas
or pages in the chapter ahead of time, to prepare a more focused
discussion,
you just have to let me know to tell them.
The day you present (usually a Friday) is already on the syllabus.
This counts for 10% of your grade.
For those not leading the
discussion:
Your
job is
to do the readings as assigned, then to be willing and able to talk.
Your incentive to talk and participate in your
peers’ discussion and conversation is that you will soon have to be on
the
other end of the stick and you surely don’t want your audience sitting
like
lumps on logs while you try to start a conversation, and you really
don’t want
them unable to converse because they haven’t read.
If you feel the material is difficult, and it
will be sometimes, you can always ask those most useful questions, if
there is
something in a chapter, about a theory, how it’s applied, that you just
don’t
understand. The point here is to help us all understand how a number of
theories work and what they can do to illuminate literary texts. No one
is
obliged to agree with any one theory but everyone is obliged to try to
understand them.