|
This collection of essays demonstrates that using fiction, poetry, and drama in the classroom provides students with the best opportunity to learn about thinking, writing, and life at their deepest levels. Several of the contributors have worked or studied at Ridgeview Classical School in Fort Collins, Colorado. E. D. Hirsch, in The Making of Americans, has said of this school that its success «stands as a sharp rebuke to the anti-intellectual pedagogy of most American schools». Within this volume, readers will also encounter essays by teachers who have not worked at Ridgeview but utilize the same approach to teaching, illustrating that these methods can be used with students at all levels of education, from rural schools to major universities. Included in the appendices are course descriptions, syllabi, and study questions to provide examples of how these teaching concepts can be applied in the classroom. Ultimately, these authors provide readers with new insight, in this era of supposed practicality, by illuminating literature as a down-to-earth vehicle whereby students can learn to read, write, think, and feel in ways that empower them both as learners and as human beings. «Reading these committed, intense essays about teaching literature at Ridgeview is a rejuvenating experience for me. I think of something the twenty-three-year-old Keats said in one of his letters: ‘Probably every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardor of the pursuer.’ There’s no doubting the ardor of these wonderful teachers of literature, nor the depth of engagement and insight that their fortunate students’ continue to experience in their courses centered on wonderfully generative questions about the works they study! Speaking of which, was Keats right? Was his a despairing comment? Something deeper? How does it relate to his matchless poetry? Such are the kinds of questions that students discuss in this superb school. Many congratulations on the ardor and excellence of Ridgeview!» (E. D. Hirsch, Author of Validity in Interpretation and The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools) «Slow down, don’t move too fast. In essence, this is the approach to literature taken at Ridgeview Classical School, a charter K–12 where dedicated teachers turn ordinary kids into passionate, discerning readers. In an inspiring collection of essays written by both teachers and students, Teaching Literature at Ridgeview documents how close reading, when taught in discussion-based classes, can restore the Great Books to their necessary place in our schools, our minds, and our lives.» (Elissa Guralnick, Professor of English and Musicology, University of Colorado Boulder)...
|
