Teaching the Classics

[annegables]

In an effort to educate myself on how to teach literature, I spent a lot of time researching and decided a few weeks ago to get a membership to Center For Lit's Teaching the Classics. I chose them because there methods seemed the most accessible to me, and because the founders were homeschoolers whose mission is to teach parents how to teach literature. (As an aside, I have also been listening to lit analysis podcasts from Circe). I am most of the way through the course and I have appreciated it immensely, but not for what I originally thought it would be. I have always thought that to read literature, it required special knowledge or the ability to almost magically mentally manipulate content to extract meaning. And I thought TTC would show me the special handshake and rituals to be able to do that myself. Much to my initial chagrin, I saw that I would not be inducted into any such secret society of literary erudites. 

Instead, what the course has helped me with is to show me that I don't need any seemingly magical abilities to extract meaning from a proverbial rock. With asking good questions, I can effectively guide myself and my kids on a rich literary journey. This course has fleshed out ideas that I have known and has provided a better framework for me to think about books. 

Now, that being said, I was listening to The Play's The Thing by Circe where they discussed Julius Caesar and someone said something like "Only an idiot would root for Marc Antony in this play." At that moment I realized that I knew less Roman history than I thought bc I didn't realize how bad Antony was. I have always like Marc Antony in that play for his delightful soliloquies in Act 3. I still don't like Brutus and partially agree with Dante about which circle of hell he and Cassius belong in:). I did not read Caesar to the same level of competence that the commentators did, but I feel like I understood it better than I would have 6 months ago.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

These are my exact same thoughts about the TTC dvd Seminar.   It was so well done, and so accessible.  I'm actually considering buying the new, updated version just as a refresher course.  

[annegables]

I am almost finished session 8, the final session. I keep thinking (in a good way) "Is this it? Has it been this straightforward all along?" For me, the feeling is akin to if all my life I thought that cleaning the carpet required loads of special knowledge, and then along comes someone who just removes the broom from my hands and gives me a vacuum. 

You mean, I don't need to look for sexual frustration as a theme in every dang piece of literature?! Or try and suss out Freudian mama issues from O Captain My Captain? World rocked. I have come to the conclusion that if there in an underlying theme of sex that is never mentioned, I will never figure that out.

[annegables]

We have been reading The Jabberwocky and I am excited to discuss the poem using what I have learned.

[annegables]

Sorry I keep replying in my own thread. Something else I really like about TTC is that I don't feel like I have to eat an elephant in order to "do literature correctly" with my kids. There is no expectation of reading half the Western canon by graduation. I have no intention of slacking, but a weight lifted off my shoulders when I realized that. 

[annegables]

Several different streams in my homeschooling life have just intersected. I have been wrestling with what to do for writing for my 5th grader. I just finished the last lecture and am like, "This is what I want to teach him to write about!!!" And I know I have the tools for how to lead this. Man, I am getting all verklempt just thinking about it.

[freesia]

What encouraging posts!  I also like TTC ( and have used the list of Socratic questions for years now to discuss literature with my middle school and high schoolers.) It does make it doable and natural ( I do sometime look themes up on line to make sure I don’t miss something.)

Another book I like is Deconstructing Penguins.

[annegables]

16 minutes ago, freesia said:

What encouraging posts!  I also like TTC ( and have used the list of Socratic questions for years now to discuss literature with my middle school and high schoolers.) It does make it doable and natural ( I do sometime look themes up on line to make sure I don’t miss something.)

Another book I like is Deconstructing Penguins.

Thanks for the book rec! Just placed a library hold on it. 

[Rachel]

I own TTC and I’ve never watched it🤦🏼‍♀️. I got inexpensively used when my kids were still pretty young, I put it aside for later. Earlier this summer I was thinking I should dig it out, I think you gave me the kick in the pants I needed. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Rachel

[freesia]

27 minutes ago, Rachel said:

I own TTC and I’ve never watched it🤦🏼‍♀️. I got inexpensively used when my kids were still pretty young, I put it aside for later. Earlier this summer I was thinking I should dig it out, I think you gave me the kick in the pants I needed. 

If you have a good background in literary devices, you can get by with just the workbook and questions...

[annegables]

15 minutes ago, freesia said:

If you have a good background in literary devices, you can get by with just the workbook and questions...

Yes, but I would also watch the last lecture. He gets into the nitty-gritty a bit more in the last lecture and I found it very helpful. Or, read the stories for each lecture and then watch the second half of each one where he digs into them more.

[Ausmumof3]

You should listen to Angelina Stanford’s “the literary life podcast” as well.  I love her approach to lit.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

6 hours ago, Rachel said:

I own TTC and I’ve never watched it🤦🏼‍♀️. I got inexpensively used when my kids were still pretty young, I put it aside for later. Earlier this summer I was thinking I should dig it out, I think you gave me the kick in the pants I needed. 

 

Depending on the age of your kids, you can also watch it with them!   

[freesia]

9 hours ago, WendyAndMilo said:

I think I might be able to get the syllabus next month; what do you mean "a good background in literary devices"?  Is there something in the videos that isn't covered in the syllabus??  I looked at the preview and it seemed to give examples of questions to ask and stuff....but I'm not sure what I'm looking at/for.

I found the DVDs basic in some ways. I know what a plot is and what conflict is. Now I had been to Adam Andrew’s talks at a homeschool conference so I’d seen how he leads the discussion ( and my dad used Socratic dialogue with us).  I’m not at all saying they are useless.  While they are meant for the teacher, they have value if you need your student to watch them. They are useful for reminding you what those elements are and why they are important.  And if you don’t have a strong humanities background they’d be good(do you remember discussing books in any depth or thinking deeply about books?)

[Violet Crown]

18 hours ago, annegables said:

You mean, I don't need to look for sexual frustration as a theme in every dang piece of literature?! Or try and suss out Freudian mama issues from O Captain My Captain? World rocked. I have come to the conclusion that if there in an underlying theme of sex that is never mentioned, I will never figure that out.

Don't worry; pretty sure that Freudian literary theory died out in the '90s.

It seems to me that most good literary study comes from getting used to doing three things.

1. Noticing what is being achieved by the text. (What is my response -- emotional, intellectual, esthetic? -- to what I just read?)
2. Noticing things that seem unusual in the text. (e.g. Why is there so much alliteration in that verse? Why is this character suddenly made so unsympathetic? Why did it begin in that odd way?)
3. Figuring out how (2) is working to get you, the reader, to (1).

(3) is where all literary study occurs.

The longer I read and teach literature, the more I think (3) is best achieved by reading widely, copiously, and judiciously. An example: A child doesn't need to memorize the definition of "parody" to grasp that "Casey at the Bat" is a parody of "Horatius at the Bridge": she needs to be familiar with both (which means some background knowledge of Roman history and baseball!); she needs to have seen other, simpler, parodic verse (hello Lewis Carroll) so as to recognize it and have an internalized sense of how it works; and she needs to have developed an implicit sense that what makes something humorous is an unexpected but unthreatening contrast. Those take a lot more time than studying definitions, but it's a lot more fun. And worthwhile, even if she never gets around to Horatius or Casey.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Violet Crown

[annegables]

1 minute ago, Violet Crown said:

Don't worry; pretty sure that Freudian literary theory died out in the '90s.

It seems to me that most good literary study comes from getting used to doing three things.

1. Noticing what is being achieved by the text. (What is my response -- emotional, intellectual, esthetic? -- to what I just read?)
2. Noticing things that seem unusual in the text. (e.g. Why is there so much alliteration in that verse? Why is this character suddenly made so unsympathetic? Why did it begin in that odd way?)
3. Figuring out how (2) is working to get you, the reader, to (1).

(3) is where all literary study occurs.

The longer I read and teach literature, the more I think (3) is best achieved by reading widely, copiously, and judiciously. An example: A child doesn't need to memorize the definition of "parody" to grasp that "Casey at the Bat" is a parody of "Horatius at the Bridge": she needs to be familiar with both (which means some background knowledge of Roman history and baseball!); she needs to have seen other, simpler, parodic verse (hello Lewis Carroll) so as to recognize it and have an internalized sense of how it works; and she needs to have developed an implicit sense that what makes something humorous is an unexpected but unthreatening contrast. Those take a lot more time than studying definitions, but is a lot more fun.

 

 

Thanks! This is so helpful, and it is good news to me. Up until about a year ago, I read almost exclusively non-fiction, thanks to AP lit in high school🤐. But in the past year, I have been rapidly trying to make up for lost time. And for several years I have been doing loads of read-alouds with my kids. My hope is that through exposure to lots of well-written books with interesting conversations around said books, that they can start to think about books more deeply than I did. 

[Violet Crown]

(Addendum: I don't actually teach "Casey At the Bat," as it's completely dead as parody, consequent to the death of 1880's slang, sandlot baseball, and the gruesome practice of making small children recite Macaulay. Nor did I learn about parody from Lewis Carroll, but from Weird Al Yankovic.)

[Violet Crown]

40 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Oh, I love Weird Al. I have a YouTube playlist I listen to when I teach AoPS classes (otherwise, the lack of audio is just deadly dull), and I have a few of his hits on there. (White & Nerdy is just brilliant.)

You're saying I need to have my kids listen to Weird Al, is that it??  

Well, yes. Or rather no, you need to let your kids listen to whatever parodies are going in this moment: probably parody twitter accounts, or something like. When they do eventually learn a definition of "parody," they'll learn that it's exquisitely context-sensitive. "How Doth the Little Crocodile ..." was hilarious because the reader had once been forced to recite Izaak Walton's didactic verses in school, and Carroll's send-up consequently was fresh and funny. Now it's sold as "nonsense verse," which is its only remaining literary value (though it's very good as nonsense verse, also). Weird Al, alas, is just as dead as "Casey" and Macaulay.

tl;dr: If your parents find it funny, it isn't funny any more.

ETA: Your kids are little, so forget twitter. Little kids usually learn their living parody from the school playground. "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."

Edited September 6, 2020 by Violet Crown

[Meriwether]

What I appreciate most about TTC is that it allows for a "no one right answer" approach. I plan on using the method with my little girls and picture books this year.

[Violet Crown]

4 hours ago, annegables said:

Thanks! This is so helpful, and it is good news to me. Up until about a year ago, I read almost exclusively non-fiction, thanks to AP lit in high school🤐. But in the past year, I have been rapidly trying to make up for lost time. And for several years I have been doing loads of read-alouds with my kids. My hope is that through exposure to lots of well-written books with interesting conversations around said books, that they can start to think about books more deeply than I did. 

A student who came to university having read plenty of fiction and non-fiction, but also drama and poetry -- having gone to see plays, musicals, and operas, both old and new -- knowing something of history and current events -- and having become used to thinking about how language works -- would be an English instructors dream, even if she had never taken a literature class or written a critical essay.

It's much easier to do, as I'm sure you're finding, if they see you enjoying reading.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Violet Crown
catastrophic participle failure

[Violet Crown]

1 minute ago, square_25 said:

Yeah, that going to plays thing is currently a bit.... out of reach 😞 . 

We've had to resort to home-produced drama, as the Victorians did. Also weekly recitals. Why else does one have children, if not for the entertainment?

[annegables]

6 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

(Addendum: I don't actually teach "Casey At the Bat," as it's completely dead as parody, consequent to the death of 1880's slang, sandlot baseball, and the gruesome practice of making small children recite Macaulay. Nor did I learn about parody from Lewis Carroll, but from Weird Al Yankovic.)

I have taught parody from Covid parody songs. And from Weird Al's version of American Pie.

[annegables]

2 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

A student who came to university having read plenty of fiction and non-fiction, but also drama and poetry -- having gone to see plays, musicals, and operas, both old and new -- knowing something of history and current events -- and having become used to thinking about how language works -- would be an English instructors dream, even if she had never taken a literature class or written a critical essay.

It's much easier to do, as I'm sure you're finding, if they see you enjoying reading.

I agree. Regarding the bolded, I swing too much in the other direction - I have neglected the demands of my children because of books:). I just asked my kid to hold off on showing me all his newly learned magic tricks because I just want to finish this chapter!!! 

Your first paragraph is encouraging. 

[ealp2009]

I have been looking at purchasing this for a while and this thread made be what pushes me to do it now.  What age would you said I could watch this with kids?   Thanks!