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Updating how we teach (French) literary movements.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Our students who increasingly appear daunted by literature can benefit from understanding that the definition of literary movements presents a challenge for established critics just as it does for them. This article presents pedagogical strategies with a ludic twist that involve students directly in the conceptualization of literary movements, thereby moving them away from rote learning toward critical thinking.

Introduction

Defining literary movements has always been a shifty business. Scholars have long been acutely aware of the resistance to definition of even the most 'established' -isms.[1] Yet undergraduate literature and culture textbooks tend to support a more static view of periodization through the use of timelines, charts, indexes and/or a chronological organization of chapters by period. Courses with titles such as 'Problems in Periodization' are generally reserved for the graduate level. An inclination to gloss over or deemphasize these difficulties in undergraduate courses may reflect a well-intentioned attempt to render literary study less intimidating in order to offset declining enrollments in literature courses. Nevertheless, as instructors we must 'h'emain concerned about implementing a curriculum to train students in the necessary skills of critical and creative thinking" (Stivale 1). I believe that an explicit focus on the problematics of defining and conceptualizing literary movements not only helps students to develop these skills, but may even lessen the intimidation factor by showing students how literary movements are essentially artificial constructs rather than set in stone. The activities presented below were developed for a course in French civilization, but may be adapted to literary studies in other languages.

It's in the Cards

All literary and artistic movements share the same fate: they end up on index cards, an -ism on the front; dates, names and adjectives on the back. Students generally like to make index cards; the discrete items are reassuring, particularly in the daunting realm of literary studies. They can offer the cards as proof that they have studied, and isn't that really what the teacher wants? For those teachers who instead want students to think, it can be disheartening to see the content of a course reduced to a pile of index cards, however accurate, detailed, or brightly highlighted in neon they may be. Indeed, in retrospect, some of the better teachers I had pointedly avoided labels, and yet many -isms still made it onto my index cards (much the same as one finds mnemonic devices and verb charts scribbled on language tests by students no matter how committed one may...

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