One of the masterpiece I have been meaning to read since my student’s days (but never got round to) is John Steinbeck’s monumental The Grapes of Wrath (1939). I love John Ford’s film adaptation of 1940, but I’ve kept on putting off reading the book. Sorry but Steinbeck is one of those authors that makes […]
My entry of 6 June 2012, about the poor results of the quiz on the handbook Introduction to English Literature which first year students must take, offended, I know, many students. Two sent furious comments, criticising me for publicising students’ mistakes (even though I did so anonymously, nobody was ‘outed’). A girl was particularly angry. […]
I have had a memorable birthday present as one of the guest plenary speakers of the third ASYRAS conference, celebrated at the University of Oviedo. This was intriguingly called “The Significance of the Insignificant in Anglophone Studies”, a title apparently inspired by Bergson. Very philosophical! I cannot sufficiently thank organisers Alejandra Moreno and Irene Pérez […]
A recurrent topic of conversation among us, teachers, these days (we’re marking tons of essays…) is that students seem to forget from one year to the next how to apply the academic skills we teach them. Even from one semester to the next. Let me explain myself: they need to learn in the first year […]
My thanks to the prospective students of the Harry Potter elective for their positive feedback, it seems I’m on the right track regarding the issues they expect me to raise in class. Now, this post refers to a problem that I’m having regarding this subject in particular but that can be extended to any other […]
As a consequence of a post I published here last Christmas I have finally embarked on the very difficult mission of teaching J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series next year. Yes, very difficult, believe me. Since the subject is formally ‘Cultural Studies’ I have decided to use the first few weeks for an overview of this […]
If I had a euro for every time a student has handed in an essay with no title, I’d be… in less fear of the current crisis. Not rich but possibly in possession of, say, a much better handbag. Actually, if I think about it, there are two variations to this problem: essays with no […]
In the last few weeks both my UAB and my UOC students have been learning (English) poetry. To my dismay and that of my teaching colleagues, even though we have insisted that they should NOT produce text commentaries and we have provided them with samples of the kind of argumentative essay we want to see […]
My colleague David Owen passes us, Literature teachers, two interesting links. Both refer to a recent critique of the usefulness of university lectures by Wikipedia’s founder: “Jimmy Wales: Boring university lectures ‘are doomed’” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22160988) and “Are university lectures doomed?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/05/debate-university-lectures-doomed-philip-hensher-john-mullan). The main gist of Wales’s argumentation is that increasingly popular online higher education will kill […]
The students’ Assembly of the Facultat asks us, teachers, to use some time this week in class to explain to students what worries us most about the current state of the university. I will do so tomorrow but I have also decided to leave here in my blog the snapshot of what things look like […]