{"id":507,"date":"2012-09-27T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T10:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=507"},"modified":"2012-09-27T12:58:01","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T10:58:01","slug":"how-much-reading-the-recurring-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/09\/27\/how-much-reading-the-recurring-question\/","title":{"rendered":"HOW MUCH READING?: THE RECURRING QUESTION <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of our Erasmus students at Edinburgh emails us the reading list for one of her subjects, a crash course on \u2018Scottish Fiction\u2019 (third year, I guess): <\/p>\n

Week 1. Introduction; extracts from Tobias Smollett, Humphrey Clinker<\/em> (1771) and James Barker, The Wonder of All the Gay World<\/em> (1749)
\nWeek 2. Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian<\/em> (1818)
\nWeek 3. James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner<\/em> (1824)
\nWeek 4. Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped<\/em> (1886); Catriona<\/em> (1893)
\nWeek 5. Eric Linklater, Magnus Merriman<\/em> (1935)
\nWeek 6. Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie<\/em> (1961)
\nWeek 7. David Daiches, Two Worlds<\/em> (1956); Muriel Spark, Curriculum Vitae<\/em> (1992)
\nWeek 9. Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting<\/em> (1993)
\nWeek 10. Iain Banks, Complicity<\/em> (1993)
\nWeek 11. Ian Rankin, Set in Darkness<\/em> (2000) and The Falls<\/em> (2001)<\/p>\n

12 volumes, passages from 2 more. Um!! Here is my own reading list for \u2018Scottish Literature and Culture\u2019 (2009-10), third\/fourth year, with 3 books, 4 short stories, and 1 film, for a 13-week course:<\/p>\n

1. Xavier Solano, El mirall escoc\u00e9s<\/em> (this is a 212-page essay comparing Catalonia and Scotland)
\n2. Short stories by A.L. Kennedy, Jackie Kay, Janice Galloway and Ali Smith, about 50 pages in total
\n4. Alasdair Gray, Poor Things<\/em> (1993), 336 pages
\n5. Ian Rankin, Let it Bleed<\/em> (1995), 360 pages
\n6. Danny Boyle, Trainspotting<\/em> (1996). Yes, the film. Irvine Welsh\u2019s novel was recommended reading.<\/p>\n

Of course, Edinburgh\u2019s course is for native speakers of English, ours are all for second-language speakers. Yet, here\u2019s the mystery: our students take courses like this one in Britain and when they return, worn out but happy, they throw at us these trying words: \u2018Oh, my! They do<\/em> make us read there!!\u2019<\/p>\n

As a second-year student I took an annual subject, \u2018Introducci\u00f3n a la Literatura Espa\u00f1ola de los siglos XVIII y XIX\u2019, for which I had to read more than 20 books, including long, long La regenta<\/em>. The teacher lectured weekly on a different text \u2013brilliantly\u2013 and I read non-stop even the Cartas eruditas y curiosas<\/em> (1742-1760) by Padre Feij\u00f3o. Amazing, really. There was no time for close reading and no dialogue at all between her and us, a huge class maybe 150 students. Revising for the exam with no clue as to what would be asked was some chore!! Yet, I remember that course fondly. (As fondly, mind you, as the courses in English Literature in which I was asked to read only 5 books but would read 15 more out of curiosity to complete my personal syllabus.)<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019m using 7 sessions to read Oliver Twist<\/em> with my second-year students, working under the impression that we\u2019ll only manage to scratch the surface, I wonder whether they\u2019d hate me horribly if I used an Edinburgh-style syllabus. In the elective \u2018English Theatre\u2019 I have already used, and will use again, 10 plays with no complaints whatsoever, though, yes, I know, this amounts to roughly 1,200 pages. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m still perplexed, no matter how hard I push my brain, by why students sent to Edinburgh accept (and love) reading so much. Unless, that is, I come to the uncomfortable conclusion that students see us, non-native teachers (or even native teachers) working here in Spain, as, well, not quite the \u2018real thing\u2019 but a kind of second-hand version of our British colleagues. Once in Britain (or in other \u2018serious\u2019 countries like Germany), surrounded by competitive peers and in the hands of teachers who simply do not care whether students are native or not, things must look very different\u2026 <\/p>\n

If it\u2019s that, or something else (maybe we\u2019re being too prudent?) I\u2019d like to know so that I can finally teach 10 Victorian masterpieces instead of just 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of our Erasmus students at Edinburgh emails us the reading list for one of her subjects, a crash course on \u2018Scottish Fiction\u2019 (third year, I guess): Week 1. Introduction; extracts from Tobias Smollett, Humphrey Clinker (1771) and James Barker, The Wonder of All the Gay World (1749) Week 2. Walter Scott, The Heart of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,34,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-teaching-tools-and-rules","category-victorian-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}