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"I totally bet she planned this..."
Feb. 14th, 2011 06:41 pmSo: students. I loves 'em.
My Valentine's Day plan--because of course I am the type of teacher who has a Valentine's Day-specific class planned--was Tennyson's In Memoriam. I thought it might be too sad--dude has the market CORNERED on sad=love--but then I thought, "Whatevs, self. They're teens. They're, like, biologically constructed to dig Tenny's version of uber-emo love."
It turns out I was right! They ARE the target audience (when I selected only a few excerpts from the poem which makes me--a Victorianist through-and-through--blanch at the length) and they DID dig the emo. So do I, to be honest. I mean, dig it, peoples:
I'm not gonna lie--that has hearts around it in my Private-Students-Will-Never-See-Or-Mock edition.
Then, when I had them in groups to compare Tenny's section 59 ("Come Sorrow -- live with me and be my wife") with the Marlowe we read a week ago ("Come live with me and be my love/ and we will all the pleasures prove...") and THEN comparing both to how they themselves feel/act about love---theeeeeen I overheard a student say, "This is a lot of stuff about love." Another student responded, "I totally bet she planned this."
STUDENTS. I WANT TO SCRUNCH YOUR CHEEKS SOMETIMES.
My Valentine's Day plan--because of course I am the type of teacher who has a Valentine's Day-specific class planned--was Tennyson's In Memoriam. I thought it might be too sad--dude has the market CORNERED on sad=love--but then I thought, "Whatevs, self. They're teens. They're, like, biologically constructed to dig Tenny's version of uber-emo love."
It turns out I was right! They ARE the target audience (when I selected only a few excerpts from the poem which makes me--a Victorianist through-and-through--blanch at the length) and they DID dig the emo. So do I, to be honest. I mean, dig it, peoples:
I hold it true, what'er befall,
I feel it when I sorrow most,
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Then never to have loved at all.
I'm not gonna lie--that has hearts around it in my Private-Students-Will-Never-See-Or-Mock edition.
Then, when I had them in groups to compare Tenny's section 59 ("Come Sorrow -- live with me and be my wife") with the Marlowe we read a week ago ("Come live with me and be my love/ and we will all the pleasures prove...") and THEN comparing both to how they themselves feel/act about love---theeeeeen I overheard a student say, "This is a lot of stuff about love." Another student responded, "I totally bet she planned this."
STUDENTS. I WANT TO SCRUNCH YOUR CHEEKS SOMETIMES.
