The HL class of eleventh graders are reading Hemingway Short Stories this quarter. This is the class that meets only once a week, so I'm picking stories that are short enough for us to read in class together. The likelihood of even a majority of the class reading the text on their own is very, very low, and I like the process of reading as a group. This group is so spirited, I love hearing their reactions as they read too.
It's been an educational experience for me as an international English teacher. Here's a summary:
Week 1:
We started with "Hills Like White Elephants," the only exposure to Hemingway I read in high school. I have almost no recollection of my reading experience of it, in 10th grade, but I remember the title well.
The story is about a couple sitting at a table outside a train station at a junction in Spain between Barcelona and Madrid. They order a few drinks and talk in a restrained, uncomfortable manner. They are talking about something which they never name, something the man refers to as "an awfully simple operation." He tells the girl, "It's not really an operation at all. I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in. I'll go with you and I'll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in then it's all perfectly natural."
You, reader, know exactly what this boyfriend is talking about. But we spent the entire period working out what this guy could be talking about. Some thought they were planning to run away. Others pointed out they were already "away." Some thought they were planning to carry out a suicide bombing attack. Others thought they were thinking of abandoning family. Even after someone said "Maybe they're thinking of having a baby" only one picked up on the scent and ventured that perhaps there already was a baby. S. said this very hesitantly.
I was frustrated that we didn't get beyond content and discuss any of the stylistic choices Hemingway makes, especially his choice to leave out so many details about the man and girl's relationship.
The best part of the class was during the reading aloud, when people would respond vocally with exaggerated sighs and groans of exasperation when the man said lines like "I don't want to do anything you don't want to do" or "I don't want anybody but you. I don't want anyone else." I asked them, once we started discussing, what they were reacting to - what are they thinking about these characters? In debriefing with Monica afterward, I realised this is where I should have started in the effort to coax them toward the abortion piece. I might have asked "What might couple be talking about if they're talking in this way? What do couples disagree about?"
Anyway, while Monica and I pondered their seeming lack of exposure to the idea of abortion after the class, Elaine came over and we told her what had happened. Elaine nodded, unsurprised. She has lived here for years and said, "Discussions of abortion never happen with men and women. It's not a discussion between couples. It's a discussion between female family members. They would not have recognised that setting as a possible setting where this topic would come up."
Oh.
I have been trying so hard this year to pick culturally appropriate texts for this class - this story represented one of my first major miscalculations.
Here's a link where you can listen to the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd93sbylF7k
Week 2:
Leaving "Hills" completely behind, we started with "Indian Camp," a story that packs a wallop. A young boy travels with his doctor father to a camp of Indians where the father operates on a mother who needs a C-section. The surgery is difficult and the woman is in immense pain. At the end of the story the husband of the pregnant woman, who has been lying in the bunk above her, is discovered to have committed suicide during the procedure.
What we tried this week was letting the students respond to the story immediately, before any feedback. We probably let them write for 12 minutes, and then had a handful of students read from or share about what they had written. I so enjoyed listening to their responses. I was impressed how many of them picked up on the degree of hardship implied by the sparse but revealing details about the Indians' situation. For example, L. noted that the Indians have very little, and are very poor, because they don't have soap.
"Those must boil," [Nick's father] said, and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap he had brought from the camp.
M. noted how much pain the woman must be in, though we never hear her voice. The doctor says he hasn't "any anaesthetic" and that "when he started to operate Uncle George and three Indian men held the woman still. She bit Uncle George on the arm and Uncle George said, "Damn squaw bitch!" and the young Indian who had rowed Uncle George over laughed at him."
Some of them were very frustrated that this was the whole story. "There's a difference between a story that leaves questions, and an incomplete story!" said M.
"I don't like it when the story doesn't tell me anything," said N.
I was glad Monica was in the class, and could offer her opinion, saying "I wrote in my reflection that I like stories that leave me with questions. There's something there that the author wants me to think about."
Tomorrow we're going to reread the story, and I'm going to ask them what details strike them as important the second time around, now that they know the suicide is coming. Then, I'd like to ask them what makes a story a story. This I might do by just picking up where we left off last week, and saying "Is this story a complete story? What is a complete story? What could Hemingway be telling us if he leaves us with just part of the story?"
I think these stories emphasise that all stories are incomplete. Any story I have of any of my students, for example, or of their families, or their existence, is incomplete. When I see someone on the street, the story I have of the is incomplete. When I hear someone having a conversation on the bus and am tempted to judge them, I pretend that the story I have of them is complete, while it's woefully full of holes.
The other way I might go about this, and it rather depends on the nature of the discussion, is to say "Would this be a story without the suicide?"
Here's a link where you can listen to the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8sgIu5G7LM
It's been an educational experience for me as an international English teacher. Here's a summary:
Week 1:
We started with "Hills Like White Elephants," the only exposure to Hemingway I read in high school. I have almost no recollection of my reading experience of it, in 10th grade, but I remember the title well.
The story is about a couple sitting at a table outside a train station at a junction in Spain between Barcelona and Madrid. They order a few drinks and talk in a restrained, uncomfortable manner. They are talking about something which they never name, something the man refers to as "an awfully simple operation." He tells the girl, "It's not really an operation at all. I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in. I'll go with you and I'll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in then it's all perfectly natural."
You, reader, know exactly what this boyfriend is talking about. But we spent the entire period working out what this guy could be talking about. Some thought they were planning to run away. Others pointed out they were already "away." Some thought they were planning to carry out a suicide bombing attack. Others thought they were thinking of abandoning family. Even after someone said "Maybe they're thinking of having a baby" only one picked up on the scent and ventured that perhaps there already was a baby. S. said this very hesitantly.
I was frustrated that we didn't get beyond content and discuss any of the stylistic choices Hemingway makes, especially his choice to leave out so many details about the man and girl's relationship.
The best part of the class was during the reading aloud, when people would respond vocally with exaggerated sighs and groans of exasperation when the man said lines like "I don't want to do anything you don't want to do" or "I don't want anybody but you. I don't want anyone else." I asked them, once we started discussing, what they were reacting to - what are they thinking about these characters? In debriefing with Monica afterward, I realised this is where I should have started in the effort to coax them toward the abortion piece. I might have asked "What might couple be talking about if they're talking in this way? What do couples disagree about?"
Anyway, while Monica and I pondered their seeming lack of exposure to the idea of abortion after the class, Elaine came over and we told her what had happened. Elaine nodded, unsurprised. She has lived here for years and said, "Discussions of abortion never happen with men and women. It's not a discussion between couples. It's a discussion between female family members. They would not have recognised that setting as a possible setting where this topic would come up."
Oh.
I have been trying so hard this year to pick culturally appropriate texts for this class - this story represented one of my first major miscalculations.
Here's a link where you can listen to the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd93sbylF7k
Week 2:
Leaving "Hills" completely behind, we started with "Indian Camp," a story that packs a wallop. A young boy travels with his doctor father to a camp of Indians where the father operates on a mother who needs a C-section. The surgery is difficult and the woman is in immense pain. At the end of the story the husband of the pregnant woman, who has been lying in the bunk above her, is discovered to have committed suicide during the procedure.
What we tried this week was letting the students respond to the story immediately, before any feedback. We probably let them write for 12 minutes, and then had a handful of students read from or share about what they had written. I so enjoyed listening to their responses. I was impressed how many of them picked up on the degree of hardship implied by the sparse but revealing details about the Indians' situation. For example, L. noted that the Indians have very little, and are very poor, because they don't have soap.
"Those must boil," [Nick's father] said, and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap he had brought from the camp.
M. noted how much pain the woman must be in, though we never hear her voice. The doctor says he hasn't "any anaesthetic" and that "when he started to operate Uncle George and three Indian men held the woman still. She bit Uncle George on the arm and Uncle George said, "Damn squaw bitch!" and the young Indian who had rowed Uncle George over laughed at him."
Some of them were very frustrated that this was the whole story. "There's a difference between a story that leaves questions, and an incomplete story!" said M.
"I don't like it when the story doesn't tell me anything," said N.
I was glad Monica was in the class, and could offer her opinion, saying "I wrote in my reflection that I like stories that leave me with questions. There's something there that the author wants me to think about."
Tomorrow we're going to reread the story, and I'm going to ask them what details strike them as important the second time around, now that they know the suicide is coming. Then, I'd like to ask them what makes a story a story. This I might do by just picking up where we left off last week, and saying "Is this story a complete story? What is a complete story? What could Hemingway be telling us if he leaves us with just part of the story?"
I think these stories emphasise that all stories are incomplete. Any story I have of any of my students, for example, or of their families, or their existence, is incomplete. When I see someone on the street, the story I have of the is incomplete. When I hear someone having a conversation on the bus and am tempted to judge them, I pretend that the story I have of them is complete, while it's woefully full of holes.
The other way I might go about this, and it rather depends on the nature of the discussion, is to say "Would this be a story without the suicide?"
Here's a link where you can listen to the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8sgIu5G7LM
No comments:
Post a Comment