Introduce myself to my cohort (Homework assignment)

(This post is the first homework assignment, which I have to share via a link. The suggested newsletter editor, smore.com, is not functional on Palestinian internet, apparently!)

Very excited

…to teach English Literature to high school students

This is at Maktesh Ramon, a crater a few hours south of Jerusalem.

It is very warm here in Ramallah as I write this. I have all the shades drawn and the fan on, though the air is stubbornly sluggish. I can hardly imagine how this city’s (and many others') residents will withstand the physical stress of 30 such days, without food or, astoundingly, water, starting Tuesday, for Ramadan. 

Last year during Ramadan I was amazed to see how life as usual continued in the city streets. People continued to walk around, taxis peeled around as usual, windows down in the dust, people calling to one another as they bought colourful pickles from street side bins; everything carried on with what seemed to me the same fervor as ever, all without a drop of water to cool the jets between 3:50 am and 7:49 pm. 

My primary source of fascination and education since I’ve been here, however, has not been the city, or Arab or Muslim culture, or even Arabic language (at which I'm still hopeless). I’ve been fascinated by the high school students that I’ve had in class, and the literature we have studied together. Truly, studied together, because I didn’t choose the syllabus, so part of the challenge has been staying ahead of them and figuring out how I want to engage us in the text. 

I’m quite excited about what happens in a classroom when the students create their own meaning around a text. That is not to say that they ignore the story that’s there, but they allow their experience and their context to influence how they understand the text. 

I’ve enjoyed asking students what they think about a text before telling what’s impressive about it; having them create role plays about the themes of the text before reading the story; asking students, when reading drama, what they think will happen next.

On another hike, this one near Ramallah, with Monica, a
very significant teaching mentor for me.

I am drawn to the literature classroom because of its dynamism. I taught two sections of two different courses, and got to see how the composition of the class, as much if not more than the culture of the students, influences a class’s reading of a text. 

Some classes develop affection for certain characters, or follow certain motifs more closely. One class took it in stride when Lady Macbeth is pronounced dead - they seemed to have been expecting it. The other class was completely up in arms and carried on for minutes: “Miss! What? She died? When? How did that happen? She died? MISS!” 

My undergraduate degree is in economics, so literature was a new direction for me (since high school at least), but it’s grabbed me by the back of the neck, and I feel quite infatuated. 

I am curious to see how working with American students is different from working with students for whom English is a second language. I look forward to meeting you all!