Contemporary+Trends+in+American+Literature+Literature+Reflection

I took this class in anticipation of teaching AP Language & Composition starting this coming school year (2011-2012), and I knew that a broad, contemporary curriculum would not only help me be more knowledgeable about English literature, but it would also give my students the opportunity to learn about literature that is being written right now. I am a firm believer that a broad literary education will not only help students gain awareness of the wide world we live in, but it also shows them the changes in the “eras” of literature. I am already planning on implementing a contemporary literature section of each unit that I plan on teaching so that students can read, study, analyze and broaden their knowledge about what makes literature, literature.

One of the most rewarding things about this class has been my opportunity to be a student of literature again, and this is part of the reason why I wanted to go back to school. I missed reading literature that would challenge me and make me look my teaching differently, and I can definitely say that I’ve challenged myself and through this class, I’ve had my ideas of teaching writers who aren’t just dead and white validated, even though I’m met with resistance among some of my fellow educators. It is my hope that these teachers will see the excitement and curiosity exude from my students the way it did me this semester, and that they in turn will start reconsidering the value of contemporary literature.

I will say that while my research project was solely content & theory based, this type of project helped me rediscover my love for research as a whole – finding something that you’re interested in, looking for the pieces that connect your original idea, sifting through your findings, making all of your research fit together, and then creating your own niche in that same place. This was an invaluable experience for me because I have to teach the research paper to all of my juniors, and revisiting this sometimes frustrating process will help me empathize and better aide my students in their own research. I also discovered that as an American Literature based curriculum in eleventh grade, I could use post-colonialism to talk about some of the writing that is done after the Revolutionary War in response to America’s new independence from its colonial roots. Despite the common notion that high school students “cannot learn theory,” I’ve had great success utilizing snippets of theory in my classroom, and this is just one more theory that I can mold and shape to further my student’s success.

This class was intense – more so than I thought it would be – but it taught me some valuable lessons. 1) Take notes on everything that you read. Because my notes were so good for the stories we read, I didn’t feel like everything started to blend together at the end. 2) Don’t be afraid to change your mind. I had an entire page full of research ideas for my project, but once we read Louise Erdrich, I knew what I wanted to do, and that was after I had already started researching for two of my other ideas. If I hadn’t changed my mind, I probably wouldn’t be gunning for getting this essay published and maybe presenting it the next year of the Southern Appalachian Culture Series at GWU. 3) Trust yourself. I doubted my own analyzing abilities at the beginning of the semester based on other people’s responses, but then I looked back and realized that I was learning what I wanted to – I was learning for myself. This has been a huge change in mindset for me – doing and learning for me and not of what is required – and I must say that it’s made me a better student and a better teacher all around.