2. require students to assess their knowledge about course content as they generated unique narratives about a specific work or issue; and

 3. help me better understand students’ learning processes and their ability to create connections between literature and culture.
Thus, the "Digital Curation Project" was established. Page does establish requirements for the multi-media project, but allowed students free reign on the topic of their choosing as well as the digital media that they could present their information on.

I think it’s interesting how Showalter starts with the skin of the novel when she begins teaching it, looking at the cover, title, and epigraphs first (88). That is a really interesting idea. I feel like I often do the titles at the end of the books when they often have more meaning since students know the story. I also thought it was interesting how Carolyn Heilbrun, a professor at Columbia, “believes that the best training for teaching fiction is writing it” (89). That is very much like how England is since students work on writing in the genres they are reading during each six-week unit. Teaching reading, teaching writing (and actually teaching speaking) are all intermixed; they build off and compliment each other. 

Jeff Nunokawa from Princeton explains how he wants to show students how “deep and interesting details they might dismiss” can be (89). I feel exactly the same when I’m teaching. It can be a bit of a problem because there is just so much in so many texts, and I want to show students everything! I could spend days on a short poem or a trimester on a book. There obviously isn’t time for that nor do most students have the stamina to stick with the same text for so long, but it doesn’t stop the fact that I am so excited to show them so much and for them to show me what they notice. Showalter explains something we all know (or learn as new teachers): “everyone who teaches the novel has to reach some compromise between breadth and depth, between history and intensity” (93). Finding that balance is the sweet spot, I think.

There were several great ideas in this chapter regarding teaching fiction. One was by Lisa Berglund who has students spend ten minutes reading eighteenth-century literature by candlelight and then writing by candlelight for ten minutes (93). Nadine Gordimer has students write down what July’s People take with them when they flee and then has the class analyze the themes that emerge from these details. Judith Jackson-Fossett has students identify the roles within Handmaid’s Tale and then explain which role they would choose if they had to (94). 

Furthermore, I enjoyed reading Showalter’s objectives and comparing them to my time teaching in England and my current position in Minnesota. Here are her course objectives: 

Finally, I found it interesting how Showalter structures her fiction classes in the same way that fiction is structured: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings. I absolutely love how she has students look at how a range of texts begin and how a range of texts end. I totally want to do that; it’s so good! I’ve always done it with a single text, but I haven’t had students look at, for example, the ending of every major text we read throughout the year. I am going to try to work that into the end of this academic year. 

Showalter concludes this chapter by saying, “The afterlife of teaching fiction is the conviction that our courses too are open-ended, cyclical, and that they will begin again, not only with our next semester, but also within the minds of the students who have become devoted readers” (102). 

Walsh explains that when considering The Norton Anthology of American Literature 1820-1865, “it is safe to assume that most students read only what they have to, leaving vast stretches of territory untouched” (106). However, when students have to look for a piece to include in the syllabus, they “read independently and actively, browsing in a way they rarely do if the teacher chooses all the readings” (107). When I thought about having students choose, my initial thought was that they will pick works that are short, easy, or ones they already have a pretty good knowledge of. However, Walsh notes that oftentimes it “turns out that the waters they [students] thought were shallow and still are deep and moving” (107). Wow! How true! I have found the same thing when I sit down and prepare to teach texts that I am already familiar with. I find that there is so much more in them than I ever even knew. In his course, each student (or group if classes are large) is responsible for helping to teach whatever text they chose. Similarly to what I have found with myself, Walsh explains how “research has shown that we learn deeply both not only when we actually teach, but also when we prepare to do so. A recent study showed that simply the expectation of teaching ‘enhances learning and organization of knowledge’” (109). As a result, the blank survey course helps deepen students’ investment and learning because of their ability to select texts and teach them to others.

Overall, according to Walsh, it is all about trust. This approach requires that we trust our students with the responsibility of co-creating and co-teaching a course. It also requires that we trust ourselves to tackle texts that we may not be as knowledgeable about. Finally, it requires that we “trust literature’s power to connect to students even before we offer our guidance to them” (112).