Day One of American Lit. I --Taught by Donald Ross

On Wed. Sept. 3, 2008, I sat in on Donald Ross's first day of EngL 3005: Survey of Am. Lit. and Cultures I (to 1850). I had asked him previously if this was OK, and he had no problem with me attending whenever I wanted. I wanted to see how he conducted his first day to compare to my own first day. In a follow-up post, I will describe how I usually do my first day.

EngL 3005 at the University of Minnesota enrolls approximately 150 students. If I'm counting correctly, these 150 students are broken into 6 recitation sections of 25 students each, and 3 teaching assistants each teach 2 recitation sections per week. Donald Ross handles the lectures, which meet twice per week, 12:45 to 2:00 p.m.

Donald began directly with the course syllabus, which includes the reading schedule. He stressed that he teaches literary works in their contexts, so the course--and probably primarily the lectures--will stress history. He also pointed out that for some writers, he put questions in the reading schedule to help students guide their reading. He reviewed what 4"x6" card quizzes were. He mentioned that information on the two course papers--one short and one long--would come in 2-3 weeks. And he finished with what he calls the "fine print"--all the policies set up by the University and the English Department.

He then jumped right in to the historical background, beginning with maps to show how much the Europeans knew about the Americas, beginning with about 1502. He began with Spanish explorers but soon switched to English explorers and explained why and how the course will deal mostly with English-language writing and the East Coast.

He then plotted a timeline on the board and asked for a few dates from the class. Aside from these questions, there was little class participation thus far. He began the timeline with about 1340 and ended it with 1865.

From there, he began his lecture on Hawthorne's novel, The House of the Seven Gables, which will begin the course. During this time, since it was the first day after all, he pointed to and read specific passages from the Preface and Chapter One of the novel, and followed those readings with his own commentary and explanations. The goal behind all this was to create a list of major themes for the novel, which also, incidentally, will appear later on as major themes for the course.

All in all, an interesting and engaging first day--from my perspective. But, remember, I'm a teacher of American Literature as well! The girl next to me did doze off a few times, but for the most part, people around me seemed to be engaged and taking notes. About 15 minutes before the end, though, people were getting restless.