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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A David Foster Wallace Syllabus
(via UD.)
One of David Foster Wallace’s students posted the syllabus to his “Literary Interpretation” course. Before anyone accuses me of taking a morbid interest in the recently deceased, let me say this: people who write syllabi appreciate a fine syllabi, and this is a fine syllabi. Here’s the “BASIC COURSE SPIEL”:
The goals of this section of E67 are to survey certain important forms of modern literature—short stories, novels, poems—and to introduce you to some techniques for achieving a critical appreciation of literary art. “Critical appreciation” means having smart, sophisticated reasons for liking whatever literature you like, and being able to articulate those reasons to other people, especially in writing. Vital for critical appreciation is the ability to “interpret” a piece of literature, which basically means coming up with a cogent, interesting account of what a piece of lit means, what it’s trying to do to/for the reader, what technical choices the author’s made in order to achieve the effects she wants, and so on. As you can probably anticipate, the whole thing gets very complicated and abstract and hard, which is one reason why entire college departments are devoted to studying and interpreting literature.
From the “Caveat Emptor Page”:
(2) Your instructor has taught intro lit courses before, but not for several years, and never before at a college this selective. The upshot is that there may be a certain pedagogical clunkiness about this section of English 67. You will, in effect, be helping me learn how to teach this class. The level of our discussions may have to be adjusted up, or down, depending on how well-prepared you guys are and how quickly you catch on to the concepts and techniques of “close reading.” Certain approaches might turn out to be a waste of time. There may be abrupt changes in the syllabus. Extra work may be added. Let me say that again: Extra work may be added.
(4) Your instructor has high standards for the written work you turn in. Take another close look at Course Rules & Procedures Items 4 and 7 on page 3 of the syllabus. I know that many professors say this kind of hard-ass stuff at the beginning of the term but don’t actually mean it or enforce it as the course wears on. I, however, do mean it, and I will enforce it—feel free to verify this with students who’ve taken other classes with me. If you want to improve your academic writing and are willing to put extra time and effort into it, I am a good teacher to have. But if you’re used to whipping off papers the night before they’re due, running them quickly through the computer’s Spellchecker, handing them in full of high-school errors and sentences that make no sense, and having the professor accept them “because the ideas are good” or something, please be informed that I draw no distinction between the quality of one’s ideas and the quality of those ideas’ verbal expression, and that I will not accept sloppy, rough-draftish, or semiliterate college writing. Again, I am absolutely not kidding.
Comments
I wish I had the stones (and professorial support, not that I should be taken to mean that I don’t have that, because I’ve always lacked the stones) to enforce a policy like that in (4).
The condensed read: “I’ll teach you how to write, provided you already know how to write.”
I love how many professors—and Wallace’s tough-cop drag just highlights what was common practice at the two universities I’ve attended—pass the buck on teaching writing at the same time that they claim to be teaching writing: “Your high school teacher should have taught you all that stuff about sentences and grammar and organization and such.”
(Of course, it depends on what level this course is. It sounds like an introduction for majors, so I’m assuming it’s, like, second semester freshmen taking it.)
I take it you do mostly TAing, ben? Because it’s not that difficult to insert that kind of language into a composition syllabus—it’s just difficult to do it so well.
LB, you need to look at the syllabus itself. He’s basically offered his whole self up, and is saying if you don’t take him up on it and turn in subpar work, you’re in for a post-HS shock.
The language is the point of interest for me (and yes, TAing). I mean the policy.
ben, sorry if I sounded haughty there. I didn’t mean “TAing” in a diminutive sense, just wanted to make sure I caught the vibe of “I can’t set the policy in a large philosophy lecture, because I’m the TA, not the teacher of record” correctly. Composition classes are odd beasts in this respect, inasmuch as people who have no experience teaching are allowed to write syllabi full of whatever expectations they so desire. Good course directors curtail excesses, but that doesn’t change the fact that an undergraduate’s first one-on-one experience with a professorial type is often with one of my ilk with little pedagogical experience.
Wait, I meant “the language isn’t the point of interest”.
I took the Literary Interpretation course at Pomona back in 1964. I don’t even remember the name of the prof, but his attitude towards the course was almost exactly the same as Wallace’s. The syllabus may reflect an institutional tradition, though Wallace’s voice is unmistakably his own.