http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/ball.howl.jpg
Jon Corelis wrote:
> A long time ago I read somewhere the following story, told by someone
> who had taught English at West Point.
>
> In the time of this story (I'm not sure if it's still the same,) the
> method of instruction at West Point classes was that the professor
> would call students in turn in class. The student when called would
> stand at attention and the professor would ask the student a question.
> When the question had been answered and discussed, that student would
> sit down, and the professor would call on another.
>
> Well, it seems that at one point the class were studying Keats's "The
> Eve of St. Agnes," and the professor, wanting to be sure that all the
> students at least understood the narrative, was calling on each of the
> students in turn, asking each of them to describe in their own words
> what was happening in the poem.
>
> About halfway through the class, the professor called on one student
> who stood to attention and said, "Sir!" The professor asked him to
> please tell the class, in his own words, what was going on in the
> poem's 23rd stanza. The student said, "Sir! As the woman entered the
> room, simultaneously a large South American mammal exited through the
> door, Sir!"
>
> The professor, unable to credit his hearing, asked the student to
> repeat his answer, and it was the same. "And how," asked the
> professor, "did you arrive at that interpretation?"
>
> "Sir!" answered the student, "I verified the animal's name in a
> reference book, Sir!"
>
> The first line of stanza 23 of Keats's "The Eve of St. Agnes" is:
>
> "Out went the taper as she hurried in ..."
>
>
--
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
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