I tend to think if a student isn't performing the poem, she could just as well be reading a laundry list.  Inventories are full of historically valuable information.

I also have learned from my wife the value of dramatic motive and purposeful movement: these can make memorization much, much easier, and the recitation a much more engaging performance.  

But I too am going to straight performance, and I'm thinking of using the following categories:


skill in balancing meter / rhetorical rhythm against syntax  (which depends of course on deciding what is being said in a given performance)

expressive use of voice

expressive movement

skill in explaining the performance (this is like judging a student-directed scene & asking the director to explain choices)


One last thing.  I usually rate performances on some even-numbered scale (like 1-6, so I'm forced to decided whether the performance is fundamentally successful or not) and only assign grades when I have rated everyone.  That doesn't mean I make a perfect C (or is that B+?) centered bell curve out of every set of performances, but I certainly do compare students' performances to one another.  I also like to have students rating one anothers' performances (1-6 scale again) and I usually take those ratings into acccount.


Anybody thinking at all along these lines, I'd welcome your questions/suggestions for modifying & clarifying the above.  Thanks!

Joel



Joel B Davis
Associate Professor
English Department
Stetson University
421 N Woodland Blvd Unit 8300
DeLand FL 32721
386.822.7724
________________________________________
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of JD Fleming [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Teaching question: memorization or performance?

In my opinion, it depends whether one takes the view that the point of teaching people this stuff is to give them facility with a certain set of cultural/aesthetic objects; or to open up for their intellectual consideration a certain set of subject-matters (issues, ideas, etc.). I take the latter view. So I don't do memorizing (or performances, for that matter). JD Fleming

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter C. Herman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, 30 June, 2009 13:26:51 GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: Teaching question: memorization or performance?

In my most recent Shakespeare class, I broached the idea of having
students do recitations, and I was met with howls of protest. This is
not something that all students, and unlike writing a paper, I cannot
say that it necessarily teaches them a skill necessary for getting
through life (a skill, to be sure, that will enhance their life, but
they are not always in a place to understand that). I compromised by
making this exercise optional: students could either write a
conventional paper, or they can do something creative, which included
acting out scenes, creating a children's pop-up book, several paintings,
and an episode of the Dating Game in which yours truly, middle-aged,
happily married, 2 kids, got to choose between Lady Macbeth, Lavinia,
and Katherine Minola. In short, I suggest making this exercise optional,
which I think will improve the average quality of the recitations and
gives students something of a choice in how they are evaluated.

pch

David Wilson-Okamura wrote:
> For the last nine years, I have made most of my students memorize
> poems (or, in Shakespeare, speeches) and say them to me during office
> hours. I don't repent me of that, but I have been wondering, recently,
> where most of the effort goes. I think it is into memorizing. I value
> that -- what started me doing this, actually, was Helen Vendler's
> statement in her Sonnets book that not being able to recall a poem in
> its entirety was, to her, a symptom of something missing from her
> interpretation. Also, I like the intimacy of learning something "by
> heart"; you can study it on a walk, in the shower, in bed with the
> lights out.
>
> The problem with memorizing is that students don't make progress --
> not at least while I know them. There are, as we all know, techniques
> for memorizing speeches and for improving one's memory, but they
> really are a separate subject. What I can teach in these sessions --
> again, all of this happens during my office hours -- and always wish
> that I had more time and (their) energy for, is meter. If students
> came prepared to give a dramatic reading of the poem, there would be
> more for us to _work_ on during office hours. We could make progress.*
> Also they would be less nervous.
>
> I haven't tried this yet, so I don't know if it is a good idea. What I
> haven't figured out yet is how to grade a reading as opposed to a
> recitation. Currently, I give Cs for getting through the poem, Bs for
> getting through it cleanly, and As for artistry. (Where does
> interpretation fit into this? I can usually hear it in a student's
> voice when he doesn't understand what he's reciting, so those are the
> lines I will ask him about.) As my colleague across the hall Tom
> Herron can attest, a C recitation isn't pretty to listen to! But even
> so, a fair amount of work goes into it, and if nothing else the
> student and I get to have a conversation, one-on-one, about a poem or
> speech that he or she finds interesting.
>
> So much for recitations. What would be a C reading sound like? Surely,
> it would need to be more than just verbalizing a sonnet on the page.
> Advice?
>
> * Where I do see progress now: students come to the second session
> much better prepared to discuss the meaning of what they have just
> recited. I.e., they have looked up all the words they don't know, or
> that don't _quite_ make sense.
>
>

--
James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University

"das Fragwuerdige zu sehen"