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.
--
Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
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