It is the beginning of a new school year, and I am so excited to have all of you in class! If you are new, welcome to American High School and to English 4. This is a college-prep Western Literature course so you are in for a lot of classics, a lot of critical reading and writing, and more than one very fun project.
To start off this school year, I wanted to write about why we bother with all of this stuff. What is the work of literature, and why do we do it?
Literature is closely tied to philosophy - both disciplines explore what it means to be human. Where philosophers discuss the meaning of life and the condition of humanity explicitly, authors and playwrights do so creatively. This is both a good and a bad thing for us as academics - on the one hand, you have to do a lot of critical work to be able to derive meaning by reading between the lines. On the other, the stories are often fun, engaging, and trigger emotions enough to help you find that meaning. (Read more about catharsis.)
First of all, when I say "literature," I am referring to books that have survived the test of time because they do two things: they have enjoyable stories or a remarkable quality to the writing, and they have something important to say about "the human condition."
As long as humans have been writing stories, they have been asking questions - the same questions we often ask ourselves and the kind of questions that we handle in our communities. What is justice? What makes someone a good person? What is right and wrong? Why do we laugh? What is love? How can I cope with death? In fact, the oldest literature in the world is the Epic of Gilgamesh (which we will read an excerpt from!), and it follows a man who just can't stand the idea of dying. The fear of death is an essentially human experience, and by reading this story, we get to see how humans thousands of years ago answered it. And when we write about that literature, we become participants in a conversation that stretches back to the beginning of our species. Kenneth Burke called this phenomenon the "conversation of mankind." My goal is to make you an active participant in this conversation.
The other reason that we read literature is to develop academic skills. You need to learn how to read complex texts, write correctly, and think critically. I can tell you how to do these things, but that will never be enough. You need to practice - you need to read, write, and think enough that it becomes easy and intuitive. You need to be able to tell whether the article you are reading is insightful or biased. You need to be able to tell when that email your cable company sent you is not just inconvenient but in fact sinister and illegal. You need to be able to see through a politician's carefully-worded response to detect his or her actual stance before you vote. You need to be able to express yourself clearly and professionally to your professors, employers, and to your peers. Literature provides the highest-quality material for you practice with.
As you can tell, I love literature. I am passionate about its importance and excited about teaching it to you this year. If you also love literature, write me a response of about 200 words discussing your favorite piece of literature, what it contributes to the "conversation of mankind," and what you would add to that "conversation" from your own experience. If you do, I'll give you 10% extra credit on any assignment that you scored 65% or higher on already.
Welcome to class!
