World Literature: Where's the Groove?

I didn't let myself think about next year's SILSA World Literature class until June 12, my last day of school. My new student teacher Melissa met with me all morning that day, and we started to think about what we might teach and how. I have limited experience teaching world literature, but teaching in a small school means I teach all the English classes at some point. It's easier for me to teach American literature. My heart, my soul, my body, my voice, all of those personal elements move to an American beat. As I consider this world literature class to come, I wonder, "Where's the groove?"

SILSA World Literature is paired with Civics and Economics. The Civics and Economics curriculum includes colonial American history, the Constitution, the American Civil Rights movement, and economics. Last time I taught World lit., the first half of the class focused on American literature that reflected the social studies curriculum. It was quite difficult to find the groove.

Another minor complication to curriculum development is that students in this class will be working for either English II or English III credit. The NC Standard Course of Study for English Language Arts is, thankfully, skills-based, so the goals and objectives for the two classes articulate quite well. In one high school class, I cannot do a survey of World Literature, so I have just a few weeks to find a groove that we can enjoy for the year, a groove that lets us experience some World literature selections in a way that feels coherent, not scattered, pleasant, not discordant. It seems easiest to consider a thematic approach.

Brendan, the Civics and Economics teacher, and I talked about my class beginning with a utopian/distopian novel. When I taught this before we used Lord of the Flies to discuss the role of government in society. We don't have copies enough for all of the students to read most of the following novels, but I am considering lit. circles: Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, The Giver, Gulliver's Travels, The Crucible. We might set the stage for The Crucible with some selections from Puritan American literature, all read/perform The Crucible together, as students read one of four of those novels listed. Also, I have considered (given SILSA's science theme, my love of science fiction, the thematic nature of the class, and the need for more contemporary "texts" but no money available for buying books) beginning each new thematic unit with a science fiction film. We don't have any copies of The Handmaid's Tale, so we might start with that distopian film. What lovely connections I could make to the Taliban and reviews of the contemporary work The 19th Wife, among others! When I think of it all this way, then I begin to feel a groove.

On that last day of school, Chad showed me a book by H. Lynn Erickson, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom. He has met with her when he did some work in Raleigh on some new approaches to social studies curriculum development. I had forgotten about his recommendation until this morning, as I have been wrestling with the bigger framework for this world lit. class. I ordered the book. I am hoping it will add to my understanding of essential questions and will help me build this class. I hope Lynn Erickson will help me find the groove.