An approach to teaching modern British literature

Статья повествует об опыте преподавания английского языка на занятиях по домашнему чтению (на примере книг Барнса "История мира в десяти с половиной главах" и "Современные английские рассказы")

In this article I would like to share my experience of using two books for English teaching in the course of Home Reading - “A History of the World in 10V2 chapters” by J. Barnes (with 4th year students) and “Contemporary British Stories” (with 5th year students).

“A History of the World in 10V2 chapters” by J. Barnes is truly an extraordinary read in many respects. In the first place, it is written in admirable language, that is, a unique combination of registers ranging from highly colloquial to flamboyant. This fact is highly significant for teaching since students get a chance to develop their taste for various applications of English. Secondly, this book raises numerous challenging and controversial questions of philosophical, religious, psychological, political, social and moral value which is indispensable for upbringing and broadening your outlook. Julian Barnes is a writer with a highly distinctive voice urging you to look at the things you so long have taken for granted from diverse unpredictable angles, thus encouraging your critical thinking. Thirdly, the novel is ingenious in literary techniques used, its complex multi-voice narrative making the author’s arguments extremely thought-provoking and convincing and the book itself -literally unputdownable. It is largely due to the emotional key abruptly shifting from apocalyptical gloom to ironical absurdity of human existence.

So, no wonder students had mixed feelings about this book (we have recently finished it off). I would describe it as surprise and anticipation of what was to come next (while we were reading it) and careful thought upon completion. One girl told me that she liked “even” chapters more than “odd” ones because they deal with modern life. Nevertheless, each coming chapter apart from work on vocabulary involved discussion sessions stimulating analytical and creative thinking. Since a detailed account of these activities would take up too much space, below I shall try to highlight the main strategies that I’ve come to find suitable for using the novel in teaching process.

One of the definite advantages of the book is that it appeals to the reader’s background knowledge. Thus, one of the assignments I gave my students on the 1st chapter - “The Stowaway” was to find the biblical version of Noah’s Voyage and compare it with the one presented by J. Barnes. “The Visitors” (chapter 2) required an account of things the author supposes we know when reading. So, students used media reports and talks to their parents as a basis for thorough understanding of the brought up questions. Chapter 3 (“The Wars of Religion”) is a fabulous sample of satire in high-flown style and is, in fact, applied stylistics. Therefore, I set my students the task to compare the arguments by the defence with those by the prosecution using authentic language (the one employed in that chapter) along with consideration of ancient and modern trial proceedings in general. “The Survivor” (chapter 4) has very particular narrative techniques and we had to look for proofs of the story being a dream or reality on either side. Another thing was making a list of Kath’s critical remarks concerning humanity in view of damage to the environment and finding out whether and how her own actions contradicted her statements and beliefs. Chapter 5 (“Shipwreck”) is kindly supplied with a visual aid, hence the task to describe the picture with the help of the active vocabulary (from the chapter) alongside finding the rescue vessel in it (which is not as easy as it may appear). Equally exciting was listening to the students’ opinions of the picture to see whether and how they had been influenced by the background information. The 6th chapter (“The Mountain”) brings religious issues back into focus and therefore it initiated a discussion on the sources of belief and grounds for it. “Three Simple Stories” (chapter 7) turned out to be the opposite (especially if treated as a whole) and we attempted to concentrate on the ways of connection between the parts. The 8th chapter (“Upstream!”) is a curious piece of modern epistolary genre. It is full of informal English (both British and American) and tongue-in-cheek humour, so here special attention was paid to the language and register. “Parenthesis” is a beautifully composed ode to love, deep and exciting at every twist. A substantial part of it is made up of rhetorical questions and we had a discussion by way of agreeing and disagreeing with Julian Barnes on the points he makes. “Project Ararat” (chapter 9) was a slight disappointment as it brings us back to “The Mountain” though it is written in an original way resembling a Hollywood movie script. However, the final chapter - “The Dream” happened to be most comprehensive and complex - a treasure for thinking about the sense of life. No wonder we felt inspired to exploration and debate which was particularly memorable.

As the book is full of recurrent themes and in order to draw conclusions I offered an additional lesson. Each student was given a topic to report on and was supposed to prepare questions for their group members about the novel. Here are approximate subjects for such a session:

• •    Julian Barnes (biography, interviews) and his novel “A History of the World in 10V₂ chapters” (book reviews)

• •    The theme of religion in the novel

• •    Central themes in the book (life and death, survival, politics, subjectivity, love, etc.)

• •    Language and style of Julian Barnes

• •    What is History according to J. Barnes?

On the whole, the approach seems to be working though there are some difficulties I would like to mention. On the one hand, division of the novel into separate chapters-stories makes it convenient in teaching process. On the other hand, though most chapters are connected through some key words and echoes, at times it is not easy to see the correspondence between them. Finally, the hardest thing of all, from my point of view, is to combine purely linguistic work on grammar and vocabulary with the content and ideas - the balance which I guess remains open to discussion.

In fact, at our department we have teaching students text analysis on the syllabus. It comprises both linguistic and literary interpretation and, to my mind, can be successfully applied to any work of literature. So joining it up with comprehension, grammar and translation exercises may help to adopt a manifold approach. Below I would like to suggest an approximate scheme for a Home Reading lesson:

• •    a summary of the chapter/passage/short story including the essential background

• •    a short discussion of the subject matter;

• •    analysis of the language/style and emotional key;

• •    composition andforms of presentation;

• •    system of images and literary characters involved;

• •    the title and implications;

• •    the message.

Certainly, this is a most general structure, the stated items might overlap and often should be regarded in combination or a different succession but it can be used as a rough outline. Each of the above-mentioned stages may be supplemented with exercises to bring some aspect into focus, for instance:

• •    read out the passage and say whether you agree with .../and explain the meaning of .../and state how you understand the words .../and comment on .../and compare .../and express your opinion on .../and give the reasons for/why .../and prove that ...(exercises in comprehension and analytical skills suggest more w/zy-type questions rather than any other ones);

• •    translate the following passage into Russian using the same register/another register formal or informal)/paraphrase ...; find a

Russian equivalent for .../synonym/antonym/collocates for ...; comment upon the choice of words and sentence structure with regard to the content/mood, etc.