Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

At my uni an English course was graded with two essays and an exam. Your exam was averaged against your grade for the two essays. It was Romantic poetry, which I loved reading but throughout the course I wasn't quite getting it. After two essays I was sitting on a B+. During study for the exam I did my usual routine, hit up the criticism big time, but I just wasn't "getting" Romantic poetry. Then I had a brainwave. I had three days to go, and I just dropped all the criticism books and decided to work only with the poems. I had twelve poems I had to be ready to write about. For three solid days I read nothing but the poems, no criticism, just immersed myself totally in the words, so I was forming my own ideas about the work. When the exam came I could see each poem I was writing about in my mind in it's entirety as if burned there. I didn't follow any one elses critical approach, just reacted spontaneously. Words flew from my pen for three golden hours as if in a trance. I got an A for the course, which means the exam was a very high mark. It was the best academic experience of my life.

[Blue Flower]

It's good when it works like that. I remember once we were studying the "In Memoriam" poems, can't remember the poet. Anyway, we were doing one and we were talking about the cyprus in it, and to me it meant something, and I said "..blah blah.. cyprus..blah" etc, and the processor was like, "no. It means ...blah..." I thought *beep* you, you small minded, arrogant has-been professer. Poetry is all about my interpretation, not yours. Can you tell I'm bitter?

[Mr. Pink]

I actually wish there were more posts that had English Literature as it's theme.

Teaching such basic stuff, I feel I have lost 95% of what I learned in university.

Guess I am about equal now to Korean Uni grads

[waterbaby]

Lit was one of my majors too. I had the most wonderful little professor. He was from California but sounded like the Swedish Chef in the Muppets I had him for second and third year. He was so timid but had this wacky sense of himour and would often "chortle" during his lectures.

He didn't believe that one could truly assess one's appreciation of a novel through examinations... but had to conform to the university's requirements, but he did it in a rebellious way...

We would study four books and then take an exam on those 4 books (about every 4 weeks)... but they were open book exams and we didn't have to take the exam under his supervision... so my friends and I would hire discussion rooms in the library for 3 hour stretches and bounce ideas of each other and remind each other what colour Lolita's eyes were...

Ah, those were the days!

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

Sounds like a good course Waterbaby.

Mr Pink I agree. My uni days were the best of my life, and not just cause the drugs were cheaper and the women looser! For me, sitting in the library all afternoon soaking up the words was never like work. I did it a bit later in life which helped. But yes, I've lost a lot of it now. If you asked me to write an essay on a novel I would struggle, particularly with the critical terms.

In my heart of hearts I'd like to go back and do an MA Eng lit, and really get to grips with an author of my own choosing for my dissertation. I'd do Jack Kerouac, he's written 14 books and I've read them all. But the reality is that it wouldn't do anything for me career-wise, so MA TESOL online from U of Queensland is what it's going to have to be. I will make it interesting for myself. Linguistics is pretty interesting, and I'd love to be a grammar guru, but it doesn't compare to ripping into a really good quality novel or poem.