Yesterday, my Chaucer class had its second day on "The Clerk's Tale." I'd put together a handout with passages to look at, and things to think about, finishing with looking at how the tale responds to "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale."
Let's just say that if it wasn't disastrous, it wasn't hugely successful, either. My students can't seem to remember the basics of what happened in the WoB's prologue or tale. I'd put suggested places to look on the handout, and also suggested they refer to their notes, but their notes seem remarkably skimpy overall.
I've now put them on notice that they have to be able to make connections between the various texts in order to do well, and I'll try to encourage that further in class discussion.
Count me: disappointed.
"Remarkably skimpy" seems to be the normal condition for students' notes.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the same thing in my American Lit Survey this week: trying to apply principles learned on Monday to Wednesday's reading was just about impossible, either because they hadn't done Monday's reading, hadn't paid attention in Monday's class, or didn't care.