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>>I'm a teacher and I'm about to study this great novel >>with A level students. I'm looking for anything that >>could help prepare my courses. Many many thanks. > >These are just some wild thoughts on how I'd teach it. >(It's the way I usually approach classes with a new >book/film.) It's been years since I read the book, so >this will not be too specific. Any idea why you picked >the book? That should give you an idea of what might >be worth teaching them about. > >a) Let them read the book. > >b) Ask them about their impressions of either side of >the channel as presented in the book. What did they >think about it? Was it true, did it reflect their >experiences. Do they feel that Britishness or >Frenchness has been done justice? If so, where in the >text and how? If not, why? > >[Here you need to have ideas on what parts of the book >you want to discuss. Do you want to teach them about >French geography? Then pick a short story that >includes a lot of geographical names. Use this as a >background to start discussing that story. >If there are other aspects that you want to be >discussed in class, prepare yourself for any comments >in that direction and know the text down to the letter >in these respects. Pick up any student's comment that >goes into this direction and make it the topic of the >1st class. If you know your students a bit, you can >forsee some of the ideas that will be put forth, you >can plan these lessons accordingly.] > >c) Write down the central ideas of your students on >the blackboard. Let them chose the wording yet make >sure it's not arbitrary, but ordered in a way that >will result in a course. [Again, if you know your >students and have read the book, most central ideas >will be forseable. Some ideas can also be brought >forth with a provocative question.] > >d) Use these central ideas as the backbone of your >class. Feel free to move to other Barnes' text, e.g. >his essay in "Letters from London" on the Chunnel >(Froggy!Froggy! someting, don't have the book at hand >at the moment) to support some of his thoughts. > >e) Look at the language. Begin with words they don't >know. Let teams of them find such words and let teams >score a point if another team doesn't know the word. >(That shouldn't be too hard with Barnes, even if >they're A-Level. He regularly sends me to the >dictionary with some of his phrases. But then I'm >German, so this may not work at all for native >speakers.) Discuss why a writer choses words that are >so complicated/high register/unusual. What's the >effect? > >f) Open discussion: Barnes seems to know a lot about >France and the French. Do you think he likes them? (I >know, maby too obvious.) Why do you think so. > >Hope that helps, >Dr.Fanta

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