Teaching Nineteenth-Century American Literature in Britain
BrANCA is publishing materials for teaching nineteenth-century American literature in Britain on its website. Teaching nineteenth-century American literature in Britain involves particular opportunities and challenges. Students in the British education system may well encounter less American literature than textbook writers realise, especially in the wake of the government’s May 2014 decision to drop American texts from the GCSE curriculum (see Sue Currell’s post). The structure of the U.K. undergraduate curriculum is different than in the U.S., with fewer modules, fewer options, and more opportunities for a shared body of knowledge. Nineteenth-century American literary studies is not just a static foundation for contemporary literature but a field that has undergone many substantial and provocative changes to its key authors, texts, genres, movements, and theoretical frameworks, and teaching can attend to these developments in innovative ways. Finally, the nineteenth century is no longer the most recent past, and new strategies are needed to convince students that the literary and political issues raised by nineteenth-century texts persist today.
Our first eight teaching statements can be found on the Materials page.
If you would like to share your teaching material, please send statements of research-led teaching of nineteenth-century American texts from any level of the university curriculum. In statements of up to two A4 pages (i.e. they can be very brief), please identify the module by institution, course of study, and module tutors, and include a list of literary texts and/or theoretical/critical readings. Narratives of pedagogical strategies that worked well for these materials are welcome. Modules may be focused on nineteenth-century US texts or put those texts in dialogue with literature from other periods or geographical locations. Please send a Microsoft Word document (one per module) to Stephanie Palmer (stephanie.palmer@ntu.ac.uk), Hilary Emmett (hilaryemmett@gmail.com), or J. Michelle Coghlan (j.michelle.coghlan@manchester.ac.uk).
Teaching Nineteenth- Century American Literature in Britain is compiled with help from Nottingham Trent undergraduate intern Farhaan Patel. A Nottingham Trent University Institute of Learning and Teaching seedcorn grant funded his work.
BrANCA is publishing materials for teaching nineteenth-century American literature in Britain on its website. Teaching nineteenth-century American literature in Britain involves particular opportunities and challenges. Students in the British education system may well encounter less American literature than textbook writers realise, especially in the wake of the government’s May 2014 decision to drop American texts from the GCSE curriculum (see Sue Currell’s post). The structure of the U.K. undergraduate curriculum is different than in the U.S., with fewer modules, fewer options, and more opportunities for a shared body of knowledge. Nineteenth-century American literary studies is not just a static foundation for contemporary literature but a field that has undergone many substantial and provocative changes to its key authors, texts, genres, movements, and theoretical frameworks, and teaching can attend to these developments in innovative ways. Finally, the nineteenth century is no longer the most recent past, and new strategies are needed to convince students that the literary and political issues raised by nineteenth-century texts persist today.
Our first eight teaching statements can be found on the Materials page.
If you would like to share your teaching material, please send statements of research-led teaching of nineteenth-century American texts from any level of the university curriculum. In statements of up to two A4 pages (i.e. they can be very brief), please identify the module by institution, course of study, and module tutors, and include a list of literary texts and/or theoretical/critical readings. Narratives of pedagogical strategies that worked well for these materials are welcome. Modules may be focused on nineteenth-century US texts or put those texts in dialogue with literature from other periods or geographical locations. Please send a Microsoft Word document (one per module) to Stephanie Palmer (stephanie.palmer@ntu.ac.uk), Hilary Emmett (hilaryemmett@gmail.com), or J. Michelle Coghlan (j.michelle.coghlan@manchester.ac.uk).
Teaching Nineteenth- Century American Literature in Britain is compiled with help from Nottingham Trent undergraduate intern Farhaan Patel. A Nottingham Trent University Institute of Learning and Teaching seedcorn grant funded his work.