Tag: Literature

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 3

(photo by S.B.)

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 1

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 2

Image someone who works in a cement factory who meets 100 people every day who have made houses with their cement blocks. Or a restaurant in which a cook makes the food, then sits at the table and watches the customers eat the meal and comment on it.

That’s what teachers do – we have to face the recipients of our work every day. I always tell new teachers that they need to teach from their personality. You can walk into a class and decide to adopt a persona but if it’s not your personality, the “new you” is not going to last. Which is why I say that it doesn’t matter as much how you teach as it matters that you stay consistent and explain your reasoning, especially if you have to change your mind.

Students in high context cultures like Oman usually learn about behavior by observation, not explicit directives. When students are trying to understand an teacher, they value consistency because they are trying to figure out what the teacher is doing and why. Acting the same way and keeping the same rules day after day makes for a calm classroom.

My second suggestion is to always keep on top of the paperwork – after a major assignment is due, write down the names of students who did not hand it in and make a quiet comment to them in class so there can be no future arguments about what was turned in or not.

Also, in terms of class management and assignments, I recommend teachers make statements, not ask personal questions. Some teachers like to put students on the spot and ask questions such as “Why are you talking?” or “Why did you come late?” or “Why didn’t you turn in your paper?” To me, this opens up all sorts of unpleasant options such as a student saying a relative died or a cheeky, “I wanted to.”

If students are talking when they should be listening, reading or writing, then it’s good to ask “Do you have a question” or “Is something not clear?” to help get students back on track, but “Why are you goofing off?” is not helpful. If it’s an issue of class management, a flat statement is usually best: “Please come to class on time.” If it’s an issue of a student not doing work, again a flat statement lets the student know you have noticed the omission without getting details of the student’s personal life.

If a student is way out of bounds, I sometimes use. “What on EARTH are you DOING?” which focuses on the action, not the reasoning and since not all students know the idiom, it can create a moment of confusion which stops the action and allows me to refocus the class back to our work.

Lastly, if a student is upset and the problem is unsolvable, distract them. Change the topic so they can focus on the future, not get stuck in an escalating situation. For example, if a student did badly on the midterm and wants a new exam or for you to change the grade, start talking about the next assignment, stressing if they do well on the up-coming work, their grade will improve.

Staying consistent, keeping an eye on students who are doing poorly, making statements and distracting angry students means a peaceful atmosphere in a class and fewer explosions.

For example, I accept papers up to one week late (with a late penalty) and on the last possible day to submit, I always check my grade book before class to see who might need to still give me a paper. In one course only one student hadn’t done the assignment, so in class, I walked by their desk and said quietly, “You haven’t given me the assignment.” Then I stood and looked at the student until they responded by nodding.

Months later, 10 days after the course ended and two days before the final exam, this student came to my office with a few papers stapled together and said, “This is the assignment. I did the work but you didn’t accept it.” This is a situation in which I could have said “that’s not true” but the basis of the student’s speech was fear of failing the class. So I addressed that aspect, not the lying.

I briefly explained again my policy about accepting late work and reminded the student that I had checked with them in class on the last day they could have submitted. Then to change the focus, I took a piece of paper and wrote out the grading scale for the class, adding in the student’s grades so far and showed that if they did well on the final, they could pass the class. The student was not happy but I avoided a long, angry discussion.

When the student was ready to leave my office, I said, “You can’t get a grade for what you wrote, but if you want me to check it – I will read it now and give you feedback so if  there is a mistake, you won’t make the same problem on the final exam.” Saying this is a good way to make peace by showing that you want to help the student and it’s often a check on the student’s intentions. If they took the assignment seriously, did the work themselves and want to do well on the final, they will hand over the work and let me look at it. If they got the work from another person, my comments won’t help them and they will not show me the paper. That student did not show me the paper.

My last point is that, if it works with your personality, using humor is often very effective in Oman. Omanis have a great sense of humor and respond well to joking. It can be an helpful way to get your point across, but have a back-up plan ready.

For example, I am very consistent that I should never see a phone in class – phones need to be inside a purse or pocket or set face-down under the chair. I say this during the first few classes, then in the 2nd or 3rd week, if I see a phone I act like I saw a snake and yell, “OH NO! What’s that?” as I back away in horror. Everyone starts looking around to see what I am pointing at asking, “What? WHAT?” Then I point and say, “That black thing there!” They realize I am pretending to be scared of a phone and laugh while the student puts the phone away.

Or if I see a phone I cover my eyes and yell, “OH NO! That hurts my eyes!” Again everyone looks to see what’s wrong, then laugh when they realize it’s the phone. And they understand that I will always react when I see a phone.

After the 3rd or 4th week, I say, “we have talked about the no-phones rule, now if I see a phone, I will take it and put it on the front table.” Then if I see a student is looking at their phone in class, I walk by and quietly say, “give me the phone.” If the student tries to put in their purse or pocket, I shake my head and say, “No, you have heard the rule – either you give it to me or you can walk up and put it on the front table. Your choice.”  Then I do not move from their side until they give it to me to put on the front table or they have put it on the front table themselves.

If they refuse, then I say quietly, “Your choices are leave the class, give me your phone or put it on the front table.” I have never had a student refuse at that point, but if they did, I would say, “I am marking you absent,” then I would walk to the front of the room, mark the attendance sheet, then continue to teach the class, ignoring that student.

To me, it’s important to avoid anger and “no-win” situations. Using humor saves me from having to say over and over “no phones.” After I do a fake scream two times, everyone knows to look for who has a phone out – and everyone knows that having their phone on their desk means they are going to get negative attention.

Talking quietly and giving students a choice of “give me the phone or you put it on the front table” allows them some privacy and autonomy over what happens. (They can take the phone from the desk at the end of class.) Yelling and/ or saying “give me the phone” is too public and direct.

Sometimes I am told that I am “babying” students but taking away their dignity is never going to create a positive learning environment. I want to uphold the class rules in an equal and fair manner which allows students to concentrate on learning.

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 4

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 1

first of a series of essays about teaching in Oman

Overview

The idea that the “right way” to teach is the way one was taught is very deeply ingrained. When I do orientation sessions for new teachers, I am sometimes surprised that, while teachers know that there will be many cultural differences when they move to a new country, they occasionally expect that students will behave exactly as in their home culture.

The result is that teachers can get caught in tough binary of thinking: either I have to accept this unwanted behavior or the students have to change. This might lead to misunderstandings, then escalate to anger on both sides. When I suggest that teachers make small adjustments, the response is often, “so I have to let students get away with this wrong behavior?”

No, I think teachers should have control of their classrooms, but insisting on creating your own (foreign) culture in an Omani classroom is not possible. Small adjustments can create a positive classroom atmosphere by taking in account local understandings.

For example, when students come late to class in some cultures, they should knock on the door and ask permission to enter. In other cultures, students should apologize and explain why they are late; another scenario is that students enter quietly without speaking to or looking at the teacher. When a teacher from a culture in which apologies are expected is confronted with Omani students who simply walk in and sit down, they can become annoyed and call out to the student.

This may create a problem as the student might feel unfairly persecuted for being made the center of attention. As students have explained to me many times, “students feel shy if the teacher makes all the students look at them.”

In talking about situations like this, I recommend teachers write their late policy on the syllabus, on-line teaching program and announce it in class, then talk to the student after class about the penalties for coming late. In one conversation with a teacher who was confronting this issue, they said, “But the student needs to apologize to me! You are telling me that I should allow them to be disrespectful!”

This reminds me of the Rita Mae Brown quote, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Asking for student apologies for weeks on end and getting angry when an apology is not forthcoming doesn’t help the teacher, the students or the classroom atmosphere.

Allowing students to come in late without noticing them, then enforcing a specific penalty saves time and prevents frustration. Talking to a student at the end of class permits the teacher to continue the forward momentum of the lesson. And if the student starts to dispute about the penalty, the fact that it is time to leave the classroom gives a natural break to the argument. A teacher can say, “I am happy to discuss this more but now I have to teach another class. I will be in my office at 1pm.”

Culture and Pedagogy

When thinking about education I consider the most helpful definition of culture is that it encompasses the objects, actions and beliefs of a set of people who are grouped together by both themselves and others. When I teach classes specifically on culture, I always emphasize to students that they belong to many sets, hence many cultures. For example, a woman might be within the categories of student, sister, Muslim, Omani, artist, daughter, member of her tribe, resident of her neighborhood and that each set carries within in emic and etic expectations of actions (behaviors), objects (for example, clothing) and beliefs.

I have lived in five different countries and what often happens is that locals consider that manifestations of their culture, both simple (what’s the usual time to eat lunch) and complex (what are the steps to getting married) are lucid and natural. On the other hand, a newcomer might be bewildered and confused about how to navigate even easy tasks such as giving a proper greeting or writing a memo.

In Oman, foreign teachers need to both try to understand Omani cultures and be clear about the implicit and explicit effect of their background, experiences and education. It might be self-evident to a teacher that of course work can be turned in up to a week late, but students might believe that work might be submitted weeks or month late. Hence the articulation of expectations is vital when trying to minimize misunderstandings.

The “Third” Option

What I call the “third” option means finding a middle way between a teacher acting exactly as if they were teaching in their home country and allowing students to make all the classroom decisions, which might be antithetical to good learning practices.

The comment I hear often is that “students need to change” but often the issue is cultural perceptions. Sometimes when I suggest that teachers need to adjust I hear comments such as “So I should let students be rude?” or “I should let them do what they want?”

The answer to those questions is “no” but, to me, the most important issue is creating an effective learning environment, not recreating the exact behavior that teachers are accustomed to at home. Attempting to reconstruct another culture inside an Omani classroom will probably leave teachers and students equally frustrated.

Another way to look at this is to remember that that your decisions are in your hands; what is not in your hands is other people’s perceptions and reactions to your choices. You can say I am doing X action for Y reason and this choice means that I am Z. But that might only work among people from your culture; there is no validity in saying that all people must understand that X action means Z. In another culture, X might give a meaning of A.

In one teacher’s culture, a student talking back is seen as rude; but in another culture it can mean the student is positively, actively participating in creating meaning. In one culture, students not looking teachers in the eye is considered polite, in another culture it is rude.

For example, Omani students might ask for a mock exam. In some classes that is a good idea but in other classes, perhaps the teacher doesn’t think it’s necessary which makes students upset. This can lead to situations in which the teacher doesn’t think a practice exam is useful, but gives one to keep students quiet. Or the teacher refuses and the students complain later that their low score was the result of not having a practice exam.

The solution is teachers can make a few, small changes by addressing the root of the problem, thus restoring classroom balance and positivity. Students often ask for a mock exam because they are scared about exams, especially if it is the first class with that teacher. Students may have had teachers who changed the date of the exam, put a new style of question on the exam or asked about topics that hadn’t been covered in class. If teachers look at the issue in terms of ‘my students are fearful’ instead of ‘my students are rude,’ solving the dilemma becomes easy.

When I am getting students ready for my poetry midterm, I literally draw a rectangle on the whiteboard with a series of 10 squiggly lines, one underneath each other. Then I say, “This is what your test page will look like, these lines are a poem, one of the poems we studied in class, but you won’t know which poem.” Then I draw a few more lines underneath spaced a little apart and say, “These are the questions. they will not be true/ false or multiple choice. You have to answer in a complete sentence. You won’t know which vocabulary words will go with which poem. For example, for ‘Skylark’ the questions might be about the narrator, setting atmosphere and finding a metaphor. Or the questions might be about the characters, exposition, rhyme scheme and diction.”

Then I say, “I don’t know how many pages there will be but this is what the vocabulary question pages look like. At the end of the exam there will be questions to compare and the poems to compare will be in the text will be included. And there one or two questions of analysis, for example I will give you two poems and ask you which one is better and why.” If a student again asks for a mock exam, I go through the entire small speech again.

I am not advising to give or not give mock exams. My advice is that when students start to clamor and insist that they don’t understand, explaining something clearly, then repeating the exact same words is often effective. Omani students may show fear in ways that can be read as anger or disrespect; when teachers respond with annoyance, the classroom atmosphere can deteriorate. When teachers show that everything is in hand, for example that they know exactly how the exam will be set up and are willing to share that information, students can stay calm.

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 2

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 3

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 4

Teaching Literature and Staying au courant – The Man from Nowhere and the Ancient Greeks

There is a profound joy in introducing students to classic texts. I am very grateful that I have spent so much of my working life among the splendors of ancient Greek plays, Romantic Era poets, Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde.

And I am happy that as I teach I have gotten better at choosing classics which speak to my students, from 20th century writers such as Tawfiq al-Hakim to more modern writers such as Mohammed Al Murr and Badriyah al Bashar. And it’s fun help them get over the newness of Moushegh Ishkhan, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Ryszard Krynicki, T’ao Yuan Ming, Tomas Tranströmer and Wisława Szymborska.

When I start the poetry class, I know that there is at least one student will be blown away by the Cold Mountain poems, Basho, Mary Oliver, Naomi Shihab Nye or Fowziyah Abu-Khalid. Someone will fall in love with  “Embroidered Memory” by Lorene Zarou-Zouzounis; someone else will champion “About Mount Uludag” by Nazim Hikmet.

It’s a delight to read familiar lines and see how students relate to familiar characters. Who is going to defend Ismene this semester? Who will argue on Creon’s behalf? Who is going to laugh when Patty in Quality Street talks about her hopefulness?  If we read Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, who will my students pick as the one who deserves Chris – Kitty, Margaret or Jenny?

At the same time, it is good for me to be in the position of not knowing, to remember how it feels to be confused by a text. I became a better teacher after I spent two summers studying Arabic in Muscat. Sitting in a classroom as a student, panicking when a teacher asked me a question I did not understand, studying for a test and waiting anxiously for my grade made me more understanding of my own students.

So I try to seek out new texts to read and, perhaps, use for teaching. I scan shelves in bookstores and ask friends for suggestions. Since I don’t know Spanish writers, I asked a friend who has expertise and, following her suggestions, found “Marta Alvarado, History Professor” by Marjorie Agosín and “New Clothes” by Julia Alvarez, as well as “Tula” and “Turtle Came to See Me” by Margarita Engle.

Over the past few years, I have realized that I few students are into K-pop (BTS! Blackpink! Twice! NCT!) and so I decided to dip a toe into that cultural tradition.

The easiest way to start was movies so I duly looked at “top 10 Korean movie” lists and rented The Man from Nowhere (2010). One review mentioned that it was similar to Léon: The Professional (1994) in that it involved a young girl who is taken in and protected by a hired assassin. I thought knowing the plot would help me but there were a lot of differences, making the movie both interesting and confusing. For example, the ending surprised me. At the end of Léon, the girl is re-enrolled at her boarding school and she finally plants the small tree that she has been carrying around with her, symbolizing that she is now rooted.

At the end of The Man from Nowhere, the anti-hero asks the police for one favor and he brings the young girl he has been trying to protect back to her old neighborhood, goes into a small convenience store and buys her some composition books, writing supplies and a back-pack. Then he asks her if she will be ok. She nods, they hug and then he turns to go back into the police car.

I stared at the screen in astonishment. “That’s the end?!?” I wondered. Her father left long ago, her mother died at the start of the film, the girl was kidnapped and brutally treated for weeks, and now, with a few stationary supplies, the girl is now alone and supposed to take care of herself?

Over the next few weeks, I watched a few more and was astounded by whole new levels of plotting. It often feels like I am watching several movies at one: Assassination (2015) has freedoms fighters betrayed by team members (shades of Guns of Navarone), funny but doomed killers (shades of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and twin sisters on opposite sides of an immense cultural, educational and temperamental divide (a grown-up, super spy equivalent of the Parent Trap).

I am often bewildered as I try out comedies, historical fiction and modern thrillers such as The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), Masquerade (2012), The Villainess (2017) and War of the Arrows (2011).

It takes a lot of concentration to understand each movie, not because of the sub-titles but the  work of trying to create new templates and figure out new tropes. How can I visually tell the difference between good guys and bad guys? Is the behavior of this woman showing that she is good or bad? Does this style of house indicate that the owners are rich, poor, old-fashioned or trend-setters? Is the meal the characters being served haute cuisine or everyday fare? Is this behavior normal or odd?

Sometimes it is good to be lost.

Conference presentation: Bringing Language Teaching into Literature Classrooms

Bringing Language Teaching into Literature Classrooms, Dr. Marielle Risse

English Scholars Beyond Borders International Conference, Dec. 4, 2021

Outline of ‘Bringing Language Teaching into Literature Classrooms’

1 – Introduction

2 – Choosing texts

3 – Teaching strategies

4 – Short lessons

5 – Assignments

6 – Examples: “July” by John Clare and Philoketes by Sophocles

Introduction

The title of this conference is crossing borders and that is a good metaphor for discussing literature and language teaching because it’s easy for a language teacher to cross the border between disciplines and become a literature teacher. Language teachers read books, poems and dramas and understand the concepts of genre, narrator, metaphor, connotations, etc.

But for a literature teacher to cross the border in the opposite direction and become language teacher is much more difficult. I can tell you from first-hand experience that a literature teacher in a language classroom is a miserable and lost creature.

I studied German and French at university so I am well acquainted with the grammar of those two languages, but in English – explaining the difference between when to use the present simple and present continuous? Rules for doubling consonants when making a present participle? Forming nouns off of verbs by adding ‘y’? Conditional clauses? When I have to teach a grammar class and explain ‘count’ vs. ‘non-count’ nouns or the present perfect or when to use ‘for instance’ instead of ‘for example’ – painful!

But I need to do some language teaching in all my literature class. When I walked into my first Middle Eastern literature classroom at the American University of Sharjah more than 20 years ago, I had students from 15 countries with varying levels of English. I had to blend some language information into my discussion of texts so I made a series of changes in my teaching.

In this presentation I want to explain how I teach literature differently with English major students than with literature majors, concentrating on four main areas: choosing texts, teaching strategies, short lessons and assignments.

Choosing texts

I have several publications on how to choose appropriate texts for literature classes and my main point is that it is vital to pick a text that students can connect to in some way as they are already fighting language and sometimes cultural difficulties and differences.

Dickens has written many classics, but his diction is difficult and the recurrent theme of a child cast out from the family, in novels such as Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and David Copperfield, create hurdles for understanding and appreciation.  

Whereas, my students have really enjoyed Beowulf’s and Sir Gawain’s lessons about protecting one’s leader and staying loyal to one’s family.

For Shakespeare, I choose the accessible plays such as Much Ado about Nothing, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry V with selections from King Lear and Macbeth. Not Julius Caesar or Merchant of Venice.

As 99% of my students are female, for other dramas, I often pick ones with interesting heroines caught between conflicting duties such as:

  • Alcestis, Euripides
  • Deanira, Sophocles
  • Antigone, Sophocles
  • The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
  • Lady Windemere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde
  • Arms and the Man, Shaw
  • Quality Street, J.M. Barrie
  • Our Town, Thornton Wilder
  • Princess Sunshine, Tawfiq Al Hakim

In terms of fiction, I use Jane Austen, Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence and Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier to spark class discussion.

Teaching strategies – using scaffolding to create a strong foundation

reading aloud – every class, every student reads to improve pronunciation and enunciation

  • poem – one line
  • fiction – one sentence
  • drama – one character’s words

comparing narrative structures

For example, I give students the first page of an autobiography from an Omani writer and from an English writer and ask them to work in groups to figure out what is similar and what is different. English writers usually have exact dates, list full names of family members, give specific place names etc., while local writers give more general impressions. This leads to a discussion of how cultures tell stories and give opinions differently

comparisons with Arabic

  • using the evocative O = ya
  • starting sentences with verb, often used in Arabic but in English = command or question

Short lessons

word attack/ word meanings

  • homonyms – prey / pray – bear / bare
  • teach prefix/ suffix/ root – Latin and Greek – like: auto-bio-graphy

explicit grammar

e’en – ‘Tis – apostrophe for missing letter

explicit teaching of archaic speech

  • thou, thee, thy, thine
  • ye, yon, yonder, yore
  • -th ending for verbs like thinketh

explicit metaphor teaching

  • color metaphors – I’m blue, he’s yellow, I’m green
  • animals – monkey, positive and negative
  • objects – the moon (positive in Arab cultures, negative in North America/ Europe)

Assignments

recitation

helps with pronunciation, enunciation and emotion

acting

helps students use the language in a natural way

with so many essays on the internet, make assignments which check for understanding and are personal

  • compare character to someone you know
  • have a conversation with a character
  • explain the drama or novel with a friend, your mom, your husband and write a short paper explaining what you agree and disagree on – my mom thought…

supporting opinions with proof/ evidence to help get ready for IELTS and standardized English exams

‘Some people’ or ‘everyone’ vs. I think Alcestis made the right choice because I think…

Two examples

1 -teaching grammar, vocabulary and literary terminology through poetry

“July” by John Clare

Loud is the Summer’s busy song,

The smallest breeze can find a tongue,

While insects of each tiny size

Grow teasing with their melodies,

Till noon burns with its blistering breath

Around, and day lies still as death

…

The cricket on its bank is dumb;

The very flies forget to hum;

And, save the wagon rocking round,

The landscape sleeps without a sound.

The breeze is stopped, the lazy bough

Hath not a leaf that danceth now;

  • topic students can relate to – hot weather, sleeping in the middle of the day
  • metaphors and simile – Summer’s busy song, day lies still as death
  • alliterations – sleeps without a sound
  • expand vocabulary – breeze, tiny, melodies
  • double meanings – bank and dumb 
  • grammar – hath, danceth

2 – picking an interesting text so that students want to read and discuss

Philoketes by Sophocles        

This drama is based on one of the stories from the siege of Troy. On the way to Troy, the soldier Philoketes is hurt and his wound does not heal, so he is left on a desert island by Odysseus. After ten years of fighting against Troy, Odysseus is told that the Greeks will never win Troy without Philoketes and his magic bow so Odysseus goes back to the island,

Odysseus tries to play a trick, he stays hidden and tells a young soldier, Neoptolemus, to find Philoketes, become friends with him, and then convince Philoketes to allow Neoptolemus to hold the bow – then Neoptolemus will run to the boat with the bow and they will sail away, leaving Philoketes stranded.

The play works well because:

1) a lot of suspense – Will Odysseus’ trick work? it seems to, but at the last minute, Neoptolemus tells Philoketes the truth

2) themes of forgiveness and trust – Should Philoketes forgive Odysseus for leaving him on the island for 10 years? Should he trust that Odysseus will bring him back to his country?

3) connection to Omani society – The dilemma is solved when Hercules appears and tells Philoketes to get on the boat, that he will be safe. This highlights the importance of mediators, a very important part of Omani cultures; when two people are at an impasse, they should look for someone older/ wiser to both give advice and guarantee correct behavior.

(photo by S. B.)

Related publications

Risse, M. “Teaching Paired Middle Eastern and Western Literary Texts,” in Advancing English Language Education. Wafa Zoghbor and Thomaï Alexiou, eds.. Dubai: Zayed University Press, 2020. 221-223.

Risse, M. “Ok Kilito, I Won’t Speak Your Language: Reflections after Reading Thou Shalt Not Speak My Language,” in Octo-Emanations. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2020: 233-236.

Risse, M. “Teaching Literature on the Arabian Peninsula,” Anthropology News website, October 7 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/10/07/teaching-literature-on-the-arabian-peninsula/

 Risse, M. and Miriam Al Sabbah. “Don’t Be Afraid of the Novel: Austen for ESL Students,” Proceedings of the 16th Oman International ELT Conference. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2017: 28-35.

Risse, M. “Writing Prompts to Facilitate Creativity and Interesting Texts,” Proceedings of the 15th Oman International ELT Conferences. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2016: 46-52.

Risse, M. “Selecting the Right Literary Texts for Middle Eastern Students: Challenges and Reactions,” in Focusing on EFL Reading: Theory and Practice. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2014: 165-188.

Risse, M.  “Frosty Cliffs, Frosty Aunt and Sandy Beaches: Teaching Aurora Leigh in Oman,” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 43.4, 2013: 123-145.

Risse, M. “Who Are You Calling ‘Coddled’?: ‘Cloistered Virtue’ and Choosing Literary Texts in a Middle Eastern University,” Pedagogy 13.3, 2013: 415-427.

Risse, M. “Do You know a Creon?: Making Literature Relevant in an Omani University,” in Literature Teaching in EFL/ESL: New Perspectives. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2012: 302-314.

Risse, M.  “Using Local Voices in Literature Classrooms,” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives 9.1, 2012. http://lthe.zu.ac.ae/index.php/lthehome/article/view/71

Risse, M.  “John Clare Looks Good in a Dishdash: Linking John Clare to Middle Eastern Poetry,” John Clare Society Journal 30, 2011: 53-63.

Risse, M. “An Open Letter to Alice Walker,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Feb. 20, 2009: B11. http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20090220b/?pg=11#pg11

I am happy to announce that I will be presenting “Bringing Language Teaching into Literature Classrooms”

l will be presenting “Bringing Language Teaching into Literature Classrooms” at the English Scholars Beyond Borders – Dhofar University International Conference. Dec. 4-5, 2021.

My presentation will argue that in non-Anglospheric institutions such as Dhofar University, literature teachers will always need to be language and culture teachers. Given that many students on the Arabian Peninsula will use English when traveling or teaching primary or secondary students, texts must be chosen for their linguistic and cultural, as well as literary, qualities. I will use examples from teaching literature, cultural studies and education on the Arabian Peninsula for over 15 years to discuss how to create syllabi which reflect both the literary canon and students’ needs, with an emphasis on teaching multi-level classes and explicating cultural narration differences, as well as sneaking in language lessons. For example, folding language teaching into literature classes means both silent editing (such as not calling attention to spoken mistakes but repeating the student’s words with the correct pronunciation and/ or grammar) and short, explicit lessons. Lastly, it is vital to foreground cultural differences in plot, characters, settings and themes, in addition to narrative structures as an analysis of a literary text in English is expected to have the author’s opinion clearly stated with proof in the form of quotes and specific details, a format that Arabian Gulf students sometimes have not learned.

“Altar Smoke” by Rosalie Grayer

I wrote my dissertation on travel writing and, while some people keep a St. Christopher medal for travel protection, I look for travel poems. This is one of my favorites.

“Alter Smoke” Rosalie Grayer

Somewhere inside me

There must have always been

A tenderness

For the little, lived-with things

A man crowds upon his worn fistful of earth.

Somewhere inside of me

There must have always been

A love

Made to fill the square aggressiveness of new-cut hedges,

And feed the pursed green mouths of baby leaves;

A love made to understand

The way grass cuddles up to porch steps leaned upon by time,

And why dandelions nudge the stones along the walk;

A love for the garden hose curled sleeping in the noon hush,

Coolness trickling lazily from its open mouth,

For shingles starched and saucy in white paint,

And an old rake rusty with dreams of tangled grass and butterflies.

A love

for candle flames, like pointed blossoms on their ghostly stems,

And frost-forests breathing wonder on the parlor windows.

Somewhere inside me

There must have always been

An altar of hewn stones

upon which my love casts these–

burnt offerings–

To make a sweet savor

Unto my soul.

 

Continue reading ““Altar Smoke” by Rosalie Grayer” →

“If You Get There Before I Do” by Dick Allen

(photo by M. A. Al Awaid)

“If You Get There Before I Do” by Dick Allen

Air out the linens, unlatch the shutters on the eastern side,

and maybe find that deck of Bicycle cards

lost near the sofa. Or maybe walk around

and look out the back windows first.

I hear the view’s magnificent: old silent pines

leading down to the lakeside, layer upon layer

of magnificent light. Should you be hungry,

I’m sorry but there’s no Chinese takeout,

only a General Store. You passed it coming in,

but you probably didn’t notice its one weary gas pump

along with all those Esso cans from decades ago.

If you’re somewhat confused, think Vermont,

that state where people are folded into the mountains

like berries in batter. . . . What I’d like when I get there

is a few hundred years to sit around and concentrate

on one thing at a time. I’d start with radiators

and work my way up to Meister Eckhart,

or why do so few people turn their lives around, so many

take small steps into what they never do,

the first weeks, the first lessons,

until they choose something other,

beginning and beginning their lives,

so never knowing what it’s like to risk

last minute failure. . . .I’d save blue for last. Klein blue,

or the blue of Crater Lake on an early June morning.

That would take decades. . . .Don’t forget

to sway the fence gate back and forth a few times

just for its creaky sound. When you swing in the tire swing

make sure your socks are off. You’ve forgotten, I expect,

the feeling of feet brushing the tops of sunflowers:

In Vermont, I once met a ski bum on a summer break

who had followed the snows for seven years and planned

on at least seven more. We’re here for the enjoyment of it, he said,

to salaam into joy. . . .I expect you’ll find

Bibles scattered everywhere, or Talmuds, or Qur’ans,

as well as little snippets of gospel music, chants,

old Advent calendars with their paper doors still open.

You might pay them some heed. Don’t be alarmed

when what’s familiar starts fading, as gradually

you lose your bearings,

your body seems to turn opaque and then transparent,

until finally it’s invisible—what old age rehearses us for

and vacations in the limbo of the Middle West.

Take it easy, take it slow. When you think I’m on my way,

the long middle passage done,

fill the pantry with cereal, curry, and blue and white boxes of macaroni, place the

checkerboard set, or chess if you insist,

out on the flat-topped stump beneath the porch’s shadow,

pour some lemonade into the tallest glass you can find in the cupboard,

then drum your fingers, practice lifting your eyebrows,

until you tell them all—the skeptics, the bigots, blind neighbors,

those damn-with-faint-praise critics on their hobbyhorses—

that I’m allowed,

and if there’s a place for me that love has kept protected,

I’ll be coming, I’ll be coming too.

 

New essay: “Dâl” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website

Dâl is for Dinar

http://alifbatourguide.com/the-arabic-alphabet/dal/

Dâl is the fourth basic shape. We started with the shape of Alif (population one). Ba, with that simple plate shape, plus dots, gave us the second and least interesting of the shapes. Jîm was the mold for three or four additional letters. The Dâl shape marks the end of a series (with one companion letter to follow). The four shapes in sequence spell abjad. ابجد. ) .د .ج .ب .ا)

Dâl in its simplest form is just two lines which splay out leftward from a point usually at the base line. In calligraphy the upper line can be thick or thin, drawn with the full width of the reed’s edge, but it is almost always nearly upright, leaning at perhaps the 11:00 position. The lower line ramps down to the left, usually at a slight angle, perhaps 8:00.  From the Nabataean predecessor, an inverted L, Dâl has rotated not quite 180 degrees clockwise. More schematically, we can imagine it as simply two thirds of an equilateral triangle with the left side missing. Its Greek counterpart, Delta, adds the third side, to form the complete triangle.

Perhaps because it is a simple letter, in calligraphy there is room for considerable variation. It may curl up as it tapers. You may see the lower mandible almost join the upper one. There are lengthened versions which allow them to stretch out left in long, straight parallel lines.

The Arabic Alphabet: A Guided Tour

by Michael Beard

illustrated by Houman Mortazavi

Foodways and Teaching Culture

Food appears at unexpected times while teaching. I was discussing color metaphors (What does it mean to say, “she’s blue” or “he’s green with envy”?) and brought up “peachy” as a slang response to “How are you?” Then I had to stop to describe a ‘peach,’ not a common fruit on the Arabian Peninsula. I tried to triangulate as I know the Arabic words for orange and apricot but it turns out that no one in the class has seen a fresh apricot; they only know the dried ones. Getting the word “dried” straight somehow led to talking about how raisins are dried grapes and prunes are dried plums, but no one knew plums. So I tried to go by colors, looking around the class to see if anyone had ‘peach-’ or ‘plum-’ colored pen or notebook.

In one class we were confronted with the metaphor “chill iron,” so I did a quick run through the differences between chill (verb, to make cold), chill (verb, slang – to relax) and chilly (adjective). And then chili (similar to stew) and chili peppers.

Getting the vocabulary down is only the first step, as food interactions in stories almost always bring out cultural differences. Reading Peter Pan meant discussing that Mr. and Mrs. Darling were not horrible parents for leaving their children at home (and with a dog!) while they went out to eat. In Oman, children are almost always with their parents or relatives in the evening and would normally go out to dinner with the family.

Even my everyday actions spark conversations as bringing a cup of coffee with me to class and drinking it while teaching is not normal teacher behavior on the Arabian Peninsula. And I warn students that if they visit an American family, they will probably not be pushed again and again to eat. I tell them the story of one Arab administrator who, when he arrived at his host family in America, was asked if he wanted dinner once and only once. As he was expecting the offer to be repeated and food to be given to him as a matter of course, he refused. The Americans did not repeat the offer and he went to bed hungry.

This photo is from social media and I love it because the food in the back-left corner could be ‘read’ as pita (Lebanese  bread) rolled with processed cheese or fried bread with cinnamon and sugar depending on your cultural back-ground.

y - good morning

 

 

 

 

Foodways and Literature – Animal Poems

As I was looking for food poems last week, I realized how many animal poems I have taught and have written out a partial list below.

One starting place is the Mu’allaqa, most of which have many vivid descriptions of desert animals, for example in Imru al-Qays “Halt, friends” and Labid’s “The campsites at Mina.” Another group of early poems which feature animals are by the sa’alik poets; no one who has read Shanfara’s Lamiyyat (“Sons of my mother”) can forget the wolf metaphors.

“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Adrienne Rich

“Bear,” Valerie Worth

“Butterflies,” Fawziyya Abu Khalid

“Cat, Valerie Harper

“The Crocodile,” Lewis Carroll

“The Darkling Thrush,” Thomas Hardy

“Darwin’s Finches,” Deborah Digges

“December Snow,” May Sarton

“The Dromedary,” Archibald Young Campbell

“The Eagle,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“The Face of the Horse,” Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky

“The Gazelle Calf,” D. H. Lawrence

“The Goat Paths,” James Stephens

“The Horses of the Sea,” Christina Rossetti

“How To See Deer,” Philip Booth

“The Last Wolf,” Mary Tall Mountain

“Minnows,” Valerie Worth

“A Night with a Wolf,” Bayard Taylor

“Not Swans,” Susan Ludvigson

“The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn,” Andrew Marvell

“Pangur Ban,” unknown, Irish

“The Plaint of the Camel,” Charles Edward Carryl

“The Poet and the Moth,” Ahmad Qandeel

“The Raven,”  E.A.  Poe

“The Seal’s Lullaby,” Rudyard Kipling

“Sister Cat,” Frances Mayes

“Snake,” Emily Dickinson

“Snake,” Valerie Worth

“The Terrapin,” Wendell Berry

“To a Skylark,” Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Turtle Came to See Me,” Margarita Engle

“Upon a Snail,” John Bunyan

“The Vixan,” John Clare

“The War God’s Horse,” unknown, from the Navajo

“The White Stallion,” Abu I-Salt Umayyah

and many poems by Mary Oliver including “Ravens,” “Swans of the River Ayr,” “Turtle” and “White Heron”

More of her poems can be found at: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver

Short stories: “Pepsi” by Mohammad Al Murr, “A White Heron” and “A Dunnet Shepherdess” by Sarah Orne Jewett and all the Jungle Book stories by Rudyard Kipling