23, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 3-3
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Reader Response
Margo Milleret
Dear Editor:
In response to your call to “talk to one another,” I would like to comment on your editorial and the article by Marva A. Barnett regarding the divisions between language and literature ( ADFL 22 [Spring 1991]: 7–11). Borrowing from Barnett's description, I have “literary training and inclinations as well as day-to-day language classes and enthusiasms” (7). My experience and my recent reading of Junior Faculty Development: A Handbook (1991), by Donald Jarvis, have shaped my thoughts on this subject.
The divisions that exist between those that work in language teaching, those that work in literature teaching, and those that work in both can be bridged through mote interaction and collegiality. But it will take more than that to bring about integration. My experience to date leads me to believe that (1) the divisions are institutional and therefore can be changed; (2) the tasks of both language and literature teachers are not just skill- or information-based (the what) but, more importantly, process-based (the how) and therefore similar; and (3) curriculum articulation and development can make the parallels between learning a language, refining it, and using it in other tasks (i.e., analysis of literature, business programs, etc.) obvious and necessary. By analyzing our teaching/scholarship environment and its relationship to our curriculum we can determine what should be done to change it and how those changes will be implemented. This is a more concrete method for producing integration than wishing for more collegiality.
I would suggest that the unfortunate divisions between language and literature have been reinforced by departments that divide faculty interests by assigning teaching loads in languages while requiring scholarship in literature. The “burden” of the language class is not only that it takes time to prepare but also that the investment in teaching does not serve as a scholarship opportunity. (Jarvis points to the classroom as an incubator of ideas for faculty.) Junior faculty feel relieved when assigned to advanced courses because they no longer have to live the split between classroom and scholarship interests. Departments and the university further institutionalize the separation by assigning higher status to literary scholarship/publication than to pedagogical research/materials. Clearly faculty must be encouraged to reconsider the validity of these institutional positions. Developments in pedagogy and second-language acquisition offer one source to aid this analysis.
As a result of research findings in pedagogy and applied linguistics, more and more teachers in the humanities are directing their efforts to reaching nor only the skills and information of their discipline but also the strategies necessary to be a better learner. Classroom teaching of critical thinking skills, reading strategies, and writing skills, among others, is common not just to beginning English and foreign language classes but to composition, introductory literature classes, and even graduate seminars. This growing emphasis on the process of learning has the power to unite language and literature teachers in a common need and goal. With more unity of purpose a language/literature department could rework its curriculum, showing how courses relate to one another and how they meet students' needs.
I am hopeful that harmony will come to our profession, but I doubt that it will come without an engaged effort at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels.
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
© 1992 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 23, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 3-3 |
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