Why teach Romanticism?
For me, the best answer to this question is, 'Why not?'. This era presents young adults with some wonderful, rich texts that provoke varied responses about the world and the very confusing and beautiful human experience of this world. The prescribed texts enable students to look at Romanticism from a variety of angles, and I was pretty pleased to see a balance between gender perspectives too. My class and I enjoyed many lively conversations over a pot of tea and I hope you and your students do too!
The BEST place to start your Romantic journey is with the book 'Hey Nietzsche, Leave Them Kids Alone!' by Craig Schuftan. It was recommended to me by another English teacher on edmodo (I've forgotten his name, oops!) and I have to say, it made 'teaching' Romanticism so awesome. As a teenager of the '90s and alternative music lover in the early 2000s, I really appreciated the links that Schuftan makes between the contemporary musicians and philosophers/artists of the Romantic movement. I got copies for all of my students because it makes Romantic ways of thinking accessible for them and they really enjoy Schuftan's humour and writing style. My students enjoyed listening to the podcasts that he made for his 'Culture Club' segment on radio station Triple J. You can access them online, here.
The BEST place to start your Romantic journey is with the book 'Hey Nietzsche, Leave Them Kids Alone!' by Craig Schuftan. It was recommended to me by another English teacher on edmodo (I've forgotten his name, oops!) and I have to say, it made 'teaching' Romanticism so awesome. As a teenager of the '90s and alternative music lover in the early 2000s, I really appreciated the links that Schuftan makes between the contemporary musicians and philosophers/artists of the Romantic movement. I got copies for all of my students because it makes Romantic ways of thinking accessible for them and they really enjoy Schuftan's humour and writing style. My students enjoyed listening to the podcasts that he made for his 'Culture Club' segment on radio station Triple J. You can access them online, here.
How should you go about teaching Romanticism?
There is no definitive way of teaching Romanticism ... which is totally appropriate to the movement, right? I guess what I can say about teaching Extension English, is that the best way to teach it is to give the power to the students. There is SO much that has been written about Romanticism in the last two hundred years, it's literally impossible to become a master of it all. Moreover, as my students point out in the opening page of this website, there is no conclusive agreement on what constitutes Romanticism and therefore we must ask ourselves, 'What is this we attempt to become masters of?' So as is my current way of thinking about 'teaching', I just create projects that challenge my students into 'needing to know' more about Romanticism, a text or both ... by setting complex projects for them to work on as a team, I force them to take responsibility for their own learning. It's also heaps easier and more effective than me 'cramming' my head with 'knowledge' about the texts /era and then trying to fake that I'm an expert. I'm no Romanticism expert.
Assessment schedule:
I set five assessment tasks as part of the English Extension I course. Each of the tasks, as well as class tasks, contributed to the construction of this website. You'll need to click on the documents to understand the scope of this year-long project. (NOTE: Tasks 3 and 4 were examinations modeled on the final HSC examination.)
Assessment One - a research task.
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Assessment Two - creative writing.
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Assessment Five - representation.
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