Re: Learning/Teaching

[lady brown <YKFLB@TTACS.TTU.EDU>]

Denise,

You wrote:
>I may be the exception in my learning experience, but I have
become interested in many things that I had no desire to learn at the
time, but having been introduced to, became interested in (if not while a
student, then at a later time in life). . . . .I'm curious--when (and if)
you teach literature courses, do you try to only teach those
stories that you think students will be interested in?<

Of course, you are right that we may become interested in things
that we thought we had no desire to learn.  I think of my
Western Civilization professor when I was an undergraduate and of
W.G. Madsen when I was a graduate student taking a course in John
Milton at Emory University.  When I teach English 2301:
Literature before 1700, I make the selections--Beowulf, Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight (Riverside edition), Chaucer, Lear, and 
Paradise Lost. Why these?  I like the stories and the language and 
the concepts, and, being maternalistic, I think they are "good" 
for my students. Sometimes my love for these works inspires an interest 
in some of my students.

Lady Brown