Comments in Monday’s class regarding how one would engage students in Life of Pi as a whole got me thinking about the possibilities for teaching parts of this novel independently. As Brandon mentioned, the most action-packed aspects of the novel are contained from part 2 on. While I found myself picking out sections from part 1 as my “most compelling” passages, I can easily see how many students (especially those who are in an English class to satisfy a requirement, not a love of English) would find part 1 to be slightly “dry and yeastless”.
I ask this more as a question to the class than a concrete suggestion, but do you think it would be possible to teach on this book without requiring that the entire book be taken into account? While Pi’s reflections on the three faces of the divine come back and inform his struggles on the open ocean, are they necessary to the enjoyment of the story?
To teach the book from a thematic sense, surely that first section is vital. It lays the groundwork for his relationship with Richard Parker, the tension of dominance and subservience in the animal kingdom. It is in section one that much of the framing for the “right” story vs the “good” story comes into play, an idea that very undeniably comes back in the end and turns the entire narrative on its head. But speaking objectively, do you think students would be unable to understand these themes without this section one framing? I believe they could.
I’m loathe to advocate for chopping every novel into digestible morsels. But could it be possible that if you assign from section two through to the end at first read, and generate enough interest in the book as a whole through class discussion and engagement, perhaps more people would look to part one with interest? By piquing their curiosity with vivid discussions of how to tame a tiger, maybe they would open the book again from the beginning with joy, instead of plodding grimly through it at the outset, anxious to get to the “good” part.
Which raises a bigger question: where is our responsibility as an English teacher? Is it with the authors, to treat their books as whole and indivisible? Or is it to our students, to find the best ways to access their critical thinking and to kindle a passion for reading? I’m hesitant to start taking authors’ work to the chopping block, but I very clearly remember spending several classes on Macbeth and only glancing over whole sections, while spending days on his “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. Surely, if the Bard can be subjected to this treatment for the sake of student engagement, the idea ought to be on the table for other works as well.
Breaking a novel into “digestible morsels” without consideration of the whole certainly was not what I intended to advocate and if this is the impression that was given I should clarify. The idea of asking students to select striking and evocative passages is a way to identify key scenes within a given text that could yield discussion relevant to larger themes across the whole. The meeting of the three religious men, for example, does in fact signal a theme that extends throughout. So does the violence among the animals in the life raft. The question is whether we (teachers) take a top-down, didactic, approach (identifying themes across the whole and then pointing to passages that reinforce the statements of theme we’ve made), or a bottom-up, constructivist, approach (examining passages that readers identify as significant and contemplating why they emerge as significant and how they fit into the whole). The latter activity, in fact, reflects the way in which scholars of literature deduce theme in the first instance–by identifying aspects of a given text that support a particular reading and citing them in support of their arguments. (And I would argue based on my experience teaching literature that the latter approach is just as likely, if not more so, to reveal important themes as is the former. As Michael Wesch observes in the lecture to which I link below, the collective thinking of a group of people contemplating a problem is invariably bound to yield a greater number of interesting ideas and solutions than the individual mind working to solve the same problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s .)
At the same time, some passages readers select will have been identified because they are stylistically foregrounded and as such may not be useful as catalysts for discussion of theme. (Maill and Kuiken [1994] write about the influence of stylistic foregrounding on literary response and the tendency for readers to key in on passages that are highly stylistically foregrounded: http://cogprints.org/737/ .) Other passages might illuminate some aspect of character or setting. So the approach of asking students to identify key passages can provide a way into discussion of all important elements of fiction as they play out in a particular text.
I think I was the one that was unclear – I didn’t mean to imply that you were suggesting we chop up every book. Rather, I was just wondering if placing focus on (and only actively taking up) parts of this text might result in getting more students engaged in the work as a whole.
If you told a class, “For the first few days, we’re only going to be discussing sections 2 and 3”, they then jump right into the action-packed part of the book. Some students will read the whole thing right off the bat, but they probably would have anyway.
I just wonder if students that would have otherwise hated part 1 might look at it with more enjoyment after having gotten to know Pi and his voice through the adventure part of the narrative.
I had spoken in class about the possibility of teaching excerpts from longer literary works in the classroom as a potential teaching idea, and I would like to elaborate on that. Excerpts or abridgements are already commonplace. Dante’s Inferno often receives more attention than the rest of his Divine Comedy, and is often taught and read on its own. Other works, such as “The Intoxication of the Ulaid” from Ireland’s Ulaid Cycle, only exist as fragments; and yet are widely read nonetheless. Yet others, such as Le Roman de la Rose, is a single work that was written by multiple authors who did not collaborate, or even live at the same time.
As I touched on already; it is already fairly commonplace to teach excerpts. Teachers often show a single scene from a film as a supplement to what they teach. Teachers might make minor omissions to a text. My high school English teacher, for instance, omitted the “Eye of Newt” witches’ scene when we studied McBeth due to its uncertain authenticity, as well as its tonal and thematic dissonance with the rest of the (otherwise tightly plotted) play.
Even if we do teach an entire text, we often are still making omissions. Unless we teach something like Beowulf, chances are that we are likely to only be teaching one of several extant variants of a text. (And even Beowulf has multiple translations available). We saw in class that there are several editions of “Tyger Tyer” extant. In the 20th century, a paper manuscript for Le Mort D’Arthur was discovered, and a choice must be made which edition to use. A teacher might choose to study the original version of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, to expose their students to literature written by a teenager; even if it isn’t as widely read or regarded as the revised edition. Walt Whitman was famous for rewriting Leaves of Grass. The film version of Miyazaki Hayao’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is quite different in scope, tone and theme from his film version. The Extended Edition of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is quite different from the theatrical release, which is in turn different from Tolkien’s novel.
I can think of two important points to keep in mind. One is that any excerpt should be a self – contained and a satisfying literary experience on its own. An opening chapter, or a Shakespearian soliloquy are possibilities. A second is that teaching excerpts should not be seen as a replacement to teaching longer works, but as a supplelment. If a teacher feels that a book might not be teachable in its entirely, then they could easily teach portions of it; and teach a different longer work in its entirely instead. For example, if a class is studying McBeth, it might be interesting to compare the title character of that play to the title character of Richard III; as the plays both have notable similarities. One of Richard’s soliloquies could be read as means of contrasting McBeth’s character.
Also, as I mentioned in class, ESL students might benefit from this approach. They can be exposed to culturally significant passages from English literature (“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t”), while (hopefully) not overtaxing their language skills. We often communicate through allusion and metaphor, and if ESL students have an understanding of how and why we have these metaphors (rock and a hard place Scylla and Charybdis; cross the Rubicon Caesar, triva tri via; “three way” meaning sign posts on intersections of roads in Roman times, etc.) If students can learn about why we have these metaphors, and the stories behind them, the English language (and by extension any second language) will seem less obtuse.
Serve PI by the slice. Yes. Then we should slice up another few pieces of literature and make a new constructivist work highlighting similarities in theme across the works. New pie from lots of different works. Remix culture is here and books in e-format will make this easy. Take the beginning of ‘The Beach’ and substitute it for the opening of PI, finish up with some Gulliver’s travels.
Think of it as a poetry ‘cut-up’ a la William Burroughs, for the novel. Once you can select text electronically, you can cut and paste and remake. Creation is the highest of Bloom’s revised taxonomy. And it is so much fun.
When you start to think about this idea in depth it can present a lot of things, or activities. Take the cut up idea for example, why not take two sets of dialogue from two works and do a cut up to make something new. Then you can talk about how dialogue is written.
The possibilities for discussing how a novel is structured are also very interesting. One way to get students thinking about structure is to get them to order by time, a book that is written in post modern way, one that jumps about. By cutting and rearranging the text, by physically deconstructing it in the most literal sense, they will understand how author’s make choices.
So remix away. Be the first of your friends to try the new fad. More fun than a hula hoop I promise.
This response is offered by a class member who wishes to remain anonymous:
“I appreciate you making concrete the idea of “bottom up” and “top down” approaches because it helps me to know “how” to start teaching a novel like this. That is what I am unsure about and what to know. For example, if I had to make a unit plan right now on this book, how would I do it?
Everyone is talking about chopping up the book into pie slices even after your post. Its just discussion I know but I’m trying to consolidate some tools that I can use to teach. Chopping out the boring section of the book is not helping me to think about this novel in a positive or plausible way for teaching.
I have read tons of novels, now I want to know how to pick one up and start to teach it. Where do you start? Whats important? What is not important to cover? My natural approach is usually top down which is semi-problematic if you’re not making sure the students understand.
In other words, for the sake of getting too wrapped up in a novel, to where your making little things matter that are too much or over the top….How do we navigate students through a novel? If I had a telescope pointed at this text, when would you zoom in and then pull out, etc? What are some things to keep in mind while we are doing this, because there is no one set way of seeing a text? What are the tools to approach a non-fiction like this? What are we discusing, why are we discussing and where will that bring us to or how can we learn from the text?
I am NOT asking for definitives. I am just asking for some strategies when I approach a non-fiction novel, from the moment you read the author’s name, to the time you read the media comments at the end. Regardless of whether the first section will bore students or not, I think any novel can be taught, so how do I do that without chopping and making mince meat pie of the book because people don’t know what to do with a boring section. That seems to be the problem. Many people do not seem to know what to do with the boring section. They dont know how to teach it. Well, neither do I per se . . .
For example, what has me interested in the novel right now is the color “orange”. I can make a list from the beginning of all the things that are orange in color. I started picking this up before the novel stated, “orange…what a good Hindu color”. For wahtever reason that peaks my interest. Is this something to take your entire high school class down? A discussion on the color orange? As a graduate student I am thinking, “wow, this is neat” but for a grade 9 student? You understand what I am saying right? There is nothing wrong with KNOWING flexible parameters and that is what I am trying to sort out for my high school students, (not 4th year literature students or graduate students).”
While I think it would be possible to teach Pi by its individual sections, I would not do so. I was surprised to hear that the first section was so poorly received by the high school students and also by this class. I find the first section to be essential to a full understanding of the text because it is so rich with teachable themes that interconnect. So in response to relysem’s question “do you think students would be unable to understand these themes without this section one framing?” I would say not fully.
One of the major themes that I found compelling and that I would love to explore with students is Anthropomorphism. I would like to explore the ways in which we socially construct the lives of animals both wild and domesticated. Within the first section of the novel Martel sets up the romanticized notion of the wild animals life as “simple, noble and meaningful” (17). I want to explore the social and cultural significance of this belief and I feel without the aid of section one this type of exploration would not be as meaningful.
Through the character of Pi, Martel troubles this socially constructed idea as evidenced through his interaction with his boat mates. We see the digression of beliefs (vegetarianism) to an egotistical need for survival (the relief of the animals not himself dying) to outright reversal in becoming the predator. I would like to bring this transgression into a current and relevant context by bringing in some other texts which would allow students to see these ideological beliefs at play in real life. Additional texts could include – a short passage from Fast Food Nation, where a rancher directly challenges the myth of a wild animals life being largely without conflict. I would also show some clips of various Disney movies showing the ways in which we become neutralized into romanticizing animals. We could also explore the issue of how the role of villain is often ascribed to a racial (human) identity. I would explore what the significance of this would be in terms of issues of class and power. For instance in the Lion King, the hyenas are racially identified as ‘black’ through their mannerisms and voice. While this type of anthropomorphization is not directly apparent in the novel, it is still a part of our cultural knowledge and can influence how we approach a text.