I still own four of the textbooks I used in college: Investigative Reporting, The History of Journalism, and a two-volume set of the Norton’s Anthology of English Literature. The fact that I was a journalism major explains the first two. But those two volumes of the Norton have their own story. What those four books have in common is that I took those courses all in my sophomore year. You can do the math: my sophomore year was 1970 to 1971.
The vast majority of my sophomore class took the required English 55 and 56 classes – American literature. There was also another option – English 51 and 52, English literature.
No one took English Lit, except English majors. It was notorious for the rigor of its instructors, focused as they were on educating the next generation of English teachers. That’s who generally took the two courses.
I don’t remember why I decided to go with the English majors. I was in journalism; I was not going to be teaching English literature. I suspect it had something to do with T.S. Eliot, whose poetry I’d discovered in high school. Yet that’s not really an excuse; Eliot was also taught in the standard sophomore courses.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Thursday Readings
September Sunflowers – poem by Cameron Brooks at Rabbit Room Poetry.
Night Sky with Strawberry – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.
“There Was an Old Woman, Tossed in a Blanker,” nursery rhyme – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
No comments:
Post a Comment