So on Tuesday I sat in Dr. Allison’s 20th c. British Studies Course. I have Dr. Allison in Bibliography/ ENG 600, and thought it would be interesting to see if his teaching style differs at all in a strictly literature-based classroom. The classroom itself seemed to be in the same awful room where I observed Janice Oaks teach–the basement of Funkhouser–but the classes I observed in this room differed dramatically. Well, “dramatically” sounds too far-reaching now that I think about it.
Where Janice Oaks primarly facilitates discussion, Dr. Allison asks questions of students but primarily lectures. I remember the first day of class in Bibliography Dr. Allison looked down his roll sheet and abruptly said, “Rebecca Beach!!” I looked up in dread. “Rebecca Beach,” he said, “what IS the history of books?” Hmmmmmmm….. I had no idea how to answer this or even where to start. I knew why he asked me–my name was the first on his roll sheet. I can’t remember what my reply was, but this abrupt sort of questioning really startled me. He did this sort of questioning with other people as he learned their names–some of the names went unlearned–but I wondered if he used this kind of questioning in undergraduate classes and I discovered through observation that alas! he does.
The class I observed had approximately 20 students and they all seemed quite familiar and comfortable sitting in a U-shape with Dr. Allison standing at the front of the room. He made a point of introducing me, saying, “This is Rebecca Beach and she for some unknown reason has made it her business to sit in on our class today.” Dr. Allison’s humor worked, I think.
The first several minutes of class were taken up, debating whether students should have a final test, essay, both, or neither. Surprisingly many students advocated a test! One of the students made a comment that the work should be “funnelled together.” Dr. Allison replied, “Very poetic, Josh, ‘funnelling’–I like that.”
Dr. Allison has a laid-back attitude, but projects a certain charisma and likes to joke with his students. Throughout the class many students laughed.
He began the actual work of the class, having the students freewrite. “If you took Freshman Comp you should know plenty about freewriting. They do that a lot, freewriting. Ah, you weren’t in Freshman Comp, you were advanced, lucky for you, well, you missed out greatly not having freewriting. Freewriting is ideas on a springboard. Think about certain characters, focus on what you’ve read. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” After this Dr. Allison walked out the door.
When he returned to the class, several mintues later, Dr. Allison passed out typed questions related to their reading: Goodbye to Berlin. These questions prompted some discussion, but most of it came from Allison asking students about what they had written and commenting on the novel himself. The discussion was interesting. He asked surprising questions of students, always calling them out by name first, and he seemed to know all of their names. A sampling of questions: Would this paragraph be easy to write? With whom in this story do you sympathize and why? Is it right that artists should be immoral, can genius surpass ordinary morality?
Dr. Allison stood for probably 2/3 of the class and when he sat down behind a desk, a shift in energy came about. The class seemed to slow down and lose a bit of steam. But it was still a good, productive class. For the last several minutes he read aloud, and he is a good reader.
I noticed that in both the observed class and in Bibliography there are always a group of students waiting to speak with him and ask him questions after class. Not just one or two students but four or five. I don’t know what this could be attributed to, but it’s interesting.
