Teaching Dickinson
In the fall of 2004, I took a graduate class in American Authors on Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson with Dr. Lucy Rinehart at DePaul University. I had no idea that the class would affect me so profoundly.
It started with my explication of the poem ("Publication -- is the Auction"), the first that I had ever attempted -- done the second week of class. The directions were "just you and the poem." Thank God! If I had known then what I know now....
To get us started, Dr. Rinehart suggested that we consider one line of the poem at a time. So I typed up the poem, put the text in boldface Comic Sans MS, and began typing my meditations/musings in regular face Tahoma. You can see how I did it. It was only after going line by line that I began to think about the poem as a whole which in turn became the explication.
Since that time I've had ample opportunity to sample what other students in other classes have done. I've included links to several here. I've also looked at the approach by other educators. There's some of them here, too.
The Worlds of Dickinson and James
Exploration through Classroom Creativity
Site created by Melissa Gers, Northern Kentucky University.
Independent Study
"Immediately after the presentations on November 27, Melissa Gers made the mistake of saying something like, "These projects are amazing." This led me to ask her if she would like to take an Independent Study course during the next semester in which her project would be to decide how best to preserve and display the work that she and her classmates had done (and were still to do in the Dickinson mini-anthologies and the final exam). She agreed to do this and you are now seeing the result. Melissa has created this web site in time for it to be shown at NKU's first-ever Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creativity, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, on April 17-18, 2002. By that time she also expects to have produced two booklets featuring the works of her classmates in this course, one in black-and-white, a deluxe version in color."I haven't been through the entire site but was struck by this entry in particular: "Emily, 2001" by Ellen Bayer. The author took a series of photographs, mounted them one to a page and handcopied appropriate poems to accompany them."As this web site shows, this year's presentation projects included--in addition to research papers--paintings, photographs, prints, and a sculpture; poems, a screenplay, and a short story; and two musical compositions, one recorded, the other performed live" --Prof. Robert K. Wallace
From the Artist's Statement: "Dickinson starts off her visit in the cemetery, and sort of awakens from the dead. The poems and fragments of her poems start to tell her story, as she walks around realizes she is alive. She sees the cemetery gates, and considers the possibilities that await her outside." it came from. She returns to her grave, leaving only her poems behind."
I wrote to Ellen and obtained permission to reproduce her project ==> Gallery
Poetry, Word Play, and Intellectual Pleasure:
Emily Dickinson's Manuscripts in the Undergraduate Classroom by Annette Debo (AD63@UMAIL.UMD.EDU) and Catherine Dauterman (CC116.UMAIL.UMD.EDU) University of Maryland at College Park.Presented at the 1994 SAMLA Conference, Session: "Teaching Textuality: Pedagogical Applications of Textual Studies"
EDSITEment - Lesson Plan
Incredible! For grades 3 to 5.Radical Poetries
Most of what I seen of graduate courses pairs Whitman and Dickinson. This is quite a different take! ENG 615: Prof. Mary Cappello, University of Rhode Island SEMINAR IN AUTHORS Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein — Radical Poetries.Poe and Dickinson
Well! I thought the above pair was formidable 'til I found this:English 294C: Terrible Identity: Poe and Dickinson, Dr. P. Uruburu, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY.
American Poetry: Comparing Selected "Native" Poetic Voices
English 3342-501 American Poetry, Dr. Roemer, University of Texas, Arlington. "What happens when we juxtapose selected poems by two of the best-known American poets (Whitman and Dickinson) and selected examples of Native American oral and written poetic performances?"
MLA Publication
Approaches to Teaching Dickinson's Poetry. Edited by Robin Riley Fast and Christine Mack Gordon.The Classroom Electric
These are just a few from the table of contents. Dickinson, Whitman, and Dickinson/Whitman essays, sites, etc.- Love and Conquest: The Erotics of Colonial Discourse in Emily Dickinson's Poems and Letters by Stephanie Browner
- Dickinson, Slavery, and the San Domingo Movement by Ed Folsom and Kenneth Price
- The Civil War, Class & the Dickinsons by Martha Nell Smith
- A Nosegay to Take to Battle: The Civil War Wounding of Emily Dickinson by Marta Werner et al.