Oxford poets break with tradition

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Inglese
Download:	1210
Data:	11.10.2007
Numero di pagine:	3
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

1. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS

1.1 The English literature students are waiting to read some poetry of their own out and they are anxious.
1.2 Jenny Lewis and Lucy Newlyn are challenging tradition because in their opinion English shouldn’t be taught just as a purely academic subject but it should be something that improves your own creativity.
1.3 Maybe because they are scared about the idea that they have to read out some poetry of their own.
1.4 Not all of the students took the course willingly at the beginning, like Caroline Boon, who was a reluctant partecipant at first, but then she wrote for pleasure. At the end of the course they were not examined.
1.5 Students and tutors working together, as the institute says, thanks to the group’s approach, might change the traditional relationship between student and tutor. At the beginning both of them are tense because they know they can be judge.
1.6 I think that jenny is tense about reading her poetry out because it’s a comparison with some people who judge directly her work.
1.7 The project has paid off and we get that from the student Ben Burton who says that the project sparked an interest in theorical areas of English literature he thought he would found dull. Another example is the student Caroline Boon, who was a reluctant partecipant at first, but now she writes poetry for pleasure.
1.8 She hopes to offer a course bringing together creative writing and critical analysis as an option in Oxford’s English degree.
1.9 I think that the project was called “Synergies” because students and tutors united their experiences and knowledge to create something new.

2. SUMMARIZE the content of the passage

Don Lucy Newlyn and Jenny Lewis are tutors in the Oxford University and they created a project called “Synergies”, which brakes the conventional rules of theaching and learning: tutors and students work together on creative writing, changing the conception of English literature and making the students part of it and not just passive partecipants.
At the beginning it was hard also for tutors reading out their own poetry, because of the anxiety of being judged, and also the students were not so convinced of this project: some of them thought it would be boring, others were just critical, but all of them have changed their mind.
The lessons consist in analysing and discussing sonnets by the group and at the end of the course the works are published in a book.
The project earned success, considering also that it has changed the common relationship between students and tutors and that everyone could benefit from creative writing.

3. Composition

Consider the following sentences: “…literature has generally been seen as something to be studied rather than created.” “Resistence to it stems from the idea that you can’t teach people to be poets,”

Reading novels and romances is certainly fundamental, because it let you know about the culture of the different countries, from the past to the present and, of course, increase your own culture, while writing ability is seen more like a personal hobby than a real subject.
Apart from the fact that I am not really good in writing, I think that this activity should be revalued by the school: the best to do should be to educate pupils since the primary school, devoting lessons to their creativity, helped by the teachers.
In my opinion just this way children, and so teenagers and more generally people could have the right approach with literature.
Of course it is important to say that not everyone is naturally gifted for writing and this attitude should not prejudice the school running (andamento); on the contrary it could increase logical skills. What is more it is necessary taking into account the fact no one knows their own potential until they write down their thoughts and ideas.
The statement is absolutely right because it is not possible to become poets without a strong inspiration, but I do not think that creative writing means that: on the contrary I see it more like a development of the capability of giving expression to your own feelings, opinions and ideas and it gives you the chance to make you more understandable to others.
In conclusion I would say that literature and creative writing are two subjects that should be studied together, this way one of them could be useful to the other one and vice versa.