Jules Verne Forum

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Re: 20K - which chapts to skip? (sorry 4 the blasphemy)

From: David Merchant <merchant~at~LATECH.EDU>
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:32:07 -0600
Resent-From: <merchant~at~LATECH.EDU>
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>
Resent-Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:51:17 -0600 (CST)

>At 08:15 AM 12/30/2007, Skravitz wrote:
>Jules Verne is the only author I know who endeavored to weave
>authentic science and engineering into his tales (no apologies to H.
>G. Wells). So since the name of your university is Louisiana Tech
>University, the first question I would ask is "Who are your
>students?" If they are science and engineering majors then I
>suggest you concentrate on the chapters that deal with those
>subjects, otherwise concentrate on the adventure parts.

Most are engineering and science majors, with the emphasis on
engineering. While I had a few students last Spring like JCE (or at
least said it wasn't as bad as they had feared), more indicated they
preferred I had assigned 20K.

I definitely will summarize or even read in class parts in of the
skipped chapters; for instance, while I may skip the "Sperm Whales
and Baleen Whales" chapter as a reading assignment, it is an
important chapter in that it seems to be a bit of a turning point in
the relationship between Nemo and Land: "and from that day on, I
noticed with great uneasiness that Ned Land's hostility toward
Captain Nemo grew worse and worse. I realized I would have to keep a
close watch on the Canadian" (296).

I will try to keep the skips to a minimum. If I want the students to
be able to choose the novel as a topic for their final research
paper, they need to have finished reading it in 7 weeks at the
longest (and even that is pushing it a bit). That works out to 56
pages a week just from the novel, which to regular readers is child's
play, but most of these engineering students haven't read anything
before - some haven't even read Harry Potter, just watched the movies
instead (if any of my students has read a book, usually it'll be
Harry Potter, other wise, most claim not to have read any book at all
- a sad state of affairs, and a sad testimony for Louisiana public
schools). They tend to be slow readers - 56 pages easily represents 3
hours of reading for most of them. Add the other readings they need
to do for the class, in addition to writing four papers, and I'm
forced to consider skipping some chapters from 20K. I already assign
more reading than some of my colleagues (though not as much as a few
others, each quarter I add a little more, the devil that I am becoming).

Having said that, I plan to skip as few as possible. I'll trim back
on some of the other readings; plus once the book is finished, I will
not need to trim back on other readings for the last 3 weeks - sorry
for them, as the last section of the quarter is on poetry, which the
great majority have a strong distaste for.

TTFN,
David

-- 
Instructor, Department of English.
Louisiana Tech University  

Received on Sun 30 Dec 2007 - 19:51:35 IST

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