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

From: Nejat Bayramoglu <neckobay~at~ttmail.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 01:24:42 +0200
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

David,

Do you teach science and engineering or literature?

Best,
Nejat


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Merchant" <merchant~at~latech.edu>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2007 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: 20K - which chapts to skip? (sorry 4 the blasphemy)


>
>>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 Tue 01 Jan 2008 - 01:24:26 IST

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