I was a high school teacher for 24 years and had some great experiences all along the way. For the last 14 years of it, I taught Dual Credit English (ENG 101 in the fall and ENG 102 in the Spring). The curriculum determined that we had to write 3 specific types of essays each semester. The textbook was divided into chapters that discussed the essay type and then provided examples that could be discussed and analyzed. When it came time for my students to write their essay, I never dictated the topic. For me, they could write about whatever they wanted as long as it was the type of essay required.
I always tried to make my classroom a fun place. For me, it was my home away from home so I decorated it to reflect my interests. The walls were covered primarily with my main interests- literature, film, music and art. I had quotes from classic authors, movie posters, classic rock albums, and art posters I picked up from various art museums (mostly Van Gogh but others as well). To be honest, I loved that classroom and most of that stuff is now hanging up in my garage. I enjoy going in there and reminiscing about the “good old days.”
Everything in that room had its purpose and I designed it as such. When it came time to write a specific essay, something in the room on the walls provided a jumping off point for that essay. My favorite essay was the Rhetorical Analysis from the Spring Semester and I tried to make it as fun as possible. Rhetorical Analysis is simply an analysis of the text of any work where you explore the various things used by the author to shape that text. For example, in my MA Thesis, I analyzed 3 Aurthurian poems from the late 14th Century, and discussed how each poet used the concept of Medieval Warfare to shape their own vision of King Arthur and his knights. It was kind of dorky but I loved it.
To make the Rhetorical Analysis essay more interesting for the students, I developed a unit where we analyzed popular song and I even had a research article to back the approach up. Essentially, I had the students pick a song and analyze it rhetorically. To get them started, I gave each of them a song of my choice (which none of them had ever heard) and told them to determine its meaning. I forced them to go through three stages: Interpretation, Context, and Authorial Intent. First, I told them to listen to it and then guess what they thought it meant. Then, I had them dig into the background- who the author was, when was it written, and what events were going on at that time. Then finally, I had them look and see if the author ever stated what they intended.
By the end of the assignment, we had some great discussions. Some of the best ones were how things can be interpreted in so many different ways depending on your own experiences, how works can speak to new generations beyond their own place and time despite their own limitations, and how something can take on its own meaning beyond what the author intended if they ever stated it in the first place. It was always fun helping them realize that the world was a much bigger place than they ever imagined yet they also had a voice to contribute.
When it comes to discussing the theme of any work, we are immediately faced with a problem. How do you determine “the theme?” First of all, there are always multiple things going on in any work. On top of that, how do you really ever know? Also, as an author, do you really want to dictate what that theme is, especially when readers will interpret it based on their own experiences? I know what I intended, but if you get something else out of it does my intention change that? For me, not at all. We all bring ourselves to any work and if a work can speak beyond its intention into an entirely different area, that is the beauty of any art. I love how a song can mean something to me the author never intended and I can only hope that my book could ever do the same.
If you want to know what the theme of my book is for me, start with the cover. More on that next time.
Matthew M Cornett 