I observed Professor Dupre's Introduction to Literature class on Thursday, Nov 16th. The day's reading was "Othello," a text the student's had been working on for a couple of class periods.
Professor Drupre's class was not organized in a traditional fashion. The student's sat in a large circle, single file, so that everyone could have easy access to communicate with one another. There was also no official discussion, or even lesson plan, which isn't to say the class wasn't organized. The students came into class and signed up on the board for a role from the play. The class then read the text out loud, taking turns with some of the larger roles. When student's reached an important passage or asked a question, this is when Professor Dupre would engage in a full-class discussion. This is a really intriguing way to facilitate conversation about a text--in some ways, it's an ideal model for getting students to understand the difficulties of Shakespearean language, ask questions, while also doing traditional close reading.
My concern with the class has nothing to do with Professor Dupre's style, but the usefulness of teaching Shakespeare at all. Although students asked question frequently, discussion never went much beyond comprehension--"wait, who is Desdemona married to?" "Does Iago really think that?" It's good for student's to have the space to ask basic comprehension questions, but no real discussion took place. What is the purpose of teaching Shakespeare? If student's cannot move to the next level of understanding, what is gained here?
One other important element to my visit--one exasperated student asked, "why are we even reading this?" Professor Dupre stopped the reading and addressed the students to offer a response. Students defended the reading process and the usefulness of reading classics. Professor Dupre didn't offer much in the way of her own stance (a wise decision), letting the students explain the meaning of literature for themselves. Sobering though, the dissenting student didn't seem noticeably moved.