Archived Events
Teaching WW1 Literature
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City: Oxford
Venue:
Oxford University Computing Services, ISIS Lecture room
Date:
12 Nov 07
Time:
10:00
Last Date for registration:
02 Nov 07
Event Overview:
The literature of the First World War continues to be one of the most popular areas of the English syllabus in schools and universities, yet there are questions to be asked of the traditional curriculum and teaching methods. Why has the curriculum been dominated by the British poets of the Western Front, despite the volume of material extending much further? The popularity of WW1 literature was rekindled by the anti-war movement of the 1960s, but how is it now viewed against the backdrop of Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq? This one-day workshop is an opportunity for secondary and higher education teachers of WW1 literature to discuss these and other issues such as:
The literature of the First World War continues to be one of the most popular areas of the English syllabus in schools and universities, yet there are questions to be asked of the traditional curriculum and teaching methods. Why has the curriculum been dominated by the British poets of the Western Front, despite the volume of material extending much further? The popularity of WW1 literature was rekindled by the anti-war movement of the 1960s, but how is it now viewed against the backdrop of Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq? This one-day workshop is an opportunity for secondary and higher education teachers of WW1 literature to discuss these and other issues such as:
- What are the learning objectives commonly associated with World War One literature courses?
- How can we deal with the extent of the material - what can one feasibly cover?
- Should we extend the courses to material written after the War, but about the War itself?
- How do we negotiate the interdisciplinarity of this body of work? Is the poetry of Owen, Sasson, Gurney, etc really reflective of the attitudes at the time?
- Should the subject be isolated or should it be seen as part of a wider topic, e.g. 'War Poetry'?'
Programme: (subject to alteration)
| Time | Theme/Session |
|---|---|
| 9:30 | Registration and Coffee |
| 9:55 | Introduction Stuart Lee (Oxford) |
| 10:00 | War Poetry Jon Stallworthy (Wolfson College, Oxford) |
| 10:30 | What are we trying to teach? The learning aims and objectives of courses on First World War Literature Guy Cuthbertson (St Andrews) Meg Crane (Buckingham) Victoria Syme-Taylor (Joint Services Command and Staff College) |
| 11:15 | Coffee |
| 11:30 | Break-out sessions |
| 12:15 | Feedback |
| 12:45 | First World War Poetry Digital Archive (Part one) Stuart Lee |
| 13:00 | Lunch (including from 1.30-2.00 a chance to test initial search tools for the new War poetry Archive) |
| 14:00 | Blasting the canon - what other writers or topics should be covered, other than the standard 'canon'? Vivien Noakes (lecturer and scholar) Andrea Peterson (Centre for First World War Studies, University of Birmingham) |
| 14:30 | Break-out sessions |
| 15:00 | Tea / Coffee |
| 15:15 | Feedback |
| 15:45 | First World War Poetry Digital Archive (part two) Kate Lindsay (Oxford) |
| 16:15 | Close |
