Planning day - 7/5

Tuesday was a preparation day. It was also an office day for me. While the students were off around London participating in their field trips for their morning classes, I took a quick trip to the Tate Britain Art Museum to plan out the first part of Thursday's field trip for my afternoon class. Basically, my plan was to make sure I knew the logistics for getting to the museum and to do a quick survey of the art available for my students to view. That worked very well.

In the afternoon, since I am the co-site director, I covered the office hours for our group. While in the office, I worked on the rest of the grading from last week's field trip responses, planned the weekend excursion I will be leading to Windsor Castle on Saturday, and assisted a couple of students who stopped by with questions.

In the evening, I read the material my class will be discussing on Wednesday, and began preparing discussion points and questions. A lot of the material that I am teaching this summer is new to me, in terms of teaching it, so it takes a little more preparation than other material that I have worked with many times. Over the last few days I have had some requests for the course reading list, so I will add it at the end of this posting.

Tuesday ended with some personal reading and a little music. All in all, a very content feeling after a productive day. I know I didn't spend much time "seeing" London (and thus this posting is a little subdued), but the occasional quiet day can make the somewhat more hectic sightseeing days much more enjoyable.

Here's the reading list for the London Study Abroad 2011 British Literature II class:

Week 1

Wordsworth: “The World is too much with us” and “Ode on Intimations of Immortality”

Byron: “Prometheus”

Shelley: “A Song to the Men of England”

Tennyson: Idylls of the King (Dedication, Coming of Arthur, Merlin and Vivien, Lancelot and Elaine, The Holy Grail, The Last Tournament, Guinevere, The Passing of Arthur)

 Week 2

Eliot: The Waste Land

Yeats: “When you are old” and “Into the Twilight” and “King and No King”

Thomas: “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” and “And Death Shall have no Dominion”

Week 3

Arnold: “Dover Beach” and “A Farewell” and “The Buried Life”

Housman: “Reveille” and “The Lads in their hundreds” and “Soldier from the Wars Returning”

Brooke: “I. Peace” (1914) and “II. Safety” (1914) and “III. The Dead” (1914) and “IV. The Dead” (1914) and “V. The Soldier” (1914) and “Heaven”

Owen: “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Arms and the Boy” and “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Exposure” and “Futility” and “Spring Offensive” and “Strange Meeting”

Rosenberg: “Break of Day in the Trenches” and “In War”

Churchill speeches: 5/13/40 “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat” and 6/4/40 “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” and 10/29/41 “Never Give In”

Week 4

Tolkien: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Section 1 (chapters 1-5 and 9-12) and Section 2 (chapters 1-2)

            The Two Towers – optional                      The Return of the King – optional

Hill: “Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings” and “From Mercian Hymns” and “Tenebrae”

Week 5

Rawlings: Harry Potter series

            HP & the Sorcerer’s Stone – Chapters 1-2, 5-7, 10, and 12-13

            HP & the Chamber of Secrets – optional

            HP & the Prisoner of Azkaban – optional

            HP & the Goblet of Fire – Chapters 12, 14, 16-18, 20, 26, 29, and 31-32

            HP & the Order of the Phoenix – optional

            HP & the Half-Blood Prince – optional

            HP & the Deathly Hallows – Chapters 16, 19, and 34-36