Next summmer, Columbia College will expand from just London Study Abroad courses, to several other cities--Madrid, Florence, Sydney, Oxford, and Stirling, Scotland. I've never been interested in being in London longer than it takes to shuttle between airports, but would love to teach 3-4 weeks in Florence.
Alas, the Florence session completely overlaps with our Study Tour to France, in May 2011, and I'm already committed to that. I have a course I've used in Sydney, on a study trip--Exploration and Exile. It would be worth doing again, and the summer session has an optional extra 9 days to New Zealand. But the cost to students is about $7000, and since I have to recruit at least 7 students to secure my spot, well, that just won't happen these days.
So I negotiated in my head to try for Stirling, Scotland. I'm still formally an English teacher, so literature needs to be the core of what I do. It turns out that the University of Stirling publishes a Stevenson journal, and has a Scottish culture program, as well as a strong environmental bent. So I designed a course to focus on Scottish cultural identity, with a blend of literature, geography and environmental concerns. Don't know if it will happen (has to go through a committee here, approval by a committee at this inter-college consortium, I have to get 7 students, and have to abandon my dogs for another 4 weeks, and won't have the income of teaching two oncampus Evening courses that summer...), and I can't figure out how to do an attachment rather than a link, so here is the whole thing:
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM Date Received
University/College if different from Maryville___Columbia College____________
Course Title ___Cultural Identity: Scotland_______________________
No. of Credits___3______
Prerequisite for the course
ENGL 112 (a composition course)
Course Assignments (Briefly Stated)
an on-going blog
interviews
weekly written and oral reports
an overview essay
Course Description
This course will use readings in literature, cultural history and geography, along with participant-observation, to work toward defining main elements of Scottish cultural identity.
Proposed Instructor Robert E. Boon
Evaluation and Grading for the Course
Blog participation 30%
Classroom discussions 10
Weekly reports 30
Overview essay 30
Textbooks/ Books
individually chosen novels by Sir Walter Scott and Robert L. Stevenson
Scotland as We Know It: Representations of National Identity in Literature, Film and Popular Culture, Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, 2008
Scotland: The Autobiography 2,000 Years of Scottish History By Those Who Saw It Happen, Rosemary Goring, 2008
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It, Arthur Herman, 2002
other texts/excerpts will be provided by the teacher (such as select poems)
Recommended:
Lonely Planet Scotland
Semester/Session and Year of Implementation Summer 2011, Stirling, Scotland, July 9 to August 6
Signature of the Maryville Chair or Program Director, (Date)¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
************************
Pre-trip:
Each student should select and read one novel by Sir Walter Scott and one novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Read a general outline of Scottish history, online.
Selections from How the Scots Invented the Modern World
Begin our course blog (as an ongoing journal of our learning process)
In Scotland:
Reading:
Poetry online or provided by the teacher
Essays on Scottish culture, lit and geography
Scotland: The Autobiography
Scotland as We Know It
students should also examine Scottish newspapers and magazines, as available
Discussions:
During class time, we will discuss not only the various pieces of literature, but continually evaluate our personal experience/interactions as we try to define “cultural maps” that define the Scots. We will consider what it means to be a participant-observer, and will necessarily examine our own initial stereotypes and media impressions.
Field trips:
These trips will have to be negotiated among the program, the students (what they can afford), and other classes that we might be able to coordinate with. Ideally, we would take weekend excursions to the Isle of Arran and to the Orkney Islands, with shorter bus/train trips to both cultural and natural sites. We will decide on various sporting events, art/music festivals, and may even decide to go to church one Sunday.
University of Stirling:
The University itself has the very interdisciplinary Stirling Centre for Scottish Studies I will invite teachers from this Centre, not to give formal lectures, to visit and talk with my class.
After the trip:
Complete blog entries.
Complete a major overview paper, critically examining issues of Scottish cultural identity.
Resources for the teacher:
Geography, Science and National Identity: Scotland since 1520 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography), Charles W. J. Withers, 2006
The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707: Geographical Aspects of Modernisation (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography), David Turnock, 2005
Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition, Alastair McIntosh, 2008
Alas, the Florence session completely overlaps with our Study Tour to France, in May 2011, and I'm already committed to that. I have a course I've used in Sydney, on a study trip--Exploration and Exile. It would be worth doing again, and the summer session has an optional extra 9 days to New Zealand. But the cost to students is about $7000, and since I have to recruit at least 7 students to secure my spot, well, that just won't happen these days.
So I negotiated in my head to try for Stirling, Scotland. I'm still formally an English teacher, so literature needs to be the core of what I do. It turns out that the University of Stirling publishes a Stevenson journal, and has a Scottish culture program, as well as a strong environmental bent. So I designed a course to focus on Scottish cultural identity, with a blend of literature, geography and environmental concerns. Don't know if it will happen (has to go through a committee here, approval by a committee at this inter-college consortium, I have to get 7 students, and have to abandon my dogs for another 4 weeks, and won't have the income of teaching two oncampus Evening courses that summer...), and I can't figure out how to do an attachment rather than a link, so here is the whole thing:
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM Date Received
University/College if different from Maryville___Columbia College____________
Course Title ___Cultural Identity: Scotland_______________________
No. of Credits___3______
Prerequisite for the course
ENGL 112 (a composition course)
Course Assignments (Briefly Stated)
an on-going blog
interviews
weekly written and oral reports
an overview essay
Course Description
This course will use readings in literature, cultural history and geography, along with participant-observation, to work toward defining main elements of Scottish cultural identity.
Proposed Instructor Robert E. Boon
Evaluation and Grading for the Course
Blog participation 30%
Classroom discussions 10
Weekly reports 30
Overview essay 30
Textbooks/ Books
individually chosen novels by Sir Walter Scott and Robert L. Stevenson
Scotland as We Know It: Representations of National Identity in Literature, Film and Popular Culture, Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, 2008
Scotland: The Autobiography 2,000 Years of Scottish History By Those Who Saw It Happen, Rosemary Goring, 2008
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It, Arthur Herman, 2002
other texts/excerpts will be provided by the teacher (such as select poems)
Recommended:
Lonely Planet Scotland
Semester/Session and Year of Implementation Summer 2011, Stirling, Scotland, July 9 to August 6
Signature of the Maryville Chair or Program Director, (Date)¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
************************
Pre-trip:
Each student should select and read one novel by Sir Walter Scott and one novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Read a general outline of Scottish history, online.
Selections from How the Scots Invented the Modern World
Begin our course blog (as an ongoing journal of our learning process)
In Scotland:
Reading:
Poetry online or provided by the teacher
Essays on Scottish culture, lit and geography
Scotland: The Autobiography
Scotland as We Know It
students should also examine Scottish newspapers and magazines, as available
Discussions:
During class time, we will discuss not only the various pieces of literature, but continually evaluate our personal experience/interactions as we try to define “cultural maps” that define the Scots. We will consider what it means to be a participant-observer, and will necessarily examine our own initial stereotypes and media impressions.
Field trips: These trips will have to be negotiated among the program, the students (what they can afford), and other classes that we might be able to coordinate with. Ideally, we would take weekend excursions to the Isle of Arran and to the Orkney Islands, with shorter bus/train trips to both cultural and natural sites. We will decide on various sporting events, art/music festivals, and may even decide to go to church one Sunday.
University of Stirling:
The University itself has the very interdisciplinary Stirling Centre for Scottish Studies I will invite teachers from this Centre, not to give formal lectures, to visit and talk with my class.
After the trip:
Complete blog entries.
Complete a major overview paper, critically examining issues of Scottish cultural identity.
Resources for the teacher:
Geography, Science and National Identity: Scotland since 1520 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography), Charles W. J. Withers, 2006
The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707: Geographical Aspects of Modernisation (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography), David Turnock, 2005
Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition, Alastair McIntosh, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment