Profs want new literature session to help first years
Matte Robinson welcomed students and alumni into St. Thomas University’s first English literature “club” last Tuesday.
IntroMANIA is geared towards students in the introduction to English literature courses. Robinson says students can get out of the traditional classroom setting and not worry about being graded on what they say.
“Reminds me of the smoking room back when I was a student here, where students, faculty, and staff all boxed themselves up into a fairly toxic space and had lively discussions,” he said. “You’d see first-years having jovial but profound arguments with seasoned professors, all in a lighter, more convivial environment.
“You can call introMANIA the non-smoking smoking room.”
The club is run by Robinson, Andrew Titus and Kathleen McConnell – all English professors at STU who not only like working together, but teaching together as well.
Robinson said the class is open to anyone who “wants to learn and wants to learn with us…We’re not getting anything out of this except [that].”
All three professors are donating their time. They aren’t getting paid nor are the participants receiving academic credits.
Even still, students like fifth-year Will Pacey are drawn in by the material.
“If you didn’t get enough the first time, you can read Plato a thousand times and get something new out of it,” Pacey said.
In the first hour and a half session, the thirty students couldn’t stop talking about William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell” – what they meant and why they were so important. Voices were raised, people disagreed with each other while still having a good time.
It wasn’t just the professors that did the talking either. They got it started, and once students started thinking, they clarified and drew pictures on the whiteboard as needed.
Robinson said they started with Blake because all three professors teach it most often.
He went on to tell how much he and Titus both enjoyed learning Blake from Allen Bentley, a now retired English professor who taught at STU for 30 years. Bentley will be speaking at the next meeting of introMANIA. They hope he will bring even more people out to the meetings.
All three professors mentioned the extra energy that exists in a room when you get more than one person talking.
“IntroMANIA has three English profs who all teach the same course to different people,” Robinson said. “There is no lecturing, only fast-paced discussion; and each of us rarely speaks more than a few sentences before another one picks it up. It’s pedagogical hot potato.”
And that energy really came out in the discussion that took place.
Although there are no grades for introMANIA, homework is still assigned. This week students have to read William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell” from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
The next meeting will take place after Thanksgiving on Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. in room 203 of Margaret Norrie McCain Hall.
