Section Meetings

RMMLA Bulletin 1:45-3:15 3:30-5:00 6:30 8:00 Italian Section Planning Committee Luncheon Section Meetings Modem Languages HD: Spanish and Portuguese Literary Ecology Symposium Ethnic Studies Symposium Genre: Theory and Practice Section Meetings Modem Languages I: Linguistics(Second Eldorado I Session ) Modem Languages III: TeachingEldorado II Classical and Medieval LiteratureGold Room I Film SymposiumAmericana West Cabaret Room Americana West Americana East Eldorado II Eldorado I English Department Chairman's Dinner Section Chairman's Dinner Poetry Reading Eldorado I Eldorado II Americana West SECTION MEETINGS Friday, October 15 1:45-3:15 p.m. English III: Teaching Americana West Chairman: Professor Anne Howard, University of Nevada, Reno Vice-Chairman: Jean Alexander, University of Calgary John Boni, Colorado State University, "Looking Before and After: The Survey in Reverse'' The usefulness of the much abused survey might be increased by teaching the involved material in reverse chronological order, stressing the position of each writer. Students would not then confront a a simple "and-then" organization but could understand a writer as cause and effect in relation to those who followed him and to his predecessors. Frances Hernandez, University of Texas at El Paso, "A Technique for Teaching Literature Through Grammar." The analysis of grammatical structures , in addition to the more usual investigations of vocabulary and imagery, can also be useful in teaching students to appreciate literary style, as illustrated by the study of two examples of passages from modern English novels. Geoffrey Allan Grimes, Texas Tech University, "The Adolescent and Poetry Interpretation." A formalistic approach to teaching literature fosters what Archibald MacLeish suggested should be an "experience" of literature. A formalistic approach denies a prescriptive approach which often hinders a student's personal discovery or "experience" of a work. Second, a formalistic Section Meetings5 approach denies a student's presuppositions of what a work should be and do and focuses attention on the unique experience of each work. Frank Nelick, University of Kansas, "On the Knowledge of Nature and the Talking of Books." Despite their attractiveness to attentive students, scholarly and convenient formulations often obscure the ends of literature through excess devotion to analysis of means. As an instrument of genuine education, the truth of poetry as knowledge of nature ought to be primary in purpose as it is antecedent in method. Roger Bacon and Lloyd Bridges, University of Utah, "Do Opposites Attract?" An assessment of a tensional construct in team teaching, this essay describes the preparation, teaching, and evaluation of a team teaching experience at Southern Oregon College. Lori Clarke, University of Utah, "Creative Teaching. Why Not Creative Testing?" A group paper that functions as a culmination of learning within the class may be more valuable than the standard examination both in motivating and evaluating student effort. English V: American StudiesGold Room I Chairman: Jesse C. Gatlin, Jr., U.S. Air Force Academy Vice-Chairman: Rosemary Whitaker, Colorado State University John C. Pratt, U.S. Air Force Academy, "America's Discovery of Columbus." The name of Columbus is everywhere in America. Places, books, poems, plays, and attitudes derive from this significant "foreigner." Yet the origins of the Columbus myth and its subsequent Americanization have been insufficiently discussed. This paper documents the growth and stabilization of the Columbus image as American culture first embraced, then assimilated the first hero of the New World. Ahmed M. Metwalli, California State Polytechnic College, Kellogg-Voorhis, "The Pencillings of Nathaniel P. Willis." The paper explores the influence of Nathaniel Willis's writings about his travels in the Middle East. Joyce B. Markle, Loyola University of Chicago, "The Mythical Underpinnings of John Updike's Couples." The paper discusses Couples in terms of mythological patterns. Greek, Germanic, and middle European romance traditions are explained, and the behavior of Piet Hanema is examined especially in terms of the Western romance tradition discussed by Denis de Rougemont in Love in the Western World. Modern Languages IJA(I): French and Italian t? 1900 Gold Room II Chairman: Ronald W. Tobin, University of California, Santa Barbara William R. Womack, University of Wyoming, "Guillaume Raynal and the Eighteenth-Century Cult of the Noble Savage." French philosophes, despite 6 RMMLA Bulletin deeply held differences of opinion on many questions...