Re: Introduction & Teaching Salinger
William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Fri, 31 Dec 1999 13:11:57 -0500 (EST)
Hi Tim. Since I've had a generously good amount of teaching joy with my
"Salinger Seminar, Here's what I can offer:
Teach all of Salinger--reading his work comprehensively is something one
can do fairly quickly and how many well known authors offer that benefit?
Start with the uncollect stories and follow the chronology while allowing
your students to understand the growth of a writer and their own growth as
writers. (You can legally put xerox copies of the uncollected
stories on reserve at your library--it's worth the extra work since this
will give your students an added benefit of accessing texts that are
interesting and less well known. Students have commented on the
excitement of reading lesser known Salinger work and sensing the writer's
roots mroe clearly as a result of reading the uncollected stories.)
Use this list and the web pages as part of the class--these "living
Salinger texts" are some of the most exciting "criticism" to be generated
on Salinger and I think my opinion counts in this matter--that is if you
can accept the word of a section man who is still revising his l994
dissertation, _Strategies of Critical Response to the Fiction of J.D.
Salinger_ NYU.
Best of luck with your students--they will tell you so much about Salinger
if you listen to them, will