Do Opposites Attract?: An Assessment of a Tensional Construct in Team Teaching

Abstract

COMMENTARY DO OPPOSITES ATTRACT? An Assessment of a Tensional Construct in Team Teaching In the spring of 1968, at the suggestion of the department diairman at Southern Oregon College, Roger Bacon and Lloyd Bridges were intrigued by the possibility of maximizing their literary differences as English instructors . Their differences were both real and apparent. Training, preference, and experience had led them to divergent approaches to and tastes in literature . For example, in the matter of training, Bacon was strongly influenced by the New Critics and "explication de texte" as a method, while Bridges' studies had prepared him to favor a philosophical, history-of-ideas approach. This naturally led to the old dichotomy of form (Bacon) versus content (Bridges). Bacon preferred the modern period, British literature, and lyric poetry in contrast to Bridges' preference for the Romantic period, American literature, and prose works. In presentational technique, Bacon relied primarily on the use of the formal lecture, whereas Bridges favored informal discussion. Evaluation, too, demonstrated the polarity of the pair. Bacon typically examined in the subjective mode, using open-ended essay questions in two exams per course; Bridges evaluated more frequently, favoring more objective type tests. However, they were agreed in believing that there were a variety of valid approaches for teaching literature, and that students in an introductory survey course of world literature would benefit from experiencing the counterpointing of at least two of these approaches on the same literary works in the same class at the same time. The typical team teaching arrangement wherein each member of the team merely presents his special area in a solo performance was not an appealing model to them. They proposed to team teach together, emphasizing and capitalizing their differences in the classroom, before students. This meant that both instructors would always be present, planning to interact with each other, the students, and the literature. Class meetings involved joint lectures, dialogue, debate between the instructors, and frequent give-and-take between the two instructors' view of "truth" and the third "truth," that of the students. The first benefit of this novel team approach was manifest in the construction of the course syllabus. Since thirty class meetings is an incredibly short time in which to present the whole of western literature, selection of works taught is crucial. Two instructors of divergent training and experience should be able to construct a more balanced curriculum than one instructor with one viewpoint, and to decrease the possibility of warping the tradition of western literature that is inherent with a single selector. This same principle , applied to the analysis, explication, and evaluation of a given work of 187 188RMMLA BulletinSeptember 1973 literature, results in an advantageously balanced presentation. Teaching selections from the Bible is a good case in point. In teaching Genesis, Bridges outlined the historical and philosophical aspects of the book in its cultural milieu, comparing the Hebrew creation myth with the Babylonian creation account in Gilgamesh. Bacon dealt with formal consideration of the book; he demonstrated the aphoristic style and parallel structure of the Hebraic account. Developing student skill in multiple, text-centered, valid interpretation was one key objective of the course. To accomplish this, the class of some eighty students was divided into ten groups, and each was asked to defend a different critical interpretation (supplied by the team) of Euripides' drama, The Bacchae. At the next class meeting each group presented its defense and was assessed by the instructors. Any realistic assessment of the teaching of literature must take into account the matter of personal taste. Realizing that works of equal literary value are not necessarily equally enjoyed, the team attempted to demonstrate the positive benefits of personal preference. Two major figures, Alexander Pope and T. S. Eliot, are examples of the instructors' divergent tastes in poetry. The class was amused, yet instructed by the team's continued repartee regarding their preferences for these authors' widely differing styles. The form-content dichotomy was apparent in the treatment of the sonnet . Bacon introduced the sonnet in its various forms to demonstrate how structure shapes meaning. Bridges traced Shakespeare's thematic variations of the same subject through a sonnet sequence. The students were, naturally, concerned about who...