Linguistic Prerequisites for Teaching German Literature in Beginning Levels of High School

Abstract

Although it is not crucial, it can serve to enliven things considerably if, as the course progresses, some attempt is made to tie the various works together. The search itself for this red thread proved most productive, and helped the students to see that our seven league stride from Kafka and Mann back to Kleist and Goethe was really not such an impossible leap after all. Another of the final examination questions was posed in the effort to encourage the students to ponder the connectedness of the works. They were asked to discuss the significance of the deaths of Gregor, Gustav, Michael, and Ottilie to the stories in which they appeared and to tell how these deaths served the authors' purposes. I might interject here that the examination questions were handed out as the course progressed, along with instructions to collect and organize notes as material was compiled. This made it possible to free almost the entire 3-hour examination period for writing. The students reacted very positively to this semi-takehome. The examinations were, by and large, well written.