10 Case Study: Expanding the Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature
10 Case Study: Expanding the Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature
Timothy Robbins and assistant professor of English at Graceland University
OER, Open Pedagogy, and the Early American Literature Survey
At the start of each semester, I write a simple maxim on the board for discussion: “All people are equally intelligent.” The underlying claim, in a paraphrased line from radical philosopher Jacques Rancière, is that any measurable differences in “intelligence” have more to do with access than with intellect. So, before course themes, content, objectives, or outcomes, I insist upon equality as a first principle and a constant practice. Then, as a group, we deliberate: what does “equal” mean in this context? How about “intelligent”? Is the claim true? How does it call upon us to relate to one another? Before the hour is up, we find ourselves in a thick of pedagogical inquiry, from which students tend to reach a fragile but thoughtful consensus: There really exists no one-size-fits-all measure for intelligence. Furthermore, the acquisition of knowledge assumed to be the epitome of individual intelligence–the “Jeopardy contestant” theory of smarts, as one student called it–is a tragic misconception. Learning, instead, is a collaborative enterprise: it’s dialogic, responsive and revisable according to new information, and applicable to our everyday experience. So, yes, all people are in fact equally intelligent once we define “intelligence” more aptly as lived experimentation, rather than the highest grades and test scores.
I’m very clear with my students from the start: I wholeheartedly believe and affirm this principle. It’s that very faith which prompted me to take up the ambitious Open Anthology project described below. And now I hope to build on that text and the pedagogical practices it demands for the rest of my scholarly career.
Teaching a survey of “Early American Literature”
Two years ago, I was fortunate to be hired out right of graduate school and onto the tenure track as an “Early Americanist.” All that means, effectively, is that, every year for the foreseeable future, I’ll be teaching the English Department survey course titled “American Literature to 1900.” That covers the period ranging from colonial contact with the “New World” (the world “new” to Europeans, that is) to the United States’ industrial era, i.e., the beginnings of America’s ascension to a global power.
I’ll go on the record and say it’s impossible to adequately cover any four centuries of literary history. But the truth is, I—newbie I was—made the task all the more impossible. For here I was, freshly trained in literary studies, newly recovering from the discipline’s foundational urge to “cover” everything. My students, of course, would read deeply within and widely across the tradition’s most celebrated authors. At the same time, it was my sacred duty to introduce the significant works of literature recovered since the explosion of “canon” in the last four to fi