15 Ramadan 1440

As I noted at the end of the fall semester, my students work on creating a class playlist that is inspired by the literature included in the course syllabus and our discussions about the texts.  The students sign up for one text at the beginning of the spring for which they select at least one song that recalls, encapsulates, rejects, critiques, mirrors, affirms, and/or embellishes any of the text’s themes, imagery, style, tone, language, etc. They also write a brief explanation about their particular choices.

If you are interested in doing something similar for your class, here’s a description of a more elaborate version of the assignment.

I had two wonderful sections this spring semester. I feel blessed, grateful, and proud to have made it through a year of troubling, thought-provoking, moving, challenging, unacceptable yet unsurprising, violently heartrending events on and off campus that cannot and should not be separated from our — both teachers and students’ — experience of education in a humanities classroom.

Here is the Literature Humanities Spring 2019 playlist my students came up with — and a glimpse into their tastes, peculiarities, depth, humor, indignation, compassion, concerns, memories, aspirations.

(Day 14, rest, don’t quit)