All the fun of the FOREground!
Hello everybody.
I want to thank everyone for all the kind words over the past couple of weeks and for the
follows of my Twitter account. It really gives this wannabe Stylistic Teacher a
big boost to have all those kind words.
As this blog goes on I want to share some of the concepts I have been
exploring in my PhD around English teacher identity, the divide between
language and literature and curriculum design but for now I want to give you
some practical tricks and tips that you could use in your classrooms right
now!
Before we go on, I want to share a strategy that is so simple and is one that you can use straight away. I took this idea from the Booker Prize winning author George Saunders' fascinating book on teaching reading called A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. In this book, Saunders shares some of his lessons he learnt teaching Russian short stories to his students at Syracuse. It is an unbelievably fantastic book and I cannot thank Billy Clark enough for making me aware of it at the Aston Applied Linguistics seminar in 2021.
In his book, Saunders shares his concept of the TICHN (Things I Couldn't Help Noticing) cart which we push as we go through a text. As we push this cart (or trolley, or basket...but then you don't push a basket...sorry stretched the metaphor too far there!) through the text (or metaphorical aisle of a supermarket) we throw things into it we couldn't help noticing. And this will happen to every single reader of a text. I find this is a great metaphor to use with students of all levels. You can even say to your class, right we're going to read this text and you must have at least five items in your cart or even at most, this is a great tactic for helping to rein in those students who tend to find lots of features but offer little analysis.
My TICHN carts are always imaginary, but who is stopping you bringing in your
own trolley for display? I know there are some prop loving teachers out there,
but I don't recommend going fishing in your local canals just yet for abandoned
shopping trolleys.
Ultimately, it can vary what individual readers will notice and it will be context dependent but there will be some aspects which any reader cannot help noticing. Consider e.e. cummings lack of capitalisation or the shape poems of George Herbert. This stuff that we can't help noticing is what we see in the foreground of a text and the technique by which writers achieve this is known as foregrounding.
Foregrounding is the observation of elements of a text which stand out to a
reader and it can be seen in two ways, as
either a deviation (something which doesn't follow the pattern
of a text) or alternatively as a parallel (keeping in line
with an established pattern of a text.)
So how can this look? I would like to use the final two stanzas from Jacob
Polley's amazing poem Langley Lane which I have printed below as an example of how you may explore foregrounding in your lessons. Go on, let's get that TICHN trolley (not cart!) out:
My son, you walked from Langley Lane?
I walked from Langley Lane.
I took small steps and often stopped
to breathe around the pain.
My son, you
walked from Langley Lane.
I walked from Langley Lane.
I held myself to slow the stain
and walked from Langley Lane.
In these last two stanzas, without knowing the poem, what are some of the things you would throw into your TICHN cart?
Would you have put in the repetition
of the location ‘Langley Lane,’ which is used on all but three of the eight
lines? Would you have put the phrase 'My son' which opens both stanzas? How
about looking at the opening word of each line (My, I, I to - My, I, I and) in
this case we have examples of a parallel in the repeated
use of the possessive determiner followed by two singular first-person pronouns
and then a deviation from the preposition 'to' to the
conjunction 'and' in the final line of the quatrain. Maybe even the deviation of the first line from a question in the first stanza to a declarative in the second despite using the same exact vocabulary?
So what do we do with the things in our cart next? Now we can start questioning the poet’s choices and develop an analysis. If we take the repeated use of Langley Lane for instance, we can question why the writer used Langley Lane so much? Think about just how much it is used, it is basically an example of parallelism. But there is something quite irregular in just how much this is said. It's not quite normal conversation is it? I imagine I more realistic version of this would change Langley Lane for a more indirect description e.g. 'I walked from there' following the initial mention. So why repeat it so much? Is it because Langley Lane is a long way away and it expresses shock? Maybe there is a significance about the place Langley Lane? Or maybe there is a more practical decision behind this as a poem, consider the prosodic or sound qualities of the name 'Langley Lane.' There is a bounce achieved by the combination of unstressed and stressed sounds as well as alliteration of Langley Lane. In which case it is clear that sound is an important aspect of the poem, this can then lead into discussions about form etc.
There are endless avenues for discussion which can come from a bit of prep and some questioning regarding a text.
So, what can this use of foregrounding offer in lessons. Consider the fact that foregrounding is not exclusive to English. It is prevalent in all subjects (I have students who do art and photography for instance who are very familiar with these concepts) Also, all texts will have foregrounded features, fiction or non, so you can replicate these techniques with any poem, speech, play, newspaper or street sign you wish to analyse with your classes. But surely it can just help students demonstrate that confidence and rigour in their writing. Consider the following sentences and which you prefer:
A) The writer uses repetition to make Langley Lane sound important.
B) By using repetition the writer is able to foreground Langley Lane as an important location.
But ultimately this is an active reading strategy influenced by stylistics. I haven't told the students what to look for or have I bombarded them with context. I have simply asked them to push a metaphorical trolley down a metaphorical aisle and fill it with metaphorical goodies (can you see what I foregrounded?)
So to wrap up I would like to end with 3 tricks that you can try with your classes straight away so
1) Try to use Saunders' TICHN Cart in your class
2) Take a favourite text of yours or one that you are currently teaching and see what is foregrounded and how it has been achieved.
3) Make your Do Now really simple. Use any text, put it on your board and get your students to try and notice 3 foregrounded elements which they can then explore.
I would also like to leave with a few reading recommendations you may want to consider with more detail on foregrounding
I also cannot recommend Saunders A Swim in a Pond in the Rain enough for exploring alternative ways to analyse and explore different texts. It's a true game-changer and has already jumped to the top of 'books to re-read list (yes I have one of those!)
And finally a link to some wonderful work by The University of Lancaster with some example activities and worksheets you may want to use.
Ling 131, Topic 3 (session A) (lancaster.ac.uk)
And finally here is a link to the brilliant Langley Lane, in full, by Jacob Polley.
Poetry By Heart | Langley Lane
Good luck with using foregrounding in your lessons and please let me know if you have found this useful.
And I know it might be a bit of a self-indulgence on my part but all this talk of shopping trolleys gives me a great excuse to share an album pic from one of my favourite bands. Give it a listen...it's great.
All the best
A Stylistic Teacher
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