American literature course will give you all of the knowledge you need to speak intellectually about American literature. This is how an active learner operates. I believe that students who walk into my classrooms expecting me to hand them knowledge in a nice, neat, bow-topped package will be severely disappointed. I have had students who very much resent my open attitude about their education. They walk into my classroom, take their nice clean notebooks out and wait for me to give them little kernels of knowledge that they can put back into their backpacks and carry out into the world with them.
Intellectual growth is a process of discovery , of exploration , of questioning .
It is not a process of faith. This means that I will treat students as the individuals they are, with opinions, worthwhile ideas, and voices of their own that are worth listening to. I ask in return that students give me the same respect. And if there is nothing else that I want students of mine to walk out of my classroom with, it is with the ability to look critically at the world around them, to question and examine their world, to ask why and how instead of merely what and when and who.