This brings up a good point which I did not clarify in my original
post. The students *are* studying Mill, so the passage is not totally
out of context. It is not clear to me right now whether they did this
asssignment toward the beginning or the end of their study of Mill but
certainly they had, or should have had, some clue as to what was going
on.
On an interesting side note, I got a visit from a student who had
failed the assignment because she "doesn't like politics." It seems
that she shuts down completely at the mention of anything like
"governemt" or "the people." I resisted the urge to ask the obvious
question ("Why the hell are you in university if you can't read
anything you aren't given immediate gratification by?") and tried to
be more charitable. I think that I was indeed able to give her some
"tools" for reading passages that didn't make immediate sense--one of
which was to call on what she had heard the lecturer say about Mill,
as well as linguistic tricks. Another was simply to give it a
chance. A third was to think about how it might indeed be relevant
to contemporary existence (we had a long chat about current issues
of censorship, aided by that day's newspaper.)
And I don't think that these strategies are completely
non-transferrable. There is at least a chance that he will be able to
apply some of them the next time she has trouble with a passage, in or
out of context.
If we can only teach students about what is right under their noses
without being able to teach them more generalized strategies that
will help them here there and everywhere, who is going to hold their
hands when we aren't there?
Doug
>
> I've just read this string and am commenting somewhat late, but like
> Glenn Deer I recognized the passage which immediately brought back a
> flood of memories from Political Science 361: The History of
> Political Philosophy taught by the fabulous Charles Taylor in the
> basement of the Leacock Building. (There was also a fabulous grad
> student in that class whom I eventually married, but that's another
> story). Similar to Glenn's experience, this passage was read
> by us in context: of political philosophy, 19th century thought, and
> with the help of contemporary commentators (Sabine was our Bible) as
> well as discussed with the teacher and our seminar leader. Throwing
> such a passage at a student for reading or discourse analysis is
> senseless, unless the student is actually studying this writer or
> period.
>
