John Baker
University of Westminster, UK
Teaching Lawrence: A Tutor's Perspective
Between January and March 2007, I taught a course entitled 'D. H. Lawrence: Sex, Politics and Society', which I had designed myself, to a class of third year undergraduates at the University of Westminster.
Each year at Westminster a tutor is asked to design and deliver a third year course on a topic of their own choice, which is known as the 'Special Author/Topic' module, and I was asked to do this in the 2006-7 academic year. This talk will focus on this experience and what it taught me about teaching Lawrence at university level.
The twelve-week course covered four of Lawrence's major novels – Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover – one of his short novels, St Mawr, several short stories, some poetry and a play, The Daughter-In-Law. Assessment took the form of one essay and an exam, both equally weighted. The talk will cover a range of pedagogical issues connected with Lawrence, including the vexed questions of approaching Lawrence's 'sexism' and 'racism' in class, the relevance of Lawrence's work to the contemporary reader, the usefulness (or otherwise) of biography to the student, and the use of criticism. It will also focus on some problems I encountered and my solutions to them, as well as the students' feelings about their own experience, as expressed through anonymous class monitoring. I also plan to make reference to the students' performance in assessment, once details become available.
I hope that this discussion of my experiences will be of interest to others who either teach Lawrence at undergraduate level or are considering doing so at some time in the future.