When 50 high school students stepped into UW Professor Gary Handwerk’s 400-level comparative literature course last April, no one knew what to expect. They were visiting the class to discuss the novel Jane Eyre, which both they and Handwerk’s students had read. Before long, the two groups of students were engaged in a spirited discussion.

The visit was part of the “Texts and Teachers” program, an experiment in pedagogical cross-pollination that was introduced at the UW in 1999.

“‘Texts and Teachers’ was first introduced at Brown University about ten years ago with National Endowment for the Humanities funding,” says Handwerk, chair of the Department of Comparative Literature. “The intent was to teach parallel versions of a course at the university and high school levels, with virtually the same content and design.”

Professors Gary Handwerk, right, and Willis Konick.

Why attempt a parallel course? Handwerk offers several reasons. It provides greater challenges for advanced high school students. It encourages high school teachers to include texts and interdisciplinary approaches they might not otherwise consider. It gives university students a chance to reflect on how and why students in different settings can read the same texts in different ways. And, Handwerk says, it creates an ongoing conversation between high school and university teachers.

Intrigued by the program’s possibilities, Handwerk pulled together a six-person team to attend a “Texts and Teachers” summer seminar at Brown. The group included Willis Konick, UW professor of comparative literature, teachers Karen Mattson and RaeAnn Engdahl from Eastlake High School in Redmond, and Libby Benson and Nick Nicoletta from Henry M. Jackson High School in Everett. As a team, they collaborated on the design of a course to be taught at their respective schools, using a framework outlined by the “Texts and Teachers” program.

“We spent two weeks living in the dorm, working on the course, and brainstorming about pedagogy,” recalls Handwerk. “Even in our free time, we found ourselves talking about teaching in our different settings.”

By the time they left Brown, the group had decided on texts and approaches. They met several more times to iron out the details. “We discussed everything from assignments to how we were going to run the classes,” says Handwerk. “We had conversations about teaching that don’t normally occur between high school teachers and university faculty.”

When the course was introduced in the schools that fall, each teacher’s personal style and class environment influenced the tone of the course. Konick was teaching a class of 100 students, while Handwerk was teaching a senior seminar. And the high school teachers were facing students who, for the most part, had never been challenged this way before.

“The content level was very different than it would be for the average high school class,” says Karen Mattson, who taught the course at Eastlake High School. “The standards that we use for this course and the essays we assign are harder than what’s normally expected.”

Acknowledging the differences in their styles and settings, the high school teachers invited the University faculty to visit and teach in their classrooms. Both Konick and Handwerk took a turn.

“They were discussing Go Down Moses at the time,” recalls Konick. “It’s a very challenging text. The students had a lot of questions, not all of which I could answer. And they got to see that Gary and I have very different styles.”

	Karen Mattson, an English teacher at Eastlake High School in Redmond, Washington.

Mattson says her students relished the contact with UW faculty. “For most of them, these are the first professors they‘ve met,” she says. “They get a sense that there’s a larger world out there. And because Gary and Willis have very different teaching styles, it’s fascinating for the students—and for us as high school teachers.”

Konick and Handwerk alsoinvited the high school students to their classes. “It was an opportunity for them to participate in a discussion with college students—mostly college seniors, in my case—that sharpened their own sense of their abilities,” says Handwerk. “They were wonderful participants. My students benefitted from having them there.” In fact, says Handwerk, the class was most animated when the two groups of students spoke informally about how they’d studied the book differently. “I don’t know what that says about my teaching,” he adds, “but the informal discussion was the part they liked best.”

Given the camaraderie between the high school and college students, Handwerk decided to add a new wrinkle to the program. He had his students form research groups for selected texts, with some groups visiting the high school classes to present their information.

The emphasis of the research is “reception history”—the historical context of a text and how people have responded to it. “High school teachers tend not to have as much time to work on or think about reception history,” says Handwerk. “So I figured, ‘Why not have my students do it?’”

The approach has been a success for both sets of students. “Having the UW students come out was really popular,” says Mattson. “My students liked finding out more about the text they were now familiar with, plus they were flattered that 400-level college students were coming to talk to them. They asked questions about the book—but also about college life.”

Handwerk’s students this year were so intrigued by the high school visits that several are basing their research topics on observation of the high school classes. “They want to talk with the teachers about teaching and with the students about learning,” says Handwerk. “They love interacting with students from a different setting at a different level.”

To encourage even greater contact between the high school and college students, Handwerk is now adding another element to the program: online discussions. He is creating a website where students at both levels can converse about the books they’ve read for the course.

“In developing ‘Texts for Teachers’, Brown set a program with a good deal of teacher- to-teacher and faculty-to-student contact but not as much student-to-student contact,” Handwerk explains. “So with these new elements, I’m expanding that on my own.”

Having attended her share of teaching workshops, Mattson marvels at how Handwerk has kept the “Texts and Teachers” program fresh and has continued to stay in touch with the participants for nearly two years.

“Without Gary’s energy, I don’t know if the rest of us would have communicated as much as we have,” says Mattson. “Usually, after a workshop ends, the camaraderie falls apart. But this time it hasn’t. There’s been a lot of collaboration and trading back and forth. It’s been a great experience for everyone involved.”

More Parallel Courses:
Freshman Mathematics in Local High Schools

[Winter/Spring 2001 - Table of Contents]