Teaching Tolkien

[Bêthberry]

Fordim Hedgethistle,

Wonderful extrapolation of what I meant. I think it is so important to ask open-ended, non-directive questions which stimulate real reflection and engage serious attention and thought.

I would also agree with your way of understanding Tolkien not as a closed system of meaning but as a text which opens itself to further understanding. Too often it seems to me that answers about Tolkien are set in stone, given absolute quantification by the Letters, The Silm, HOME, UT when in fact, I think, in my humble estimation, his work, like the best fantasy, is not a closed system.

But this is what I think the best teachers do, inspire students not to be satisfied with neat little answers but to extend the way of thought to other possibilities. I had always thought of The Appendices as "overflow", part of Tolkien's magnificent fecundity of imagination rather than as part and parcel of the 'scholarly' apparatus he implies elsewhere with his narrator. Thank you for making me think of them in a new light.

Now, if only your website link did not take me to the outer limit of something....

[davem]

Both these groups offer help with teaching Tolkien - don't know if they have exactly what you're looking for, though

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/ed/index.html

http://www.skiesofrohan.com/teach.html

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Yes, Gorwingel, it's a high school class. It's taught every two years, depending on how many people are interested. They switch it up with a creative writing course.

I gave my first 'lesson' today... But it was pretty hard, because the teacher didn't explain that they were supposed to be listening to ME, so they all immediately assumed that I was just trying to show off or something. Oh well. Anyhow, I had them read up to the hiatus in "The Kings of Numenor" (as far as I dared go for the first day) and then explained who these people were, and how they are connected to the characters in the main story. (Elrond's dad, Aragorn's great(many greats)-grandfather, The Ultimate Baddie who taught Sauron, "That one that Bilbo sang about", "The Elf that Arwen looks like"). I think it went pretty well. Only it was somewhat interrupted by the teacher "explaining" how Dwarves came into being. According to the alternate text she must have been reading (ha..ha..ha..), Elves got bored, so they made the Dwarves.

Spring break now, so I've got over a week to decide what to do next. I can't present them with anything that gives away the end of the book (we're only just past Minas Tirith), so that makes it harder. I had to bend the truth a little as is, what with the mention of the union between Aragorn and Arwen... I claimed that by 'union', Tolkien meant 'love'. I think some of them actually believed me.

Again, thanks for the help. You guys are brilliant.

Fea