A Story of E-Learning and a Cicerone

A Story of E-Learning and a CiceroneMoll Flanders uses her Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin to teach English essay topics. She began the course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is where she earned her Bachelor's degree in English. 'My best Ph.D. essay topic was, 'Famous Books by Famous Authors,' but I thought it was rather broad, and it didn't tell me a lot about the author,' she said.There was nothing like this career advice from Dr. Moll Flanders when she received a recommendation letter from a professor. It's from Bob Goldwasser, the same professor that taught Laura Ingalls Wilder how to write a novel. Dr. Flanders is the author of Confessions of a Literary Critic.Her book is about the differences between literary criticism and literary interpretation. 'I feel I have come into my own as a critic with this book. The focus on contrasts among the different literary genres is definitely my specialty,' she said.She hopes the main point of the book is to get students thinking about the books they read. It helps them understand the way the critic sees the book.In this new edition, the main point is to use a writer's viewpoint and see the book in the perspective of the writer. That viewpoint might be seeing the work in an academic, or even historical perspective. Either way, Dr. Flanders feels it helps the students appreciate the writing more than before.She has students read works by fictional writers to get them started. These are 'Asters by Kenneth Grahame,' and 'Bloody Mary by Louise Gluck.' And she will ask them to write essays about how they would read the work in the first place.Another way to help them is to give them the actual works that they will be reading and evaluating. They can read the novels from Brontë, Gogol, Poe, Hardy, Twain, Lawrence, Ellison, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Joyce, Nabokov, and Ferrante. So, the real thing they can read and analyze with their critical faculties working.Dr. Moll Flanders str esses in her e-course 'The Essay Book: How to Write Elegantly and Magnificently' that the goal is to have the student reading literary works for pleasure. By using a literary viewpoint and seeing the work from a different viewpoint, the student will be getting a better idea of what it takes to review and evaluate a literary work.