Studying and Teaching W.C. Falkner, William Faulkner, and Digital Literacy

Personal Democracy in Social Combination

By (author) Koichi Fujino

Publication date:

22 November 2017

Length of book:

260 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498547475

This book explores the ways to teach the literary works of William Clark Falkner and William Faulkner to ESL (English as a Second Language) students in today’s digital environment. William Faulkner’s great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner, wrote romantic literary works, and William Faulkner critically uses the motifs of his great-grandfather’s works to establish his literary world. Applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogical theory, this book theoretically explains how these two authors imagine the social formations of the American South differently in their literary works. The coined term, social combination—which is defined as the individuals’ mutual effort to have equal relationships for a certain time—is used as a key term to examine how these two authors depict the characters’ personal relationships. William Faulkner employs his characters’ social combination as a resistance against the American South’s romantic illusions that are represented by William Clark Falkner’s literary works. William Faulkner’s historical perspective is beneficial for today’s ESL students, who explore their new egalitarian formations in their digitally expanded world. The last part of this study outlines how an American literary teacher can connect the works of William Clark Falkner and William Faulkner when teaching ESL students by using today’s digital environment. Using three digital platforms—Moodle, WordPress, and Google Drive—a teacher composes egalitarian relationships among class members and inspires students’ autonomous discussion on these two authors’ works. Through these activities, ESL students are expected to comprehend that the literature of the American South is not only the historical development of the foreign region, but the phenomenon that is connected to their own social formations.

Introduction: Remapping Two Fa(u)lkners’ Works and Literature Education in Today’s Digital Environments
Chapter One: Progress from Monologism to Dialogism: Studying Two Fa(u)lkners’ Works
Chapter Two: Social Combinations beyond Borders of Race, Gender, and Class in William Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust
Chapter Three: Social Combination in Class: How to Teach Two Fa(u)lkners’ Works and Digital Literacy to ESL Students
Conclusion: Personal Democracy in Social Combination

This book offers a unique blend of literary criticism and pedagogy unified under the author’s coined term of ‘social combination’ and the ways the author sees social combination addressed and enacted in the writing of Colonel William Clark Falkner, William Faulkner, and in digitally-supported ESL classrooms. In an impassioned argument that tinges criticism with personal essay, [the author] does an impressive job of weaving various large strands into an interesting and original discussion that can be useful for readers interested in American literature, southern literature, Faulkner, digital humanities, and pedagogy generally.