Another reading comprehension strategy valuable to the outcome of extensive reading, according to Brevik, is to activate prior knowledge. During an initial discussion with students concerning what they knew already about the 1920s in the United States, a few pieces of knowledge came to their minds. When urged a little with some keywords, though, students seemed to possess quite a bit of knowledge already about this fatal period in between the two World Wars in American history, defined by “The Roaring Twenties” on one end and the Great Depression on the other.
To activate prior knowledge according to Brevik implies filling in some crucial events and years in a timeline, and by visualizing the period in question, the hope is that this will bring more knowledge amongst the students to the surface. Since some former exchange students have already been through The Great Gatsby during their year in an American school, this represents a fact that singles this novel out within American literature and culture, and adds value to its iconic position within the American school system. At first, these students seem uninterested in reading the same novel twice, but soon they perceive the value of keeping up with the others, and even reaching a deeper understanding of the text. Its historical, social and cultural setting is of great relevance to the novel. The author who wrote it, and his life, make up an equally important backdrop that the students ought to be aware of prior to the reading.
Despite the fact that several of them have already watched the film from 2013 with Leonardo DiCaprio in the leading part, it seems that comparatively few have surplus references to the author and the historical period behind it.
Unfortunately, students have not yet reached World War I in their modern history lessons in 13th grade when we begin discussing the novel, but soon they will, and some of them do recall some information about it from former history lessons, and encourage the others in painting the picture of the 1920s in the USA. For English teachers in upper secondary school, it could be interesting to initiate an interdisciplinary project involving history and English literature in the 13th year. Tine Pedersen Lambela shares my point of view in her thesis “From Pemberley
Park to the VG3-classroom”, where she suggests the idea of “having a multidisciplinary project between English and history, using Austen’s works in either original or adapted form could be a great way to introduce the historical period of the early 19th century” (Lambela 45).
As I see it, we very seldom teach subjects in combination, which is a fact that brings Gerald Graff’s experience back to mind. “What do you think Jane Austen would have said about Adam’s statement?” he asks his class, but their response is only “Silence!” (Graff 177). His students are unable to follow their teacher’s association of George Eliot’s Adam Bede with Austen’s Pride and Prejudice because they have not been instructed to do so.
Within the Norwegian school system, there exists a parallel that T. P. Lambela offers a solution to in the above paragraph. Teachers do work out their subjects within a vacuum, to some extent, and if we do not combine e.g., history and English for our students, to prove that they intersect with each other, they will scarcely be able to draw useful parallels themselves.
The criticism raised towards the present Norwegian curricula tends to underline the fact that the curricula comprise too much, the students are confronted with too many curricular aims that merely have a propensity to scratch the surface, and they end up with little to no in depth learning. At present, we do not know whether the newly modified curricula of 2018 will alter this fact, or if we will have to wait until 2020 for the completely revised ones. To possess knowledge on the surface, in several fields, seems outdated today. In the future, the increased demand for in depth knowledge will rise. Furthermore, the skill of recognizing and combining information received in their lessons about modern history with a novel read in their English lessons will most likely furnish our students with a skill applicable to other subjects too. Most importantly, it will prepare our students for the demands already present within most
professional careers too, and most likely, the future demand for this ability to conceptualize knowledge and make connections between seemingly unrelated subjects will grow in the time to come.
I claim that learning strategies are required for studying in depth. To activate several tools to assist students in their examinations of unfamiliar ground, to explore it, question it and to extract the necessities needed for their study, will assist students beyond superficial learning.
From a pedagogical point of view, it would be interesting to parallel the historical periods in English classes with those covered in their Norwegian classes. Teachers could simply group several of these external factors together in one major project that covers curricular aims in more than one subject taught in upper secondary schools. Especially when recalling the new curricula that are due in 2020, where according to the NOU 2014 : 7, chapter 3, emphasis in
future schools should be placed on learning certain items in depth rather than learning in abundance superficially. There are numerous strategies, although we will never have enough, and in my opinion, there might still be several out there not yet contrived.
4 A historical-biographical three-step process
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (Fitzgerald 115) serves as a metaphor for the teaching of nearly a century old novel to students in 2018.