John Fowles's The Collector in Form 11. PART II: Didactic Considerations and Suggestions for Classroom Strategies Willi Real

3. Didactic considerations

As to my mind, pre-reading has obvious advantages (22). First of all, it also means pre-teaching for the sequence as a whole. Secondly, if you want to interpret any part of the novel, you have to know the context of the whole. This is true of thematic as well as of formal aspects. Still one has to realize that reading a long text in a foreign language may imply a lot of problems for the learners. In addition, in the case of The Collector it is possible to come to a sensible compromise. The novel consists of four parts; however, the first two are the most important by far since parts 3 and 4 are both very short and fulfil the function of an epilogue only. As a matter of fact, the action of the whole novel is told in part 1. Consequently, the students may get two weeks' time, during which they are told to read this part of the novel only (about 100 pages in the Vintage edition). If the learners are not yet experienced readers in the foreign language, one lesson may be used to deal with their problems, for example after the first week (23).

This kind of pre-reading enables the students to cooperate in choosing certain passages for critical attention; it is possible for the students to focus on some themes, to gather textual evidence, to become experts on certain aspects. A long-term advantage would be that pe-reading prevents the discussion of the novel from falling into fragments. During this stage, classroom activity should focus on the plot only so that the students may be able to evaluate the events from the protagonist's view. During such a stage the problems of checking textual comprehension, of textual analysis and a discussion of many aspects are closely intertwined. It should be practicable to find out whether the learners are able to take sides with Frederick, and it is only after that stage that Miranda's point-of-view should come in.

4. Suggestions for classroom strategies

QUESTIONS that you ask yourself about characters and events as you read. MEMORIES from your own experience, provoked by the reading. GUESSES about how you think the story will develop, and why. REFLECTIONS on striking moments and ideas in the book. COMPARISONS between how you behave and how the characters in the novel are behaving. THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS about characters and events. COMMENTS on how the story is being told - for example, words or phrases or even whole passages which make an impression on you ... OBSERVATIONS OF YOUR READING PROCESS, i.e. how you read. LANGUAGE PROBLEMS and ways of solving them (24).

Using such a journal means that the students' responses, their first impressions, ideas, feelings, etc. are taken seriously: they may be relevant for classroom procedure in such a way that possibly every statement may be discussed publicly in class. Thus a response journal may be like a feedback activity for the teacher. The entries in a journal may also be recorded on tape so that the class may listen to them, or they may be made available somehow to the other course members. The students could, for example, exchange their notes with a partner and/or move around in class freely in order to see what their classmates have written because it is of crucial importance to achieve interaction at this stage. The students may also pass their journal on to their neighbours once/twice/several times in order to achieve an exchange of ideas. This is similar to organizing a pyramid discussion (25): ultimately those responses which are shared by all course members will be made public, i.e. they may be written on the blackboard or on a transparency for OHP.

In reading a text the students could also be asked to concentrate on chronology, on causality, on analogy as well as on contrast and similar formal clues, which do not serve as tools for narrow guidance and which do not manipulate the students' attention too much. Basically this means the learners reflect on their own process of understanding: for them taking notes is a help for categorizing, verbalizing, and memorizing ideas, and experience has shown that learners use their previous knowledge and choose different gaps which they fill in. Generally speaking, this a contribution to the development of learner autonomy (26), which implies that the students take over some responsibility for their learning process. In addition, experience has shown that the students use little abstraction and little generalization during their first reading processes. They produce a mixture of cognitive insights, emotional impressions and aesthetic evaluations; this activity leaves open much room for classroom discussion and improves the students' command of the target language.

Moreover, the students will realize that understanding literature consists of a process in which three different stages may be distinguished: decoding (i.e. understanding the literal level, the level of literary events/facts), inferencing (i.e. forming hypotheses which are either confirmed or rejected by the context of the whole work) and elaborating (i.e. going beyond the text itself by using imaginative extensions or creative tasks). Thus response journals may support the interaction between text and reader while reading the text, but they are also a help for the public discussion of the text in class and for learning the target language. In this way reading becomes a learning process, and literature itself is used as a resource for useful language activities.

1.2. Possible alternatives
If the teacher does not want his learners to use a response journal, it is still possible for him to start the sequence in a student-orientated way by asking the course members:
a) What did you like/dislike when reading the novel? The responses are written down on a transparency and are compared to the students' attitudes at the end of the sequence.
b) The students are asked to complete the following statement by writing one sentence only; several answers are thinkable, e.g.:
To me, The Collector is .... (27)
- a completely new experience because I have never come across a story in which both sides are represented in this special way,
- a thrilling book, not just a thriller or a love story, but also a reflection of class conflicts,
- a fascinating combination of two people's personal problems in an extreme situation ...

1.3. The narrator Frederick Clegg
It should be practicable to have a team of students read Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and to compare its narrator to that in the novel: neither of them can be trusted. Besides both of them are criminals. In Poe's work the narrator becomes a victim of his own guilt feelings, whereas Frederick Clegg is unable to see he committed anything wrong and is even determined to take another girl as his hostage. The narrator-protagonist in The Collector is both unreliable and unfeeling.

1.4. Homework
The students are asked to choose three quotations (e.g. p. 13, p. 16 and p. 31) or kernel passages from the first part for an open-classroom discussion; they should also be able to justify their choices.

Unit 2: The events in part I
2.1. Discussion of homework
The students are expected to choose three quotations at least, to write them down on a flashcard, to put them in front of themselves, or to write them down on a transpareny. This is followed by an interpretation of them and a justification of individual choices.

2.2. The use of visual media
The teacher could use a flowchart for the events: he could list the individual aspects and combine them with the help of arrows (technique of visualizing), the students may add photos, add a cover design for the novel so that the lay-out becomes interesting, too.

2.3. Summary of events
The pupils may choose kernel passages and suggest them for discussion in class which may be read silently or aloud; the results may be similar to the aspects mentioned above. They may be arranged in chronological order since the events are related in chronological order, too. The movement of the plot could be illustrated with the help of a diagram used to illustrate the plot in traditional drama. As this unit will cover several lessons, different pieces of information may be added step by step, which could be written on a transparency or on a wallpaper, or different sheets could be put together in order to produce a wall chart which will be in class as long as the teaching unit lasts. Some students could also take written notes, a copy of which is given to every class member.

2.4. For discussion
Would you accept Frederick's idea of himself as a person who is morally superior?

2.5. Homework
The course participants read the second part of the novel successively or selectively; the latter procedure is possible since virtually any passage may be understood from the context of the events related in the first part. In reading the students should find parallel passages in parts 1 and 2 for comparative analysis or concentrate on passages dealing with Miranda's changing moods and feelings.

Unit 3: The analysis of parallel passages from parts 1 and 2
3.1. Discussion of homework
At times part 2 seems to be lengthy (it is the longest of the four sections the novel is divided into): all in all the second part consists of about 140 pages. Thus the problem arises to select passages for extensive reading as well as for intensive reading. In order to allow the class as much scope for individual choices as possible, in this paper, only one kernel passage has been chosen for close reading and critical discussion (cf. below). As to organizing extensive reading, first of all I would suggest leaving out all those passages which concern Miranda's general outlook on life. Since all students are supposed to know the events of part 1 from the novel, it is also possible to use group work: the teacher could divide the text into several parts which have to be read and examined by different groups: these, of course, are to report back on their findings to the whole class. Their findings could start like this:

Examples of parallel passages: - p. 137: Frederick's desire to kiss her during the walk through the garden; cf. p. 62; - p. 201: Miranda throwing things at him; cf. p. 74f; - p. 202: Miranda using the appendicitis trick; cf. p. 65; - p. 226: Miranda attacking him with an axe, actively fighting for her freedom; cf. p. 91; - pp. 241-243: her attempt at seducing him, including her reflections after its failure; as to his view cf. p. 99f.

3.2. Miranda Grey's emotions
Discussing the events quite naturally leads to the next step: there may be a smooth transition from the plot level to the psychological level since another shaping principle for classroom procedure may be Miranda's changing moods. As shown above, a collage of them may be derived from the text: the students could try to produce a similar one (it is neither necessary nor desirable to get it 'complete'). As this problem virtually covers all of part 2, probably two steps will be necessary. The first step will consist of a mere listing activity, of a collection of textual evidence which is found by a corresponding chronological reading of the novel and a chronological procedure in class. (Again this may cover several lessons during which the students should be allowed to use their copies; at the beginning of each lesson brainstorming is recommendable.) As a second step, collecting material could be supplemented by a phase where categorization and evaluation are in the foreground.

3.3. Close reading of a kernel passage
Miranda's attempt to seduce Fredrick Clegg may be regarded as the emotional climax of the novel. In class attention may focus on p. 237f, where she first plans her attempt at seduction, and on pp. 241-243: this section gives a detailed description of the whole scene in which strong emotions are involved on both parts. Of course, it is delicate to discuss this scene in class. If the discussion is successful or not, depends on the relationship between teacher and students and, of course, on the atmosphere within the learning group, generally speaking.

3.4. Discussion (optional)
Comment upon the behaviour of Frederick Clegg and Miranda Grey

3.5. Homework
The students are certainly familiar with the following problem: whenever they watch a film of a novel they have read before, they will wonder whether the actors correspond to the picture of the major figures they have formed in their imagination. Therefore the students may be asked to choose suitable photos in order to visualize their impressions of Miranda and Frederick. They could use any source they want: books, journals, the internet ...

Unit 4: The characters (based on parts 1 and 2)
4.1. The results of the students' homework
The photos the students have found for Frederick and Miranda (cf. 3.5.) are being discussed. This may be a suitable warming-up for a discussion of the two major characters.

4.2. Fredrick Clegg: character analysis
Characterizing Frederick with the help of a word portrait; in this inverted approach to character analysis - which is hopefully motivating - the students are confronted with a lot of material concerning what is stated and implied about a character in a literary text (28). Thus the students will not have to locate and to collect textual evidence, but they may classify what they are offered by using familiar categories, namely outer appearance//actions and behaviour//norms, ideals, values. In addition, they are asked to find out five of his/her most outstanding characteristics. As this is also a ranking task it implies a large scope for discussion and a great variety of speech utterances.

4.3. Classifying Miranda's feelings
The course members should develop a grid (a mood graph) in order to illustrate and to visualize Miranda's changing feelings, i.e. they should arrive at an assessment of each emotion, although Frederick emphasizes several times that she is unpredictable. Thus the aim should be for the students to find out which emotions are comparatively agreeable, rather disagreeable and which are more/most disagreeable for Miranda. This is another ranking activity, which is certainly more ambitious than that suggested in 4.2., but one which could lead to lively discussions and would allow much scope for personal answers, since the classification of emotions is certainly difficult. If the students have not prepared their own list as a long-term task (cf. 3.2), they might start from the following list of emotional terminology:

frustration, anger, rebellion, sulkiness, loneliness, solitude, desire for human contact and communication, fear of being raped, fear of being a prisoner/fear of being caught for good, feeling trapped, suffering from a lack of privacy, despair/hopelessness, humiliation, like "endless panic in slow motion"; moments of hope, desire for hygiene; wishful thinking, writing her diary is compared to a drug (p. 165), wish to get free and to survive; on the verge of a nervous breakdown; feverish, delirious.

My own tentative answer would be: having a bath, getting fresh air in the garden and writing her diary are likely to be her most agreeable experiences. Since writing her diary is like a drug, its effect is certainly therapeutic (cf. above). Perhaps the fear of being raped, of never getting free again, despair, solitude and humiliation, but also self-hatred are the emotions which are the hardest to bear ...

4.4. Comment on the literary allusions in the novel
Whether Frederick Clegg may be succesfully compared to Caliban/Holden Caulfied and/or Arthur Seaton or what function Jane Austen has for Miranda Grey, these are no problems the teacher has to solve. On the contrary: the task of explaining the literary allusions in the novel is left to different teams of students. Such mini-projects are based on the concept of learning by teaching (29): this is to be recommended to students since teaching always implies an enormous intellectual challenge and a lot of mental discipline: careful thought and preparation is indispensable before a problem may be successfully explained to any learner particularly when the 'student-teachers' are expected to use the target language. As helpful reference books they may use The Oxford Companion to English Literature or any reliable history of English literature; of course, useful information may also be found in the internet.

4.5. For discussion (optional)
- Is Miranda conceited, arrogant? She makes Clegg feel inferior; he is like wax in her hands (cf. p. 99). This could lead to a comparative judgement of the two characters: is she a strong personality - is he deformed, a lone would-be wolf?

- There is another problem: how does the second part of the novel come into the hands of the publisher? This is not accounted for by the text.

- And: how do you think Frederick would respond to Miranda's diary? (In part 4 it is mentioned that he finds it; cf. p. 281.) Do you think he will be able to learn from it?

Unit 5: Imaginative extensions/Frederick's trial
This subject is suggested by a passage in the text: here Miranda has a dream about Caliban in court in which she argues he needs sympathy and forgiveness (cf. p. 246). Apart from that, textual analysis is to be supplemented by imaginative extensions, generally speaking. First of all, the learners could mark all the textual evidence in order to write a curriculum vitae concerning both major characters (30); later on they try to close gaps in the thoughts and feelings of the figures concerned. These tasks are supposed to be based on independent team work by several groups of learners.

5.1.Frederick's curriculum vitae
This may be used as a starting point in order to produce something like the following collage; some photos may be added (perhaps to be downloaded from the internet; cf. previous lesson):

Frederick Clegg's curriculum vitae (example of a student's report): I was born in 1935, the son of Ida Clegg and her husband Frances. My father, who was a commercial traveller, i.e. a representative selling stationery and fancy goods, died in a car crash when I was two years old. My mother left the family soon afterwards (cf. pp. 182-183). Therefore I was raised by Aunt Annie and my Uncle Dick; although they had two children of their own - her son Bob who emigrated to Australia later on and her disabled/spastic daughter Mabel. They saved me from being brought up in an orphans' home, and I must certainly feel grateful to them. Unfortunately, Uncle Dick, who was as good as a father to me, had a paralytic stroke so that he died when I was fifteen. In school I was good at English and I got O levels in Maths and Biology. Later on I became a clerk for our local administration. Ever since I was 21, I did the pools every week. Once I was lucky enough to win more than 73.000 pounds. At that time I wanted to separate from Aunt Annie and Mabel. Therefore I paid their journey to Australia since they had wanted to visit Bob anyway, and, quite frankly, I was happy to learn that they intended to stay there. This made it possible for me to direct my attention to Miranda Grey, whom I had found attractive for a long time. The house of her family was right opposite the Town Hall, where I was working. From a short article in the local paper I knew that she had won a scholarship and was going to become an art student in London. I felt quite sure that I could never get to know Miranda in the ordinary way because she was born into an academic family, whereas my aunt and my uncle were - quite visibly - very ordinary people who had never left home so far. Therefore I hit upon the brilliant idea of taking her prisoner and of having her as my guest in a lonely country house. My money gave me the power and the possibility of realizing this plan. I hoped in the long run she would see my good points, recognize my good sides and she would understand me, because I wanted to be happy with her. God knows that I never touched her and that I never intended to do her any harm. Unfortunately Miranda never understood - but still I do forgive her, because I deeply loved her. My mistake was that I wanted a guest who was too far above me (31).

5.2. A psychiatrist's analysis of Frederick

Frederick Clegg: a psychiatric analysis (example of another student's report): The patient under consideration has obvious problems both in developing and maintaining human relationships and in evaluating his own person. Of course, he never tried to force sexual intercourse on Miranda Grey. According to himself, he possesses an uncommon degree of self-discipline, and he acted out of respect for her. He also dreamt of living in a nice modern house with her, get married and have children (p. 19). Such thoughts are mere pretexts; they are all wishful thinking (a self-deception/an illusion concerning himself). They may also be caused by a repression, in order to defend and protect his ego. He is suffering from a split personality, i.e. from schizophrenia. In other words: Frederick Clegg is certainly inhibited in a pathological sense: a young man who is afraid to touch a woman. I read the captive's and the captor's account of the whole story and had many conversations with him, too. He told Miranda "he could never do it" because a psychiatrist in the army told him so (pp. 100-101), and in a similar way his victim obviously believed that there was no man in him (cf. p. 242); but elsewhere (p. 103) he also claims he has not been to any doctor and that he "could do it". So he does not admit to himself that he is abnormal in sexual respect. Taking secret photos of half-naked or naked women or couples making love - this may be an outlet for his frustration, a kind of secondary sexual satisfaction, a compensation for being self-conscious/tense/stiff or unrelaxed, but his voyeuristic behaviour is certainly no preparation for having sexual intercourse. Very often a shock during childhood is said to be responsible for the genesis of neuroses, complexes, etc. In Frederick's life, there has been the car accident in which his father was killed because he was drunk: and this happened when the boy was only two years old (cf. p. 11). This implies that he had to grow up as a fatherless child. Frederick never learns what really happened, but at times it is said that his mother was responsible for driving his father to drink. Soon after, his mother left the family (cf. p. 11); this means that she does not act as a responsible educator: she behaves in a completely selfish and irresponsible way. This must have been another shock for the child. Later on in his life, he obviously missed her: Miranda Grey was certainly right in telling him that in taking her prisoner he was on his search for a mother substitute; cf. p.121). Thus he was brought up by his aunt, who saved him from an orphan's home, but obviously did not try to understand the boy (cf. p. 11). Aunt Annie and her daughter Mabel despised Frederick's butterflies (cf. p. 11). He is a collector of them, perhaps being interested in their different shapes and attractive colours. Collecting things is a fundamental human desire, such as collecting coins, stamps, vintage cars, old TV sets, etc.; in this respect Frederick Clegg is like many other human beings. Unfortunately, his uncle died (bad luck again!) when he was fifteen (cf. p. 11), i.e. during the age of puberty. Uncle Dick was the only one who accepted Frederick's passion for collecting. He is also blind towards his own person and all too ready to forgive himself. Frederick, then, has often experienced many losses, has never felt real love, and has never experienced signs of affection as far as his educators were concerned. During his childhood he could not develop a basic sense of trust or confidence, and, later on during his formative years, the boy missed a male role model for his identity formation. All this may be an explanation for the fact that he developed an inferiority complex, that he became just as selfish as his mother and that he was denied the pleasure of sex forever perhaps because he did not learn to trust in women. In order to compensate this he wanted to exert power by taking possession of a person. He felt that he would never be able to make Miranda's acquaintance in the ordinary way (cf. p. 19): thus it may be an expression of his shyness or even of his helplessness that he kidnapped her; however, violence of this kind is neither excusable nor justifiable. Still it should be emphasized that he did not intend to do her any harm. Miranda had become everything he had got, and therefore he developed a neurotic determination just to possess and to dominate her, even an obsession not to lose her, not to let her go. The case is a tragic one for Miranda and very likely to repeat itself. In order to overcome his self-delusion, Frederick Clegg has to learn to be more honest and more sincere towards himself; first of all, a lot of patience on his part and a willingness to listen to others would be absolutely indispensable; a speech therapy may be helpful in this case. His problem is that he cannot trust anybody since he is in distrust of the whole world. His poblems, then, result from his unhappy childhood which was imaginatively stifling and emotionally repressive (32): rejected as a child, he has neither been able to act responsibly nor to maintain a human relationship based on trust and affection so far.

5.3. Miranda's/or Marian's testimony
This is another attractive task which is based on an imaginative extension. To my mind it is preferable to work out Marian's testimony: this will be more open but it has to be in accordance with Frederick Clegg's behaviour, too. Since Miranda died, the task would contradict the outcome of the novel; as to Marian, the students may write another follow-up text, e.g. one day a driver has a minor accident, therefore he or a wanderer is finding the villa by chance and informing the police ...

5.4. Further examples of imaginative extensions
An editorial/some articles in a daily journal about the case: to begin with, Miranda is found to be missing. Later on, a reporter watches Frederick's trial: particularly in this context, group work could be used in which all members have to cooperate in order to fulfil different assignments (33): one student may be the writer, another may be the interviewer, another student may be Marian who is to be interviewed. In addition, one student should be the editor who is responsible both for linguistic correctness and the attractiveness of the lay-out. Another team could write a letter or some letters to the editor in order to achieve interaction between different groups.

5.5. Alternatives
(a) The students are expected to write a dialogue for a trial/for some decisive scenes between Miranda and Frederick which is/are to be staged as a role play and which may be either audiotaped or videotaped. They may also assume that Frederick is interviewed after being taken prisoner by the police. The recording may be watched again/revised/improved, and the scene may be acted out and recorded once again. It may be a help if the whole is arranged as a double role play: this means that every course member is allowed to make additional contributions to any part of the play. In practice this means the role players sit down on a chair, another row of chairs behind them is empty at first, everybody from the class who would like to contribute something takes a seat behind the role player in question and has his/her say. This may also be a possibility for the teacher to make personal contributions.

(b) The police have arrested Frederick Clegg. Organize a press conference/a panel discussion, where the Chief Inspector is on the hot chair in order to answer the questions fired at him by the journalists. Again this may be organized as a double role play. Thus the Chief Inspector could be supported by other colleagues, his boss, a psychiatrist, etc.

Unit 6: Final steps in the sequence
Part 3 and part 4:
Perhaps a double period would be sufficient for both parts: this should refer to an interpretation of the title and the general theme of the novel. Thus the students should discover possible parallels between collecting butterflies and becoming a habitual kidnapper and to derive their conclusions from this. In doing so, they should again feel free to voice their own opinions.

6.1. For discussion
There is at least one question for discussion which is of general interest and which refers to the literary quality of the novel: Frederick is an intellectually limited person, however, he seems to have a talent for writing. Is this an inherent contradiction which detracts from the literary value of the novel? To put it differently: the narrator is an uneducated lower-middle-class member who, however, manages to write his own story even though he is quite aware of his linguistic limitations (cf. p. 64). Thus the question arises: is the whole book psychologically believable and convincing?

6.2. Alternative
The teacher could ask the students to compare and to contrast the two major characters. This could lead to the following results (Blackboard work):

6.3. Conclusion
Ultimately the teacher should ask the students (cf. 1.2.) whether classroom work changed, modified or confirmed their first impressions of the novel. Again s/he should ask the students whether they (dis)liked reading and discussing this novel in class and for what reasons. Of course, a great variety of answers should be welcome.

5. Notes (continued)

(23) With a different novel, this procedure was successfully tried out in practice: cf. Max Bracht, "'Handmade Tales': Margaret Atwoods Roman The Handmaid's Tale im produktionsorientierten Fremdsprachenunterricht", Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 52:4 (1999), p. 233f.

(24) This concept which has been adapted from Benton (1992) is recommended in Krück/Loeser: cf. their article: "Effektive Rezeptionsstrategien durch Lesetagebücher", Fremdsprachenunterricht 41:1 [50] (1997), p. 9.

(25) Cf. Nathalie Hess, Headstarts. One hundred original pre-text activities (Harlow: Longman, 1991, 4th impression, 1996), p. XVIII.

(26) As to learner autonomy, cf. David Little, Learner Autonomy 1: Definitions, issues, problems. Dublin, 1991 and Phil Benson, Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning. Essex, 2001.

(27) Max Bracht, "THE COLLECTOR'S COLLECTION. Produktionsorientierte Unterrichtsarbeit am Beispiel von John Fowles' The Collector (S II)", Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht 31:27 (1997), p. 36. What is suggested by Bracht as a final value judgement, may also be used at the beginning of the teaching unit. The examples are also taken from the same secondary source.

(28) Alan Duff/Alan Maley, Literature (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 29.

(29) Cf. Jean-Pol Martin/Rudolf Kelchner, "Lernen durch Lehren", in: Johannes-P. Timm (Hrsg.), Englisch lernen und lehren. Didaktik des Englischunterrichts (Berlin: Cornelsen, 1998), pp. 211-219. Cf. also Karin Vogt, "Schüleraktivierung im Fremdsprachenunterricht der beruflichen Schule", Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 56:4 (2003), pp. 221-224.

(30) Cf. Max Bracht, "THE COLLECTOR'S COLLECTION. Produktionsorientierte Unterrichtsarbeit am Beispiel von John Fowles' The Collector (S II)", Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht 31:27 (1997), p. 36.

(31) A suggestion for Frederick Clegg's curriculum vitae may be found in Max Bracht, ib., p. 36; its author thinks that Clegg married a German wife who left him after a few years. However, this is not in accordance with the text of The Collector, and therefore it can be no satisfactory explanation of Clegg's inhibitions. As to the use of possible creative tasks generally speaking, cf. Ansgar Nünning, op. cit., pp. 151-154.

(32) Cf. Peter Conradi, op. cit., p. 34.

(33) Cf. Nathalie Hess, op. cit., p. XVI and p. XVIII; cf. also Reinhild Fliethmann, "Literature Study Groups im Fremdsprachenunterricht", Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 55:3 (2002), pp.156-157. Fliethmann suggests using study groups, i.e. a particular form of group work in which the different members have to fulfil different roles: apart from the discussion director, there may be
- a summarizer who concentrates on the events of the literary work;
- a passage master who chooses textual passages for discussion in class;
- a travel tracer who concentrates on the setting of the literary work;
- an investigator who researches into its background;
- a connector who tries to establish links between the text and the lives of the students;
- a vocabulary enricher who collects relevant lexical items for discussion/possibly works out semantic fields;
- an illustrator who draws pictures, comics, cartoons, prepares a collage with reference to the text, etc. These may be used for a wall paper, together with the chapter surveys/summaries.
Obviously, the different roles have different weight in the case of The Collector. On the one hand, setting and background possess little significance. On the other hand, all students should be passage masters because otherwise the choice of texts may be arbitrary. During the lessons, everybody is expected to use the target language. This procedure is said to lead to more activity than in traditional classroom text analysis. The teacher has to practise active withdrawal and to fulfil the role of a counsellor.

6. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Fowles, John, The Collector (1963). London: Vintage Book, 1998.

Poe, Edgar Allen, "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843): in: Selected Writings (Penguin Books, 1977), pp. 277-282.

Salinger, Jerome D., The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Penguin Books, 1971.

Sillitoe, Alan, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958). London: W.H. Allen, 1975.

Shakespeare, William, The Tempest (1611). London: The Arden Shakespeare Paperbacks, 1964.

Secondary Sources

Benson, Phil, Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning. Essex, 2001.

Benton, M., Secondary Worlds. Literature Teaching and the Visual Arts. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992.

Bracht, Max, "THE COLLECTOR'S COLLECTION. Produktionsorientierte Unterrichtsarbeit am Beispiel von John Fowles' The Collector (S II)", Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht 31:27 (1997), pp. 32-37.

Bracht, Max, "'Handmade Tales' Margaret Atwoods Roman The Handmaid's Tale im produktionsorientierten Fremdsprachenunterricht", Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 52:4 (1999), pp. 229 238.

Buchholz, Hanspeter, Die schöpferische Elite und ihre gesellschaftliche Verantwortung. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 1986. (Kapitel 3)

Conradi, Peter, John Fowles. London and New York, 1982. (chapter 2)

Cooper, Pamela, The Fictions of John Fowles. Power, Creativity, Femininity. University of Ottawa Press, 1991. (chapter 1)

Duff, Alan/Alan Maley, Literature. Oxford University Press, 1991).

Fliethmann, Reinhild, "Literature Study Groups im Fremdsprachenunterricht", Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 55:3 (2002), pp. 155-162.

Foster, Thomas C., Understanding John Fowles. University of South Carolina Press, 1994. (chapter 2)

Hermes, Liesel, "Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958)", in: Peter Freese/Liesel Hermes (Hrsg.), Der Roman im Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufe II. Theorie und Praxis (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2. Auflage, 1981), pp. 372-390.

Huffaker, Robert, John Fowles. Boston, 1980. (Twayne's English Authors Series 292; chapter 3)

Krück, Brigitte/Kristiane Loeser, "Effektive Rezeptionsstrategien durch Lesetagebücher", Fremdsprachenunterricht 41:1 [50] (1997), pp. 2-10.

Little, David, Learner Autonomy 1: Definitions, issues, problems. Dublin, 1991.

Martin, Jean-Pol/Rudolf Kelchner, "Lernen durch Lehren", in: Johannes-P. Timm (Hrsg.), Englisch lernen und lehren. Didaktik des Englischunterrichts (Berlin: Cornelsen, 1998), pp. 211-219.

Nünning, Ansgar, "Perspektivenübernahme und Perspektivenkoordinierung: Prozeßorientierte Schulung des Textverstehens und der Textproduktion bei der Behandlung von John Fowles' The Collector", Anglistik und Englischunterricht 61 (1997), pp.137-161.

Olshen, Barry N., John Fowles. New York, 1978. (chapter 2)

Real, Willi, John B. Priestley, An Inspector Calls. Lehrerhandreichungen. München: Langenscheidt-Longman, 1995.

Salami, Mahmoud, John Fowles's Fiction and the Poetics of Postmodernism. London and Toronto: Associated Presses, 1992. (chapter 2)

Tarbox, Katherine, The Art of John Fowles. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1988 (chapter 2)

Vogt, Karin, "Schüleraktivierung im Fremdsprachenunterricht der beruflichen Schule", Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 56:4 (2003), pp. 220-228.