Negative Capability and Teaching

My students think they have all the answers. If they don't have the answers, they think they can look them up online and get those answers with 100% accuracy. Their poems have all the answers, too:

1. The couple gets together or they don't.
2. A young person dies and eventually the family moves on.
3. The man in the poem ultimately realizes that he is to blame for all his own misery .

Ah, the speed of our culture! How easy to get to a resolution . . . how readily available our answers, yes?

Well, today I won't be preaching from the pulpit in the Church of Closure. Today, Keats is my pal. . .

I've been reading poems written by my students and many of them veer towards the slamming door. Today we'll be working towards mystery-making. Let's be baffled, unsure, and uncertain today.

***

In other news, there is no other news. I'm humming . . . listening for the next poem to smack me up-side the head.