Why I Don’t “Teach” Literature Class

by Jessica A. Kent | July 24, 2026

A literature class lecture course never made sense to me.

Chalk it up to all the times we circled the chairs in English class and writing workshops, dragging desks across the floor so we could all face one another. Finding the classroom laid out in a U or circle. Sitting around a table. Those discussions never centered the professor. They centered the group, books open. The role of the professor, then, was a group leader, a guide into the text pointing out what could be seen, starting us on the journey and letting us take it the rest of the way.

That’s probably why the Harvard Business School case method resonated with me so much. As a scribe in the MBA classroom, I never witnessed experts in their field lecture their students on what they knew, students silently taking notes. Instead, the professors asked questions, and it was the students’ conversation, debate, and insights that carried the class. The idea was that knowledge wasn’t flowing in one direction; it was co-created together each class in the discussion. No wonder the case method classroom is shaped in a U — just like all my English classes.

That pedagogy just makes sense to me. There’s a lot to mine in a great book or short story or poem, and if the author has done their job, there are different ways to look at that work, different lenses and interpretations to bring to work. No one has the “correct” reading.

Which is why it was probably so jarring for me the first time I witnessed an English class lecture course. In my master’s degree program, we could sign up for online classes that were taped lectures from undergrad courses. We’d watch the class and have our own section and assignments. Civil War Literature — right up my alley! Until I watched the class, in a lecture hall, where the professor talked about works of literature and what they meant. The way to read the poem or short story was the way he read it. And there was no class discussion, no chance for students to learn how to dig into the work themselves, no opportunity for them to look at it through their eyes, or make connections on their own. Just, here’s what I say it means. End of story.

As I started strategizing how to run my new literature classes I recently started offering through Literary Boston, I knew that I would never run a class that way. So I had to figure out how I would run it.

Building a Discussion Class

I wouldn’t call my approach “teaching.” I don’t like to consider myself a “teacher” and I have a hard time calling participants in my classes “students.” I don’t have the answers or the correct way to read a text. I have my version and you have your version, which is likely different, so let’s discuss it and figure it out together. However, making those “a-ha” moments happen takes a bit of work.

Figuring out the throughline

The most natural way for me to approach a literature class is to simply ask questions that lead to good discussion. And that’s how I prepped my Boston Classics class (and how I prepped when I ran a book club years ago). I start by reading the texts a few times. As I read, I come up with my own interpretation of the text, notes on symbolism, things I want to point the participants to show them something they maybe hadn’t seen in the text (recurring images, word choice, specific character development). Then I jot down a lot of simple questions to guide the discussion: What image do we start with? What happens next? How are these people characterized? What does this mean? How does this relate to other works we’ve read?

I actually love playing dumb in class. “What does this mean? I don’t understand.” or “Why does the narrator say this?” Sometimes those questions are what open up the discussion. But I’m asking those questions for reason, of certain parts in the text, because that’s where I know something exciting will be found: a new way to look at the main character, a commentary on a theme, or something they hadn’t seen before.

If someone asks me what something means or to explain something from the text, I often turn it either back on them — “What do you think it means?” — or turn the question back to the class. Often you get a few different interpretations of an answer.

Finally, if they’re really pressing me for my reading of the text, I’ll share it. But I make sure to say that it’s just my viewpoint, and that it can be read in other ways by other people.

Reinforcing various lenses

In a little first-class orientation on how to read and discuss, I deliberately say that my interpretation of the text is only one interpretation, and that we’re all going to look at the texts through our own eyes and experiences. I ask my participants to lean into that, to bring their background and knowledge and opinions to the text, but to always ground their reading in the text.

This got really fun during the week we dug into Transcendentalism. I didn’t ask them to just parse what Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller were writing. I asked them if they agreed or not, and if they thought the argument was solid or if they wanted to refute it. Even participants who had no previous interaction with Transcendentalist writing or had been in literature classes were able to engage with the text because questions like “how do we live life?” or “can we live up to our potential?” aren’t esoteric philosophy; they’re questions we live every day.

And that’s the fun of lit class. Everyone has a different angle through which they view the text, which lights up its many facets for the rest of us.

Sticking to the text…but maybe not to New Criticism

Is the meaning in the author, in the text, or in the reader? My training was that the meaning is in the text. Once the writing is on the page, it doesn’t matter what the author intended, right? We read our own interpretations of the text based on what’s on the page. And I was firmly in the New Criticism camp — the meaning is in the text — before I led these classes, and even talked about it a bit in my introduction: stick to the text, everything is in the text.

And I still believe that, but as I lead these classes, the lines blurred. As you can already tell, encouraging participants to bring their own backgrounds and experiences into their reading of the text blurs into Reader Response: the meaning is in the reader, as derived from the text. And as staunchly against authorial intent as I am, I opened each session with a brief biography on each author we read…and those biographies and historical contexts helped participants see new things in the text. I even used biography — “What if I told you this happened to the author?” — to change the way we looked at a text.

So I think I’ve revised my approach: the text is the center, but like a hub and spoke, many valid things can inform the reading of a text. And my reading is only one way in.

Looking forward to new discussions

I don’t “teach.” Yes, I teach on a tour or in a talk I’m giving, sure, but I can’t “teach” in a discussion, when the vibrancy of the group depends upon everyone contributing, everyone sharing what they see, their unique insights. That’s when discussion comes alive: when I just get to sit back and listen to the group sharing what they see, pulling out insights I never thought of, and prompting someone else to jump in to further the discussion. I get to become a participant as well, as we dig in and figure out this text together.

That’s the kind of literature class I always wanted to take, so it’s the kind of literature class I try to create.

Would you like to take a class with me? Registration is now open for Fall 2026:

📚 Boston Classics (begins Sept. 9): An introduction to Boston’s classic authors of the past: Alcott, Hawthorne, Plath, Wheatley, Jewett, and more.

👻 Boston Gothic (begins Oct. 1): Explore the darker side of Boston’s literary history through gothic tales by Poe, Hawthorne, James, Hopkins, and more.