Elantris Paperback

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Wait, so you suggested a different book, and voted for it, but your students said, "No way, I want to read you book because you're so cool, Mr. Teacher!" and outvoted you?

Or is it that half the class already READ your book and that's why they signed up in the first place, so they voted for it so they wouldn't have to buy another book, forcing the other half of the class to go out and buy it?

[Entsuropi]

I think that Spriggan was standing behind EUOL, holding a knife and a sign saying 'elantris or evisceration'.

[MsFish]

Are you people telling me that there are professors that don't require student to buy the professor's book. If the students don't buy them, who would?

Now I may be ignorant about how it works in English and creative writing courses, but having over 300 college credits at  3 major universities and having taught college courses myself, I think EUOL can relax about assigning his own book to his students. If the students aren't use to buying the professor's book by now, they will be.

With textbooks, it's standard.  With novels, it's not.

Um, besides that, I think lots of people buy EUOL's book who aren't his students.  

[Shrain]

With textbooks, it's standard.  With novels, it's not.

Well put, as always. Both Fell and I shared the same conclusion, but maybe Lost One missed those posts?

At any rate, I think the minor embarrassment at teaching your own work is a small price to pay for being able to match lectures on writing with highly relevant, successful examples from your own writing. Besides, I'd always choose Elantris over evisceration every time, if given the choice . . .

[The Lost One]

I don't think many students make the distinction between novel and textbook when they are being ask to buy materials for a class. Their dollars are being spent to enrich the professor either way. Just because the book is a novel doesn't change the arguements for or against a professor using his own book.

Personally, I think it is a lot easier to teach a class with material that I wrote then trying to figure out somebody else's materials. Therefore, I think EUOL will probably teach a better class and the student will probably learn more using Elantris then if EUOL tries to teach using some other novel and I think students will recognize this point. The fact the Elantris is a novel and not a textbook is irrelevant when discussing whether EUOL should use it to teach his class.

[Shrain]

The fact the Elantris is a novel and not a textbook is irrelevant when discussing whether EUOL should use it to teach his class.

um, okaaay. See, I wasn't saying that because his book is a novel and not a textbook, that he shouldn't use it. Not in the slightest.

The relevancy? Well, if it -were- as highly routine for profs to use their own novels as it seems to be to use their own nonfiction textbooks, then EUOL probably wouldn't have felt so unsure about assigning it. But he mentioned not being totally "okay" with it. Heck, he even voted against using the book.

Of course, the consensus that profs assign more self-authored textbooks than novels doesn't mean that EUOL should've vetoed his class or something just because his work was, in fact, a novel. However, maybe this precedent of what profs do and don't assign -does- shed some light on -why- the decision was hard for EUOL to make in the first place. That's why I brought it up. And, actually, I wasn't the first one to do so.

[Oldie Black Witch]

Well put, as always. Both Fell and I shared the same conclusion.

Did no one here have Alan Manning for a professor? He teaches Ling 330, and his less-than-fantastic SciFi novel is part of the required reading.
Ugh.

[Shrain]

eek. My sympathies.

[Parker]

Manning wrote a book?  A sci-fi book?  What's it called?  I was a linguistics major, and I had him for syntax.  Tough class, but he never assigned a sci-fi book for it.  Now I'm interested.

[MsFish]

The fact the Elantris is a novel and not a textbook is irrelevant when discussing whether EUOL should use it to teach his class.

Umm, good thing we weren't *having* a suggestion of whether or not he should use it.  I was *making fun of him*, something I tend to do.  Take a freaking joke.  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I don't think many students make the distinction between novel and textbook when they are being ask to buy materials for a class. Their dollars are being spent to enrich the professor either way. Just because the book is a novel doesn't change the arguements for or against a professor using his own book.

I disagree thorougly. While your point about who gets the money is valid, the text book are the professor's ideas and theories about the subject that he's teaching, which is what you're paying tuition to get anyway. A novel, on the other hand, is only an example - not the actual content of the course, and implies considerably more egotism, imo.

So yeah, the distinction is there, and it's a very valid sticking point, and it does change the argument for or against.

[Spriggan]

I'd like to point out that I have yet to have a teach make me buy a book they wrote at UVSC, I've even had them suggest you buy the books at Amazon where they're about 50%-60% cheaper.

[MsFish]

That's the way it was when I was at Santa Cruz too--as far as teachers suggesting that we shop with competitors and not the campus bookstore.  I think BYU has some kind of policy against that though.  Surprise surprise.

[Spriggan]

UVSC does too, so they say support the Bookstore but if they're out of used books get it at amazon.  Though, I should note, that only one teacher has ever mentioned we do this but he did assign like 4 books for the class.

[Chimera]

Most of my teachers at BYU--the cool ones--all suggested getting the books somewhere besides the BYU bookstore, because it is so expensive--as long as we had them in time to use for class. So, because Amazon can take a long time unless you want to speed deliver it, I usually just got them at the bookstore. It was just easier that way. But even my professors recognized that the BYU Bookstore is extremely expensive.

Heh. As a side note, one of my google ads is for "Brandon's Finest Florist." I didn't know EUOL had taken up flower arranging! Times must be rough. And I thought the book sales were doing pretty good...