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In this ‘reflection’ I discuss the tool of ‘translation pedagogy’ that has animated my presentation of Piers Plowman, a text that has been central to my teaching and scholarship for decades. I teach my own (sometimes gritty and very ‘Jersey’) translation of The A Version, but I get the students to translate themselves from the original Middle English text throughout the course of the semester, putting their own experiences and backgrounds to work in the process. With Piers and other Middle English texts, ‘translation’ as classroom practice can be particularly transformative, because when students not only read an important work in translation but also compose their own versions of the target text under study, they become active participants in the reading experience.