3M Awards: our best teachers

Sarah Keefer, Department of English, Trent University

It’s been 35 years since Sarah Keefer first set foot in an Old English class as a master’s student at the University of Toronto. And as the self-described “Tolkien nut” explains how she felt when she heard the language of pre-11th-century England, there’s a wistfulness in the smile that spreads across her face. “It was twilight zone,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve come home.’ ”

Still smitten with the evocative alliteration in poems like “Dream of the Rood” and “The Wanderer,” Keefer endeavours to satiate the curiosity of her students at Trent University, who wonder, “what could possible motivate anyone to this degree?” she says. To Keefer, Old English isn’t just a language; it’s a culture. Her goal, she says, “is to have them, for a split second, look at [the text] through the eyes of the person that wrote it.” When she introduces the literature of the pre-industrial world, she passes around a modern replica of the vellum that was used to make books in Anglo-Saxon times. As the students run their fingers over the calfskin parchment, distinguishing the hair side from the flesh side, “They suddenly think, ‘Whoa. We’re not talking about Staples here,’ ” she says.

Her enthusiasm is contagious. As a group of upper-year students translate a passage from Aelfric’s Lives of Saints in a recent seminar, they note how “cool” it is that a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon saint was able to stave off the advances of a powerful male suitor, and debate the details of the monastic life she led, including the scratchiness of the wool she wore next to her skin and what drove her to starvation. Though they sometimes stumble over foreign-sounding Old English phrases, Keefer hangs on their every word, offering more than just the occasional “Very Good!” “Terrific!” and “Go with it!”

Third-year student Graeme Johnson says this kind of encouragement makes Keefer’s class a place where “you’re never going to be worried about mispronouncing words.” Her desire to provide the historical and cultural context for the literature attracts students from a range disciplines, says Johnson, who is majoring in women’s studies. “Professor Keefer has really picked up on where everyone’s area of expertise lies and draws them into the conversation at appropriate places,” he says. According to Keefer, there’s simply no other way to teach. “They’re people,” she says, “and we’re learning together.”