You're in the Bible Belt, so the arguments with the MS will likely resonate.
I used
passages with lit students in Poland, and found that staging short dialogues
from the
text worked well, to be able to use dramatic effects (pauses, gestures,
facial and body
language reactions, etc) worked well. The Austrian setting could easily have
been
Poland, students agreed, and found a lot of humor along with the depth. Left
to them to
learn silently from the page at first, they were confused.

Just a thought... Can't guarantee anything.

RR/San Francisco