Teaching Literature by Using Drawing

Drawing can be used in teaching literature as a way that reflects students comprehension and also as a way to help students to understand the story better .the teacher can draw some important element in the story in order to make it easier for them to understand the events of the story.Also, the teacher can ask students to draw something that reflects what are the things they comprehend from the story.

This is an example of a drawing that illustrates the relationship  between characters and symbols in "Hamlet":

http://shakespeareandhamlet.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/3/9/26390084/1405890391.jpg

The Use of Games in Teaching Literature

It is generally accepted that games provide a stimulating teaching and learning classroom environment.In spite of their beneficial effect on students, most teachers avoid using them in their classes especially at the academic level, because they tend to consider them to be time-consuming and inappropriate foe literature classes.However,researches show that if games are used regularly and effectively,they can make activities devised for literature classes meaningful, attractive and challenging. Taking into account the instructional goal and the kind of reading text, the teacher may use different memories and guessing games if he\she wants to check students knowledge about specific literary information... such games are : matching, sorting,information gap, sorting, ordering and arranging, and puzzle stories.(1)

 This is a video that illustrates the use of puzzle in teaching literature(2):

References:

1-Teaching literature by means of games in higher education -Diana Persada

2-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzzb5u2DkAs

Teaching English Through Literature

   The use of literature as a technique for teaching both basic language skills (i.e. reading, writing, listening and speaking) and language areas (i.e. vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation) is very popular within the field of foreign language learning and teaching nowadays. Moreover, in translation courses, many language teachers make their students translate literary texts like drama, poetry and short stories into the mother tongue, Turkish. Since translation gives students the chance to practice the lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and stylistic knowledge they have acquired in other courses, translation both as an application area covering four basic skills and as the fifth skill is emphasized in language teaching. In the following section, why language teachers use literary texts in the foreign language classroom and main criteria for selecting suitable literary texts in foreign language classes are stressed so as to make the reader familiar with the underlying reasons and criteria for language teachers’ using and selecting literary texts.

 2.1. Reasons for Using Literary Texts in Foreign Language Classes

 According to Collie and Slater (1990:3), there are four main reasons which lead a language teacher to use literature in the classroom. These are valuable authentic material, cultural enrichment, language enrichment and personal involvement. In addition to these four main reasons, universality, non-triviality, personal relevance, variety, interest, economy and suggestive power and ambiguity are some other factors requiring the use of literature as a powerful resource in the classroom context. 

1. Valuable Authentic Material

 Literature is authentic material. Most works of literature are not created for the primary purpose of teaching a language. Many authentic samples of language in real-life contexts (i.e. travel timetables, city plans, forms, pamplets, cartoons, advertisements, newspaper or magazine articles) are included within recently developed course materials. Thus, in a classroom context, learners are exposed to actual language samples of real life / real life like settings. Literature can act as a beneficial complement to such materials, particularly when the first “survival” level has been passed. In reading literary texts, because students have also to cope with language intended for native speakers, they become familiar with many different linguistic forms, communicative functions and meanings. 

2. Cultural Enrichment

 For many language learners, the ideal way to increase their understanding of verbal / nonverbal aspects of communication in the country within which that language is spoken - a visit or an extended stay - is just not probable. For such learners, literary works, such as novels, plays, short stories,etc. facilitate understanding how communication takes place in that country. Though the world of a novel, play, or short story is an imaginary one, it presents a full and colorful setting in which characters from many social / regional backgrounds can be described. A reader can discover the way the characters in such literary works see the world outside (i.e. their thoughts, feelings, customs, traditions, possessions; what they buy, believe in, fear, enjoy; how they speak and behave in different settings. This colorful created world can quickly help the foreign learner to feel for the codes and preoccupations that shape a real society through visual literacy of semiotics. Literature is 54 perhaps best regarded as a complement to other materials used to develop the foreign learner’s understanding into the country whose language is being learned. Also, literature adds a lot to the cultural grammar of the learners.

 3. Language Enrichment 

Literature provides learners with a wide range of individual lexical or syntactic items. Students become familiar with many features of the written language, reading a substantial and contextualized body of text. They learn about the syntax and discourse functions of sentences, the variety of possible structures, the different ways of connecting ideas, which develop and enrich their own writing skills. Students also become more productive and adventurous when they begin to perceive the richness and diversity of the language they are trying to learn and begin to make use of some of that potential themselves. Thus, they improve their communicative and cultural competence in the authentic richness, naturalness of the authentic texts. 

4. Personal Involvement

 Literature can be useful in the language learning process owing to the personal involvement it fosters in the reader.Once the student reads a literary text, he begins to inhabit the text. He is drawn into the text. Understanding the meanings of lexical items or phrases becomes less significant than pursuing the development of the story. The student becomes enthusiastic to find out what happens as events unfold via the climax; he feels close to certain characters and shares their emotional responses. This can have beneficial effects upon the whole language learning process. At this juncture, the prominence of the selection of a literary text in relation to the needs, expectations, and interests, language level of the students is evident. In this process, he can remove the identity crisis and develop into an extrovert. 

Reference:http://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/viewFile/6/7

How To Teach Literature To College Students

   Teaching a college literature course for the first time can be intimidating. However, if you are well-prepared, the idea of teaching college literature class should start to sound fun and exciting. To teach literature to college students, you will need to incorporate strategies that work at the college level, find ways to maintain a positive class environment, develop a teaching strategy that is comfortable for you, and design a course that meets your department’s requirements.

   one of the ways you can try for teaching college students is to motivate students to do the reading with quizzes. One of the biggest challenges of teaching college literature is getting your students to come to class prepared. One way to motivate your students to do the readings and come to class ready to discuss them is to give daily reading quizzes.

You can either create simple short answer quizzes or assign writing prompts that will test your students' knowledge of the reading. Give these quizzes at the beginning of every class. You may even incorporate the quizzes into your class discussions, such as by asking students to share their answers.Then,Make sure that you give an adequate amount of points for the quizzes and responses. For example, if the quizzes for the entire semester are only worth 5% of the overall grade, then some students may not see these as worthy of their time and effort. Instead, consider making the quizzes worth around 20 to 30% of the total grade.

another way is to request students to come to class with questions. Another option to motivate students to do the assigned readings is to require students to come to class with questions about the reading. You can then use your students' questions to kick off the class discussion.For example, you might require your students to bring in a set of three discussion questions per class and invite students to ask questions at random. Then, you could also collect the questions at the end of the class and give points to students who completed the questions.Make sure that you explain how to write a good discussion question before you start requiring your students to bring in questions. Explain to students that good discussion questions should be open-ended. They should not result in a yes or no answer, or a single answer, such as “What was the name of Mrs. Dalloway’s visitor?” Instead, a good question might be something like, “What is the significance of the lines from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline that Mrs. Dalloway reads? Do these lines seem to have importance to anyone else but her? Why or why not?”

  The last method I want to suggest is to use visual aids.Using images, films, and other visual aids can be quite beneficial for students who are more visual learners. No matter what your preferred form of teaching, you should consider incorporating some kind of visual aid into your classes. This can range from high-tech, such as a PowerPoint, to low-tech, such as notes and doodles on the whiteboard.For example, creating a PowerPoint that pairs difficult concepts with images may help some students to gain understanding of a book that a spoken lecture might not.Films can also be helpful aids to include. For example, you might use a film to provide a compliment to a complicated scene in a book, or as a point of comparison after the class has finished reading a book.

Reference :http://www.wikihow.com/Teach-Literature-to-College-Students

DRAWINGS: CRITICAL THINKING WITH TEXTS AND MAKING CONNECTIONS TO LITERATURE

The first image shows a curious stick person fall “into” a text as he deepens his understanding with each new level of critical thinking, moving from familiarizing to analysis to independent, critical thought. 

The second puts into a picture the oft-cited connections between a text, oneself, and the world around 

us. 

reference :http://www.universeastext.com/?p=197 

Developing critical thinking for students through literature

  Critical thinking is a very  important skill that students need to acquire, for it helps them not only in learning all subjects but also it helps them in their daily life. Through studying literature, we can improve this skill for students.

 This study is conducted by Chi-An Tung to investigate how literature reading is efficient to develop critical thinking,especially for literature students.
http://www.cocd.fcu.edu.tw/wSite/publicfile/Attachment/f1262069682958.pdf
Developing Critical Thinking through Literature Reading

literature circle as a strategy for teaching literature

   One of the methods that can be used in teaching literature is literature circle. Literature circle is a student-centred method where the teacher divides students into groups, and each student is given a chance to participate and  to discuss his\her thought about the book he\she is supposed to read. This method is helpful in developing a number skills for students. It can be used with different levels of students and different age levels, as well.More importantly, literature circles encourage students to develop their communication,critical thinking,creativity,and collaborative skills while they work out through  the literary text.
This is a video that illustrates an example of literature circles in practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVK9ZV-AinA