Teach Literature
Transcript of Teach Literature
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How to Teach Literature to College
Students
Edited bywriterintraining and 16 others
Article
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Literature is a very versatile subject and is generally considered one of the most difficult
subjects to teach. There is no right or wrong way to teach a Literature class; however, there is
a smart way to teach it. The idea in Literature is not just to get an answer, it is to get an in-
depth, provocative and creative answer. The job of the professor is not to teach the student, it
is to lead the student.
Get a degree : No community college will let you teach English with less than a BA,
and very few will let you teach with less than an MA. If you intend to teach at the
university level, you will most likely require a PhD, as well as recent publication in
respected journals. Obviously, most English teaching jobs will go to people who have
studied the Humanities, particularly English.
1.
2
Do your research: Find out about the various genres of Literature from different time
periods and how they evolved through the ages. If your training in step one didn't
prepare you in this way, you are probably not ready to be in front of a college English
class.
2. 3
Emulate, but don't copy: If you're about to teach college English, you've already
spent at least four to ten years in post-high-school classrooms. It would be naive to
suggest that you don't know how to teach; you've spent much of your adult lifewatching other people do it. Use what you know. Take the best examples from your
educational past and craft them for your current situation, and within that history, find
a voice of your own. If you merely copy your past instructors, or crib lesson plans
from a website, you're probably not destined to be much of a teacher.
3. 4
Always read excerpts of material in class: Students often rely upon study guides and
predigested responses to texts they have never experienced as living works of art.
Remember to allow plenty of time for regular readings and re-readings of a poem, for
example, so that its impact as sound can be enjoyed before it is analyzed simply as acomplicated kind of prose. This is equally important with many prose writers such as
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Dickens or Jane Austen for whom some basic impact is in the rhythmic shape and
weight of a paragraph as a key part of its "meaning". They may set a slow versus a
staccato tempo, to indicate boredom or excitement for instance.
4. 5
Keep the class especially challenging for the first few weeks: Usually you will find
a group of students will enroll for a class for no good reason. Because of this you tend
to get slackers in class or people who are not intellectually cut out for such a subject.
If you make the class extremely challenging and provocative for the first few weeks, it
will cause a few of the less interested students to become slightly alarmed and they
will drop the class. The ones who stay will become more alert and get more involved.
(NOTE: If your school receives state funding based on attendance, you might want to
wait until the census date has passed before engaging in actions that will cause
students to drop; your dean may cancel the class if a minimum number are not
enrolled.)
o Make it a rule from the get go that the pace of the class will be fast. If the
student doesn't begin to answer after 20 seconds, just lash out some
interpretive exercise. For example, if a student isn't answering, ask something
like: "Name three possible interpretations of the phrase: 'Cowards die many
times before their deaths'" or "The color Red symbolizes what?" or "Name
three mythological creatures that can fly". These do not have to be related to
the material, but must be related to Literature in general. If it is something
humorous and informative, it will be appreciated by the students and they will
be more alert during class.
5. 6
Set new questions. Do not borrow questions from textbooks or any other material.
Especially not the Internet. Make sure the questions you set have not been discussed in
detail in class. Of course the questions have to be similar but ensure that they are not
the same. You are grading the students on their literary analysis not on their note-
taking skills.
6. 7
Always ask "why" For any piece of work, the most important question in
literature is 'Why?'. Make sure every student knows the importance of this questionfrom the first class. You have to train the class to be opinionated and try to interpret
every line according to the reason and the intention behind it. The heart of all
Literature is its intention.
7. 8
Add fuel to the fire: There is no room for a unanimous agreement in Literature. Every
line is subject to interpretation, levels of importance and hidden meaning. Make sure
that your students are not exposed to one view. The best way to do this is to play
devil's advocate. When they express a view, disagree. If they agree with you, change
your view. This will make for interesting debate and force the students to defend their viewpoint and explain why they are right. Try to be as unreasonable with your stand as
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you can, this will get the students more 'heated' and force them to think in the abstract
manner necessary to write a Literature paper. This is also good for waking up those
students at the back who snooze every class. An argument is much more interesting
than the face of the desk.
8. 9
Add history to the material: As your students become familiar
"A long farewell to all my greatness"
with the material, allow them to become familiar with the face behind the material: the
writer. Tell them a little bit about their past and the way they lived their lives and
some of the documented inspiration behind their works. A lot of very famous writers
lived rather interesting (and somewhat tragic and scandalous) lives, it's alwaysinteresting to hear about, and it might provide more meaning to their words.
9. 10
Involve every single student: Each class has students that are not really interested in
the material but come to class each day for unidentified reasons. Each class also has
students who tend to monopolize the conversation and centre discussions towards their
opinions. Avoid that at all costs. Even the lazy students can usually provide some sort
of input. Ask a lot of questions and give everyone an equal shot at answering. Don't
stand there and wait for an answer (You will be wasting precious minutes while the
student goes: "Ummm....well....errr").
o Maintain an interest in each and every student. Students can usually tell if you
like them or not or if you prefer one over the other. Avoid this at all costs.
Your job is to promote the imagination of all the students and to treat them all
equally. Talk to all of them personally at least once.
o Recognize the students' weaknesses and strengths: By giving your students a
lot of opportunities to do various kinds of work (speaking, arguing, writing,
interpreting, etc.) you can assess the weaknesses and strengths of each one.
Praise each student on their strengths and talk to them about their weaknesses.
Allow your students the freedom to choose the form they are more comfortablewith. For example, if a student is good at verbal discussion and not good at
written communication, you can allow for one of their assignments to be
verbal. To be fair, however, you must give all students a chance to choose the
form they are good at. Talk to the students personally about their weaknesses
and how to improve them.
10. 11
Grade the thought, not the content: When marking papers, you need to be aware
that Literature is not like most other subjects where the content is what is essential. It
is the creativity and thought behind the content that makes a Literature essay stand out.
You are also grading the content, obviously. But in Literature, you have to give moremarks to the student with a controversial and creative interpretation and a few less to
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the student with the 'textbook' interpretation. For example, the student who can
convince the reader that Frankenstein's monster was actually his alter ego, with
support from lines in the book, is a better student than one who treats the monster as
just a creature who had the misfortune to be created by man.
11. 12
Give appropriate homework . The students must be treated like adults, the homework
should be appropriate and challenging. Be clear about how you like your papers to be
written and make sure they follow a certain format. The best kind of homework is a
variable kind. Make sure they do a lot of research-based papers but also give them a
good amount of unconventional homework like: an essay on the difficulties of a
literature student, or writing a poem, or interpreting a fairy tale (there actually is a lot
of symbolism in stories like 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Pied Piper').
12. 13
Emphasize references. No matter how creative the thought, it has to be backed up by
quotes from the material. A student might have a particularly brilliant idea but if it is
disproved by the material, the idea is worthless. Stress on the fact that every claim has
to be supported by lines, verses and dialogue in the text.
13. 14
Read out the work of other scholars: Expose the students to interpretations by other
Literature analysts. You ought to keep the papers submitted by your old classes as
well, to read out to the new ones. Challenge the students to respond to those
interpretations. Ask them questions like: "In what ways could he/she be correct or
incorrect?"
14. 15
Enjoy the experience: If you are heading to class and you are dreading it or feeling
like you ought to just turn back and go home, it is time to reschedule the class or
postpone it. If you are not giving a class 'your all', the students will notice and it
affects the environment of the classroom. Also, the students will probably like you
more for the extra couple of hours of time you've given to them.
Edit Tips
• If your students have a problem with interpretation or seeking hidden meanings, try
this exercise at the beginning of the class. Write a word on the board, any simple
word, like 'Dust', as each student to interpret what it could mean. For example, since
dust settles in untouched places, it could be a product of abandonment or it could
mean something that is worthless or abundant, or remnants of something...etc.
• If the classes seem to be getting monotonous, change the pace. Move to a garden or
some place outdoors. Call for a role play, where every student has to be a writer (one
student can be Shakespeare, another Shelley) and ask them to do their best imitation of
them. Refer to pop culture and modern media and ask them to interpret them (it would
be interesting to see how they can compare 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' to 'Fight Club')
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or you could make it mandatory for all the students to adopt an accent during one class
(e.g. a British accent if you are teaching outside of England for example).
• Bring pictures to class. There are many paintings and illustrations of mythical
creatures, heroes of literature and writers. In the modern world, there is much more
emphasis on the visual as compared to the written word. It would add a bit of interest
to the classes and you can use them for comparison. For example, you could ask: "Isthis illustration of 'The Inferno' an accurate description of the text?"
•
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
Encourage your students to read. Not just the texts, but anything that interests them.
They have to get into a habit of reading to truly bring forward their best to a Literature
class.