Literature

Goals of Teaching Literature

Develop and/or extend literary competence. Jonathan Culler defines literary competence as the ability to
internalize the grammar of literature which would permit a reader to convert linguistic sequences into literary
structures and meaning.
Develop and/or enhance learners imagination and creativity.
Develop students character and emotional maturity.
Develop creative thinking.
Develop literary appreciation and refine ones reading taste.
Methods in Teaching Literature
Lecture Methods : formal, informal, straight recitation
Discussion Methods : pair work, buzz group, group work
Public Speaking Methods : memorizing, interpretive reading (Readers Theater, Chamber Theater), debate,
panel forum
Audio-Visual Methods : using slides, transparencies, film, vcd, dvd,
Project Methods : scrapbook making, exhibit/diorama, dramatization, literary map, time line, video/audio
scriptwriting

Field Research Methods : field trip, author interview

Creative Writing Methods : journal writing, closure writing, team writing, writing workshop
Some Strategies and Techniques in Teaching Literature

Show and Tell and Blurb Writing using the title and cover design
Movie Poster and Movie Trailer transforming a literary piece into film
Writing Chapter Zero / Epilogue writing a prequel or sequel
Mock Author Interview assigning a student to play the role of the author
Biographical Montage compiling authentic materials about the author
Graphic Representations using sketching or other visual representations
Sculpting making a tableau or montage
Creative Conversation, Speech Balloons, or Thought Bubbles supplying dialogues
Worksheets completing grids or writing responses
Transforms translating or turning a piece into another genre
Literary Criticism involves the reading, interpretation and commentary of a specific text or texts which have
been designated as literature. Literary criticism is the application of a literary theory to specific texts. Literary
theory identifies what makes literary language literary and the function of literary text in social and cultural
terms.
Classical Literary Theory literature is an imitation of life.
Mimesis (Plato) literature is an imitation of life.
Dulce et utile (Horace) function of literature is to entertain or to teach/instruct
Sublime (Longinus) style may be low, middle, high, or sublime
Catharsis (Aristotle) purgation of negative emotions of fear and pity
Historical Biographical and Moral Philosophical Approaches
a. A literary work is a reflection of its authors life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work.
b. It emphasizes that literature functions to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues.
Romantic Theory. William Wordsworth articulated it in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads as literature which
should
a. have a subject matter that is ordinary and commonplace
b. use simple language, even aspiring to the language of prose
c. make use of the imagination
d. convey a primal, simple, uncomplicated feeling
e. present similitude in dissimilitude (similarities in differences)
New Criticism believes that literature is an organic unity. To use this theory, one proceeds by looking into the
following : the persona, the addressee, the situation (where and when), what the persona says, the central
metaphor (tenor and vehicle), the central irony, the multiple meaning of words.
Psychoanalytical Theory – applies Freudian psychoanalytic ideas to literature.
a. It looks into the characters or authors motivations, drives, fears, desires.
b. It believes that creative writing is like dreaming it disguises what cannot be confronted directly the critic
must decode what is disguised.

Mythological / Archetypal Approach is based on Carl Jungs theory of collective unconscious.

a. Repeated or dominant images or patterns of human experience are identified in the text.
b. It also uses Northrop Fryes assertion that literature consists of variations on a great mythic theme that
contains the following : (1) the garden : the creation of life in paradise, (2) alienation : displacement or
banishment from paradise, (3) journey : a time of trial and tribulation, (4) epiphany : a self-discovery as a
result of struggle, (4) rebirth / resurrection : a return to paradise.
Structuralist Literary Theory comes from the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure which recognizes
language as a system or structure. To Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov , structuralism should identify the
general principles of literary structure and not to provide interpretations of individual texts. Three dimensions
in individual literary texts :
a. the text as a particular system or structure in itself (naturalization of a text)
b. texts are unavoidably influenced by other texts (intertextuality)
c. the text is related to the culture as a whole (binary oppositions)
Deconstruction interrogates our common practices in reading and exposes the gaps, incoherences, the
contradictions in a discourse and how the text undermine itself or how a text contradicts itself. Deconstruction
draws much from the works of Jacques Derrida. The process involves
a. identifying the oppositions in the text
b. determining which member is favored/privileged and looking for evidence that contradicts it
c. exposing the texts indeterminancy
Russian Formalism led by Viktor Shklovsky aims to establish a science of literature and discover the
literariness of a text by highlighting the devices and technical elements used by the author. These elements
should include :
baring the device e.g. distorting time in various ways foreshortening, skipping, expanding, transposing,
reversing, flashback, flashforward, etc.
defamiliarization this means making strange and using fresh ways of describing things
retardation of the narrative the technique of delaying and protracting actions by using digressions,
displacements, extended descriptions, etc.
naturalization – refers to how we endlessly become inventive in finding ways of making sense of the most
random or chaotic utterances or discourse.
carnivalization Mikhail Bakhtin used this term to describe the shaping effect of carnival on literary texts. The
festivities associated with the carnival are collective and popular; hierarchies are turned on their heads (fools
become wise; kings become beggars); opposites are mingled (fact and fantasy, heaven and hell); the sacred is
profaned; the rigid or serious is subverted, mocked or loosened.
Marxist Literary Theory.

It aims to explain literature relation to society that literature can only be properly understood within a larger
framework of social reality. Marxist literary critics would like to look at the structure of history and society
and then investigate whether the literary work reflects or distorts this structure. They insist that literature has a
social dimension it exists in time and space, in history and society. Moreover, writers are constantly formed by
their social contexts and social class.
Feminist Criticism. Branching out from Marxism, it is a political discourse; a critical and theoretical practice
committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism.
a. Feminism asks why women played a subordinate role to men in society.
It studies the male-dominated canon to understand how men have used culture to further their domination of
women.
b. It studies literature by women for how it addresses or expresses the particularity of womens life and
experience. Feminist critics insist that womens experience is different from mens.
Postcolonial Criticism. Postcolonialism refers to the independence enjoyed by Third World countries after the
decline of colonial rule by imperialist powers. The many concerns of postcolonial criticism includes the
following :
a. attempt to resurrect their national culture and to combat the misconceptions about their culture
b. dramatize the colonial experience and their response to it
c. escape from the implicit body of assumptions to which the language of the colonizing power, English, was
attached.
d. study diasporic texts outside the usual Western genres, especially works by aboriginal authors, marginalized
ethnicities, immigrants, and refugees.
e. analyze nationality, ethnicity, and politics with poststructuralist ideas of identity and indeterminacy, and
hybrid constructions (Homi K. Bhaba)
Post Modern Literary Theory. Postmodern refers to the culture of advanced capitalist societies, which has
undergone a profound shift in the structure of feeling. Postmodern texts have the following features :
a. fragmentation g. intertextuality
b. discontinuity h. decentering
c. indeterminacy i. dislocation
d. plurality j. ludism
e. metafictionality k. parody
f. heterogeneity l. pastiche

Linguistic Approaches to Reading

Bloomfield Approach Leonard Bloomfield and Clarence Barnhart advocate that the child should be acquainted
with the letters of the alphabet at the very start. The child should begin with capital letters and then go to small
letters.
Fries Approach Charles Fries basic concept : Learning to read in ones native language is learning to shift, to
transfer, from auditory signs for the language signals which the child has already learned to visual or graphic
signs for the same signals for language perception. The aim is to develop high-speed recognition responses to
English spelling patterns.
Eclectic Approach
Reading as interest development of the recreational reading habit; the major approach is personalized or
individualized reading.
Reading as language process
Language Experience Approach a strategy which views reading as an extension of speaking :
thinking/experiencing, talking, writing, reading.
Psycholinguistic Approach view reading as an interaction of thought and language, a process of combining
psychology and linguistics. This approach advances that reading, like listening, is a receptive process, used to
understand a written message, that readers reconstruct the authors meaning in their own words.
Reading as culture focuses on the relation between dialect differences and the written message as well as on
ones cultural heritage. It makes instruction relevant to the pupils cultural background.
Reading as a learned process emphasizes on controlled development of skills in a structured sequence
progressing from simple to complex
The Basal Textbook Approach follows this general format : scope-and-sequence or flow chart for all an overall
view of skills; kindergarten readiness workbooks; first grade, second grade and above skillbooks; teachers
guides and assessment tests. The standard basal text lesson follows these steps:
background or motivation
vocal development
purposeful or guided silent reading
discussion
purposeful rereading
skill instruction in word recognition, comprehension skill with the use of workbooks
enrichment activities
The Linguistic Approach look at reading as recognizing and interpreting graphic symbols representing spoken
sounds which have meaning. It stresses sound-symbol regularity and systematic exposure to frequently used
sounding patterns.
The Phonics Approach believes that the English spelling system is essentially regular in its correspondence
between letters and speech sounds and that letter sounds can be blended together to form words. For second
language learners short phonics drills on crucial sounds like f, v, j, sh, th, z, a and the schwa are needed.
Programmed Instruction includes step-by-step learning, learning, immediate feedback, regular and constant
review and individual progress through materials.
The Skills Monitoring Approach reading is analyzed in terms of skills arranged in hierarchies. This approach
entails
(1) a scope and sequence chart of reading skills
(2) a battery of tests for preassessment of reading abilities
(3) based on test results, instruction to adjust to pupils interest, abilities, and needs
(4) a continuous assessment using both formative and summative tests
(5) a corrective or remedial measures
(6) an adequate and challenging enrichment activities for the bright pupils.