Along with the surging stream of overall civilization, the restless

situation of politics, media bias, and misinformation, the twists of

modern educational theories, and the advent of social media, a
significant set of questions occurs:
Why read literature?
What value do literatures have?
This seems we are disconnected from God,
nature, and others—but literature has the
capability of restoring. So then, what kind of
literature holds such power?
 MODULE 1 UNIT 2:
TEACHING LITERATURE:
AN OVERVIEW
 The answer is the Great Book. Samuel Johnson
said in his “Preface to Shakespeare” that “the only
test of literary greatness is the length of duration
and
continuance of esteem.”
Moreover, a book may be considered
great if it meets three criteria:
Universality - the book speaks to people across many
ages affecting, inspiring, and changing readers far
removed from the time and place in which it was written.
Centered in a single Idea and themes - that address
matters of enduring importance.
It features noble language - the great book is written in
beautiful language that enriches the mind and elevates
the soul.
Why read literature?
Here are six possible reasons by David M . Wright:
1. Reading great literature exercises the
imagination. We enjoy stories; it is a pleasure to
meet characters and to live in their world, to
experience their joys and sorrows. In a practical
sense, an active imagination helps us perceive
truth, make value judgments, and deal with the
complexities of life in creative ways. It even aids in
our ability to use logic and to reason well.
Why read literature?
Here are six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

2. Reading literature transports us out of our

current context and into other ages and places.
with characters across space and time diminishes
our ignorance.
Why read literature?
Here a re six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

2. Reading literature transports us out of our current context and

into other ages and places.

Mark Twain once remarked, “Travel is fatal to prejudice,

narrowmindedness, and bigotry. Broad, wholesome, charitable
views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one
little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” Because most of us
cannot pilot a steamboat along the Mississippi River, or travel to
many parts of the world as Twain was able to do, literature serves
as a worthy guide and vessel for our exploration.
Why read literature?
Here a re six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

3. Reading literature enables us to see the world

through the eyes of others. It trains the mind to be
flexible, to comprehend other points of view—to
set aside one’s personal perspectives to see life
through the eyes of someone who is of another age,
class, or race. Reading literature nurtures
and develops the power of sympathetic
insight.
Why read literature?
Here a re six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

4. Great works of literature have played a

fundamental role in shaping society. For example,
The Epic of Gilgamesh initiated the archetypal
narrative of the hero embarking on an epic quest,
which became a popular and influential blueprint
for literature the world over.
Why read literature?
Here a re six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

5. Reading literature fosters contemplation and

reflection and improves our facility with language
and vocabulary. Interacting with these texts
requires deliberate, conscious thinking to
understand and retain longer units of thought.
Why read literature?
Here a re six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

6. Reading literature helps us to know ourselves—

in short, to understand man. For the subject of
literature is man. In its pages, we learn about our
creative and moral faculties, our conscience, and
most importantly, our soul. We see man at the
height of his glory and the depth of his folly—
with every hear trending thought, action,
emotion, and belief in between.
Why read literature?
Here a re six possible reasons by David M . Wright:

6. Reading literature helps us to know ourselves—

in short, to understand man. For the subject of
literature is man. In its pages, we learn about our
creative and moral faculties, our conscience, and
most importantly, our soul. We see man at the
height of his glory and the depth of his folly—
with every hear trending thought, action,
emotion, and belief in between.
VALUES OF LITERATURE
 "Values of Literature" refers to those qualities of
literary pieces/genre of literature that make them
worthwhile to read. If we feel our time reading is
well spent, we can say that a work has value for us.
1. Entertainment Value
Literature has entertainment value if reading it
gives occasion to enjoy yourself; though not
everyone will enjoy the same kinds of stories,
styles, or themes. Being entertained is important
but being bored does not give anyone license to
reject a workout right.
2. Political Value
Literature has political value if reading it gives
occasion to change how a person thinks or acts.
Politics is about the management and flow of
power. And power, like electricity, flows from one
end of a circuit to another to make things happen.
3. Artistic Value
Literature has artistic value if reading it gives
occasion to contemplate the nature of beauty and
human creativity.
4. Cultural Value
Literature has cultural value if reading it gives
occasion to think about the place and time of the
author at the time the work was written.
5. Historical Value
Literature has historical value if reading it gives
occasion to think about the past, how things
change overtime, and how the world has evolved
into what it is today.
6. Philosophical Value
Literature has philosophical value if reading it
gives occasion to explore the nature of human
knowledge, how we know and what we can know.
8. Ethical Value
Literature has ethical value if reading it gives occasion to
think about ethical questions. If a story dramatizes
conflicts and dilemmas, it is not necessarily teaching us
how to live, but it encourages us to contemplate the codes
that the characters live by. If a poem has a speaker who
promotes a particular world view or seems conflicted
about the world he lives in, the reader can try to look
through the eyes of that speaker and see what he or she
sees.
Here are some important ethical questions:
 What is the good life?
 What is an excellent life?
 Where do the definitions of good and excellent come
from?
 Why do different definitions come into conflict?
 On what basis do they conflict?
 Remember: works that raise questions do not always
answer them.
To measure the ethical value of a work of literature, we need to ask the
following questions:
 Do the characters make choices in the work? What are those choices?
 Do the characters or speakers defend particular beliefs or points of
view? What are they?
 What motivates those choices or beliefs or points of view in the work?
 Where does the confidence in that motivation come from in the work?
 Is there a crisis in that confidence in the work? Why?
 To what place do those choices or beliefs or points of view lead in the
work?
CHOOSING OF BOOKS
AND READING
MATERIALS
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Characterization
Children usually like characters who acted as they
did. They enjoy literature in which character's
experiences and traits are similar to their own,
such as economic status, family situation, and
school life. Children also like characters in series
books (why?) Because they come to know them.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
2. Physical Characteristics
Attractive books spark children's curiosity.
Children select books that have attractive covers,
bright colors, and appealing pictures or
illustrations. They also consider Title, book
thickness, and the number of the pages when
selecting a book.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
3. Author’s Impact
Some 8-12-year-old students select books written
by their favorite author. Familiarity with an author
influences students who read for pleasure.
Students enjoy series books by authors whom they
are already familiar with. Children also like books
by a specific author.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
5. Plot
Children like plots that are episodic. They enjoy
these stories because they proceed event-by-event,
and because they are easier to understand and
follow.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
6. Genre
Mystery and adventure are two genres that children rate
highly. They value other genres as well, such as Humor,
suspense, Science fiction, and thriller. Romance is a genre
of literature that students find interesting, however, this
romance should be both appropriate and engaging for
students. Nonfiction is interesting for students who want
to know how something works. Most often, the nonfiction
categories selected by children are biography and science.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
7. Recommendation
Most children read the same books as their friends,
and they read what other students from their class
read or what peers say are good books. Children are
often interested in their friends' interests and
recommendation because it helps them find books
with less effort. Parents, family members, and
teachers also provide recommendation to children
on what to read.
 GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN READING SELECTIONS
All Children differ from one another. Because of
this, researchers have conducted studies to see
where differences lie between children with regard
to reading. They found out that children differ in
their reading selections mostly because of the
following factors: 1) Age. 2) Intelligence. 3)
Gender.
Girls' reading preferences are different from boys’.
However, there are always similarities between the
two genders preferences. Both genders enjoy
humorous and adventurous stories, though the
topic of these genres may vary between the two
genders. They both also enjoy animal stories, and
books about specific holidays.
 Boys' Reading Selections
*Topics/Genres: Science, Adventure, Wars,
Mystery, Wild animals, Science fiction, Sports,
Nonfiction, Machines, Vehicles
 Girls’ Reading Selections
*Topics/Genres: Family, Romance, Friends,
Fiction, Home life, Pets, Personal problems
FACTORS AFFECTING
INTERESTS IN
LITERATURE
When and why do you read
books?
 Motivation
 Ability to Relate to Students
 Choice vs. Requirement
 Teacher
 Preference
 Administration, parent, and Community
 Literary Merit
7. May have social, political, or ideological impact on
society during the lifetime of the author or afterward.
8. Does not fall into the traps of "pulp" fiction such as
clichedor derivative descriptions and plot devices, or
sentimentality rather than "earned" emotion.
9. Is intended by the author to communicate in an artistic
manner.
10. Is universal in its appeal (i.e., the themes and insights
are not only accessible to one culture or time period)"
(2013, p. 144).
CHOOSING BOOKS AND READING MATERIALS

When searching for books for whole novel studies,

consider the merits of each title in five key
dimensions by asking myself these questions:
• Development
 How does the content of the novel connect to my students’
developmental stage?
 Why do I think this book is appropriate for my age group?

• Identification / Diversity
 How do the book’s content and setting relate to the life experiences of my
students?
 Are they mirrors (familiar) or windows (unfamiliar)?
 Directly or indirectly connected? How does this title contribute to an
overall balance of diverse characters and authors throughout the year?
• Thematic Connections
 How does this book connect thematically or structurally to
what came before it and what will come later in our
curriculum?
How does it connect to the books students have been
choosing and loving most for their independent reading?
To issues students care about in the world?
• Reading Level
 What is the reading level of this book in relation to the reading levels
of my students?
 Is this book accessible for all, half, or just some of my students?
 Is it good for the beginning, middle, or end of the year?

• Literary Strength
 Which literary elements are strongest in this work?
 What opportunities does it provide to focus on the author’s craft?
Models and approaches
of Teaching Literature
CULTURAL MODEL
• stress the value of literature in encapsulating the
accumulated wisdom, the best that had been thought
and felt within a culture
• enables students to understand and appreciate cultures
and ideologies different from their own in time and
space
• associated with a more teacher-centered, transmissive
pedagogic mode, which focuses on the text as a product
about which students learn to acquire information
• Information-Based Approach
 It is teacher-centredand demands a lot of teacher’s
input in giving students various contents of literary
text.

 Activities: It includes reading from the criticism or notes,

explanations and lectures given by teacher for
examinations sake (Hwang & Embi, 2007).
LANGUAGE MODEL
• It integrates language and literature as a source to
improve student’s language proficiency while learning the
language (Hwang & Embi, 2007).
• It uses literature in teaching different functions of
language like grammar, vocabulary, and language
structures from the literary texts to students (Aydin,
2013).
• It helps to attain literature aesthetic aspect solely via
expression and communication quality of literature
(Khatib, Rezaei& Derakhshan, 2011).
• Paraphrastic Approach
 is primarily paraphrasing and rewording the text to simpler
language or use other languages to translate it. Teachers use
simple words or less complex sentence structure to make the
original text easy to understand (Divsar, 2014).It is teacher-
centred and does not contribute much interesting activities
towards students (Hwang & Embi, 2007).
• Stylistic Approach
 implies literary critics and linguistic analysis. It is for
students to appreciate and understand in a deeper manner of
the literary text. It helps students to interpret the text
meaningfully and develops language awareness and
knowledge (Thunnithet, 2011). It analyzes the language prior
to the elements of literary text (Aydin, 2013)
• Language-Based Approach
 helps students pay attention to the way the language is used when
studying literature. It is student-centred and activity-based for
productive use of language.
 It improves students’ language proficiency, and incorporates literature
and language skills among the students (Dhillon& Mogan, 2014).
 It engages students more on experiences and responses (Aydin, 2013).
 Role play, cloze, poetry recital, discussions, forum and debate, dramatic
activities, making prediction, brainstorming, rewriting stories ending
and summarizing are practisedin this approach (Divsar, 2014).
PERSONAL GROWTH MODEL
• Enables students to develop their language,
character, and emotions by connecting and
responding to the issues and themes of their lives
(Hwang & Embi,2007).
• Encourages students to love and enjoy reading
literature for personal development as well as to
relate their relationships to the environment
(Aydin,2013).
• Personal-Response Approach
 Encourages students to make sense of their experiences
and personal lives with text themes.
 It also promotes students to associate the subject
matters of there adding texts with personal life
experiences.
 It engages individual in literary text reading as personal
fulfilment and pleasure can be met while developing the
language and literary competency.
Activities
• Brainstorming
• Small group discussion
• Journal Writing
• Interpreting Opinions
• Generating views from a text
• Moral-Physical Approach
 Learners seek moral values from a particular literary text
while reading it.
 It helps students to be aware of values of moral and
philosophical and identify them that lies in their reading.
 Students need to go beyond the text for moral and
philosophical inference.With this approach, teachers are able
to direct students to achieve self-realization as well as self-
understanding while interpreting literary works.
LITERARY MERIT
Literary merit is the quality of the literature that
makes it valuable enough. Barry Gilmore "complex
and sophisticated literature":

1. Entertains the reader and is interesting to read.

2. Does not merely conform to the expectations of
a single genre or formula.
3. Has been judged to have artistic quality by the literary
community (teachers, students, librarians, critics, other
writers, the reading public).
4. Has stood the test of time in some way, regardless of the
date of publication
5. Shows thematic depth.
6. Demonstrates innovation in style, voice, structure,
characterization, plot, and/or description.