essay on teaching literature

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9 Different Methods and Strategies in Teaching English Literature [2024]

February 23, 2024
Lesson Planning

Introductory paragraph:

Imagine stepping into a classroom filled with eager students, ready to embark on a literary journey. As an English literature teacher, you have the power to ignite their passion for reading, analysis, and critical thinking. But how do you effectively teach English literature? In this article, we will explore nine different methods and strategies that will help you create an engaging and enriching learning experience for your students. From incorporating multimedia resources to fostering discussions and debates, we will provide you with practical tips and insights to make your English literature classes come alive.

Quick answer, quick tips and facts, background: the importance of teaching english literature, method 1: using a variety of texts, method 2: incorporating multimedia resources, method 3: encouraging critical analysis and interpretation, method 4: fostering discussions and debates, method 5: integrating writing assignments, method 6: providing opportunities for creative expression, method 7: utilizing technology tools, method 8: guiding literary analysis and essay writing, method 9: creating a supportive and inclusive classroom environment.

What are the methods and strategies in teaching literature?

Teaching literature requires a combination of methods and strategies to engage students and enhance their understanding and appreciation of literary works. Some effective methods include using a variety of texts, incorporating multimedia resources, encouraging critical analysis and interpretation, fostering discussions and debates, integrating writing assignments, providing opportunities for creative expression, utilizing technology tools, guiding literary analysis and essay writing, and creating a supportive and inclusive classroom environment.

Read more about “… What are the 5 Instructional Strategies in Teaching?”

What are the methods of teaching English and literature?

The methods of teaching English and literature encompass a range of strategies that promote reading comprehension, critical thinking, and communication skills. These methods include using a variety of texts, incorporating multimedia resources, encouraging critical analysis and interpretation, fostering discussions and debates, integrating writing assignments, providing opportunities for creative expression, utilizing technology tools, guiding literary analysis and essay writing, and creating a supportive and inclusive classroom environment.

Why are methods and techniques important in teaching literature?

Methods and techniques are important in teaching literature because they help engage students, deepen their understanding of texts, and develop their critical thinking and communication skills. By using a variety of methods and techniques, teachers can cater to different learning styles, create a dynamic learning environment, and foster a love for reading and learning.

What is the best teaching method for teaching English?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the best teaching method for teaching English. The most effective approach depends on various factors, including the students’ age, proficiency level, and learning styles. However, a combination of methods and strategies that incorporate a variety of texts, multimedia resources, critical analysis, discussions and debates, writing assignments, creative expression, technology tools, guided analysis, and a supportive classroom environment can create a well-rounded and engaging learning experience for students.

Read more about “10 Strategies for Writing in English: Tips from the Experts …”

Teaching English literature is a rewarding and impactful endeavor. By utilizing a combination of methods and strategies, you can create an engaging and enriching learning experience for your students. From using a variety of texts to incorporating multimedia resources, encouraging critical analysis and interpretation, fostering discussions and debates, integrating writing assignments, providing opportunities for creative expression, utilizing technology tools, guiding literary analysis and essay writing, and creating a supportive and inclusive classroom environment, you have the power to ignite a lifelong love for literature in your students. So go forth, embrace these strategies, and watch your English literature classes come alive!

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How To Teach Literature Skills in the Classroom | Indeed.com

Meet Marti, a seasoned educator with a rich background in tutoring, communication, and social work, who contributes her invaluable insights and strategies to Teacher Strategies. Marti’s journey in the educational sector began during her university years, where she started as a tutor. This role not only fueled her passion for teaching but also provided her with an opportunity to develop and refine her educational techniques. Holding a degree in Communication, Marti excels in creating engaging and effective learning environments by utilizing clear, impactful communication strategies. Her ability to convey complex concepts in an understandable and relatable manner has made her a favorite among students and educators alike.

In addition to her prowess in communication, Marti also holds a degree in Social Work, which has endowed her with a deep understanding of the diverse backgrounds and challenges faced by students. This unique combination of skills allows her to approach teaching with empathy, patience, and an unwavering commitment to inclusivity. Marti believes that education should be accessible to all, and she incorporates principles of social work into her teaching to support and uplift students from all walks of life.

On Teacher Strategies, Marti shares her innovative approaches to education, drawing from her extensive experience in tutoring, her expertise in communication, and her background in social work. Her articles provide educators with practical tips and strategies to enhance their teaching methods, foster a positive and inclusive classroom environment, and effectively communicate with their students. Marti’s dedication to making a difference in the lives of students shines through in her contributions to the site, making her an invaluable resource for teachers looking to enrich their professional practice and impact their students’ lives positively.

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20 Simple Strategies for Teaching Literature

Oct 13, 2022

What do you remember reading in high school? Maybe it’s Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet ? Or perhaps it’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Poe ? I’m guessing that whatever you remember, it was good literature and you enjoyed it because your teacher utilized various strategies for teaching literature. Literature that taught you something about yourself or about life or was just such a well-written story that it’s stuck with you. Literature that had so profound an effect that you still remember it years later.

And whether you remember or not, what likely seared these stories into your memory are the strategies you learned (and still use now) for reading! These are the strategies for teaching literature we want to make sure that our students learn, practice, and develop. We want them to have an experience of literature they will remember years later, so they will continue to read beyond their middle and high school years.

These strategies for teaching literature fall into three specific categories: before reading, during reading, and after reading . Each strategy will enhance students’ understanding and enjoyment of literature.

Read on for 20 strategies for teaching literature and literary analysis that are sure to help your student year after year and story after story.

Need help with Test Prep that includes strategies for teaching literature? Check out this FREE Pack of 3 Test Prep Activities to help students achieve success on standardized tests!

Table of Contents

6 Before-Reading Strategies for Teaching Literature:

In order to prepare to read any text, including a work of literature, it’s important to have some context to inform that reading.

Review the vocabulary or major terms – Create a list of vocabulary before reading that will take some guesswork out of reading for students. This can be done with a preview of sentences or sections and creating either a teacher-selected or student-selected list of vocabulary for review. Reviewing vocabulary before reading is a first strategy for teaching literature that will help students focus on other aspects of the story.
Glance at the textual features – Looking at titles, subtitles, pictures, structure, and text length can help with reading comprehension. Check out this set of graphic organizers to review the structural elements of any text .
Give questions to guide reading – To ensure understanding and focus while reading, provide questions that are based on specific skills or standards. Consider how these questions can help with the after-reading tasks that will be required.
Offer a focus for analysis – Give students a purpose for reading that focuses their analysis on setting, theme, plot, characterization, literary devices, purpose, central idea, etc. However, keep in mind that you cannot teach everything through every text; it’s simply too much to address with one text. Instead, this is an opportunity for differentiation and possible collaboration. To make that process easier, use these literary analysis activities for multiple texts .
Make connections – Have students focus on their text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections. An ideal way to do this is through thematic units; check out this post with examples of how, when, and why to use thematic units .
Activate Background Knowledge – This is an opportunity to tap into students’ knowledge in ways that can promote cross-curricular learning. A pre-reading KWL (know-want to know-learn) activity is a great option as an early strategy for teaching literature.

Want help with guided reading activities that incorporate strategies for teaching literature? Click below!

8 During-Reading Strategies for Teaching Literature:

Once students begin reading a text, there are several strategies for teaching literature that you can use to support students’ understanding and engagement!

Use Graphic Organizers with a specific focus – The key is to pick a specific focus that connects to the post-reading activity. This bundle for Langston Hughes’ “Thank you Ma’am” is packed with ideal activities.
Chunk the text/1-sentence summary – While reading, break the text into smaller parts (chunks) to help with differentiation, then ask students to summarize the chunk. Make it an added challenge by requiring the summary to be a single sentence! Get these graphic organizers to differentiate one-sentence summaries for your students.
Annotate – This is my favorite! Have students annotate a portion of a text for a specific purpose. An easy way to do this is using symbols or even highlighters or color-coded sticky notes to annotate. Pink could be connections, blue for tone/mood, etc. Remember to keep the focus narrow!
Think-Aloud – This can be an extension of traditional annotation. First, teachers must model the process of reading a chunk and examining key features. Then, this could be an assignment where students complete a think-aloud in order to evaluate oral communication.
Visualize based on the text – Another option is to have students create a visual based on the text. This is an excellent opportunity to dive into imagery in a text. Use these digital organizers to examine closely the specific imagery in any text and complete a written response. To make life even easier the activity comes with a step-by-step guide to answering a short response question and writing rubric options!
Create questions – Questions can be used for reading comprehension or Socratic Seminars. These questions can be supplied by the teacher or make it student-driven with them creating questions and providing answers too!
Think-Pair-Share – This strategy is best with a focus on a specific concept where students can consider their own thinking before sharing with a partner and the whole class. Keep in mind that this activity could be done silently or out loud. Doing it silently using chart paper and some color-coded markers (each student has a different color) could encourage the quieter students in the class to engage.
Offer leveled stories – One of the final strategies for teaching literature that can help with differentiation is to use different leveled stories for different students. This will help to build understanding and confidence as students move to higher-level texts.

Want a list of 13 Must-Read Short Stories for High School Students? Click below to read!

6 After-Reading Strategies for Teaching Literature:

When your students have finished reading here, are six ideas for them to showcase their understanding of the text and its big ideas.

Answer Comprehension Questions – This might seem basic, but many students struggle with comprehension, so getting this practice is helpful before tackling larger tasks. Focus on responses using 2-3 sentences or in a quiz format, like in this option for “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Poe .
Draw the Setting, Character, Conflict, Plot – The goal of this task is to ensure students work with textual evidence. Grab this graphic organizer pack for setting that helps students examine how the author uses textual evidence to create a setting for a specific purpose.
Summarize the text – This is another opportunity to have students use evidence from the text. Students can focus on the big ideas and use textual evidence as details for support. Read all about teaching and writing summaries at this post—> Summarizing Made Easy
Participate in a Socratic Seminar – Use student questions to direct the seminar in small groups or even the whole class. And use this set of peer feedback handouts to help students evaluate each other.
Use organizers/annotations for longer writing tasks – Get students to write paragraphs or an essay using a graphic organizer. This is particularly helpful to scaffold literary analysis for students in different grades or with different skill levels. It might be that students write an introduction and body paragraph or even an introduction with a couple (or more) of body paragraphs. To help with this process, use these Literary Analysis Essay Outline Activities focused on “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Poe .
Respond to the text – Students can create an image/artwork to represent the text. Canva for Educators is a great option for this! Responses could be done audibly through the recitation of a poem, like in this “Song of Myself” analysis and poetry-writing activity that could be connected to any text . Other options include the creation of a song, a short paragraph reflection, an article, an extension of the narrative/text, etc.

Click below to get some fun activities for “Song of Myself” that use effective strategies for teaching literature!

Why is practicing these strategies for teaching literature important?

The best part of these 20 strategies for teaching literature is that they continue to be relevant, particularly the higher level the text becomes. With repeated practice, students will gain comfort in each step and this will likely shift their reading habits so they continue to read, enjoy, and learn from good literature as lifelong readers!

Need more fun lessons and activities that incorporate Strategies for Teaching Literature? Check out my store Kristin Menke-Integrated ELA Test Prep !

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Teaching Literature

Text and Dialogue in the English Classroom

Ben Knights 0

Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom

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Features essays by a range of experts on their personal experiences of teaching literature, and an extended classroom case study
Explores the process of education, and the foundations of teaching knowledge
Seeks to ask questions about the future of teaching literature, and how it can benefit from change
Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Teaching the New English (TENEEN)

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Table of contents

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

Front matter, introduction: teaching literature.

Ben Knights

Contrasts: Teaching English in British and American Universities

Gretchen H. Gerzina

Transition and Discontinuity: Pitfalls and Opportunities in the Move to University English Universities

Andrew Green, Gary Snapper

The Shame of Teaching (English)

Rosie Miles

Transition into the Profession: Accuracy, Sincerity and ‘Disciplinary Consciousness’

Robert Eaglestone

‘Getting in Conversation’: Teaching African American Literature and Training Critical Thinkers

Nicole King

Beyond the Essay? Assessment and English Literature

Jonathan Gibson

Critical or Creative? Teaching Crossover Writing in English Studies

Chris Thurgar-Dawson

Teaching ‘Literature+’: Digital Humanities Hybrid Courses in the Era of MOOCs

Teaching stylistics: foregrounding in e.e. cummings.

Dan McIntyre, Lesley Jeffries

Teaching Historically: Some Limits to Historicist Teaching

Simon Dentith

Towards an Unprecedented Ecocritical Pedagogy

Greg Garrard

Opening up the Seminar: Children’s Literature, a Case Study

Pamela Knights

Back Matter

This book comprises reflections by experienced scholar teachers on the principles and practice of higher education English teaching. In approaching the subject from different angles it aims to spark insights and to foster imaginative teaching. In the era of audit, and the Teaching Excellence Framework it invites teachers to return to the sources of their own teaching knowledge. The shift from a student-centred to a research-centred paradigm has particular implications for a discipline which prides itself on its teaching, and has always had teaching and dialogue at its heart. One which also talks across the tertiary / secondary border to the cognate (though different) subject called ‘English’ in school. The argument which informs this book, and which is developed in the individual chapters, is that the future of the subject relies not alone upon fostering communities of ‘research excellence’, but on re-awakening and reviving its pedagogic traditions.

English studies
Higher English teaching
Tertiary education
Secondary education
British and Irish Literature

Book Title : Teaching Literature

Book Subtitle : Text and Dialogue in the English Classroom

Editors : Ben Knights

Series Title : Teaching the New English

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31110-8

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan London

eBook Packages : Literature, Cultural and Media Studies , Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Softcover ISBN : 978-1-137-31108-5 Published: 17 October 2017

eBook ISBN : 978-1-137-31110-8 Published: 05 October 2017

Series ISSN : 1754-9728

Series E-ISSN : 2947-9266

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XI, 252

Number of Illustrations : 1 b/w illustrations

Topics : British and Irish Literature , Teaching and Teacher Education

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Teaching Literary Analysis

Guide students through the five steps of understanding and writing literary analysis: choosing and focusing a topic, gathering, presenting and analyzing textual evidence, and concluding.

Literary analysis is a vital stage in the development of students' critical thinking skills. Bloom's Taxonomy illustrates that analysis should come at the fourth level, right after comprehension and application. What this means is that students must be able to understand and describe the text before they are able to analyze its elements.

Teaching literary analysis is often a daunting and overwhelming task. After all, it is essentially guiding students slowly through the process of critical thinking and understanding literature. That’s not a simple undertaking. Most importantly, with so many ways to go about doing it, where to begin?

To guide students toward discovering literature all on their own, the steps of this process need to be introduced in a simplified form. It's very important for the student to understand that literary analysis is indeed a process where there is no right or wrong answer. This empowers students to be passionate about their topics and, most importantly, encourages them to look beyond the words on the page.

1. Choose a Topic

Some students need guidance when choosing a topic, but others have ideas that they would like to explore. Topics can be divided into the main literary elements:

Literary devices

2. Focus the Topic

Here is where many students will need to do a lot of brainstorming, outlining, and specific thinking about the element on which they would like to focus.

The brainstorming process involves mapping out the different aspects of the chosen element.
Make a choice by narrowing down the selection and focusing the ideas.
Come up with a question to answer (thesis statement): What do you want to explore about the topic? Why does it stand out to you?
Answer the "why" question. Instead of letting students simply describe the text, "why" pushes them to analyze and even synthesize. This aspect is vital to student understanding, as most of the time a teacher is able to identify a relevant thesis related to modern-day issues and concepts. Here is where real-world application, analysis, and synthesis can begin to form in this piece of writing.

3. Gather Textual Evidence

Collecting material to answer or support your question is often a time-consuming stage, because most of the close reading will occur here. It's important for students to know that they're allowed to research the topic or text before starting to write. Many students feel that they should not be using Google or Wikipedia to research their texts. Here is where the teacher can have an honest discussion about digital citizenship, and how to tell credible academic sources from non-credible ones.

Show students that close reading and gathering evidence doesn't have to be a mundane, one-dimensional task.

Identify common themes, repetitions, and patterns.
Categorize elements, tone, and narrative style.
Highlight characterization, setting, and foreshadowing.
Label character types, symbols, and metaphors.

4. Introduce, Evidence, Analyze

Learning through writing and literary analysis happens through stages (see Bloom's Taxonomy ). At this stage of writing, students have already accomplished remembering, understanding, and applying. Next comes analysis.

Students should introduce their point in one or two clear topic sentences. Next, it's important to provide evidence that supports the main topic in order to convince the reader of the stated point of view. There are a few ways students can add their evidence.

Quotation: When providing evidence word for word from a primary or secondary source, students should be reminded to use quotation marks only if the words have not been altered.
Summary: Students summarize a piece of evidence by restating it in a shorter form using their own words.
Paraphrase: Students explain a piece of evidence using their own words.

At this stage, it's important to use the lesson as a reminder to cite and give credit for words and ideas that belong to others. A conversation with the class about academic honesty is very important to help them understand intellectual property. This conversation will also prepare them for honesty and ethics in the real or academic world.

This critical stage is often a learning curve for many students. It's important that the teacher helps them distinguish between descriptive writing and analytical writing. Descriptive writing answers the "who," "what," "where," and "how" questions. It often tends to summarize the text. Analytical writing , however, answers to the "why" question. When students consider the question, "Why is this point important?", it pushes them beyond mere description into ideas that are convincing, argumentative, and defend a position.

5. Conclusion

A strong conclusion outlines the main ideas of the essay, but it also works to provide a solution to a real-life problem. Students can focus on concluding with what they hope to get out of their analysis, or provide closure to the topic. Most importantly, students should seize the conclusion as an opportunity to provide their own opinion and reflection about their process of analyzing the text. The self-reflection here would be a vital key for teachers to assess the writing process and a great opportunity to provide essential feedback to the student.

Please share your own experiences in teaching students about literary analysis.

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The Importance of Teaching English Through The Use of Literature

One of the most effective ways to teach a foreign language is by using literature. In this article you will get a few tips on how to do it.

With the advancement of information technology, the teaching of a foreign language changes fast, not just for the tools we have at our disposal, but also for our perception of it.

Teaching English follows a more and more utilitarian path (people learn English mostly for job-related purposes) yet as educators, I think we should pursue a higher scope: teaching values to our students and help them to become better people, especially when we work with juniors.

Literature is full of good and bad examples that can help us to inspire our students while teaching English, and if you want to start digging this topic deeper, we produced a very interesting webinar about Getting Started with Teaching Literacy .

EFL Teachers mainly focus on the development of their students’ skills according to what society demands, and as a consequence, we are forgetting about literature. Yet if you think about the past, books are what inspired people: children used to play the 3 Mosqueteers and learned from a young age how to work in team, and Scientist started to work on inventing submarines and rockets to go to the Moon because they first read Jule Vernes’ novels.

Length of the text

It would be manageable for students as well as teachers to select text shorter length.

Literature can make the teaching of a language more fun. It helps us to talk about grammar and sentences with our students in an interactive way. We can talk about interesting topics, incourage our students to express their points of view and introduce controversial topics and more in depth topics, like Translations.

In this article, I am writing a small guide for you, on how to start introducing Literature to your classes. There are several steps that I think every teacher should keep in mind before starting to teach literature in order to add a sparkle in their classes, otherwise, learning about literature could be an overwhelming experience and have the opposite effect.

Select the right text

Selecting the right text for the students is the most important, yet most overlooked step.

The text should be engaging for the students, and this depends more on our class than on the Author. What 10 years olds find interesting is very different than what is interesting for 17 years olds, and again, adults have a completely different sensitivity than teenagers.

There is not a text that fits all the purposes. We will have to choose the right one according to our students.

A text that is too short might fail to involve the students, but one that is too long could be boring or difficult to follow. Also, keep in mind that everyone has a different approach to reading and the topic selected makes a big difference.

For example (and I am simplifying) if boys are attracted by gruesome adventures and girls like love stories, that means that one part of our students will be more engaged while another part will be bored.

There is not much we can do about that, but if the text is not too long, even the ones who don’t like it won’t mind it, because they will pfeel that it will end soon.

That being said, I find that the novel Frankenstein – The Modern Prometheus is always a safe choice and of secure success, because it has components that both boys and girls like, and it can be appreciated at any age.

Culture friendly text

There is no need for the text chosen to be a classic written by a British author. We can use any text that we find appropriate and engaging for our students, and that means that it can come from anywhere in the world and translated, it can be written by a living Author or thousands year old.

The context, though, is important.

For example, one of my favourite choices is One Thousand and One Nights , because it is a collection of very different stories, and although it has been developed during many centuries, it continues suscitating high interests among students.

Yet it brings a series of difficulties for the students and the teacher as well. The topics of the stories are not always friendly, and I don’t mean just the fact that in the past, people had other sensitivity in perceiving things like death and sex, but there are elements (wizards, fairies, demons, jobs, aspects of life) of an ancient culture that might be more difficult to explain to students from certain countries, compared to others, and will require an extra effort for the teacher.

Selecting the right story to talk about during the class is something very important in order to have the focus the attention of the students on what they understand, rather than in what they are not understanding.

Previously, (I am talking for Pakistan, where I am originally from, but this applies to the most of the countries) the traditional method of teaching followed by teachers of foreign or second language was to focus only on vocabulary, grammar rules, and paragraph development.

This method was boring and based on cramming. Students had acquired knowledge of different grammar rules but they were not able to use these rules in real situation.

Now, this system has changed, teachers are now exploring different methods to teach students effectively.

There are different theories related to learning a language through literature. Here I focus on the Socio-cultural theory of learning, because I feel is the most effective. Its main focus is on the learning of language in the context of culture.

The socio-cultural theory suggests that learning is something social. According to this theory, people learn different skills and follow certain practices within the community. The same can be applied to language learning: students can only learn a language properly if they are involved with the target culture.

Using translations and reductions

Literature should be a positive experience for our students. For this reason, I think we shouldn’t use the original works when we are reading an Author who lived long time ago.

The language is alive, and that means that the English Shakespeare used is another language compared to what English is now.

Reading the original Amleth would just be a torture for our students and a missed opportunity for us, while reading it in modern English, and maybe a simplified version done for students can give us immense opportunities to talk about the story, the motivation of the characters how relevant for modern society this work still is.

Language and culture

Sometimes it is not possible for teachers to arrange meetings for their students with native speakers to learn their culture. Teaching literature can help them to partly solve this issue.

As language and culture are intertwined, learning any language implies also learning about a new culture.

Literature is the reflection of life. Writers write about their society and culture in different literary pieces. Any piece of literature can help students to learn the culture of that very language. This will help students to take interest in the target language and they will be able to communicate accordingly in different situations. This will be elaborated on through different examples.

An example of how to use literature in English classes

A piece of literature is very helpful for learning English. If we look at the work of 19 TH century Novelist Thomas Hardy , in the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge , he has depicted the society of the 19 th century.

By reading this novel, our students will know an interesting story and at the same time learn about different aspects of society, the differences with the modern world and the problems that we still have.

The depiction of different characters like Michael Hencherd, Donald Farfrea and the character of a Lady Lucetta Templeman, can guide students in using the English language eloquently, as, these characters are designed to represent a specific class of people.

In a similar way, students find unexpected terminology and sentence structure that is more complex than the expressly made texts for English students. Students feel challenged and have a personal interest in understanding, therefore, they will commit more.

Learning idiomatic expressions through literature

Literature helps fixing vocabulary through the use of figurative images, and helps students to understand the meaning of idiomatic expressions.

For example, let’s take the Iliad an epic work supposedly composed by Greek poet Homer and translated in English in the 17 TH century by the poet-critic, John Dryden .

From that work comes the expression Achilles Heel , that means Weakness or Weak point in many languages.

Without knowing the story behind this expression, it would be difficult to remember it and use it correctly, and it would be soon forgotten.

Learning proverbs with literature

Proverbs are an interesting and fun way to learn a language and discover the culture behind it.

Most of the proverbs in a language come from popular wisdom or pieces of literature (dialogues and monologues) that became so popular that reached another level.

Through learning these proverbs, students can make their language more effective.

Christopher Marlowe

Hell is just a frame of mind
Fools that will laugh on earth, most weep in hell
What nourishes me destroys me

Charles Dickens

It was the best of time, it was the worse of time
What greater gift than the love of a cat

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Knowledge Base
How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

Who is telling the story?
How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Ad hominem fallacy
Post hoc fallacy
Appeal to authority fallacy
False cause fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy

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Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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Teaching Middle- and High-School Students Using Literature Essay

The book entitled Teaching Middle- and High-School Students Using Literature begins with an informative Preface that points out the premise of this work, the intended audience, author’s position, and his/her credentials. Then, the ideas of how to use this book and why this book is worthy of attention are presented.

The Table of Contents illustrates the main issues for discussion in this book, and an Introduction underlines the values of this work to the reader. The Outline under consideration will present the major issues from this book and provide chapter-by-chapter description of the ideas, covered in this book. There are 5 chapters, and 5 subcategories for each chapter, which properly describe the material:

Importance of Teaching to Use Literature for Students of Middle- and High-School Students

Goals for teaching literature and learning activities at middle- and high-schools.

Essence of teaching literature; lessons for life by means of literary sources; effectiveness of teaching literature at middle- and high-schools; proper introduction to the class; acquaintance with the class; brief examination of each student; creation of a journal; attention to students’ responses; proper criticisms of students’ work; fighting with own anxiety (Showalter, 2003); evaluation of own abilities and development of teaching literature; communication to students: being a friend, a tutor, a mentor.

Understanding of Students Individuality at Middle- and High-Schools

Game as a form of teacher’s introduction and first meeting with students; making notes about each student to comprehend his/her individuality; students’ desire to learn literature at middle- and high-schools; reading personal information about a student; students’ attitude to literature; teacher’s reading aloud and students reactions; independent reading by students at classes and their attitudes to a task; evaluation of students’ understanding of the material within a short period of time; activities to check students’ short-term memory and long-term memory.

Selections from Literature, which May Help to Analyze Students’ Understanding of the Course

Evaluation of literature that is appropriate for middle- and high-school students; analysis of English in the books; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain, 2006) as an easyread story for children of middle schools; The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, 2007) as a story that teaches justice and care; Gulliver’s Travels (Swift, 2006) as a story about human nature and a person’s attitude to different situations.

Choosing of One Language for Studying Literature at Middle- and High-Schools

English as an international language; improvement of English by means of reading literature; communication with the help of English to encourage each student talks correctly; training at posing questions about the literary work in a proper way; development of English from Old to Modern in literature; attention to level of English acquisition of each student; memorizing the difficulties, students face while speaking English.

Attention to the Students with Special Needs at Middle- and High-Schools

Good impression is an excellent step to take; talking to each student is obligatory to comprehend his/her abilities; meetings with parents as an integral part of teaching; suggestions for parents to help students with special needs at home; importance of developing reading and listening skills from the very beginning; attention to attitude of students with special needs to completing assignments.

Helpful Hints for Teachers to Start Their Courses at Middle- and High-Schools, Win the Students, and Use Literature

Creation of examples from literary pieces of art.

Scientific literature as a source about smart people and their achievements; Thomas Jefferson and the United States Declaration of Independence ; fictions for children to teach how to become a worthwhile part of this world;

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a guide about human best and worse qualities; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and its characters as the best examples of how to make friends and as the description of the outcomes of betrayal.

Students’ Participation in Classroom Activities

Reading aloud by teachers; reading aloud by students one by one; reading literature independently at classes and at home; collective analysis of the material that is read; evaluation of pros and cons of the literature chosen; personal judgment of the work without punishment and criticism; appreciation of students’ thoughts about literature; invitation of students with special needs to participate in discussions; warning to all students not to be judgmental; mutual assistance.

Communication with Parents and Parents’ Presence in Students’ Educational Life and Promotion of Literature

Meetings with parents at the beginning of course; parents’ awareness about the literature that is used at classes; cooperation of parents and teachers; cooperation of students and parents; parents’ examples promote students’ active participation; literature at home is an obligatory point to consider; restrictions, which are provided by parents; use of literature examples at home by parents; discussions with students about parents’ preferences of literature; students’ descriptions of parents in comparison to literary characters.

Awarding and Punishment of Students at Middle- and High-Schools

Creation of assessment system; students’ awareness of the system; principles of awarding; unexpected awarding; grounds of punishment; punishment and possibilities to change the mistakes; literature examples of awards and punishment;

Macbeth as an example of how certain award leads to tragic punishment; meeting the deadlines is important for middle- and high-school students; explanations of reasons for punishments and awards; ways to award or punish; significance of proper awarding and punishment.

Casting at Classes Attracts Students Attention

Analysis of students’ abilities; division of the class into groups; assistance for students with special needs; competitions between groups; exchange of the roles between students; casting in literature and casting in classrooms; preferable characters and proper performance; the role of imagination; duration of performance; explanation that chosen roles are inherent to the particular classes; public performance as a final test for students’ comprehension of the material; evaluation of students’ performance, remarks, suggestions, and warnings; student’s understanding of the chosen character.

Literature Reading and Writing Activities for Middle- and High-School Students

How to read the necessary material in a proper way.

Differences between reading aloud and reading to yourself; how to point out the main issues; writing down is the best way not to forget; making notes in notebooks and in heads but not in books; to read much does not mean to know much; the role of analysis of the material read; proper choice of literature is the main assignment for educators; criteria for choosing literature for middle- and high-school students.

Writing about the Literature Read Is Helpful for Students Development

Organization of lessons; writing tests helps to check students’ awareness of the material; writing essays aims at evaluation of students’ writing skills and attitudes to the literary works; modern English as a means to express thoughts on paper; writing about favorite characters as the way to check student’s nature and attitude to the world; rhetorical writing; becoming a literacy researcher as a goal to achieve (Garrett-Petts, 2000); interviews as a form of writing about literature.

Peculiarities of Writing for Students with Special Needs

Time for completing assignments; explanation of the assignment in various forms and check student’s comprehension of the task; creation of a helpful outline; attention to mistakes: contextual, spelling, punctuation; writing about what students think; writing on the obligatory topics; attention to requirements and students’ attempts to meet all the demands; analysis of the barriers, students face while writing their assignment; presentation of writing guides to help students improve own writing; attention to plagiarism: words, ideas, structure.

Evaluation of Students’ Skills while Writing at Middle- and High-Schools

Gathering of works; structure of a work; explanation of a topic; evaluation of the approaches, which are used to cover a topic; student’s attitude to work’s realization; student’s communication with a teacher; proper use of literature by a student of middle- and high-schools; explanation of student’s choice of literature; style of writing and its choice; student’s worry about the grade.

Activities to Improve Writing about the Studied Material

Collective analysis of mistakes vs. eye-to-eye analysis; explanation of rules by means of students’ own words; making a list of common mistakes and the ways to fight against them, which are developed by a teacher and students collectively; mistakes, done by the great people, and their outcomes; playing games is funny, captivating, and educative; visual memory vs. hearing memory: individual approaches for students to analyze mistakes and avoid them in future; mistakes are not for embarrassment but for improving students’ skills and a reason to maintain perfection.

Literature Helps Students of Middle- and High-Schools to Comprehend This Life Better

Connection of literature, used at classes, with life.

Why use of literature is important; selection of literary works, which suite students’ interests; evaluation of characters’ actions; activities for students: if your were (a character) what would you do in this situation or if (a character) was alive, what he/she would do nowadays ; King Arthur and his philosophy; Iliad as an example of close connections of wars, love, betrayal, and respect; attention to students’ ideas and preferences of literature characters.

Best Representatives of Literature from Different Centuries

Literature as the main guide of life; Aeneas: belief in gods and attainment of power; Robin Hood: abilities to cope with challenges and not to lose own personality; Hitler: singled minded and ruthless person as an example of glory and tragic outcomes; Victor Frankenstein: power of mind and lack of analysis; Princess Diana: help and reliability as the best qualities of a person; students choice and analysis of the characters.

How to Use Literature in Every Day Life

Analysis of a literature works as an integral part of any lesson; connection of science and politics to literature and art; imaginary confusion of roles:

Hitler as a fiction writer, Shakespeare as a politician, Homer as a researcher, and Mark Twain as a musician; ideas of great philosophers and writers to use in every day life: Machiavelli and possible development of ideas in modern world; Jack London and his vision of future under current conditions.

Discussions of Literature outside Middle- and High-Schools

Parents and their role of students’ perception of literature; using literature at middle and high schools: proper choice and availability of sources; necessity of parents awareness of the material, discussed at classes; reading aloud by parents vs reading aloud by parents; watching TV vs reading books: parents role as a controller; teachers’ abilities to provide using of literature outside classrooms: voluntary participation in study groups, school theaters and plays by the great writers, visiting public places, which provide students to learn more about literature.

Negative Impact of Literature on Middle- and High-School Students

Literature that may harm students; current literature destroys child perception of the reality: comic books and unreal but powerful characters promote violence and pain; students’ wrong interpretation of book’s content as a serious mistake by a teacher; abilities antagonists in comparison to protagonists; attention to the outcomes, which are caused by wrong actions.

Classroom Activities for Middle- and High-School Students

Use of legends to underline the main thing.

Essence of legends; comparison of legends to other literary works; main characters of legends, their peculiarities, and abilities; Kin g Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table : mutual decision making process, desire to achieve the same purpose, help and respect, courage and valor; Robin Hood : necessity of help, truth and heroism; competitions between the groups of students: how to evaluate student’s approaches to evaluation legends properly; proper awarding for classroom activities.

Remember Information and Share It with the Others

Students’ division into groups in accordance with their skills, imagination, and abilities; choice of a topic for a game: awareness of each student plays a very important role; improvement of memory: use of notes and teachers hints; development of student’s vision of the situation; wrong perception of information and consequences, punishment and awarding at the end of the activity; reliable pieces of advice have to presented to any student.

Battles to Analyze Different Points of View in Literature

Presentation of a situation: main characters, events, dates, and consequences; division of a class into groups: gender, level of knowledge, attitude to a course, and desire to cooperate; explanation of the rules in a clear ways both in oral and written forms; picking out themes with similar conditions; how to point out a leader of a group and not to offense the others; the ways of how to evaluate the results of the battles.

Heroes in Our Every Day Life

Analysis of characteristics, which have to be inherent to any hero; attention to students’ points of view of who can be a hero; current political leaders, pop stars, or literature characters and their activities; examination of student’s choice; comparison of the chosen hero to personal characteristics of a student; clear explanation of why this or that character can or cannot be a real hero.

Evaluation of Literature and Its Use on TV

Adaptation of literary works on TV as an integral part of every day life; the ways how literature pieces of art are reproduced on screen; what influence the choice of works; students’ ideas of what fiction to adapt next; students’ vision of the main characters’ appearance; writing essays on the best adaptation: clear reasons, person judgment, and impressions; comparison of adaptations for one and the same novel/fiction/play/etc.

Resources for Teachers

Anderson, N. A. (2006). Entering the World of Children’s Literature. Elementary Children’s Literature . New Jersey: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.

Tomlinson, C. (2006). Essentials of Young Adult Literature . New Jersey: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.

Reference List

Garrett-Petts, W. F. (2000). Writing about Literature: A Guide for the Student Critic . New York: Broadview Press Ltd.

Shakespeare, W. (2007). The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Middlesex: Echo Library.

Showalter, E. (2003). Teaching Literature . Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Swift, J. (2006). Gulliver’s Travels [Easyread Large Edition]. ReadHowYouWant.com. Retrieved from < https://www.readhowyouwant.com/ >

Twain, M. (2006). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Easyread Large Edition . ReadHowYouWant.com. Retrieved from < https://www.readhowyouwant.com/ >

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 28). Teaching Middle- and High-School Students Using Literature. https://ivypanda.com/essays/teaching-middle-and-high-school-students-using-literature-essay/

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Secrets of Teaching the Literary Analysis Essay

Textual Analysis Basic Skills and No-Prep Lessons for English Class

January 28, 2019 // by Lindsay Ann // 3 Comments

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I teach standard-level sophomores. They’re eager-to-please, and when asked to write a literary analysis essay, they know the basics. “Oh, this is just another I.C.E. paragraph, right??” They’ve learned the five paragraph literary analysis essay “formula,” and they know that they’re supposed to introduce, cite, and explain evidence. What they don’t know, though, is how to deepen their explanations using close reading of a text. In other words, they don’t know what they don’t know.

In the beginning of the year, I start with the basics of writing a literary analysis essay. We practice reading strategies for complex texts, annotation skills, and looking for the “deeper meaning” by analyzing diction, specifically connotation vs. denotation.

Yes, I know that students are supposed to know this…they learned it in middle school. However, when text complexity increases and they’ve just returned from a summer of playing endless video games and pool volleyball, they need just a little refresher before writing their next literary analysis essay. Aaaaand maybe a literary analysis essay example or two.

How to Write Literary Analysis Essay

Over the years, I’ve tried different approaches to the teaching of close reading skills needed for writing a literary analysis essay. I’ve found the most success with the following progression: first images, then quotations, then full-blown literary analysis.

I start with images first because they’re engaging and accessible as we work with categories for connotative thinking, brainstorming things, emotions, and abstract ideas for important details. Then, we go pattern hunting and turn those patterns into claims. Finally, we practice proving claims through written analysis. And it all starts with an advertisement or an image as the text for literary analysis writing.

Analyzing Quotations

As students become used to this pattern for literary analysis and have found success with visual texts, we move to the next level of complexity: an excerpt from a text or thought-provoking quotation.

What’s the author’s claim or assertion? How can we prove this claim by closely examining the quotation itself, not only the diction but also the syntax? What does an effective literary analysis essay paragraph look like?

This analytical task is challenging for students, but rewarding when they’re able to defend an interpretation of a bite-sized text.

All the while, students are practicing important literary analysis essay skills and using I.C.E., but man oh man does the explanation part of their paragraph stretch (see image to the right) and start to reflect higher-level thinking and analysis! You can even have students self-reflect and code their own paragraphs as a part of the writing process!

Full Texts Next

By this time, students have gone through several cycles of modeling, seen literary analysis example texts, practiced textual analysis skills and paragraph writing with the opportunity for focused feedback from me. Teacher bonus: it’s waaaay easier to provide feedback for one paragraph than an entire literary analysis essay!

We continue with pattern-hunting and analysis of diction and syntax, but zoom out to also think about the author’s purpose in a text as a whole. Poems, nonfiction articles, short stories, plays, and full-length novels become our main source of brain food for the rest of the year.

I love this approach because in just a few short weeks I see students mature in their thinking and writing . I push them toward writing a college-level literary analysis and away from formula paragraphs.

Literary Analysis Essay Examples for YOU

Maybe you can resonate? Are your students like mine and you’re not sure where to begin (or maybe just don’t have the time to pull together a literary analysis mini-unit on the fly?

I’d love for you to check out one of my new resources, Literary Analysis Essay Introduction . And you’re welcome to try out this free sample , as well.

For the FULL close reading and literary analysis bundle, click here. Paired-text analysis lessons, connotation vs. denotation skill-building, images-to-quotation analysis practice with mentor texts, and Google Form assessments. Um, yes please !

About Lindsay Ann

Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.

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Bell Ringers

Teaching effective literary analysis essays.

Just a few days ago I was blogging about how I literally Googled, “How do you teach effective literary analysis essays?”

And although middle school ELA teachers across the nation are expected to teach 12, 13, and 14 year olds how to analyze a piece of literature in the form of an essay, there was basically nothing out there for middle school literary analysis.

If you remember, I told you how I broke down each area of a literary analysis essay into lessons, chunks, chart papers, and examples just so I could get my own brain wrapped around things, but not surprisingly it was exactly what my students needed too.

I literally learned how to write an essay in front of them by typing my rough drafts in real time.

My mini-lessons were based on challenges I was having and again, not surprisingly the same challenges they were having.

You might also remember that I said I was going to tell you what happened.

So here it is.

My students’ ELA proficiency scores increased almost 40% in just that one year.

By year two, there was an almost 65% increase in my seventh and eighth graders’ ELA proficiency scores.

This upper elementary teacher, turned accidental middle school ELA teacher, who was previously Googling how to teach English teacher things, and who would have sworn up and down that teaching writing was her weakness, had basically completely turned around her middle school ELA classroom.

If you had a chance to look at the Free Literary Analysis Reference Booklet , you’ll see that I really looked at literary analysis and broke it down into manageable chunks for middle school ELA teachers and students.

free literary analysis essay reference booklet for middle school ELA

When I was first fumbling through teaching this essay, I basically just used that college-level essay I found from Googling and broke it down as best I could for middle school.

My teaching methods were obviously pretty effective, but I always felt a bit scattered organization-wise for the unit.

I was truly kind of creating my lesson plans on sticky notes or notepads each day and this cycle continued each year.

Administration and other teachers started asking, “But HOW did you do it?”

I saw that I really needed to break it down in a way that I could use my lesson plans year after year, as well as show other teachers how I was teaching literary analysis effectively.

Six years later, I FINALLY finished my Middle School Literary Analysis Writing Unit .

The Free Literary Analysis Reference Booklet I keep talking about is a result of that unit.

I spent months creating the most comprehensive, thorough, and thoughtfully broken-down unit I have ever created:

The Literary Analysis Unit has each and every element your students need to know for writing literary analysis responses and essays.

Just >> CLICK HERE << to check out the full Literary Analysis Writing Unit, and I’ll be back with part three of the literary analysis blog series to give you some helpful tips for teaching literary analysis in your middle school ELA classroom.

effective literary analysis essays in middle school ELA

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Importance of Literature: Essay

Literature is the foundation of life . It places an emphasis on many topics from human tragedies to tales of the ever-popular search for love. While it is physically written in words, these words come alive in the imagination of the mind, and its ability to comprehend the complexity or simplicity of the text.

Literature enables people to see through the lenses of others, and sometimes even inanimate objects; therefore, it becomes a looking glass into the world as others view it. It is a journey that is inscribed in pages and powered by the imagination of the reader.

Ultimately, literature has provided a gateway to teach the reader about life experiences from even the saddest stories to the most joyful ones that will touch their hearts.

From a very young age, many are exposed to literature in the most stripped-down form: picture books and simple texts that are mainly for the sole purpose of teaching the alphabet etc. Although these are not nearly as complex as an 800-page sci-fi novel, it is the first step that many take towards the literary world.

Progressively, as people grow older, they explore other genres of books, ones that propel them towards curiosity of the subject, and the overall book.

Reading and being given the keys to the literature world prepares individuals from an early age to discover the true importance of literature: being able to comprehend and understand situations from many perspectives.

Physically speaking, it is impossible to be someone else. It is impossible to switch bodies with another human being, and it is impossible to completely understand the complexity of their world. Literature, as an alternative, is the closest thing the world has to being able to understand another person whole-heartedly.

For stance, a novel about a treacherous war, written from the perspective of a soldier, allows the reader to envision their memories, their pain, and their emotions without actually being that person. Consequently, literature can act as a time machine, enabling individuals to go into a specific time period of the story, into the mind and soul of the protagonist.

With the ability to see the world with a pair of fresh eyes, it triggers the reader to reflect upon their own lives. Reading material that is relatable to the reader may teach them morals and encourage them to practice good judgment.

This can be proven through public school systems, where the books that are emphasized the most tend to have a moral-teaching purpose behind the story.

An example would be William Shakespeare’s stories, where each one is meant to be reflective of human nature – both the good and bad.

Consequently, this can promote better judgment of situations , so the reader does not find themselves in the same circumstances as perhaps those in the fiction world. Henceforth, literature is proven to not only be reflective of life, but it can also be used as a guide for the reader to follow and practice good judgment.

The world today is ever-changing. Never before has life been so chaotic and challenging for all. Life before literature was practical and predictable, but in the present-day, literature has expanded into countless libraries and into the minds of many as the gateway for comprehension and curiosity of the human mind and the world around them.

Literature is of great importance and is studied upon as it provides the ability to connect human relationships and define what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, words are alive more than ever before.

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Author: William Anderson (Schoolworkhelper Editorial Team)

17 Comments

Indeed literature is the foundation of life, people should know and appreciate these kind of things

its very useful info thanks

very helpful…..tnx

Hi, thanks!

First year student who wants to know about literature and how I can develop interest in reading novels.

Fantastic piece!

wonderful work

Literature is anything that is artistically presented through writtings or orally.

you may have tangible wealth untold, caskets of jewels and coffers of gold, richer than i you could never be, i know someone who told stories to me.

there’s a great saying that “the universe isn’t made up of at atoms, its made of stories” i hope none will argue this point, because this is the truest thing i have ever heard and its beautiful…….

I have learnt alot thanks to the topic literature.Literature is everything.It answers the questions why?,how? and what?.To me its my best and I will always treasure and embress literature to death.

I agree with the writer when says that Literature is the foundation of life. For me, reading is the most wonderful experience in life. It allows me to travel to other places and other times. I think that also has learnt me to emphathize with others, and see the world with other´s eyes and from their perspectives. I really like to read.

This is the first time i am presenting on a literature and i am surprised by the amount of people who are interested on the same subject. I regret my absence because i have missed much marvelous thing in that field.In fact literature is what is needed by the whole world,it brings the people of different culture together and by doing so it breaks the imposed barriers that divided people.My address now goes to the people of nowadays who prefer other source of entertainment like TV,i am not saying that TV is bad but reading is better of.COME BACK TO IT THEN.

literature is a mirror; a true reflection of our nature. it helps us see ourselves in a third persons point of view of first persons point of view. it instills virtues and condones vices. literature forms a great portion of fun and entertainment through plays, comedies and novels. it also educates individuals on life’s basic but delicate and sacred issues like love and death. it informs us of the many happenings and events that we would never have otherwise known about. literature also forms a source of livelihood to thousands of people, starting from writers,characters in plays, editors, printers,distributors and business people who deal with printed materials. literature is us and without it, we are void.

I believe that life without Literature would be unacceptable , with it i respect myself and loved human life . Next week i am going to make presentation about Literature, so i benefited from this essay.

Thanks a lot

News, Notes, Talk

Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse” is the best thing you can read about the eclipse today.

For obvious reasons, today is an excellent day to read Annie Dillard’s 1982 masterpiece “Total Eclipse,” in which she describes seeing a solar eclipse with her husband in Washington, and which is very likely the best piece of writing ever published about an eclipse. (It was originally published in Dillard’s collection Teaching a Stone to Talk , which is full of little masterpieces like this one.) For those who have never seen an eclipse—or read the essay—here’s a little taste of what to expect from both:

I had seen a partial eclipse in 1970. A partial eclipse is very interesting. It bears almost no relation to a total eclipse. Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane. Although the one experience precedes the other, it in no way prepares you for it. During a partial eclipse the sky does not darken—not even when 94 percent of the sun is hidden. Nor does the sun, seen colorless through protective devices, seem terribly strange. We have all seen a sliver of light in the sky; we have all seen the crescent moon by day. However, during a partial eclipse the air does indeed get cold, precisely as if someone were standing between you and the fire. And blackbirds do fly back to their roosts. I had seen a partial eclipse before, and here was another.

What you see in an eclipse is entirely different from what you know. It is especially different for those of us whose grasp of astronomy is so frail that, given a flashlight, a grapefruit, two oranges, and 15 years, we still could not figure out which way to set the clocks for daylight saving time. Usually it is a bit of a trick to keep your knowledge from blinding you. But during an eclipse it is easy. What you see is much more convincing than any wild-eyed theory you may know.

Read the whole essay at The Atlantic .

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April 10, 2024.

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PAMLA 2024 CFP_African American Literature and Culture Session

The 2024 PAMLA Conference will be held in Palm Springs, CA from November 6-10. We invite abstract submissions to a guaranteed, standing session on comics and graphic narratives; abstracts can be submitted through the PAMLA conference website: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/

The “African American Literature and Culture” session is open to all papers that explore some aspect of African American literature, media, or culture, but we are particularly interested in papers attuned to some facet of the conference theme, “Translation in Action.”

Some topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

Exploring "other" through the linguistic, metaphysical, and/or physical translation of identity (i.e. Double Consciousness, Nigrescence, Code-switching, assimilation, tokenism, etc.)
i.e., Cowboy Carter as an expression of Black Southern identity, Spike Lee's Da Five Bloods exploring the complex identity and politics of Black Vietnam War veterans, Dear White People (film or television), Spike Lee's Bamboozled
Consider the relationship between names/naming and Black nationalism
Translating Black (Intersectional) Feminisms in African American literature, media or culture
Consider contrasting Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Ibi Zoboi's Pride, or Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and Toni Morrison's Beloved
Explore Morgan Parker's Magical Negro or There are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé
Consider the translation of She's Gotta Have It (1986) for contemporary audiences in She's Gotta Have It (2017-2019)
Contrast Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982) with Stephen Speilberg's The C olor Purple (1985) and Marsha Norman's The C olor Purple (musical) to explore how the story was translated for various audiences
Harlem Renaissance and global Black Literary Movements of the early-mid 20th century
Explorying African American folktales (Bre'r Rabbit, Bre'r Wolf, Bre'r Bear, Flying Africans, etc.)
Could also consider contrasting African American regional dialects
"Black-washing" as a tool for translating traditionally White characters to diverse audiences (i.e. Louis and Claudia from Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire or Bonnie from The Vampire Diaries )
Hip Hop Studies (exploring various themes and concepts of Hip Hop as it relates to translation)

IMAGES

The Literary Analysis Essay: A Teacher's Guide
Literature, Essay Writing about IGCSE poems
(PDF) Teaching of ESL through Literature
Analytical Essay: Essay in english literature
What Is A Teacher Essay Example
Essay on Teaching Profession

VIDEO

What is Essay in literature #english #youtube #youtubeshorts #study #literature #youtuber #exam
English Essays Part 08
Essay on Teachers Day/Ten lines about Teachers day/Essay writing/Best handwriting in english/
The PROCESS Essay
Essay on describing your oldest memory
South African Literature

COMMENTS

9 Different Methods and Strategies in Teaching English Literature [2024
Literary Analysis Essays: Guide students through the process of writing literary analysis essays. Teach them how to formulate a thesis statement, provide textual evidence, and analyze the author's use of literary devices. Comparative Analysis: Have students compare and contrast different literary works, characters, themes, or writing styles ...
20 Simple Strategies for Teaching Literature
6 Before-Reading Strategies for Teaching Literature: In order to prepare to read any text, including a work of literature, it's important to have some context to inform that reading. Review the vocabulary or major terms - Create a list of vocabulary before reading that will take some guesswork out of reading for students.
Teaching Literature: Text and Dialogue in the English Classroom
Features essays by a range of experts on their personal experiences of teaching literature, and an extended classroom case study; Explores the process of education, and the foundations of teaching knowledge; Seeks to ask questions about the future of teaching literature, and how it can benefit from change; Includes supplementary material: sn ...
PDF Teaching Literature: Where, How, and Why?
teaching of literature. (As I hope is obvious by now, this essay is about teach-ing literature to undergraduates and, a bit, to high school students. The dy-namics and difficulties of graduate education in literature are very differ-ent.) For starters, the decline in numbers of majors (matched by a similar
PDF Perspectives, Practices, and Insights on the Teaching of Literature
The main goal of this article-essay is to share and describe the most suitable and learner-centered practices in teaching literature in the second language classrooms in the Philippine educational setting. Resumen ... teaching literature is both challenging and rewarding. There were times in the past that he had to attend workshops, seminars ...
PDF Primer Core Practices of Teaching Literature
Primer: Core Teaching Practices in the Teaching of Literature. Core practices of teaching include: eliciting and responding to student thinking, positioning students as competent sensemakers, orienting students to the content, orienting students to one another, assessing student understanding, teaching towards an instructional goal, and ...
The Literary Analysis Essay: A Teacher's Guide
The Literary Analysis Essay: A Teacher's Guide — Mud and Ink Teaching. April 4, 2019. Curriculum Design. Teaching essay writing is no simple task: The pressure is on: this is a skill that students need, are tested on, and will need to harness for the next grade level all the way into college. Students somehow forget what they've learned in ...
Teaching Literary Analysis
Teaching Literary Analysis. Guide students through the five steps of understanding and writing literary analysis: choosing and focusing a topic, gathering, presenting and analyzing textual evidence, and concluding. Literary analysis is a vital stage in the development of students' critical thinking skills.
Significance of Teaching Literature in the EFL Classroom
The significance and uses of contemporary literary theory for the teaching of literature.In Reconstructing literature teaching: New essays on the teaching of literature, ed. J.
Strategies For Teaching Literature
1. Use combinations of media -classic and modern together, leveraging one against the other. Music, video streams, short videos (like TikTok), video games, plays, poems, film, posters, poems, essays, novels, podcasts, etc. 2. Have students analyze diverse media forms for their strengths and weaknesses-and involve both classic and digital ...
PDF The Teaching of Literature: Approaches and Methods
The Teaching of Literature: Approaches and Methods Ugochi Happiness Ikonne Ph.D National institute for Nigerian Languages, P.M.B.7078 Aba, Abia State. Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract There has been a remarkable loss of interest in the study of literature among secondary school students these days.
PDF Teacher's Approaches in Teaching Literature: Observations of ESL ...
context. These models have been incorporated in various approaches in the teaching of literature. There are six approaches in the teaching of literature. They are the (1) Language-Based Approach, (2) Paraphrastic Approach, (3) Information-Based Approach, (4) Personal-Response Approach, (5) Moral-Philosophical Approach, and (6) Stylistic Approach.
How to Deepen Students' Literary Analysis Essays
Ways to Get Deeper Literary Analysis Essays From Your Students. #1 Show Examples and Model the Process. Time and time again, I found that modeling analysis always improved students' writing (even if it was little by little). It's hard for students to write something if they don't know what it sounds like or looks like.
The Importance of Teaching English Through The Use of Literature
Teaching literature can help them to partly solve this issue. As language and culture are intertwined, learning any language implies also learning about a new culture. Literature is the reflection of life. Writers write about their society and culture in different literary pieces. Any piece of literature can help students to learn the culture ...
How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay
Table of contents. Step 1: Reading the text and identifying literary devices. Step 2: Coming up with a thesis. Step 3: Writing a title and introduction. Step 4: Writing the body of the essay. Step 5: Writing a conclusion. Other interesting articles.
Teaching Middle- and High-School Students Using Literature Essay
Evaluation of literature that is appropriate for middle- and high-school students; analysis of English in the books; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain, 2006) as an easyread story for children of middle schools; The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, 2007) as a story that teaches justice and care; Gulliver's Travels (Swift, 2006 ...
Secrets of Teaching the Literary Analysis Essay
She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book. Teach literary analysis essay skills in your English classroom using my carefully-scaffolded approach focused on visual texts and ...
Teaching Effective Literary Analysis Essays
Teaching Effective Literary Analysis Essays. Just a few days ago I was blogging about how I literally Googled, "How do you teach effective literary analysis essays?". And although middle school ELA teachers across the nation are expected to teach 12, 13, and 14 year olds how to analyze a piece of literature in the form of an essay, there ...
How to Write Literary Analysis
Literary analysis involves examining all the parts of a novel, play, short story, or poem—elements such as character, setting, tone, and imagery—and thinking about how the author uses those elements to create certain effects. A literary essay isn't a book review: you're not being asked whether or not you liked a book or whether you'd ...
My Philosophy on Teaching Literature Essay
Better Essays. 1168 Words. 5 Pages. Open Document. My Philosophy in Teaching Literature I believe all children can learn to read in a classroom that is integrated with differentiated instruction and has a safe and engaging learning environment which is rich with a variety of literature to light that spark in the children to want to learn.
Reading and Teaching Literature as Writing
The question I have been addressing has to do with the teaching of literature, ... A Book of Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 213-37. See also Toril Moi, Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies after Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 180-182.
Essay about Teaching Literature
2176 Words 9 Pages. Teaching Literature. My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose. - J.B.S. Haldane, "On Being the Right Size" in the book _Possible Worlds_ (courtesy of The Quotations Page) The inclusion of gay and lesbian authors in high school and college curricula can only ...
Importance of Literature: Essay
Literature is of great importance and is studied upon as it provides the ability to connect human relationships and define what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, words are alive more than ever before. Literature is the foundation of life. It places an emphasis on many topics from human tragedies to tales of the ever-popular search for love.
Medieval European Literature
Medieval literature developed in Europe from medieval folklore between c. 476 and c. 1500. The works ranged from poetry to drama, romance, prose, philosophical dialogues, and histories. Literary works were at first composed in Latin but, increasingly, in the vernacular after the 7th century.
cfp
The list of topics provided by MMLA is a good starting point for us as well, for the interplay of peace studies, literature, and pedagogy opens many lines of inquiry. Here are some others to consider: classroom and community in higher education. the impact of community on interpretive practice. the role of the writer/teacher/student in a ...
Annie Dillard's "Total Eclipse" is the best thing ...
For obvious reasons, today is an excellent day to read Annie Dillard's 1982 masterpiece "Total Eclipse," in which she describes seeing a solar eclipse with her husband in Washington, and which is very likely the best piece of writing ever published about an eclipse. (It was originally published in Dillard's collection Teaching a Stone to […]
cfp
Call for Papers . Reorienting Singapore Literature. Guest Editors. ... Please consider submitting a proposal to our panel "Teaching Against the Anthropocene," to take place at the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Convention in Palm Springs California (Nov. 7-10, 2024), and please share the cfp with colleagues who might ...
cfp
Please send complete papers of 6,000-10,000 words, 5-8 keywords, and a brief biography to [email protected] by July 31, 2024. Manuscripts should follow the latest edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Except for footnotes, which should be single-spaced, manuscripts must be double-spaced in 12-point Times ...
Teachers are using AI to grade essays. Students are using AI to write
teaching ChatGPT best practices in her writing workshop class at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, said she sees the advantages for teachers using AI tools but takes issue with how it can ...
cfp
The "African American Literature and Culture" session is open to all papers that explore some aspect of African American literature, media, or culture, but we are particularly interested in papers attuned to some facet of the conference theme, "Translation in Action." ... Harlem Renaissance and global Black Literary Movements of the ...

9 Different Methods and Strategies in Teaching English Literature [2024]

Table of Contents

What are the methods and strategies in teaching literature?

What are the methods of teaching English and literature?

Why are methods and techniques important in teaching literature?

What is the best teaching method for teaching English?

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Teaching Literature

Teesside University, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

Contrasts: Teaching English in British and American Universities

Transition and Discontinuity: Pitfalls and Opportunities in the Move to University English Universities

The Shame of Teaching (English)

Transition into the Profession: Accuracy, Sincerity and ‘Disciplinary Consciousness’

‘Getting in Conversation’: Teaching African American Literature and Training Critical Thinkers

Beyond the Essay? Assessment and English Literature

Critical or Creative? Teaching Crossover Writing in English Studies

Teaching ‘Literature+’: Digital Humanities Hybrid Courses in the Era of MOOCs

Teaching Historically: Some Limits to Historicist Teaching

Towards an Unprecedented Ecocritical Pedagogy

Opening up the Seminar: Children’s Literature, a Case Study

Back Matter

Teaching Literary Analysis

1. Choose a Topic

2. Focus the Topic

3. Gather Textual Evidence

4. Introduce, Evidence, Analyze

5. Conclusion

The Importance of Teaching English Through The Use of Literature

One of the most effective ways to teach a foreign language is by using literature. In this article you will get a few tips on how to do it.

Length of the text

Select the right text

Culture friendly text

Using translations and reductions

Language and culture

An example of how to use literature in English classes

Learning idiomatic expressions through literature

Learning proverbs with literature

Christopher Marlowe

Charles Dickens

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Teaching Middle- and High-School Students Using Literature Essay

Importance of Teaching to Use Literature for Students of Middle- and High-School Students

Understanding of Students Individuality at Middle- and High-Schools

Selections from Literature, which May Help to Analyze Students’ Understanding of the Course

Choosing of One Language for Studying Literature at Middle- and High-Schools

Attention to the Students with Special Needs at Middle- and High-Schools

Helpful Hints for Teachers to Start Their Courses at Middle- and High-Schools, Win the Students, and Use Literature

Students’ Participation in Classroom Activities