Strategies to Integrate literature into other parts of the Curriculum

Many times we question the usefulness of literature to us as students. How will Knowledge of Shakespeare and Derek Walcott assist us in our future endeavours? Moreover, how does the continuous reading, analysing and sharing of ideas from our perspective broaden our knowledge? And most importantly, how is literature linked to any other aspect of the curriculum. Research supports the idea that just as there are links between certain subjects in the curriculum, so to can literature be integrated into other areas of the curriculum.

One such method is employing the Teaching Literature through Grammar Approach. Richard Ohmann asserted that each writer tends to exploit deep linguistic resources in characteristic ways, his style rests on syntactic options within sentences. Literature involves an analysis and understanding of the language and phrases that the writer uses, therefore, a student has to employ prior knowledge of the structure and rules governing the language in order to understand and engage in an active discussion about the text. If however the student has difficulty understanding the text, the teacher then uses the literature text to reinforce and emphasize on the areas of weakness and as well illustrate its relevance to the text. In so doing the teacher would have provided an example of the concept and thus increased the students’ level of retention, as they learn better through examples as opposed to discussion; Roger Fowler. In addition, Skjelbred asserted that students do not learn to diagram someone else’s writing, rather they use grammatical and syntactical principles in their own writing to construct more effective sentences. Students, when engaged in reading, read as writers, thereby paying close attention the structure of the words and sentences used. Once they have grasped the key concepts they are able to write as readers and construct sentences, paying close attention to using words and grammatical structure that appeals to the reader’s senses. If this is done effectively, students do not only acknowledge the writer’s style, however, in practise, they are able to practice these skills and “keep using it because the effects are powerful.”

In addition to that, the teacher must pay close attention to the theme upon which the text is surrounded. In order to maintain student interest, a teacher may suggest books that students are interested in and make them widely available. Restrepo believes that in studying different genres, students are able to compare and contrast books and engage in higher and lower order thinking skills, however, of great importance is that, all the genres being read should focus on one central theme, allowing students to make connections within the genres. Additionally, the material, in some way should appeal to the student and allow them to respond in ways pertinent to their experiences and their perception of the text. A teacher may use a question answer approach or engage them in discussions or even more effective allowing them to write their ideas in response journals.
If these are taken into consideration and employed in the literature class, the outcomes for both the teacher and the student would be immeasurable. For not only would literature be enjoyed, other aspects of the curriculum such as language arts, would be enforced.

Link: Using Literature to teach reading