Teaching Literature

Showalter, Elaine. Teaching Literature. Blackwell, 2014.
This book discusses exactly what the title says: Theories of teaching literature. This included topics such as what literature is, why we teach literature, what we want our students to learn from literature, how we should teach literature, and how we should be as teachers. While discussing why we teach literature, there were many points that were made to support the idea that teaching literature isn’t just important in education but also in life. When deciding what we want our students to learn, Showalter discusses the idea that teachers should guide and facilitate student thinking and learning, not just tell students what they will learn. The book also talked about the skills that teaching literature should focus on, such as language use and the distinction between different language usages, connecting what we read to cultures and the outside world, and how to inform our knowledge and understanding of the world using literature. This would be a great tool to help teachers learn how to focus on and guide student thinking to deeper learning and more critical thinking of texts read in a literature class. By having students discuss literature, this encourages best practice by connecting literature to the outside world. It makes the class student-centered with active learning.

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