Literature As A Tool: for teaching English Language Skills

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What do your students like to do? Have you attempted to determine what the students in your classroom do in their spare time—when they are not forced to do things for their parents, teachers, family? Perhaps it is skateboarding, or computer games, sports, simply watching TV, or heaven help us, reading a book! What did you like to do as a teen when you had spare time? Try to remember your experiences when you were young, and you will find that there is not much difference between what you did in your leisure time and what students do now. For example, when I was younger and there were no computer games, we used to play pinball machines. Same concept, different technology.

You need to know about the interests and passions of your students if you are teaching them English, or any subject for that matter. Don’t forget about the quiet one who rarely if ever speaks, or the loud, obnoxious one who constantly challenges you. What about the average student? Or the new student who was assigned to your class because administration knows you are so accommodating? Find a way to ask them about what they like to do and what they are interested in.

Once you have considered the makeup of your class, you have to determine how you will teach them to write, to debate, to analyze, to examine, to listen, to view and critique, to communicate effectively. In short, how to impart to them the content of the English Language Arts curriculum. Actually, it is quite simple—use the great literature that is available from your library, and choose a story, poem or novel that represents what they appear to like, one that will make them sit up and take notice. Using your performance reading skills, perform the story for them. Then, depending on what your lesson objective may be, such as grammar, punctuation, paragraph writing, rhyme, rhythm, etc., use some aspect of the literature that addresses this skill or concept and apply it. By using literature as a tool to teach the boring basics, you will also be introducing them to good literature and perhaps will have the side benefit of interesting them in reading.

When planning the year, I used to always start with short fiction, no matter what grade I was teaching. I was, and still am, a firm believer in using the building block approach to teaching the basic skills in English.

We all know that senior students know how to write a paragraph. After all, they start to learn about this as early as grade two, and have been practising ever since. So they have had plentry of experience and practice, and have paragraph writing skills nailed down. No? All right then, start with paragraph writing and then progress to more sophisticated skills.

Each type of writing (e.g., point of view, description, narration, and exposition) has a characteristic organizational structure. In narrative writing you usually proceed from the beginning to the end in chronological order; a description starts from the obvious and moves to the least obvious detail; in point of view writing you start with the general argument and leave the most salient one for the final point; and for exposition you start with the obvious or general and move to the more specific details or events. To teach organizational structure, choose an appropriate short story that would lend itself well to achieving the dual goals of hooking your students and demonstrating a well written paragraph. Then show how the author structured an effective paragraph, and use it as a model for your students’ own writing practise.

Engage your students with an interesting story that can then be used to teach the writing skill you wish to have them learn. You have the added bonus of introducing good literature that may interest them in doing further reading. Students are more apt to become involved in a so-called boring writing exercise if the story itself interests them.

Whichever approach you use, you should ensure that it meets the needs of your particular students. It is your responsibility to interpret the prescribed curriculum and adapt it for your students.

And you know what? Because good literature is so engaging, you will have fun, and I know that your students will have fun and learn at the same time!