The Importance of Teaching Literature in the English Class.

Undoubtedly, the teaching of literature in the language class is one the important and useful tools to be used in order to develop critical thinking skills on students. However, it is essential that teachers have been trained to teach students how to use their minds and spirit. Also, the idea of teaching literature gives students the possibility to explore different meanings and interpretations. In that sense, if we have a teacher well trained in those areas and if he encourages students to get ideas from novels or poems we would take into account the idea of democratization of the English class. In fact, through interpretation there is no wrong answers, it is just what students think on a particular subject.

Having these issues in mind, I will analyze two examples from the classic British literature: one novel and one poem. They are Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley and the other one is a poem written by W.H. Auden under the name September 1. 1939.

If we go deep into Mary Shelley’s novel called “Frankenstein”, there are many themes that a teacher can work on in order to develop critical thinking skills on students. There are many ideas which can be used to explore new concepts, for instance the idea of “How people are educated”. There we have that the whole story is based on the premise that Frankenstein while he grew up he was totally alone. So, he started to raise hatred towards his entire family. Although, this story has been seen as a superficial one because when people hear about it, they may think that it is just about a monster and so on, there should be a teacher who can take this story and make it meaningful for students. That themes such as hate, anger or what happens with children who are left alone would be possible topics to be discussed. That the idea of “education as a rich source which humanize people”, would be a good theme to be analyzed, and those students can have their own interpretation of that.

In the process of teaching literature we can find that poems are good resources especially when you want to relate topics that students can reflect on. For instance, if a teacher gives them the next poem extract from September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden:

“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return[1]. ”

By giving this to students you can have a lot of discussion regarding to education. First of all, it is important that the teacher gives them background information. This is because students can focus their attention on the period of time the poem was written. They should also have visual aids with pictures from second world war and then discuss as part of the same event. Then the teacher should starts asking what do students think about it. This stanza is really impacting. It has to do a lot with the oppressive way of teaching. In this way, students are taught about ideologies which supposedly are true, and they can not criticize it because that is the way things are. The idea of someone who is taught that killing is part of their inner behaviour so that they have to be prepared in any case to destroy others, is simply sad. Sometimes schools have so much power to destroy a student life by teaching him/her this ideas. In a state of war even children are taught no to be helpful with others, and that means that people who passed through this kind of education are condemned to repeat the same history.

To sum up, what I liked to demonstrate through this essay is the importance that the teaching of literature has on students. What is more, they are not only taught about an author or a specific period of time, they are enriched with cultural information which is fundamental in order to understand how history has been built. At the same time, they can develop critical thinking skills which is the most important part of it because it is really needed that students and people start thinking by themselves and that they can build their own knowledge from their own self experience.



[1]W.H. Auden., September 1, 1939. Complete poem available at the following link: http://www.poemdujour.com/Sept1.1939.html

essay not finished.

Literature essay

Introduction – To talk about the importance of teaching literature in classes. And this as a useful source to teach critical thinking skills.
Also, the idea of democracy in class based on respect of opinions and interpretations.

Examples of using literature:
Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.
Poem Sept 1. 1939 by Auden
Virginia Woolf and feminism

First example.

For example, if we go deep into Mary Shelley’s novel called “Frankenstein”, there are many themes that a teacher can work in order to develop critical thinking skills. There are ideas which can be used to explore new concepts, for instance the idea of How are we educated?. There we have that the whole story is based on the premise that Frankenstein while he grew up he was totally alone. So, he started to raise hatred towards his family. Although, this story has been seen as a superficial one because when people hear about it, they may think that it is just a monster and so, there should be a teacher who can take this story and make it meaningful for students. That the theme of hate, anger or what happen with children who are left alone would be the topics to be discussed. That the idea of education as a source that can humanize people be a good theme to be analyzed, and that students can have their own interpretation of that.

Second
In the process of teaching we can find that literature and especially poems are good resources at the moment of relating topics you want students to be reflecting on. For instance,

Conclusion.

Auden & Spender.

In “SEPTEMBER 1, 1939” written by W.H. Auden, what we can find is a bunch of feelings towards uncertainty, hopelessness and disappointment. Here it is represented how all the wonderful modern ideas, that once enchanted people, are falling down because of the greed and empowerment of “developed nations”. The idea of an imminent war or disaster is depicted as well as a consequence of the corruption in worlds’ nations. A false democracy and dictatorships as the rule is what Auden wanted to express to the world in order to demonstrate that there is no hope for people who do not have power. Ordinary people are not important now, they just have to obey the “law”. In this poem, Auden also stated that “there is no State” as an image in which is represented the idea of not having credible politicians or authorities and that they are not worried about people anymore, they just like to gain respect among nations.

In “Fall of a city” by Stephen Spender, depicted feeling of darkness and desolation. The image that the poem gives is that a city was destroyed by war. This image is really powerful because it is not only the destruction of buildings, houses or streets, it is also the destruction of a culture and people’s life. They do not have their own idiosyncrasy anymore and now they have to adequate themselves to what it is imposed to them as life. Therefore, they lose all what they have including their own beliefs, custom and identity. In this poem is also depicted the image of Education as something no longer useful to children. This is because they are not taught to learn valuable things they are only learning about disasters, how the strongest kills the weakest, no solidarity between people and nations, etc.

Virginia Woolf : Women = Men .

When I started reading Chapter 4 on Virginia Woolf’s famous essay "A room of one’s own", I did not know I was going to be reading one of the most interesting and intelligent pieces of work related to the role of women in both literature and society. She did an excellent job on coming up ideas about the women’s literary history, stating that women are intelligent as men and that they have been controlled by them in the way they think and write.
According to her, women always wanted to express themselves as human beings and citizens they are and also they wanted to demonstrate that they deserve the same treatment and the same rights. Women just wanted to stop being discriminated by men and have an space on society in order to participate actively in all the events that have impact on their lives, they wanted to have jobs, study and have a better life . At the same time, through writing they wanted to show they were capable of creating different and original novels in which they can express their thoughts and criticize the powerful domination that men had on their lives.
In the years this essay was written, it started to occur one of the most significant changes in society. It was the possibility that women have the right to suffrage and therefore, start to have opinion and force in men’s reality.
I personally think this essay is very contemporary to our reality because although we have advanced as society in including women as equals, we have still not changed in some aspects. For example, in terms of jobs the salary that men earn is a lot more than women, or the fact that we have a female president is still not totally accepted by some and for men is easier to attack her because of her faults but when we had a male president it was a very different story.

Posts Corrections

Correction 1 : “Coleridge's Kubla Khan : The Intellectual Journey”

Coleridge’s Kubla Khan poem starts with an image of nature. It represents harmonious landscapes of a wild panorama and it riches a state of pleasure as the first stanza goes by.

Undoubtedly this piece of poetry tries to awake our inner emotions. As the poems lapses one begins to feel immerse into the poem, and also into the images it reflects. Imagination and emotions are closely linked and even though reason is not part of the concept of the poem, it acts surrounding it not as something reasonable to believe in but it allows you to reach an intellectual beauty through these bunch of passionate words.

What I liked the most about this poem is that it touches you in a way you cannot easily describe. We could agree that this poem is a very simple one, but that is the mayor issue: how something simple is so difficult to explain?








Correction 2 : Existential Problems on Keats’ Life

It is clear that in Keats’ sonnets one can see how his own life experiences are taken and written. This is one of the romantic characteristics we can find. Also we find that the use of the image “vision of the sky” represents the sense of connection with nature.

I think that the sonnets show how he lived, with so much pain along his life and that that he considered himself as a weak person. In the same way these sonnets express the image of death as a form of escaping from his reality.

These sonnets represent the idea of the contraries. I believe this because he describes interesting places although he is not feeling quite well. It is like he is not totally complete. And here is also present the idea of heart Vs brain.

A Biographical Approach to Romanticism

There is a tendency in literary criticism to state that literary works can be interpreted from the biographical or social context where writers lived in. For example, in Romanticism there were several British writers such as Samuel Coleridge, John Keats or Mary Shelley, which works refer mainly to their own life experiences. In the present essay I will argue that life experiences as its romantic characteristic was the driving force behind this movement.

First of all, it is important to point out that Romanticism was “a literary, complex artistic, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution ”. In addition, one of the characteristics of this movement was that writers introduced new features in their writing as the individual self and experience. Also, they started to write in a more free way works based on a new connection with nature and went beyond achieving the Supernatural.

In order to explain how these romantic characteristics were so powerful in the authors’ writings, it is necessary to name Coleridge as an essential one at the moment of writing about his own pure experience. In Kubla Khan or, a Vision In a Dream: A Fragment (1816), although he said that he had these visions while he was drugged, Coleridge depicted marvelous landscapes connected with the Supernatural. These images of liberty were his own individual experiences, his feelings and affections throughout his life. What is crucial the most is that this author achieved, from his own fantasy, deliver to the readers the sense of being there or at least the feeling of recreating those beautiful images.

Another writer which also wrote from his own experiences was John Keats. This author who suffered lots of pain during his life was also in charge of writing from his own individual thoughts. “His humble family background had a great impact on his poetry and so did his studies at the medicine school ”. Besides, his works were not well received by critics of that period because it was said they did not accept his works because of his origins. Despite of these issues, he wrote very powerful poems and sonnets in which the main topic present was death. Due to his illness he used to write about his own escape from this death trying to recreate interesting and warm places in where he could at least avoid all the pain he had been suffering.

One of the influential romantic women authors who again suffered from her own societal context was Mary Shelley. She created the work Frankenstein, in where she represented her own self experience towards life but in a totally complete fictitious novel. The creation of this novel and its character Frankenstein depict her own life in where she was rejected by people who thought she was against all the moral and values established. However, this fact was necessary step for her in order to create the novel. It sounds contradictory but that was the reason. In the novel, there are many influences from her life for instance the lots of suicides in her family and the lack of love during his childhood and adolescence. Another important one was the theme of knowledge in order to point out what are the limits for humans beings in terms power. Through her novel the theme of power and human beings seeing as god in terms of creation is nothing more than the trigger for the self destruction. The theme of love as opposite of reason was going to be the main subject of discussion in the following years.

In conclusion, what I wanted to demonstrate through this essay was that the main and central reason of why romanticism became so powerful in the 18th century, was because of its desire of expressing the inner self, the self experiences through writing. Besides, it was my purpose to state that through the author’s novels one can relate them as a biographical interpretation. However, in the novels before mentioned there are worlds inside each of them. Therefore, biographical information it is used as part of finding out the meaning behind them through interpretation.


Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Viewed on Sunday 14th, 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

C. Trajtemberg. Power Point presented in class on August 20th, 2008.

Outline - A Biographical Approach to Romanticism

1.- Introduction

2.- A brief definition of Romanticism

3.- Biographical Approaches:
3a.- Coleridge
3b.- Keats
3c.- Shelley

4.- Conclusion

Frankenstein

It is a very interesting novel in which is discussed the theme of power, knowledge, pregnancy, moral values, responsibility, etc. According to the article “The Birth of a Monster” is crucial the theme pregnancy as a women’s fear factor. Here is shown this topic in relationship with the author Mary Shelley, who had a lot of problems during her nurturing. In fact she lost two babies.
In addition, power and knowledge are quite dense topics to discuss about. This is because Victor Frankenstein believed that he had an unlimited power and he could challenge God’s creation. Therefore, he created this creature which once he saw it he rejected immediately. There is no parental responsibility at all and the creature started to “growing up” alone. While this monster begin to acquire knowledge it started to realize how different is from the rest of the humanity and therefore rejected for being such a creature.
Another valid topic to discuss from the novel is what the limits are for knowledge? Is it really legal that someone play with a child’s life? Well, this monster wasn’t a child but it needed love as the other child have. Nowadays, there are lots of experiments including human cloning which is something similar to what the novel represents, and one of the points to consider is the human power of destroying himself in his search or ambition for new discoveries.

Existential Problems on Keats’ Life

On Keats’ sonnets is clear that his own life experiences are taken and written. That is one of the romantic characteristics we can find. Also we find that the use of image “vision of the sky” represents the sense of connection with nature.
I think that the sonnets show how he lived with so much pain that he considered himself as a weak person”. In the same way these sonnets express an image of death as a form of escape of that reality. I imagined because of Keats’ pain.
These sonnets represent an idea of opposition. Because he describes some interesting places but he is not feeling quite well. It is like he is not totally complete. There is also present the idea of heart vs brain.

Coleridge's Kubla Khan : The Intellectual Journey

Coleridge’s Kubla Khan starts with an image of nature. It represents harmonious landscapes of a wild panorama and it riches a state of pleasure as the first stanza goes by.

Undoubtedly this piece of poetry tries to awake our inner and pure emotions. As the poems lapses one begins to feel immerse into the poem, into the images it reflects, and unconsciously in the very same picture. Imagination and emotions are closely linked and even though reason is not part of the poem’s concept, it is also surrounding it not as something reasonable to believe in but it allows you to think and capture the intellectual beauty inside and through these bunch of passionate words.

What I most liked about this poem is that it touches you in a way you cannot easily describe. We could agree it is simple in the way it reflects the natural perspective already mentioned before, but that is the mayor issue: how something simple is so difficult to explain at the same time?