How to Teach Literary Theory to College Students

In the past, studying literary theory meant examining and writing about different methods or approaches like structuralism or feminism. Today, however, the stress of literary theory is on teaching students to go beyond what they see on the page. Students are taught methods by which to get to the meaning of a text, whether that text is a short story, play or poem. The key for instruction in literary theory is to find ways for students to think deeply and critically on their own and to approach literature from their own background. The ultimate goal is to have students write an analytical essay on a studied piece of literature, using the literary theory that has been taught.

Instructions

1. Assign a poem, short story or play and have students perform a series of readings of the piece. The first reading is to see what the piece is about; the second and third readings are conducted in order to discover the meaning, or theme, of the piece. Students should be advised that the intent of the author is often discovered through an analysis of such elements as the characters, the setting or symbolism.

2. Advise the students that they will be writing about the meaning they have discovered and instruct them to go through the piece again, this time with a pen. Stress that they will use the pen to mark places in the literature that actually serve as evidence or support for the point they are attempting to prove.

3. Demonstrate to the students how to create a central idea statement, which contains the idea they will attempt to prove, and the thesis sentence, which contains the three elements they will develop in subsequent paragraphs. Evidence will be added to these subsequent paragraphs. Students are reminded that they are writing a critical analysis of a piece of literature and as such they have to include some of the literary terminology they have been taught.

4. Assign students to teams for group work. Working in teams, students discuss their own process of discovery and the meaning, or theme, of the piece of literature they are working with. Students bounce ideas off one another in order to see if their own ideas have merit. Members of the group offer support to the points each member makes so that students feel their points make sense, or suggestions are made for further thought or development.

5. Encourage team members to give feedback on individual papers. Literary terms will again be discussed so the students can use these terms as a part of their evaluation. Students need to discuss whether literary terminology is being used correctly. Some of these terms can include words like mythology or archetypal hero.

6. Through the study of literary theory, students will learn a new way to respond to what they have read. They will have gained an appreciation of literature and they will understand how to analyze what they have read. As a result, they will find themselves in a position of active reading rather than passive.