How to Teach Literature Units
Through literature, students can travel to distant lands and experience exciting things. Teachers commonly use literature study as a means by which to improve their students' reading abilities and familiarize them with past events or uncommon experiences. To ensure that your literature instruction is optimally effective, you must move beyond simply reading a piece of literature to create a web of connected activities that encourage your students to become fully immersed in the selected text.
Instructions
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Discuss the context in which the piece of literature was written. Students can better understand literature when they have knowledge of the social and political climate in which the piece was produced. It is particularly important when teaching classic literature to begin your study of a text by discussing the literary period in which the piece was written as well as the societal influences that are reflected within the work.
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Preteach information necessary for understanding of the literary work. If the novel contains allusion to a specific event, or a reference to something with which your students are not familiar, take time out before you begin to discuss this uncommon thing so that students do not stumble when they encounter it in the text.
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Engage students in the reading of the text. You can employ any number of reading methods. If your students are reluctant or struggling readers, you may want to have them read the text aloud together or follow along with an audio version of the text to ensure that they are paying full attention. If, on the other hand, your students are voracious, independent readers, you can let them tackle the text independently.
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Allow students to read ahead. The first instinct of many reading teachers is to ensure that their students all remain at the same point in the book, as this makes it easier to assign questions to complete discussions. However, if you attempt to slow a student who wishes to read ahead, you may inadvertently extinguish his burning desire to engage with the text.
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Teach complex vocabulary in context. As you encounter complex vocabulary words, discuss their meanings. This contextual vocabulary lesson will benefit your students as they will be able to see how the word is used instead of simply studying an arbitrary term.
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Test students' understanding regularly with questions of varying complexity. While you may want to present your students with some questions that simply ask them to recall what happened in the text, you should also provide them with queries that require application, such as asking them to explain how an event in the text is similar to something that has happened to them.
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Build interest in the text through the use of provocative discussions. When readers read in real life, they discuss their reading. As you move through your piece of literature, allow your students to discuss the text so that their lessons more closely approximate real-life reading behaviors.
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Ask students to apply their understanding of the text to a real-life task by assigning a final project. Assign a final project that requires students to apply their understanding of the text to the completion of a task, such as creating a newspaper featuring articles about events in the book. Through the completion of the project, your students will not only build a product that shows you that they understood the material, but also continue to engage with the text and add to their already present understanding.
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References
- Photo Credit OLD BOOKS image by brelsbil from Fotolia.com
