TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE

STUDIES (ELT 228)

LESSON 1
OVERVIEW ON THE NATURE OF LITERATURE AND ITS GENRES
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION MAJOR IN ENGLISH

TOPICS COVERED
Literature as Significant Human Experience
Purposes of Literature
Prose vs. Poetry vs. Drama
Fiction vs. Non-Fiction
Filipino Authors
International Well-Known Authors
Literature Competencies in English K to 12 Curriculum

Prepared by

MARINEL DE LEON LIWANAG, LPT

Instructor I
 Learning Outcomes:
At the end of course/semester, the preservice teacher (PST) should be able to:
a. infuse into class the importance of the institution’s core values (R.I.C.E.)
b. explain the purposes and genres under the literature umbrella; and
c. identify notable authors appropriate for literature study in K to 12 English Literature.

LITERATURE AS SIGNIFICANT HUMAN EXPERIENCE AND PURPOSES OF LITERATURE

Literature as Significant Human Experience

The word literature is derived from Latin term litera which means letter. It has been identified differently by
various writers.
 Literature is any printed matter written in a book, magazine or a pamphlet.
 Literature can be said to be the story of man. Man’s loves, griefs, thoughts, dreams and aspirations.
 “Literature expresses the feelings of people to society, to the government, to his surroundings, to his
fellowmen and to his Divine Creator.” –Brother Azurin
 Literature is anything that is printed as long as it is related to the ideas and feelings of people, whether
it is true, or just a product of one’s imagination. –Webster
 “True literature is a piece of written work which is undying. It expresses the feelings and emotions of
people in response to his everyday efforts to live, to be happy in his environment and, after struggles,
to reach his Creator.” –Atienza, Ramos, Salazar and Nazal in Panitikang Pilipino

We can enumerate many reasons for studying literature. Here are but few:
o We study literature so that we can better appreciate our literary heritage. We cannot appreciate
something that we do not understand. Through a study of our literature, we can trace the rich heritage
of ideas handed down to us from our forefathers. Then we can understand ourselves better and take
pride in being a Filipino.
o Like other races of the world, we need to understand that we have a great and noble tradition which
can serve as the means to assimilate other cultures.
o Through such a study, we will realize our literary limitations conditioned by certain historical factors and
we can take steps to overcome them.
o Above all, as Filipinos, who truly love and take pride in our own culture, we have to manifest our deep
concern for our own literature and this we can do by studying the literature of our country.

In literature, we do not study things; rather, we feel them. Therefore, authors cannot teach us the
knowledge of things; rather, their writings evoke feelings of beauty and pleasure in our minds. Literature aims
to fulfill our emotions. Our mind follows three main cognitive principles: knowledge, will, and emotion.
Knowledge enables us to find truth while the will encourages us to seek virtue and righteousness. Then where
do emotions lead us? To put it simply, they lead us to discover beauty, which gives us pleasure. Virtue and
truthfulness are necessary to fulfill our desire to live spiritually, but beauty is just as essential. If one is
spiritually fulfilled, then, we can say that one possesses those three qualities in balance. Our desire to know
makes us love knowledge. And if one behaves badly by ignoring virtue, one will undoubtedly be criticized by
society. By the same token, we can say that one’s mind is deformed if one has love for knowledge and will,
but no desire to seek beauty. Of course, there are people whose primary interest lies in science. A passion
for virtue would lead others to become devoted to religion and ethics. And those who seek beauty may
become writers and artists. Such people are specialists. However, it is necessary for average people to
embrace all three elements in a balanced way to discover how to perfect and refine their character.
Certainly, literature serves purposes apart from the cultivation of personal character. By portraying
life, it enables us to understand the subtleties of human affairs. It helps a lowly man understand the thoughts
and emotions of a noble man; it helps a rich person understand the living conditions of the poor; it helps
people in the cities understand the lives of farmers, and an evil person see the thoughts and emotions of a
righteous man. This communicability of literature helps us understand foreigners and ancient people as well.
Similarly, we gain knowledge by reading literature, which is necessary for education and helps us adapt to
society. Furthermore, the supreme virtue of literature is that it helps us examine the lives and interactions of
people from all kinds of backgrounds. The sympathy it induces becomes a driving force behind virtuous acts.
Thus, the rich will sympathize with the poor, the noble with the lowly, and the good with the bad. Third, by
portraying how men commit sin, literature helps us uphold virtue. By delineating the ups and downs of a
person’s psychology, it teaches us all how to make progress in our own lives. Fourth, we discover pure
pleasure from literature in this world of suffering, which frees our minds from injustice. Thus, in literature we
can wander imaginatively through an ideal world, experiencing the lives and thoughts of others. If a person
has a deep affection for literature, we can say that he or she possesses the spiritual assets of mankind that
have been accumulated over time. Fifth, the reason people have developed harmful addictions to sex and
alcohol is that they lack a refined taste. If a person develops her or his interest in literature, she or he will be
able to overcome such addictions. Sixth, although a good literary work does not necessarily aim to teach us
to act morally, it still provides certain important lessons. Literature unknowingly shapes our character and
develops our intellectual abilities

Literature and its Influence On Human Life by Anzar Ahmed

It is transparent that literature shows versatile dimension and deals with every aspect of life more or
less. It is to be mentioned that the viewpoint of grasping and the degree of infusing in the conscience of the
same literary work can be different in case of different people from different social, political, cultural, economic
or intellectual background. As an educative source, literature plays a significant part in human life. Literature
works with direct or implied moral. A great deal of examples can be drawn from different genres. So literature
is an emphatic force of education Philosophical thoughts are considered as the most ancient pensive
creativity. Literature has different types, oral literature, written literature, scientific literature, technical
literature. It performs different functions at different levels. Literature and life of a society reflect upon each
other. Life moulds literature of a society and literature reflects the real pattern of any society. So after the
sequential elapse of time, it is proved that, literature definitely has profound sway upon life to a large extent.
Literature influences us and makes us understand the every walk of life. Narratives, in particular, inspire
empathy and give people a new perspective on their lives and the lives of others.
Literature grows out of life, reacts upon life and fed by life. Generally we can say that everything in
print is literature. But this would be a very vague description of literature. Broadly speaking, “literature” is
used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most
commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of drama, essays, fiction and
nonfiction. Any work of art in which the emotional content predominates is literature. Literature is the
expression of written words. Literature is distinct from all other arts. It has no medium of its own. Many mixed
forms of literature exist in it. Its boundaries cross our lives, our traditions, culture, social relations, national
unity and a lot more. It serves as a reflection of reality, a product of art, and window to an ideology, everything
that happens within a society can be written, recorded in, and learned from the piece of literature. Whether it
be poetry or prose, literature provides insight, knowledge, or wisdom, and emotion towards the person who
partakes it entirely. Our life is manifested in the form of literature. It is an embodiment of words based on
human tragedies, desires, and feelings. It cultivates wonders, inspires a generation and feeds information.
Even though it is dynamic, endless, multi-dimensional, literature contributes significant purpose to world we
live in. The world today is ever-changing. Never before has life been so chaotic and challenging for all. Life
before literature was practical and predictable, but in present day, literature has expanded into countless
libraries and into minds of many as the gateway for comprehension and curiosity of the human mind and the
world around them. Literature is of great importance and is studied upon as it provides the ability to connect
human relationships, and define what is right and what is wrong. Literature is the foundation of life. It places
an emphasis on many topics from human tragedies to tales of ever popular search for love. While it is
physically written in words, these words come alive in the imagination of the mind, and its ability to
comprehend the complexity or simplicity of the text. Literature enables the people to see through the lenses
of others, and sometimes even inanimate objects; therefore it becomes a looking glass into the world as
others view. It is journey that is inscribed in pages, and powered by the imagination of the reader. Ultimately,
literature has provided a gateway to teach the reader about life experiences from even the saddest stories to
the most joyful ones that will touch their hearts.
With the ability to see the world with a pair of fresh eyes, it triggers the readers to reflect upon their
own lives. Reading a material that is reliable to the reader may teach them morals and encourage them to
practice good judgment. This can be proven through public school systems, where the books that are
emphasized the most tend to have a moral-teaching purpose behind the story. Progressively, as people grow
older, they explore other genres of books, ones that propel them towards curiosity of the subject, and the
overall book. Reading and being given the keys to the literature world prepares individuals from an early to
discover the true importance of literature: being able to comprehend and understand situations from different
perspectives.
Literature teaches us how to live. Through literature reader visits different places, experiences
events, meets people, listens to them, feels their joys and sorrows. It takes years to acquire so much wisdom
that a single book of literary merit instills in a reader. Literature mirrors the society and its mannerisms.
Because of Charles Dickens we can experience the “Hard Time” of the Victorian England without going
through a detailed historical study. The fact based education system, the fractured human relationships, the
Smokey polluted towns, the ill effects of industrial revolution, the misery of laborers, the mercenary instincts
of men and the flawed legal system of the land can be judged and perceived through literature. The primary
use of literature in ancient settings was to pass down customs, traditions, beliefs and feelings to the younger
generations. In more recent centuries, literature has taken on a more comprehensive role of mirroring society
in order for human to study themselves and understand the underlying truths common to all people. For
students, studying literature is a critical component in education, as it teaches students to see themselves
reflected in art. This allows people to learn about life from the perspectives of another. Identity-based
literature teaches the readers what life is like for others, helping them to be more understanding and
respectful of those around them.
Another point of importance: has literature a function or functions? In his Primer for critics, Boas gaily
exposits a pluralism of interests and corresponding types criticism; and at the end of his Use of Poetry and
Use of Criticism, Eliot sadly, or at least wearily, insists on “variety of poetry” and the variety of things the kinds
of poetry may do at various times. But these are exceptions. To take art or literature or poetry seriously is,
ordinarily at least, to attribute to it some use proper to itself. Considering Arnold’s view that poetry could
supersede religion and philosophy, Eliot writes, “nothing in this world or the text is a substitute for anything
else. . .” That is no real category of value has a real equivalent. There are no substitutes. In practice, literature
can obviously take the place of many things—of travel or sojourn in foreign lands, of direct experience,
various lives and it can be used by the historian as a social document.
Long before human civilization started in this world, stories were found among the constellations,
beneath the depths of the oceans, and within the woodland realm. Long before language was invented,
stories were told and engraved upon stone tablets and walls carvings. Long before human began to know
how to read and write with the words that our ancestors created, literature already existed. Literature is the
foundation of humanity’s cultures, beliefs and traditions. It serves as a reflection of reality, a product of art,
and a window to an ideology. Literature is also a tool for the foundation of religion. The Holy Bible, one of
the oldest written scriptures, is compilation of tales, beliefs, and accounts that teach about Christianity. Within
a span of more than a thousand years from the Prophet Moses to the Apostle Paul, Bible was written by
numerous authors believed to be inspired by God’s divine wisdom and tried to explain about the mysteries
of life as well as setting rules for one’s personal faith. The same goes with Quran for Muslims, Torah for
Jews, and Bhagavad Gita, Ramamyana and Vedas for the Hindus. Literature explains human values. The
works of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle (the most famous Greek Philosophers) contain virtues that promote
perfection to a society if only human being have the willingness to uphold and practice them.
Among the arts, literature, specially, seems also to claim “truth” through the view of life which every
artistically coherent work possesses. The philosopher or critic must think some of these “views” truer than
others but any mature philosophy of life must have some measure of truth, at any event it lays claim to it.
The truth of literature, as we are now considering it, seems to be the truth in literature—the philosophy which
exists, in systematic conceptual form, outside of literature but may be applied to or illustrated by or embodied
in literature. Eliot’s view of poetry in its relation to “truth” seems essentially of this sort. Truth is the province
of systematic thinkers; and artists are not thinkers, though they may try to be if there is no philosophies whose
work they can suitably assimilate.
Literature is an instrument of revolution. Political turmoil, societal injustice, and genocidal conquest
can all be ended and resolved in the form of literature. A writer can be a warrior with his words as his weapon.
He can be a revolutionist by writing literary pieces that exploits corruption in his fellow countrymen. Literature
in the present generation still exists as an expression of art, a source of knowledge, and an instrument of
entertainment. Books are being read seriously by readers who crave for information and recreationally by
those who are passionate in exploring their imagination. Literature kindles new ideas. It gives voice to the
people who want to express their opinions about certain things in life, whether it be in politics, health, religion,
and like that. Literature is the heart of songs, rhythm, and harmonious pieces that give message and
inspiration to people.
Literature has a great importance in the development and exposition of inner realities of the societies.
Much the most common approach to the relations of literature and society is the study of works of literature
as social document, as assumed pictures of social reality. It cannot be doubted that some kind of social
picture can be abstracted from literature. Indeed, this has been one of the earliest uses to which literature
has been put by systematic students. Thomas Warton, the first real historian of English poetry, argued that
literature has the “peculiar merit of faithfully recording the features of the times, and of preserving the most
picturesque and expressive representation of manners”; and to him and many of his antiquarian successors,
literature was primarily a treasury of costumes and customs, a source book for the history of civilization,
especially of chivalric and its decline.
Literature has a deep and direct link with human life and its realities. It is a vague concept that
literature is something which has only an abstract significance and that literature is totally divorced from life.
And equally vague is the concept that literature is a dweller of the land of fancy and imagination. It is more
than this. As a matter of fact, life and literature are two separate things. A creative literature grows out of the
real situations and events of life and life without a creative and constructive literature, has no inner
significance. Literature is one of the trails blazed by human through, alone. After the needs of daily life are
satisfied, man follows the lead of curiosity and explores the mysteries of life. The passion for knowledge, the
desire to understand life and make oneself at home in the universe has perennial spring in human nature.
Culture is transmitted to new generations, through education, but is known and learned by other
cultures. Literature allows us to transmit the profound meaning of a determinate culture, its stereotypes,
archetypes and collective in conscience, creating the possibility of social change through a critic that is able
to act into the subliminal world of emotions. Ethical emotions or ethical feelings are new matters of study that
deserve to be centre of researches and specialized scientific studies. Furthermore, literature offers a different
form of learning rather than just providing information; it requires us to experience, to participate. Works of
literature are not just about human issues; the power of literature is that it makes issues come alive for the
reader.
If the heart of literature is its exploration of human experience, consideration of the formal and
aesthetic properties of a work of literature must be secondary to consider of the social values and ethical
dilemmas presented by the work. Bertolt Brecht once said he didn’t want people to leave his plays thinking
about the theatre, he wanted them to leave his plays thinking about the world. In like fashion, our student
wants to use literature to think about the world, not just to think about the formal aspects of literature.
 Literature reflects the various experiences, ideas, passions of human beings in their daily life that
express on several forms and styles of literary works. Since literature directly derives from human life, it can
increase our knowledge and experience about human problems includes values, morals, cultures and human
interests. After reading a literary work, the reader may get a certain impression of what he/she has read. As
a product of human culture literature has its own functions. Literature has two functions. The first is literature
of power. Literature of power means that the function of literature as power is to move the heart and mind of
the readers. The second is literature of knowledge. Literature of knowledge has the function to teach.
Literature also functions to contribute several of human lives. In education program, literature may give
significant contribution for students’ development and knowledge. The contribution of literature in education
covers intrinsic values and extrinsic values. The intrinsic values are the reward of a lifetime of wide reading
recognizable in truly literate person while the intrinsic values facilitate the development of language skills and
knowledge. The relation between literature and society is usually discussed by starting with the phrase,
derived from De Bonald that “literature is an expression of society.” But what does this axiom means? If it
assumes that literature at any given time, mirrors the current social situation “correctly,” it is false; it is
commonplace, trite, and vague if it means only that literature depicts some aspects of social reality.
Used as a social document, literature can be made to yield the outlines of social history. Chaucer
and Langland preserve two views of fourteenth century society. The prologue to the Canterbury Tales was
early seen to offer an almost complete survey of social types. Shakespeare, in the Merry Wives of Windsor,
Ben Jonson in several plays, and Thomas Deloney seem to tell us something about the Elizabethan middle
class. Addison, Smollett, and Fielding depict the new bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century; Jane Austen,
the country gentry and country parsons early in the nineteenth century.
Many literary texts such as poem, song lyric, and short story are used in language teaching. There
are some factors of using literature in language teaching in terms of linguistic, cultural, and personal growth.
Linguistically, literary texts offer a range of genuine texts in a variety of registers, styles and text-types at
many level of difficulty. Literary texts provide a very real sense the vehicle for culture. The literature can put
obviously be put in different terms, those of symbolic or meaningful relations: of consistency, harmony,
coherence, congruence, structural identity, stylistic analogy, or with whatever term we want to designate the
integration of culture and interrelationship among the different activities of men. Sorokin, who has analyzed
the various possibilities clearly, has concluded that the degree of integration varies from society to society.
The study of the economic basis of literature and of the social status of the writer is inextricably bound up
with a study of the audience he addresses and upon which he is dependent financially. Even the aristocratic
patron is an audience and frequently an exciting audience, requiring not only personal adulation but also
conformity to the conventions of his class. In even earlier society, in the group where folk poetry flourishes,
the dependence of the author on the audience is even greater: his work will not be transmitted unless it
pleases immediately. The role of audience in the theatre is at least, as tangible.
The study and practice of literature is cumulative, building a culture’s identity over time. From the
philosophy and epic poetry of ancient Greece sprang the canon of western literature. Each successive period
of history produced distinct literary works reflective of the spirit of the times but also containing elements of
preceding epochs. Medieval literature incorporates the tenets of Christianity, whereas literature of
Renaissance and Enlightenment responded to advance in art and science.
 PROSE VS. POETRY VS. DRAMA

Prose
For long time, the study of prose has been overlooked and even the definition of it lacks the precision
and to some degree is very vague. For the convenience, it is required that a clear understanding of what is
prose is necessary. Originally, the word prose originated from the Latin one "prosa" meaning straightforward
discourse. In the new oxford American dictionary it is defined as "written or spoken language in its ordinary
form, without metrical structure." This indicates that any writing not in verse form can be thought of prose. It
can also be termed in two senses: the broad one and the narrow one as well as the one which is in between.
In a broad sense, it refers to a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its irregularity and
variety of rhythm and its close correspondence to the patterns. According to this definition, fiction and drama
fall within the scope of prose. In a narrow sense, however, it refers to a type of literary genres opposed to
poetry, fiction and drama. And there are some features which make it possible to distinguish it from poetry,
drama and fiction.
There are different categorizations of prose varying with different people. Generally speaking the
influential and widely accepted ones are the categorization of prose into three types and that into four types.
The representative of the former is Alexander (1963) who categorized prose into three types: narrative,
description and argument. The first type refers to writing which describes an action or a series of actions to
tell a story; the second refers to writing which describes scenes, object, people, or even a person's feeling in
such a way that we can imagine them vividly. For the last type he remarks that it differs from the previous
two in "idea, not about action or object: a problem is presented, an argument is built logically round it and
often, but not always, the author draws conclusions from his argument, giving his view of the question that
he is discussing" (Alexander, 1963:68). Besides Alexander, another one who holds such kind of
categorization of prose is Sheridan (1981).
According to him, "in essence, description is spatial, and narration is temporal" (1981: 165) which
well illustrates the difference between description and narration. He also makes it clear that sometimes in a
piece of writing description and narration blend so effectively so that it is almost indistinguishable. Tao is one
who holds such view in China and further explicates there are different forms of prose, such as letters, diary,
reminiscent, traveling account (2002: 1). Those who are the proponents of categorization or prose into four
types regard that prose can be categorized into: narrative, argument, object, lyric (Fang, 2004:35). Their
definitions of descriptive, narrative and argument are almost like that by Alexander. In this categorization,
lyric is defined as the writing of feeling expression. Though such a categorization is apparently much finer
and more delicate than the previous one, still some problems are involved in it. Firstly it excludes some prose
writings concerned with scenes and objects hence breaches the "principle of inclusiveness"-one of the
principles of categorization proposed by Ye (Fang, 2004:31). Secondly there is no consistent standard with
respect to categorization for the standard of narrative and argumentative is based on the mode of expression,
while object and lyric are on the subject matter dealt with in the prose writing.

Poetry
Poetry is mostly characterized by its meter and stanza which can strike reader immediately. And
meter and stanza are the two obvious ways to differ a piece of poetry from prose. Sometimes poetry can be
called verse, and this depends greatly on the natural rhythms and sounds of language for its special effects
(Burton, 1973:1). Most often, the first word of every line begins with a capital letter, even in the middle of a
sentence. While meters in prose are hardly unperceivable to reader and stanza does not exist which makes
a prose passage seems to be shapeless.
Poetry is any kind of verbal or written language that is structured rhythmically and is meant to tell a
story, or express any kind of emotion, idea, or state of being. Poetry is used to achieve this artistic expression
in several ways. There are certain forms and patterns that poets follow in the composition process of their
work. These different forms were birthed out of separate artistic and cultural movements. Most of these forms
coincide with the previously mentioned definition of poetry; and, the most popular of these forms are elegy,
narrative, ode, ballad, sonnet, villanelle, sestina, free verse, and epic.
Frost believes that poetry in ones self derives from a passion of something. Something you feel so
strongly about that the words become free flowing. A wrongdoing, homesickness and lovesickness were all
appropriate examples of that. He describes the thought process as the poem beginning in the throat, as
nothing more than a lump, and as it travels, the thought and the poem find each other and come together to
form something beautifully scripted. Frost also said, "Poetry is about the grief." The poetry is a result of dying
emotions of the poet’s rather hot or creative imaginations. Poetry turns all things to loveliness. It makes the
beautiful more beautiful thus all familiar things are shown with a touch of better beauty than they actually hold
the most important tool used in the composition of poetry is language. Language is a weapon, it is a shield.
What you choose to use it as is the choice of the poet. Language as a weaponry allows the author to attack
its reader with a barrage of words that exaggerate the theme and plot to a necessary level. Using it as a
shield is a defense mechanism for poets. They open themselves just enough to construct prose, but the
language used guards them from any criticism or feedback on a sensitive issue they may or may not be
consciously ready to accept from an outsider. It gives them their outlet, but still shelters themselves from the
reader.

Drama
Drama is literature designed to be performed by actions. Like fictions it may focus on a single
character or a small number of characters and it enacts functional elements as if they were happening in the
present, to be witnessed by an audience. Although most modern plays use prose dialogue, in the belief that
dramatic speech should be as lifelike as possible, many play from the past like those of ancient Greece and
renaissance England are in poetic form. It is mainly composed of the character's conversation or monologue,
which is sometimes called line.
Drama as a literary genre is realized in performance, which is why Robert Di Yanni (quoted in Dukore)
describes it as “staged art” (867). As a literary form, it is designed for the theatre because characters are
assigned roles and they act out their roles as the action is enacted on stage. These characters can be human
beings, dead or spiritual beings, animals, or abstract qualities. Drama is an adaptation, recreation and
reflection of reality on stage. Generally, the word, dramatist is used for any artist who is involved in any
dramatic composition either in writing or in performance.
Drama is different from other genres of literature. It has unique characteristics that have come about
in response to its peculiar nature. Really, it is difficult to separate drama from performance because during
the stage performance of a play, drama brings life experiences realistically to the audience. It is the most
concrete of all genres of literature. When you are reading a novel, you read a story as told by the novelist.
The poem’s message in most cases is not direct because it is presented in a compact form or in a condensed
language. The playwright does not tell the story instead you get the story as the characters interact and live
out their experiences on stage. In drama, the characters/actors talk to themselves and react to issues
according to the impulse of the moment. Drama is therefore presented in dialogue.
You can see that as a genre of literature, drama occupies a unique position. It is also the most active
of other genres of literature because of the immediate impact it has on the audience. It is used to inform, to
educate to entertain and in some cases to mobilize the audience. Most people associate funny action or other
forms of entertainment as drama. An action could be dramatic yet it will not be classified as drama. The
dramatic is used for any situation or action which creates a sense of an abnormality or the unexpected.
Sometimes we use it to describe an action that is demonstrated or exaggerated. For instance, if you are at a
bus stop, a well-dressed young girl passes and cat-walks across the road, her high-healed shoes breaks and
she slips, the immediate reaction will be laughter from almost everybody there. For some people, this is
drama. Although she was walking in an abnormal way and unexpectedly her shoe breaks, her action could
be called dramatic but it is not dramatic action. Again, the action of a teacher who demonstrates, by injecting
life into his teaching as he acts out certain situations, is dramatic but it is not drama.
What then is drama? Drama is an imitation of life. Drama is different from other forms of literature
because of its unique characteristics. It is read, but basically, it is composed to be performed, so the ultimate
aim of dramatic composition is for it to be presented on stage before an audience. This implies that it a
medium of communication. It has a message to communicate to the audience. It uses actors to convey this
message. This brings us to the issue of mimesis or imitation. We say that drama is mimetic which means that
it imitates life. You may have heard people say that drama mirrors life. Yes, it is the only branch of literature
which tries to imitate life and presents it realistically to the people. It is this mimetic impulse of drama that
makes it appeal to people. Drama thrives on action.

General Types of Literature

Literature can generally be divided into two types; prose and poetry. Prose consists of those written
within the common flow of conversation in sentences and paragraphs, while poetry refers to those
expressions in verse, with measure and rhyme, line and stanza and has a more melodious tone.

I. PROSE
There are many types of prose. These include the following:
a. Novels. A long narrative divided into chapters and events are taken from true-to-life stories.
Example: WITHOUT SEEING THE DAWN by Stevan Javellana
b. Short story. This is a narrative involving one or more characters, one plot and one single
impression. Example: THE LAUGHTER OF MY FATHER by Carlos Bulosan
c. Plays. This is presented on a stage, is divided into acts and each act has many scenes. Example:
THIRTEEN PLAYS by Wilfredo M. Guerrero
d. Legends. These are fictitious narratives, usually about origins. Example: THE BIKOL LEGEND
by Pio Duran
e. Fables. These are also fictitious and they deal with animals and inanimate things who speak and
act like people and their purpose is to enlighten the minds of children to events that can mold their
ways and attitudes. Example: THE MONKEY AND THE TURTLE
f. Anecdotes. These are merely products of the writer’s imagination and the main aim is to bring out
lessons to the reader. Example:THE MOTH AND THE LAMP
g. Essay. This expresses the viewpoint or opinion of the writer about a particular problem or event.
The best example of this is the Editorial page of a newspaper.
h. Biography. This deals with the life of a person which may be about himself, his autobiography or
that of others. Example: CAYETANO ARELLANO by Socorro O. Albert
i. News. This is a report of everyday events in society, government, science and industry, and
accidents, happening nationally or not.
j. Oration. This is a formal treatment of a subject and is intended to be spoken in public. It appeals
to the intellect, to the will or to the emotions of the audience.

II. POETRY
There are three types of poetry and these are the following:
A. Narrative Poetry. This form describes important events in life either real or imaginary.
The different varieties are:
1. Epic. This is an extended narrative about heroic exploits often under supernatural control.
Example:THE HARVEST SONG OF ALIGUYON translated in English by Amador T. Daguio
2. Metrical Tale. This is a narrative which is written in verse and can be classified either as a ballad or
a metrical romance. Examples: BAYANI NG BUKID by Al Perez HERO OF THE FIELDS by Al Perez
 3. Ballads. Of the narrative poems, this is considered the shortest and simplest. It has a simple structure
and tells of a single incident. There are also variations of these: love ballads, war ballads, and sea
ballads, humorous, moral, and historical or mythical ballads. In the early time, this referred to a song
accompanying a dance.

B. Lyric Poetry. Originally, this refers to that kind of poetry meant to be sung to the accompaniment
of a lyre, but now, this applies to any type of poetry that expresses emotions and feelings of the poet.
They are usually short, simple and easy to understand.
1. Folksongs (Awiting Bayan). These are short poems intended to be sung. The common theme is love,
despair, grief, doubt, joy, hope and sorrow. Example: CHIT-CHIRIT-CHIT
2. Sonnets. This is a lyric poem of 14 lines dealing with an emotion, a feeling, or an idea. These are
two types: the Italian and the Shakespearean. Example: SANTANG BUDS by Alfonso P. Santos.
3. Elegy. This is a lyric poem which expresses feelings of grief and melancholy, and whose theme is
death. Example: THE LOVER’S DEATH by Ricaredo Demetillo
4. Ode. This is a poem of a noble feeling, expressed with dignity, with no definite number of syllables
or definite number of lines in a stanza.
5. Psalms (Dalit). This is a song praising God or the Virgin Mary and containing a philosophy of life.
6. Awit (Song). These have measures of twelve syllables (dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the
accompaniment of a guitar or banduria. Example: FLORANTE AT LAURA by Franciso Balagtas
7. Corridos (Kuridos). These have measures of eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to a martial
beat. Example: IBO NG ADARNA

C. Dramatic Poetry
1. Comedy. The word comedy comes from the Greek term “komos” meaning festivity or revelry. This
form usually is light and written with the purpose of amusing, and usually has a happy ending.
2. Melodrama. This is usually used in musical plays with the opera. Today, this is related to tragedy just
as the farce is to comedy. It arouses immediate and intense emotion and is usually sad but there is
a happy ending for the principal character.
3. Tragedy. This involves the hero struggling mightily against dynamic forces; he meets death or ruin
without success and satisfaction obtained by the protagonist in a comedy.
4. Farce. This is an exaggerated comedy. It seeks to arouse mirth by laughable lines; situations are too
ridiculous to be true; the characters seem to be caricatures and the motives undignified and absurd.
5. Social Poems. This form is either purely comic or tragic and it pictures the life of today. It may aim to
bring about changes in the social conditions.

Types of Drama
Let us consider a few popular types of drama:
 Comedy – Comedies are lighter in tone than ordinary works, and provide a happy conclusion. The
intention of dramatists in comedies is to make their audience laugh. Hence, they use quaint
circumstances, unusual characters, and witty remarks.
 Tragedy – Tragic dramas use darker themes, such as disaster, pain, and death. Protagonists often
have a tragic flaw — a characteristic that leads them to their downfall.
 Farce – Generally, a farce is a nonsensical genre of drama, which often overacts or engages
slapstick humor.
 Melodrama – Melodrama is an exaggerated drama, which is sensational and appeals directly to the
senses of the audience. Just like the farce, the characters are of a single dimension and simple, or
may be stereotyped.
 Musical Drama – In musical dramas, dramatists not only tell their stories through acting and
dialogue, but through dance as well as music. Often the story may be comedic, though it may also
involve serious subjects.
Examples of Drama in Literature
Example #1: Much Ado About Nothing (By William Shakespeare)
Much Ado About Nothing is the most frequently performed Shakespearian comedy in modern times. The
play is romantically funny, in that love between Hero and Claudio is laughable, as they never even get a
single chance to communicate on-stage until they get married.
Their relationship lacks development and depth. They end up merely as caricatures, exemplifying what
people face in life when their relationships are internally weak. Love between Benedick and Beatrice is
amusing, as initially their communications are very sparky, and they hate each other. However, they all of
sudden make up, and start loving each other.

Example #2: Oedipus Rex (By Sophocles)

Tragedy:
Sophocles’ mythical and immortal drama Oedipus Rex is thought to be his best classical tragedy.
Aristotle has adjudged this play as one of the greatest examples of tragic drama in his book, Poetics, by
giving the following reasons:
 The play arouses emotions of pity and fear, and achieves the tragic Catharsis.
 It shows the downfall of an extraordinary man of high rank, Oedipus.
 The central character suffers due to his tragic error called Hamartia; as he murders his real father,
Laius, and then marries his real mother, Jocasta.
 Hubris is the cause of Oedipus’ downfall.

Example #3: The Importance of Being Earnest (By Oscar Wilde)

Farce:
Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is a very popular example of Victorian farce.
In this play, a man uses two identities: one as a serious person, Jack (his actual name), which he uses for
Cesily, his ward, and as a rogue named Ernest for his beloved woman, Gwendolyn.
Unluckily, Gwendolyn loves him partially because she loves the name Ernest. It is when Jack and Earnest
must come on-stage together for Cesily, then Algernon comes in to play Earnest’ role, and his ward
immediately falls in love with the other “Ernest.” Thus, two young women think that they love the same man
– an occurrence that amuses the audience.
Example #4: The Heiress (By Henry James)
Melodrama:
The Heiress is based on Henry James’ novel the Washington Square. Directed for stage
performance by William Wyler, this play shows an ungraceful and homely daughter of a domineering and
rich doctor. She falls in love with a young man, Morris Townsend, and wishes to elope with him, but he
leaves her in the lurch. The author creates melodrama towards the end, when Catherine teaches a lesson
to Morris, and leaves him instead.

Function of Drama
Drama is one of the best literary forms through which dramatists can directly speak to their readers, or
the audience, and they can receive instant feedback of audiences. A few dramatists use their characters
as a vehicle to convey their thoughts and values, such as poets do with personas, and novelists do with
narrators. Since drama uses spoken words and dialogues, thus language of characters plays a vital role, as
it may give clues to their feelings, personalities, backgrounds, and change in feelings. In dramas the
characters live out a story without any comments of the author, providing the audience a direct presentation
of characters’ life experiences.

FICTION VS. NON-FICTION

Reading requires concentration and patience, attributes that students find increasingly difficult in
modern times. Boredom can emerge very quickly, and students are no longer accustomed to working on one
activity for a long period of time, which reading entails. This reality is a beneficial for language educators and
acquirers, as working with texts of personal interests can be highly motivational (McCormick, 2007).
Language teachers can draw from any conceivable topic or genre that is of interest to acquirers.
Fiction
Fiction is a written work which made by someone based on imagination. Fiction is a part of literature
involves feeling and human sense. People read fiction for pleasure. The elements of fiction bring the reader
to an imaginative worlds, enlarge our understanding of ourselves, and deepen our appreciation of life. A work
of fiction implies the inventive construction of an imaginary world and, most commonly, its fictionality is
publicly acknowledged, so its audience typically expects it to deviate in some ways from the real world rather
than presenting only characters who are actual people or portrayals that are factually true. Fiction is generally
understood as not fully adhering to the real world, which consequently leaves its themes and its context, such
as if and how it relates to the real world or real issues, open to various interpretations. Characters and events
within some fictional works may even exist in their own context entirely separate from the known physical
universe: an independent fictional universe.
Traditionally, fiction includes novels, short stories, fables, legends, myths, fairy tales, epic and
narrative poetry, plays (including operas, musicals, dramas, puppet plays, and various kinds of theatrical
dances). However, fiction may also encompass comic books, and many animated cartoons, stop motions,
anime, manga, films, video games, radio programs, television programs (comedies and dramas), etc.
The Internet has had a major impact on the creation and distribution of fiction, calling into question
the feasibility of copyright as a means to ensure royalties are paid to copyright holders. Also, digital libraries
such as Project Gutenberg make public domain texts more readily available. The combination of inexpensive
home computers, the Internet, and the creativity of its users has also led to new forms of fiction, such as
interactive computer games or computer-generated comics. Countless forums for fan fiction can be found
online, where loyal followers of specific fictional realms create and distribute derivative stories. The Internet
is also used for the development of blog fiction, where a story is delivered through a blog either as flash fiction
or serial blog, and collaborative fiction, where a story is written sequentially by different authors, or the entire
text can be revised by anyone using a wiki.
Types of literary fiction in prose are distinguished by relative length and include:
 Short story: the boundary between a long short story and a novella is vague,[13] though a short story
is commonly fewer than 7,500 words
 Novella: 17,500 to 40,000 words long is typical; examples include Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange
Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) or Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899)[14]
 Novel: 40,000 words or more in length
Fiction is commonly broken down into a variety of genres: subsets of fiction, each differentiated by a
particular unifying tone or style; set of narrative techniques, archetypes, or other tropes; media content; or
other popularly defined criterion. Science fiction, for example, predicts or supposes technologies that are not
realities at the time of the work's creation: Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon was published in
1865 while in 1969 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first persons to land on the Moon.
Historical fiction places imaginary characters into real historical events. In the 1814 historical novel
Waverley, Sir Walter Scott's fictional character Edward Waverley meets a figure from history, Bonnie Prince
Charlie, and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans. Some works of fiction are slightly or greatly re-imagined
based on some originally true story, or a reconstructed biography.[15] Often, even when the fictional story is
based on fact, there may be additions and subtractions from the true story to make it more interesting. An
example is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a 1990 series of short stories about the Vietnam War.
Fictional works that explicitly involve supernatural, magical, or scientifically impossible elements are
often classified under the genre of fantasy, including Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Creators of
fantasy sometimes introduce imaginary creatures and beings such as dragons and fairies
Historical fiction places imaginary characters into real historical events. In the 1814 historical novel
Waverley, Sir Walter Scott's fictional character Edward Waverley meets a figure from history, Bonnie Prince
Charlie, and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans. Some works of fiction are slightly or greatly re-imagined
based on some originally true story, or a reconstructed biography.[15] Often, even when the fictional story is
based on fact, there may be additions and subtractions from the true story to make it more interesting. An
example is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a 1990 series of short stories about the Vietnam War.
Fictional works that explicitly involve supernatural, magical, or scientifically impossible elements are
often classified under the genre of fantasy, including Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Creators of
fantasy sometimes introduce imaginary creatures and beings such as dragons and fairies. In contrast to
fiction is its traditional opposite: non-fiction, in which the creator assumes responsibility for presenting only
the historical and factual truth. Despite the usual distinction between fiction and non-fiction, some modern
works blur the boundary, particularly ones that fall under certain experimental storytelling genres—including
some postmodern fiction, autofiction,[8] or creative nonfiction like non-fiction novels and docudramas—as
well as deliberate literary frauds, which are falsely marketed as nonfiction
Fiction generally is a narrative form, in any medium, consisting of people, events, or places that are
imaginary—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact. In its most narrow usage, fiction refers to
written narratives in prose and often specifically novels, though also novellas and short stories. More broadly,
fiction has come to encompass imaginary narratives expressed in any form, including not just writings but
also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and
video games.
By reading fiction, the students are confronted with the culture, customs and lifestyles of the countries
where the language is spoken, and can learn many interesting facts to enrich their studies and knowledge. It
is true that the world‘ of a novel, play or short story is a created one, yet it offers a full and vivid context in
which characters from many social backgrounds can be depicted. A reader can discover their thoughts,
feelings, customs, and possessions: what they buy, believe in, fear, enjoy; how they speak and behave
behind closed doors. (Collie and Slater in Thomas, H. 2000).

Non-Fiction
Non-fiction is a written work that actually happened. Nonfiction presents interesting details and
information about something and have many purposes— for example, to inform people some facts or to
explain how something occurred. All written works other than imaginative prose (fiction) are considered
nonfiction. Nonfiction (also spelled non-fiction) is any document or media content that intends, in good faith,
to present only truth and accuracy regarding information, events, or people. Nonfictional content may be
presented either objectively or subjectively. Sometimes taking the form of a story, nonfiction is one of the
fundamental divisions of narrative writing (specifically, prose)— in contrast to fiction, which offers information,
events, or characters expected to be partly or largely imaginary, or else leaves open if and how the work
refers to reality.
The numerous literary and creative devices used within fiction are generally thought inappropriate
for use in nonfiction. They are still present particularly in older works but they are often muted so as not to
overshadow the information within the work. Simplicity, clarity and directness are some of the most important
considerations when producing nonfiction. Audience is important in any artistic or descriptive endeavor, but
it is perhaps most important in nonfiction. In fiction, the writer believes that readers will make an effort to
follow and interpret an indirectly or abstractly presented progression of theme, whereas the production of
nonfiction has more to do with the direct provision of information. Understanding of the potential readers' use
for the work and their existing knowledge of a subject are both fundamental for effective nonfiction. Despite
the claim to truth of nonfiction, it is often necessary to persuade the reader to agree with the ideas and so a
balanced, coherent and informed argument is vital. However, the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction
are continually blurred and argued upon, especially in the field of biography; as Virginia Woolf said: "if we
think of truth as something of granite-like solidity and of personality as something of rainbow-like intangibility
and reflect that the aim of biography is to weld these two into one seamless whole, we shall admit that the
problem is a stiff one and that we need not wonder if biographers, for the most part failed to solve it."
 Semi-fiction is fiction implementing a great deal of nonfiction, e.g. a fictional description based on a
true story. Common literary examples of nonfiction include expository, argumentative, functional, and opinion
pieces; essays on art or literature; biographies; memoirs; journalism; and historical, scientific, technical, or
economic writings (including electronic ones). Journals, photographs, textbooks, travel books, blueprints, and
diagrams are also often considered nonfictional.[citation needed] Including information that the author knows
to be untrue within any of these works is usually regarded as dishonest. Other works can legitimately be
either fiction or nonfiction, such as journals of self-expression, letters, magazine articles, and other
expressions of imagination. Though such works are mostly either or the other, a blend of both is also possible.
Some fiction may include nonfictional elements. Some nonfiction may include elements of unverified
supposition, deduction, or imagination for the purpose of smoothing out a narrative, but the inclusion of open
falsehoods would discredit it as a work of nonfiction. The publishing and bookselling business sometimes
uses the phrase "literary nonfiction" to distinguish works with a more literary or intellectual bent, as opposed
to the greater collection of nonfiction subjects.
Nonfiction's specific factual assertions and descriptions may or may not be accurate, and can give
either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However, authors of such accounts genuinely
believe or claim them to be truthful at the time of their composition or, at least, pose them to a convinced
audience as historically or empirically factual. Reporting the beliefs of others in a nonfiction format is not
necessarily an endorsement of the veracity of those beliefs, but rather an exercise in representing the topic.
Works of nonfiction need not necessarily be written text, since statements expressed by pictures or film can
also purport to present a factual account of a subject.
Students rarely select nonfiction materials such as newspapers, magazines, or informational
literature. The ability to read and extract information from nonfiction becomes increasingly important to a
student‘s academic success as the student progresses through school. Non-fiction is simply said all texts
that are not considered fiction. Fiction is an expression of creativity that is essentially imagined, whereas non-
fiction refers to reality, and the transfer of information of that reality. While it is true nonfiction is about finding
facts, deep understanding of expository material lies in seeing the big picture, identifying relationships, and
evaluating information (Benson, 2003). Moss (2003) in her book under the title Exploring the Literature of
Fact, suggested that the items needed to be successful in reading nonfiction include accessing quality
literature, learning reading strategies, understanding the use of text structure, and
responding to the literature. Nearly 80-90% of classroom reading before fourth
grade is fictional after which most classroom reading becomes nonfiction (Benson,
2003).
Maxim (1998 as cited in Harvey 2002) stated that the students should be
engaged in nonfiction by asking student to read fiction aloud, explore nonfiction to
satisfy curiosity, use nonfiction for instruction, read nonfiction to find out information, read nonfiction to do
research, skim nonfiction to answer questions, show particular features of nonfiction—the titles, headings,
bold print, graphs, charts—and point out the purpose of these text elements, and read nonfiction to write it
well.

FILIPINO AUTHORS

Top 10
Name: Carlo J. Caparas
Age: 57
Born on: December 15, 1958
Magno “Carlo” Jose Caparas, widely known as Carlo J. Caparas, is a Filipino comic strip creator/writer-
turned director and producer, who is best known for creating such Filipino superheroes and comic
book characters as Panday, Bakekang, Totoy Bato, Joaquin Bordado, Kamagong, Kamandag, Elias
Paniki, Tasya Fantasya, Gagambino, Pieta and Ang Babaeng Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang, among others. He
is also known as a director of numerous massacre movies such as Kuratong Baleleng and The Cory
Quirino Kidnap: NBI Files. Caparas was awarded the 2008 Sagisag Balagtas Award.
His contribution to Philippine History and Entertainment Industry are beyond compare. He has contributed
numerous literary works that bought smiles and brough about lessons that we can use and apply in real-life
situations. He took a large step in moulding Philippine History that will ever remain in every Filipino’s Heart.
A few examples of his works that mainly contributed to Entertainment Industry;
 Panday
 Kamandag
 Bakekang, and such

Top 9
Name: Mars Ravelo
Age: 71
Born on: October 9, 1916-September 12, 1988
Mars Ravelo was a Filipino graphic novelist who created the characters Darna, Dyesebel, Captain Barbell,
Lastikman, Bondying, Varga, Wanted: Perfect Mother, Hiwaga, Maruja, Mariposa, Roberta, Rita, Buhay
Pilipino, Jack and Jill, Flash Bomba, Tiny Tony, and Dragonna among others.
Mars Ravelo had greatly contributed countless literary pieces mainly in entertainment industry. He helped
mold our imagination and even told the Filipino youth,
“Be what you want to be. Make your imagination as the source of your success.”
Most Remarkable Pieces:
 Darna
 Dyesebel
 Lastikman

Top 8
Name: Louie Mar Cangcuangco
Age: 29
Born on: March 26, 1987
Dr. Louie Mar Gangcuangco is an HIV researcher, best-selling novelist, and one of the youngest licensed
physicians from the Philippines. He is the author of the multi-awarded Filipino novel Orosa-Nakpil,
Malate and is currently working as a clinical research associate for the Hawaii Center for AIDS. He made a
novel mainly about erotica, but gave lessons and reflected on what’s happening in our generation.
Most Remarkable Piece:
 Orosa-Nakpil, Malate

Top 7
Name: Gilda Olvidado
Age: 59
Born on: August 9, 1957
Gilda Olvidado, from Cebu City, Cebu, is a Filipino movie and television writer, and melodrama novelist. Her
novels have been turned into live-action movies by VIVA Films, and also been remade for television
through Sine Novela.
Olvidado had contributed greatly in Entertainment Industry through her novel-turned movies. She had kept
us well-entertained by making absolute pieces.
Most Remarkable Piece:
 Huwag Mo Kaming Isumpa (1981, novel)
 Sinasamba Kita (1982, novel)
 Kung Mahawi Man Ang Ulap (1984, novel)
 Top 6
Name: Nick Joaquin
Age: 87
Born on: May 4, 1917-April 29, 2004
Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín was a Filipino writer, historian and journalist, best known for
his short stories and novels in the English language. He also wrote using the pen
name Quijano de Manila. Joaquín was conferred the rank and title of National Artist of
the Philippines for Literature. He is considered one of the most important Filipino writers
in English, and the third most important overall, after José Rizal and Claro M. Recto.
Most Remarkable Pieces:
 May Day Eve (1947)
 Prose and Poems (1952)
 The Woman Who had Two Navels (1961)
 La Naval de Manila and Other Essays (1964)
 A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (1966)

Top 5
Name: Lualhati Bautista
Age: 71
Born on: December 2, 1945
Bautista was born in Tondo, Manila, Philippines on December 2, 1945 to Esteban Bautista and Gloria Torres.
She graduated from Emilio Jacinto Elementary School in 1958, and from Torres High
School in 1962 being a lowest in her class. She was a journalism student at the Lyceum
of the Philippines, but dropped out for the reason of failed grades. She started her
writing career in the Liwayway magazine. Despite a lack of formal training, Bautista as
the writer became known for her honest realism, courageous exploration of Philippine
women’s issues, and her compelling female protagonists, who confront difficult
situations at home and in the workplace with uncommon grit and strength.
Most Remarkable Piece/s:
 Bulaklak sa City Jail
 Dekada ’70
 Bata, Bata… Pa’no Ka Ginawa?
 ‘GAPÔ
 Sixty in the City
 In Sisterhood

Top 4
Name: F. Sionil Jose
Age: 92
Born on: December 3, 1924
José attended the University of Santo Tomas after World War II, but dropped out and plunged into writing
and journalism in Manila. In subsequent years, he edited various literary and journalistic publications, started
a publishing house, and founded the Philippine branch of PEN, an international organization for writers. José
received numerous awards for his work. The Pretenders is his most popular novel, which is the story of one
man’s alienation from his poor background and the decadence of his wife’s wealthy family.[3][4] José Rizal‘s
life and writings profoundly influenced José’s work. The five volume Rosales Saga, in particular, employs
and interrogates themes and characters from Rizal’s work. Throughout his career, José’s writings espouse
social justice and change to better the lives of average Filipino families. He is one of the most critically
acclaimed Filipino authors internationally, although much underrated in his own country because of his
authentic Filipino English and his anti-elite views.
Most Remarkable Piece/s:
 Po-on (Source) (1984) ISBN 971-8845-10-0
  The Pretenders (1962) ISBN 971-8845-00-3
 My Brother, My Executioner (1973) ISBN 971-8845-16-X
 Mass (December 31, 1974) ISBN 0-86861-572-2
 Tree (1978) ISBN 971-8845-14-3

Top 3
Name: Fransisco Balagtas
Age: 73
Born on: April 2, 1788-February 20, 1862
Balagtas learned to write poetry from José de la Cruz (Huseng Sisiw), one of the most famous poets
of Tondo, in return of chicks. It was De la Cruz himself who personally challenged Balagtas to improve his
writing. Balagtas swore he would overcome Huseng Sisiw as he would not ask anything in
return as a poet.
Upon his deathbed, he asked a favor that none of his children become poets like him, who
had suffered under his gift as well as under others. He even went as far as to tell them it
would be better to cut their hands off than let them be writers.
Most Remarkable Piece:
 Florante at Laura
(Click for source)

Top 2
Name: Bob Ong
Age: Unknown
Born on: Unknown
Bob Ong, is the pseudonym of an anonymous Filipino contemporary author
known for using conversational Filipino to create humorous and reflective
depictions of life as a Filipino.
A Filipino Literary critic once commented:” Filipinos really patronize Bob Ong’s
works because, while most of his books may have an element of comedy in
them, this is presented in a manner that replicates Filipino culture and
traditions. This is likely the reason why his first book – and those that followed
it, can be considered true Pinoy classics.” The six books he has published thus far have surpassed a
quarter of a million copies. His words of wisdom were applied by some of the Filipinos to their daily lives.
Most Remarkable Piece:
 Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas
 Alamat ng Gubat

Top 1
Name: José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda
Age: 35
Born on: June 19, 1861
From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned the alphabet
from his mother at 3, and could read and write at age 5. Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila,
he dropped the last three names that made up his full name, on the advice of his brother, Pacianoand the
Mercado family, thus rendering his name as “José Protasio Rizal”. Of this, he later wrote: “My family never
paid much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus giving me the appearance
of an illegitimate child!” This was to enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his brother, who
had gained notoriety with his earlier links to Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto
Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza) who had been accused and executed for treason.
Most Remarkable Pieces of Rizal:
 El Filibusterismo
 Noli Me Tangere
 INTERNATIONAL WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS

Famous Authors
Authors throughout history have helped capture something about their lives, their era, and the society
around them. From Homer in the 8th century BC all the way until now, there is something in the works of
these authors that can capture our imagination and help us expand our knowledge. Here are some of the
greatest authors in history and a little something about the works that they created.

Famous Authors of Antiquity

Homer (8th Century BC) Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) Virgil (70 BC-19 BC)
Nationality: Greek Nationality: Chinese Nationality: Roman
Known for: Iliad, Odyssey Known for: The Art of War Known for: Eclogues, Georgics,
Homer is considered to be the Sun Tzu was a military strategist in Aeneid
greatest of the ancient Greek poets ancient China. His book – The Art of Widely known as one of Rome’s
as he wrote two epic poems that still War – was written as a strategy for the greatest poets, Virgil had a major
live on today – the Iliad and Chinese military. It is still widely read influence on Western literature.
the Odyssey. These stories were today by leaders of armed forces. In The Aeneid is modeled after
epic poems that detailed Greek fact, it is on the list of recommended Homer’s works and it tells the
culture, including the geography, reading for the US Marine Corps and story of a Trojan, named Aeneas,
history, and ideals. It also set a other divisions of the military. who was adopted by the Romans.
precedence because other empires His work had such an impact that
wanted similar epic poems written Dante used him in his Divine
about their cultures. Comedy to guide him through
hell.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Nationality: Italian
Known for: Divine Comedy
Dante’s Divine Comedy is
considered one of the greatest
works in all of literature.He is often
referred to as the “Father of the
Italian language” and he is one-third
of “the three crowns,” along with
Petrarch and Boccaccio. Some of
his other works include Convivio, or
“The Banquet,” and Monarcha, a
treatise on political philosophy.

Famous Authors of the 1500s to 1700s

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Nationality: English Nationality: English
Known for: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Known for: Sense and Sensibility, Pride
Othello, King Lear and Prejudice, Mansfield Park
Shakespeare, known as the “Bard of Much of Austen’s work focused on the
Avon,” is one of the best known English woman’s social standing in the 18th
writers in history. He is credited with century and how it depended greatly on
writing nearly 40 plays, more than 150 the man that they marry. She did not
sonnets, and several poems. His first receive many positive reviews for her
recorded works include Henry work as she generally critiqued the
VI and Richard III, which were written societal norms of her time. It was not until
during the 1590s. the 1940s after her memoirs were
published when she achieved posthumous
fame as a prominent English writer.

Famous Authors of the 1800s

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Nationality: French Nationality: American Nationality: English
Known for: The Count of Monte Known for: The Raven, The Pit and Known for: Oliver Twist, A Tale of
Cristo, The Three Musketeers the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart Two Cities, A Christmas Carol
Dumas is one of the most prominent Poe was one of the premier writers Often referred to as the greatest
French writers with his historical during the Romantic Movement. novelist of Victorian times, Dickens
novels that tell of adventurous tales. His works are known for their had several works that were praised
Since the early 20th century, his mystery and grim themes, many of by critics and peers. His first
works have been made into about which include the death of one of recognized work was in 1836
200 movies. His complete works the characters. He is credited with with The Pickwick Papers. He helped
total 100,000 pages and due to the being the father of detective fiction popularize serial publications, which
level of success of his early works, as well as one of the early science meant pieces of his work were
he was able to be a full-time writer fiction writers. published in magazines in
and dedicate himself solely to installments.
writing.

Herman Melville (1819-1891) Jules Verne (1828-1905) Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Nationality: American Nationality: French-Algerian Nationality: American
Known for: Moby Dick Known for: Journey to the Center Known for: The Adventures of Tom
Known mainly for his work Moby of the Earth, Around the World in Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn,
Dick, Melville was virtually 80 Days Pudd’nhead Wilson
unsuccessful as an author and Verne was one of the leaders in the Often referred to as the “Father of
novelist. He had other small science fiction genre of literature. In American Literature,” Twain has
successes, such as Typee in 1845, fact, he is often referred to as “The contributed a great deal to the
which became a bestseller in Father of Science Fiction,” along culture. His 1885 novel – Adventures
London. He also with H.G. Wells. Many have called of Huckleberry Finn – is credited
published Omoo based on the his works of exploration with being the “Great American
success of his previous work. But inspirational, including Jacques Novel.” Twain served as a pilot on a
his later years were not nearly as Cousteau, the astronauts on Apollo riverboat along the Mississippi River
successful as his earlier ones. 8, and J.R.R. Tolkien. for some time before becoming an
author.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Jack London (1876-1916) Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)

Nationality: Irish Nationality: American Nationality: German
Known for: The Picture of Dorian Known for: The Call of the Wild, Known for: Steppenwolf,
Gray, The Importance of Being The Sea Wolf, White Fang Siddhartha, Demian
Earnest As an advocate of ideals like A recipient of the Nobel Prize in
Wilde was known as one of socialism and unionization, London Literature in 1946, Hesse’s novels
London’s most prominent worked these themes into many of typically had themes of exploring a
playwrights during the last decade his works, including The Iron person’s search for spirituality and
of the 1800s. He had one novel Heel and The People of the Abyss. self-knowledge. His first recognized
published during his career – The He had more straightforward works novel was published in 1904 and it
Picture of Dorian Gray – along that explored these themes, was entitled Peter Camenzind. His
with several plays that were including essays like How I Became subsequent novels were popular in
performed on stage. He also wrote a Socialist and What Communities Germany and parts of Europe, but
several essays and shorter fiction Lose by the Competitive System. they did not become well-known in
pieces, including The Decay of the United States until the counter-
Lying and The House of culture revolution of the 1960s.
Pomegranates.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) James Joyce (1882-1941

Nationality: English Nationality: Irish
Known for: Mrs. Dalloway, Known for: Ulysses, A Portrait of
Orlando, To the Lighthouse the Artist as a Young Man
As one of the more prominent Joyce was innovative in some of the
authors of the 20th century, Woolf techniques he used and perfected in
contributed a great deal to the field his writing, including the idea of
of literature and to the English stream of consciousness,
language in general. Her use of referencing a character’s psychic
“stream of consciousness” in her reality, and exploring a character’s
novels was innovative for the time inner monologue. In his
and it allowed her to explore the work Finnegans Wake, he discarded
thoughts and inner lives of her the tradition of having a
characters more intimately. conventional plot and he used free
dream associations, obscure
language, puns, and literary
allusions throughout the book.

Famous Authors of the 1900s

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)
Nationality: German Nationality: Portugese Nationality: American
Known for: The Metamorphosis, Known for: The Book of Known for: How to Win Friends
The Trial, The Castle Disquietude and Influence People
A great deal of Kafka’s writing Pessoa is often referred to as the Carnegie made a name for himself
focused on surreal situations that greatest poet of the Portugese in the writing world for publishing
involved mental and physical language. He wrote under several books about self-improvement and
brutality, conflicts between parents different pseudonyms, includnig interpersonal skills. He began as a
and children, fighting the maze of albert Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, lecturer and became one of the most
bureaucracy, and alienation. The and Ricardo Reis. In addition to his famous lecturers ever. He even sold
term “Kafkaesque” has come to original works, Pessoa translated out Carnegie Hall for some of his
refer to situations that are many English works into Portugese, speaking engagements. Within 20
reminiscent of his writings and including The Scarlet Letter by years of its first printing, his How to
ideas. Many of his works also Nathaniel Hawthorne and Poe’s Win Friends and Influence
include the theme of existentialism. “The Raven,” among others. People had sold more than five
million copies.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

Nationality: English Nationality: English Nationality: American
Known for: And Then There Were Known for: The Lord of the Rings, Known for: The Great Gatsby, The
None, Witness for the Prosecution The Hobbit Beautiful and Damned
As the author of more than 65 Credited with bringing the fantasy Fitzgerald was part of the “Lost
detective novels and more than a genre back into the mainstream, Generation” group of writers. This
dozen short stories, Christie created Tolkien is often referred to as the was a group that served in WWI and
popular characters like Jane Marple “father of modern fantasy it also included T.S. Eliot, Waldo
and Hercule Poirot. In addition to literature.” He was ranked sixth Pierce, Ernest Hemingway and
detective novels, she also wrote The on The Times’ list of 50 great British others. The term referred to their
Mousetrap, which has been running writers of the latter half of the 20th feelings of emptiness due to the war.
continuously since 1952. It is the century in 2008. He died in 1973, Fitzgerald’s work often exemplified
longest running play ever. but he made the Forbes 2009 list of this feeling as much of it centered on
top-earning celebrities at number consumerism, greed, and alcohol to
five. suppress or hide those negative
feelings.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
Nationality: American Nationality: American Nationality: American
Known for: The Chronicles of Known for: A Farewell to Arms, Known for: The Grapes of Wrath,
Narnia, The Screwtape Letters The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man Of Mice and Men, East of Eden
Lewis was a novelist, essayist, and and the Sea The collection of Steinbeck’s work
Christian apologetic who used his Hemingway started out as a includes 16 novels, six books of
writings to explore ideas about journalist before becoming a non-fiction and five short stories. In
religion and other themes. His The novelist. His first job out of high 1962, he won the Nobel Prize for
Chronicles of Narnia has been school was being a reporter for The Literature to the dismay of many of
turned into a series of motion Kansas City Star. Before long, he his critics and literary analysts of the
pictures. He also authored Space left to go to Italy to enlist as an time. His most recognized work
Trilogy, a science fiction work for ambulance driver for World War I. – The Grapes of Wrath – was
adults, and The Pilgrim’s Regress, His time serving in WWI and in published in 1939 and it won a
his first novel after converting to the Spanish Civil War gave him Pulitzer and a National Book
Christianity. inspiration for his novels. He won Award.
the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1954.

George Orwell (1903-1950) Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Nationality: English Nationality: American Nationality: Russian-American
Known for: 1984, Animal Farm Known for: Green Eggs and Ham, Known for: The Fountainhead,
Orwell is considered one of the The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Atlas Shrugged
greatest British writers of the 20th Stole Christmas! Rand was both a novelist and a
century. In fact, he was listed as Theodor Seuss Geisel, popularly philosopher and she used her writing
number two in 2008 on a list known as Dr. Seuss, is known for skills to explore a system she
published by The Times. The themes his children’s picture books that he referred to as objectivism in her
he explores in his books, wrote and illustrated. He published works. Although her novels were
namely 1984 and Animal Farm, 46 of them with some of the most not bestsellers, they have been major
have been termed “Orwellian,” but imaginative rhymes and characters. influences for the Libertarian Party
he has coined other popular phrases, In his early career, he was an and the Conservative Party in
such as “Big Brother” and “thought illustrator for various businesses and American politics.
police.” organizations, including the U.S.
Army.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Roald Dahl (1916-1990) Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
Nationality: French-Algerian Nationality: British Nationality: Russian
Known for: The Stranger, The Myth Known for: Charlie and the Known for: The Intelligent Man’s
of Sisyphus, The Plague Chocolate Factory, James and the Guide to Science, I, Robot, Nightfall
As a philosopher/author, Camus Giant Peach Asimov has been called one of the
worked many of his philosophical Dahl has been referred to as a great most prolific writers in history with
thoughts into his novels. In The children’s storyteller, though his more than 500 books either written
Stranger, for instance, he explored books have a dark sense of humor or edited by him. He is mainly
the theme of existentialism as well and twist endings. He wrote many recognized for his science fiction
as nihilism and stoicism through short stories for magazines, works, but he has written books on
characters like Meursault and including Harper’s, The New many different topics, including
Masson. His novel The Yorker, and Ladies Home Journal, mysteries, William Shakespeare, the
Plague discussed the human just to name a few. He received Bible, and more. There is also a
condition and the idea of destiny. three Edgar Awards for his original literary award named after him.
works.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) Maya Angelou (1928- ) Anne Frank (1929-1945)

Nationality: American Nationality: American Nationality: German
Known for: On the Road, Big Sur, Known for: I Know Why the Caged Known for: The Diary of Anne
The Sea is My Brother Bird Sings Frank
The writings of Kerouac are eclectic With a total of seven Frank was not a writer in the
in that they span a variety of topics, autobiographies and several poetry traditional sense, but her diary is one
including Buddhism, poverty, works to her name, Angelou is one of the most recognized works of
promiscuous sex, drugs, and of the more successful African- non-fiction in history. During the
traveling. He was one of the American authors to date. She was German occupation of Amsterdam,
pioneers of the Beat Generation and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Frank was in hiding with other
the hippie movement. He was 1971 and she was selected to read family members. However, the
heavily influenced by James Joyce her poem – “On the Pulse of family was captured by German
and references his work many times Morning” – at the inauguration of troops and taken to concentration
in his own writings. Bill Clinton in 1993. camps where they died. Her diary
was saved and published in 1947.
Haruki Murakami (1929- ) Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
Nationality: Japanese Nationality: American Nationality: American
Known for: Kafka on the Shore, Known for: The Bell Jar, Ariel Known for: The Rum Diary, Hell’s
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Plath had a short career with few Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las
Murakami is a Japanese writer who publications to her name, but the Vegas
has won several awards for his works that she did have published Thompson spent several years
work, including the Frank O’Connor were significant. Her work The Bell working as a journalist, but he was
International Short Story Award, the Jar was somewhat autobiographical not well-known until after he
Franz Kafka Prize, and several and discussed her depression and published his book about the year he
others. His first novel was Hear the other life events. She attempted spent riding with the Hell’s Angels.
Wind Sing in 1979. Following that, suicide several times during her life He was a leader in the counter-
he wrote and published a sequel to it and succeeded in 1963, after which culture and he created a new style of
entitled Pinball, 1973. Since then, she posthumously won the Pulitzer journalism, which he entitled
he has had success with subsequent Prize for The Collected Poems. “Gonzo” journalism. In this style,
novels in his career. the journalist gets involved in the
story themselves and they become a
central figure of it.

Paulo Coelho (1947- ) Stephen King (1947- ) James Patterson (1947- )

Nationality: Brazilian Nationality: American Nationality: American
Known for: The Alchemist Known for: Carrie, The Shining, Known for: The Alex Cross Series,
Coelho is one of the most popular Salem’s Lot,The Dark Tower Daniel X
authors in modern history. He had With 50 novels published and Following a career in advertising,
several moderately successful books almost 200 short stories, King is one Patterson dedicated himself to
published, but The Alchemist is one of the more prolific authors of writing. However, he had several
of the best-selling books of all time. horror fiction today. He has received publications prior to leaving his
It was published in 1987 and Coelho numerous awards for his work, advertising career. His first novel
has followed up his success with a including British Fantasy Society – The Thomas Berryman Number –
novel every couple years since then. Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, and was published in 1976. Since then,
He has published 30 books in total. others. He also received the he has had more than 90 novels
prestigious O. Henry Award for his published and 19 of them have been
short story, The Man in the Black consecutive bestsellers.
Suit.
Salman Rushdie (1947- ) George R. R. Martin (1948- ) Nora Roberts (1950- )
Nationality: British-Indian Nationality: American Nationality: American
Known for: The Satanic Verses, Known for: A Song of Ice and Fire Known for: Time and Again, “In
Midnight’s Children His work – A Song of Ice and Fire – Death” series
Rushdie began his writing career has been turned into a wildly Roberts’ novels have spent a total of
working as a copywriter for ad popular TV series entitled Game of more than 860 weeks on the NY
agencies. While coming up with Thrones. In 2011, Time magazine Times Bestseller list as of 2011. For
memorable slogans, he also named Martin one of the “most 176 of those weeks, her novels were
wrote Midnight’s Children during influential people in the world.” He at the top of the list at number one.
his free time. published his first has won several awards for his She has written under the
novel – Grimus – in 1975 and it work, including the Hugo Award pseudonyms J.D. Robb, Jill March,
became his first work to be three times and the Locus Award six and Sarah Hardesty. By 1996, she
published. He won the Booker Prize times. had 100 novels published and more
in 1981. In 1988, he published The than 200 by 2012.
Satanic Verse, which caused great
controversy and death threats for
Rushdie.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) Rick Riordan (1954- ) Neil Gaiman (1960- )

Nationality: English Nationality: American Nationality: English
Known for: The Hitchhiker’s Guide Known for: Percy Jackson and the Known for: The Graveyard Book,
to the Galaxy Olympians, The Kane Chronicles Stardust, Coraline, American Gods
As a humorist and a dramatist, In addition to his works centered on Gaiman is the first author to have
Adams’ works were often made into mythology, such as Percy Jackson won the Carnegie medal and the
radio shows and TV series. He wrote and the Olympians, Riordan has Newbery medal for a single work
three stories for Doctor Who, which worked on other projects. He helped – The Graveyard Book. He began
was a science fiction program that write the children’s novel series his career in journalism and he
ran on the BBC. The series has since entitled The 39 Clues with other worked for the British Fantasy
been updated and remade. Other authors. One of the books in the Society. His first story was
books of Adams’ include The series that he authored – The Maze published in 1984. He went on to
Meaning of Liff, Last Chance to See, of Bones – went to number one on publish several books and become a
and others. the New York Times Best Seller list. graphic novelist.
Suzanne Collins (1962- ) David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) Dan Brown (1962- )
Nationality: American Nationality: American Nationality: American
Known for: The Hunger Games Known for: The Pale King, Brief Known for: The Da Vinci Code,
Trilogy Interviews with Hideous Men, Angels and Demons
Before becoming a successfully Infinite Jest Brown has written two best-selling
published author, Collins spent Wallace’s Infinite Jest was his novels that been turned into major
several years writing for children’s second novel and his most motion picture. In total, his novels
TV shows, recognized. Time magazine named it have sold more than 200 million
including Oswald and Clarissa as one of the 100 best novels copies worldwide as of 2012. The
Explains it All, just to name a few. published between 1923 and 1925. themes for his novels typically
From there, she went on to write Another one of his books – The Pale include conspiracy combined with
children’s books, including the King – was published after his death Christian motifs, making them rather
series The Underland Chronicles, of and it was nominated for a Pulitzer controversial. He is in the top 20
which the first book in the series Prize. best-selling authors of all time
was number one on the NY Times despite only having six books
bestseller list. published.

J. K. Rowling (1965- ) Nicholas Sparks (1965- ) Stephenie Meyer (1973- )

Nationality: British Nationality: American Nationality: American
Known for: Harry Potter series Known for: The Notebook, Nights Known for: The Twilight Series
With more than 400 million of in Rodanthe, A Walk to Remember The Twilight series is one of the
the Harry Potter books being sold With 18 published novels to his more successful series in modern
worldwide, Rowling has gone to the name, Sparks is one of the more history. In 2008 and 2009, Meyer
top of the list of bestselling authors prominent authors of today. Several was the bestselling wrier in the US
of all time. Before writing and of his novels have been turned into with more than 45 million copies
publishing the Harry Potter series, major motion pictures, selling in those two years combined.
she was receiving benefits from the including Message in a Bottle, A She was ranked as one of the top 50
state to help her live. But her Walk to Remember, and The of the 100 most influential people of
success turned her into a multi- Notebook, which was published in 2008 by Time magazine.
millionaire within just a couple 1996 and it was listed on the NY
years. Times bestseller list within a week
after its release.
Assessment
1. Review Test on the Nature of Literature and its Genres (through google classroom)
2. Group process assessment on analysis of literature competencies and choice of appropriate texts
3. Documentation Report and Presentation of Analysis of Literature Competencies and Choice of
Appropriate Literary Texts (focusing on Proper Analysis and Critical Thinking Shown, Teamwork
and Collaboration, and Appropriateness of Literary Texts)
4. Two-three minute micro lecture about the module.

References
Ahmed, A. (2017). Literature and It’s Influence on Human Life. Retrieved from:
http://data.conferenceworld.in/NCCW/P129-134.pdf
Chen, G. (2019). A Literature Review on Prose Study. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338246507_A_Literature_Review_on_Prose_Study
Haruna, A. (2019). The Use Of Fiction And Nonfiction Text In Reading Comprehension (A Comparative Study
At The Second Year Students Of Sman 8 Gowa).
Olila, B & Jantas J. (2006). Definition of Petry. Retrieved from:
https://joejantas.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/the-definition-of-poetry1.pdf
TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF
LITERATURE STUDIES (ELT 228)

LESSON 2
TEACHING LITERATURE – AN OVERVIEW
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION MAJOR IN ENGLISH

TOPICS COVERED
Value of Literature
Factors Affecting Interests in Literature
Choosing Books and Reading Materials
Models of Teaching Literature
Language Model
Cultural Model
Personal Growth Model
Approaches to Teaching Literature
Language-Based Approach
Paraphrastic Approach
Moral-Philosophical Approach
Stylistics Approach
Levels of Comprehension Questions
Assessment Strategies in Teaching Literature

Prepared by

MARINEL DE LEON LIWANAG, LPT

Instructor I
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of course/semester, the preservice teacher (PST) should be able to:
a. recognize important concepts in teaching literature in English;
b. identify appropriate methods and approaches to teach literature; and,
c. discuss the right books, reading materials, and comprehension questions in
teaching literature.

TEACHING LITERATURE – AN OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION: VALUES IN LITERATURE – THE VALUE OF LITERATURE

“Issues of value and evaluation tend to recur whenever literature, art, and other forms of cultural
activity become a focus of discussion, whether in informal or institutional context”, Barbara Herrnstein
Smith (1995: 177) observes at the beginning of her fine essay on the intricate and thorny topic of
“Value/Evaluation”. Debates about value(s) and evaluation, and the ethical dimension of literature have
indeed been perennial issues in literary criticism and literary theory, even “central to Western critical
theory for at least the past two hundred years” (ibid.). The last two decades, however, have witnessed a
renewed interest in the relationship between literature and values and the ethical dimension of literature,
culminating in what has been dubbed ‘the ethical turn’ and the re-emergence of ethical criticism. While
the developments and new perspectives subsumed under such umbrellas as ‘the ethical turn’, ‘ethical
criticism’ or ‘the ethics of criticism in the age after value’ have been mapped by a number of informative
surveys (cf. e.g. Antor 1996; Eaglestone 1997, 2003; Davis/Womack 2001), the complex and reciprocal
relationship between literature and value have not received as much attention as it arguably deserves:
“The importance of literature and other media for the dissemination of ethical values within a culture has
not yet been duly acknowledged and submitted to scrutiny” (Grabes 2008: 3-4).
The present volume seeks to redress the balance, not by providing yet another mapping of the
ethical turn or a meta-summary of the new perspectives and transformations that the renewed interest in
ethical criticism has brought about, but by looking more closely at the relationship between literature and
values and by exploring the characteristics, functions and roles of literary texts that make literature so
fascinating and valuable (cf. Erll/Grabes/Nünning 2008). The main goals of this introduction are to gauge
the relationship between literature and values, and to provide a provisional overview of some of the most
important functions of literature, while also giving a brief survey of the wide range of topics and
perspectives that the contributions that follow deal with and explore.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, of course, that the relationship between literature and
value, and the views that have been put forward about this topic, have themselves been subject to
historical change. While many authors, critics and theorists have maintained that the value of literature is
inseparable from the ways in which norms and values are represented, others have equally forcefully
asserted that the realms of art and moral values, or of aesthetics and ethics, are oceans apart and should
never be confused. In the ‘Preface’ to his equally famous and infamous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Oscar Wilde, for example, bluntly proclaimed: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” Two more quotations from the Preface may serve to
show just how important it was for Wilde to dissociate literature as well as the other arts from morality
and ethical values:
The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists
in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism
of style.
Whether or not Oscar Wilde and his works lived up to his own sayings, or to his immoral
reputation, may be open to debate (cf. V. Nünning 2002), but the majority of his contemporaries certainly
did not seem to share this avant-garde view of the aestheticists, who wanted to divorce literature and art
from morality once and for all. On the contrary, Wilde’s views were generally regarded as a challenge to
ingrained Victorian assumptions about the central function, and value, of literature. As is well known,
Wilde himself was severely taken to task later on in his life for having published what was regarded as
demoralising literature, and the alleged immorality of his novel was even publicly debated in court in order
to ‘prove’ that The Picture of Dorian Gray was an immoral book, which in turn served to demonstrate that
its author Oscar Wilde held immoral views himself. In doing so, the attorney and judge as well as a host
of commentators in the newspapers merely did what Victorians critics, publishers and readers had been
doing for decades, namely exploring in how far a given literary work served to disseminate Christian and
ethical values and to promote moral behaviour. Peter Keating (1989: 252) aptly described this “unwritten
code”: “They acquiesced in what amounted to a gigantic moral conspiracy with publishers, libraries,
reviewers, editors, and easily-shocked readers.” Though the case of Oscar Wilde is, of course, much
more complex than these brief observations may imply, they may suffice to illustrate that in the Victorian
fin-de-siècle, there was no longer an implicit general agreement on what the role of literature vis-à-vis
moral values was taken to be.
Several decades later, in the heyday of poststructuralism and postmodernism, widespread
agreement prevailed again, but amidst an era of poststructuralist relativism, readers and writers,
publishers and critics now seemed to agree that the realms of literature and morality were indeed two
entirely separate spheres. For a while it really seemed that we were living in an ‘Age after Value’ and that
the question of whether literature had anything to do with values seemed irrelevant at best, meaningless
at worst. Influential postmodern writers like John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Richard Brautigan, Robert
Coover or Thomas Pynchon foregrounded in their works the “Contingencies of Value” (1988) Barbara
Herrnstein Smith and many other critics presented as the most advanced view. Yet – as E. Ann Kaplan
pointed out in her otherwise friendly review of the book – “the preoccupation with context, with multiple
variables, with instability, and with historical accounting cannot, in themselves, explain gender and power
differentials” (Kaplan 1990: 53). How else to explain the radically different opinion held by many of her
American colleagues living under quite similar circumstances – as it became all too evident when
Herrnstein Smith raised a scandal when first presenting her view at an MLA convention and as it was
forcefully presented a few years later by Richard A. Etlin in his In Defense of Humanism: Value in the
Arts and Letters (1996).
The more poststructuralist and constructivist epistemology has made clear that our common
‘truths’ are to a previously unrealized extent culturally constructed, the more the necessity of values that
provide individual and communal orientation has become felt. At the same time, the weight of traditional
values has become more contested and the readiness of people to be directly preached to has diminished
considerably.
 What therefore has become more important is the indirect promotion of values by supplying moral
models and presenting practical examples of human behaviour. This is a field in which literature and the
media seem to be particularly efficient because of their wide range of aesthetic possibilities and because
readers, listeners or viewers are less involved and more open to exterior influences than agents in the
life-world whose practical interest is at stake. When Richard Rorty sought to demonstrate that what we
need on account of our physical and psychic vulnerability to cope with contingency is solidarity (Rorty
1989), he reverted to literary examples instead of relying solely on his power of argumentation. As Wayne
C. Booth observed, “stories are our major moral teachers” (Booth 2001: 20). It is through narratives
and fictional worlds that we are sensitised to ethical questions and moral inquiries insofar as they open
up possible ways of life, which we can either subscribe to or reject. Literature and the media thus provide
the incentives for engaging in ethical discourse by confronting us with both admirable and corrupted
characters, triggering our moral reasoning in every character and each event they depict.
In order to be able to gauge the manifold and subtle ways in which literary texts can indirectly
disseminate values, the critic and cultural historian needs equally subtle theoretical and methodological
tools. Though the productiveness of the theory industry has been second to none, there are not very
many approaches that would aptly serve the critic interested in discerning values. One of them is the
ethical and rhetorical approach to narrative fiction pioneered by Wayne C. Booth and further developed
by James Phelan and Peter Rabinowitz. It is based on the hypothesis that narrative technique can have
profound ethical and moral implications and that writers use narrative and rhetorical strategies in order
to disseminate their world-view and hierarchy of values. As Wolfgang G. Müller (2008) has convincingly
demonstrated, narrative technique and point of view can have profound ethical implications.
Strategies of mediating moral values and alerting readers to moral issues and problems will be related to
basic modes of narration such as (1) authorial narration with an omniscient narrator, which provides a
moral orientation for the reader through comment and reflection; (2) point of view narration, which makes
it the reader’s task to decode the moral qualities of life, norms and values (manifested e.g. in social
interaction, texts in the literary tradition, and media of other symbolic systems). Secondly, literary texts
can represent valid, alternative or different norms and values by textual means and literary
techniques (configuration): Literary works sometimes disseminate, generate or project socially
sanctioned or desired, yet more often unsanctioned, excluded and repressed forms of life as well as their
underpinning values and norms. Therefore, they can be viewed as “experiments in life” (George Eliot;
cf. Nünning 2008), i.e. as models and test cases that generate possible worlds as well as idealized or
alternative hierarchies of values through a series of specifically aesthetic procedures or literary forms. In
turn, such literary productions of norms and values are, thirdly, able to have an effect on extra-
literary reality (refiguration): Literature, to no insignificant degree, has contributed (and still does so) to
the forming as well as the stabilization of norms and values, and social conceptions of a good life.
The essays in this volume focus both on the representation of cultural norms and values in
literature and on the construction-aspect of literature as an active medium in the generation or production
of norms and values. In doing so, they emphasize that the stages between prefiguration and configuration
on the one hand, and between configuration and refiguration on the other, are always inextricably
intertwined. Just as literature heavily draws on existent norms and values, which are translated into the
fictional sphere to be further investigated, expanded, or altered to probe their boundaries, society does
not only rely on literature for the dissemination of its values but also uses it for the affirmation of
its moral concepts and social norms. Literature, society and the media, therefore, engage in a dynamic
negotiation and exchange of norms and values, which are constructed, maintained, and revived in a
constant dialogue between them.
The first question to be addressed is of how, and with what literary methods or techniques,
cultural notions of norms and values are represented in a given text. From this perspective, literature
comes into view as a medium of the representation of extraliterary norms and values and as a
medium that is capable of constructing or generating new or alternative hierarchies of norms and
values. Secondly, literature has always served as a medium for the dissemination of norms and
values, be it those generally accepted by society or alternative values. Thirdly, therefore, literature
appears as a medium for the construction of norms and values. Another question to be addressed
concerns the connections between configuration and refiguration: What functions can literature fulfil for
the development, modelling, alteration, critique, and even destruction of norms and values (cf. Zapf 2001,
2002)?
Two dimensions of the relations of literary works to extra-literary norms and values – and thus
also two fundamental directions for the special potential of literature in culture – should therefore come
into focus: The first dimension concerns the specific potential of the medium of literature, through its
aesthetic forms, to thematise, represent, and disseminate norms and values in their cultural contexts.
Secondly, and deriving from the aesthetic form, the potential of the medium of literature as well as of
other media to actively construct and generate norms and values, as well as to question and critique,
prevailing value-hierarchies and collective views of what constitutes a ‘good life’ is also of interest. In
short, the focus of this volume is on exploring the role of literature as a medium of the representation and
reflection, the dissemination and problematising, and the modelling and construction of norms and values.
In order to avoid possible misunderstandings we should like to emphasize that the concept of
‘mimesis,’ however, does not refer to a naïve concept of mere reflection, but rather to theoretical concepts
emphasizing the active creation of realities or worldmodels (‘poiesis’), or of norms and values, through
literary texts and other media. Though literary texts are simultaneously characterized by a reference to
extra-literary reality, as emphasized unanimously, albeit with a basis in different concepts, by Paul
Ricœur, Wolfgang Iser and Jürgen Link and others, they never merely reflect cultural models or norms
and values (cf. Kövecses 1999, 2006). Ricœur (1984 [1983]) makes clear that the creation of world-
models or versions of reality through literary works rests on dynamic transformation processes – on an
interaction among the “prefiguration” of the text, that is, its reference to the pre-existent extra-textual
world (mimesis); the textual “configuration” that creates a fictional object (mimesis II); and the
“refiguration” by the reader (mimesis III). The literary process thus appears as an active constructive
process, in which cultural systems of meaning, literary processes of formal configuration and
practices of reception are equally involved and in which reality is not merely reflected, but instead
first poetically created (cf. ibid.: 107) and then “iconically enriched” (cf. 127).
To sum up: The symbolic order of the extra-literary reality, e.g. of norms and values that
actually exist in the real world, and the literary or possible worlds created within the medium of
literature enter into a relationship of mutual influence and change. Ricœur’s “circle of mimesis” can
thus contribute to a differentiation among different levels of the relationship between literature and values:
First, literary works are related to extra-literary norms and values (prefiguration); second, they
represent norms and values, their content and functioning, in the medium of fiction
(configuration); and third, they can help form new norms and values (refiguration). What
perspectives are opened up through such an examination for the analysis and interpretation of novels,
plays and poetry as well as of other media from the point of view of a literary studies focussing on the
value(s) and functions of literature?
Conclusion
Values are established in a dynamic dialogue between reader and text, which involves
empathy and the ability to reflect on one’s emotional response. Intuitive and sensual reactions
therefore have to be taken into account when assessing the ethical dimension of literature. Pure
reasoning, however, would be insufficient as literature, unlike science, often does not follow the rules of
pure logic. Nor does its specific effect derive from explicit ethical values but its ‘value’, as well as the
value of all art, lies in what Ronald Shusterman refers to as a “metaethical dimension”, which involves
the evaluation, interpretation, and judgement by the reader. It is a characteristic of making errors: The
interpretation of another person and another life embraces the potentiality of misinterpretation and it is
this experience of ‘strangeness’ and alterity which characterises the ethical dimension of complex
literature. Misreadings seem to be precluded, however, whenever we are confronted with literary
characters that are pushed to their existential limits in torture or in humiliation. These situations seem to
evoke a return to and reflection of intrinsic (in the Kantian sense) values, which can be regarded as
transcendental or as parts of a shared value system which regulates our being-in-the-world, and whose
applicability is reflected in numerous modern narratives and becomes seminal in de Kretser’s and
Coetzee’s novels (Philipp Wolf). The neglect of these intrinsic values in times of war, in violent oppression
and torture causes traumatic experiences which have become a key theme in contemporary fiction
(Susana Onega). The Holocaust, the Vietnam War as well as the two World Wars have become
frequent topics of twentieth-century novels, a fact which underlines the ethical dimension of
literature and furthermore shifts the focus to the function of memory in the discourse on norms
and values.
Considering that a certain spatial and temporal distance is indispensable for adequately
evaluating the actions and lives of others, the literary memoir seems a particularly apt genre for
investigating the intersection of the aesthetic and ethical dimension of literary texts while, at the same
time, foregrounding the responsibility of the author in the process of life-writing and literary worldmaking
(Katarzyna Kuczma). The author’s task thereby is less to explicitly state ethical issues or weave
allegorical plots but – as Roger D. Sell argues referring to the poetry of William Wordsworth – the
dissemination of values rests on the art of ‘genuine communication’, a communication which is uncoercive
and timeless insofar as it is not only addressed to readers of a specific era but embraces qualities of a
universal language which continues to attract people of different eras and cultures. Poetry appears as a
popular and effective medium not only for the communication but also for the construction of imperial,
religious and political values. Thus, as Birgit Neumann’s article shows, in eighteenth-century Britain, for
instance, a whole net of imperial poetry can be identified which was highly charged with political and
moral values and served to promote and consolidate the greatness of the empireProviding new
perspectives on the relationship between literature and value(s), the articles in this volume not only
explore historical changes and developments in the assessment of the value of literature. They also attest
and contribute to the ongoing dialogue between, and interdependence of, the extra-literary world and the
possible worlds of literature in prefiguring, manifesting, and disseminating norms and values. Besides
offering new insights into the relationship between values and literature, this volume aims to promote new
approaches to an interdisciplinary field of research, which is still one of the most controversial and, at the
same time, most fruitful and fascinating areas in literary and cultural studies
Literature, however, is but one effective vehicle for the formation and dissemination of
values: In the global and multimedia village, digital media play a seminal role in our daily lives, providing
alternative worlds and experiments that illustrate how to do things with norms and values. As Kirsten Pohl
argues, computer games use very specific narrative strategies to promote and simulate behavioural rules,
actions and ethical judgements, some of which raise the question of the moral boundaries of computer
simulation. The breaking of certain ethical norms in the digital or in the real world does not, however,
necessarily undermine society’s value system: It may as well necessitate a re-negotiation of existent
values which ultimately serves their stabilisation. Sonja Altnöder and Martin Zierold present an argument
for the usefulness of media scandals and social mechanisms which arise from a blatant violation of
prevailing values and for that very reason are likely to provoke a discussion and re-evaluation of social
norms and even a reconciliation of conflicting sets of values in society.
Providing new perspectives on the relationship between literature and value(s), the articles in
this volume not only explore historical changes and developments in the assessment of the value of
literature. They also attest and contribute to the ongoing dialogue between, and interdependence of, the
extra-literary world and the possible worlds of literature in prefiguring, manifesting, and disseminating
norms and values. Besides offering new insights into the relationship between values and literature, this
volume aims to promote new approaches to an interdisciplinary field of research, which is still one of the
most controversial and, at the same time, most fruitful and fascinating areas in literary and cultural
studies.

Example books during the Holocaust.

One of the most horrific terms in history was used by Nazi Germany to designate human beings whose
lives were unimportant, or those who should be killed outright: Lebensunwertes Leben, or "life unworthy
of life". The phrase was applied to the mentally impaired and later to the "racially inferior," or "sexually
deviant," as well as to "enemies of the state" both internal and external. From very early in the war, part
of Nazi policy was to murder civilians en masse, especially targeting Jews. Later in the war, this policy
grew into Hitler's "final solution", the complete extermination of the Jews. It began with Einsatzgruppen
death squads in the East, which killed some 1,000,000 people in numerous massacres, and continued in
concentration camps where prisoners were actively denied proper food and health care. It culminated in
the construction of extermination camps -- government facilities whose entire purpose was the systematic
murder and disposal of massive numbers of people. In 1945, as advancing Allied troops began
discovering these camps, they found the results of these policies: hundreds of thousands of starving and
sick prisoners locked in with thousands of dead bodies.
Night by Elie Wiesel
Night is the archetypal Holocaust novel, in many ways more an experience that you have, rather than a
book that you read. Its author, Elie Wiesel, was born in what is now Romania and survived several
concentration camps, and in Night, he puts into hauntingly beautiful words all of the terrible events,
whether physical, mental, or emotional, that he had to survive. It was partly for this work that Wiesel
won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and it should be required reading not only for people interested in
the subject, but for everyone in the world – so that we may not allow such a thing to happen again.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
This award-winning young adult novel is more than just a book for children. Told from the perspective of
a German girl whose foster family agrees to hide a young Jewish boy – and narrated by the ever-
present Death – The Book Thief explores all of the same themes that you expect from a book about the
Holocaust – morality, love, and identity. Read in disbelief as the children growing up in such a terrible
time struggle to figure out their role to play in it all.
HHhH by Laurent Binet
World War II ravaged not only the Jewish communities in Europe, but also any other places where the
Nazis had control. One of these places was the area now known as the Czech Republic, where for
about a year, the ruthless Reinhard Heydrich ruled with his ‘iron heart’ (as Hitler said) and iron fist to
match, wreaking havoc on Czech and Jewish life and morale. A couple of Czech and Slovak
paratroopers however, went on a mission to assassinate him – and this is the story of that event. At the
end, you will feel that you know all of the characters. This offers you the history of a little-known event
in the war, but in the most personal way.
 FACTORS AFFECTING INTERESTS IN LITERATURE
Across the world, research by Blazar David has shown that teachers have a significant impact
on the quality of student learning in accessing the subject. The impacts are expressed through
students' attitudes and learning behaviors in acquiring knowledge learned in the classroom (David, 2016;
Miller, 2008; Maulana, 2013). On the other hand, students' skills and competencies have a positive
impact on learners' behavior - students who work hard, take initiative, spend time in learning will have
higher results than students who are not active in learning (Latu, 1994; Shinn, 1997; Dullas, 2018;
Wassmer, 2013). Teachers' teaching skills also impact and greatly influence students' learning
behavior through classroom lectures (Michalsky & Schechter, 2013; Anh, 2013). The condition of
facilities, equipment, libraries in schools are also important factors promoting students' learning
behavior. When facilities are guaranteed and meet the learners' needs, it creates excitement and
encourages a better learning process (Francis, 2017). Fukumura (2013) pointed out that gender could
be also an important factor that directly affects student learning behavior. Male and female
students' thinking varies in style and approach to learning, so learning behaviors are also different by
gender (Wehrwein, 2007). Some studies show that students who are born in a better off family
environment will have higher academic qualifications than students born in disadvantaged
families (Rabiner, 2016).
In Vietnam, a number of studies have shown that competition in learning has a positive effect on
students' learning behaviors, and on the other hand, learning methods, motivation, teaching methods
and facilities also have great influences on student learning behavior (Dinh Thi Hoa, 2018; Nguyen Van
Loi, 2014). Factors such as personality, self-awareness, a sense of selfworth, ability to care for
parents, career orientation of a family, motivation friendships are also the basic factors affecting
student learning behavior in learning (Chau, 2018).
Factors such as gender, motivation, student's place of residence, academic rank, and
teaching method of teachers influence the literacy behavior of secondary school students. Meanwhile,
motivation of the students, as well as the teaching methods of teachers, positively contribute to the
students' literary behavior. Some recommendations to improve the efficiency of Literature learning of
secondary high school students are as follow:
(i) Classify students at the beginning of the school year (excellent students, average students,
weak students) with appropriate teaching methods for each student's learning force;
(ii) Teachers apply positive teaching methods, promote students 'creativity and initiative,
innovate ways to test and assess students' learning results regularly, to improve their
effectiveness. subject acquisition results;
(iii) Conduct regular two-way information exchange between home and school. Notify in detail
the learning situation of students in the class, as well as children who have studied at home;
(iv) Assign each student to study better with mentoring weak classmates, assess students'
progress over weeks, months, terms and years;
(v) Teachers must always make the lesson a fun, relaxed, exciting atmosphere, stimulating
students to absorb lessons. Design clear scientific lectures and apply flexible teaching methods.
 CHOOSING BOOKS AND READING MATERIALS

Factors Directly Related to the Students

1. Students ' Level

The instructor needs to be aware of the students' level and acknowledge that fact when selecting
the materials for the reading class. Researchers such as Melvin & Stout, Lotherington, and Fox suggest
that the educator needs to know which materials are suitable for the students' level. Gebhard asserts that
the material that is selected for the ESL/EFL class should not go beyond the students' level. Similarly,
Melvin & Stout state that "the level of the students will influence the selection of material". Asking the
students to read material that goes beyond their level might be counterproductive since learners may feel
that they are simply incapable of reading in the target language. Some researchers have suggested that
one alternative for providing the students with appropriate reading materials is simplifying the texts in
order to make them accessible for the students. However, this idea has received little support from field
researchers and professionals.
It is better to simplify the reading process rather than the text. Instructors can provide the students
with a variety of reading techniques in order to facilitate the reading comprehension process. Instructors
should start using less complicated texts, selections from local newspapers such as The Tico Times
(always avoiding texts oriented toward tourists with whom students do not identify) and popular
magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens. Later they can use more complex texts as the students
increase their reading fluency, as well as texts with different degrees of difficulty. Once the instructor has
determined the students ' level, she can choose appropriate sources to select reading materials for each
particular group of students. Those teachers who are willing to select reading materials wisely can never
neglect students' interests.

2. Students ' Interests

Researchers have come to the agreement that materials selected for the ESL/EFL reading c1ass
ought to satisfy students' interests. Lotherington states that no matter how difficult or easy a text might
be, it would be boring or difficult to read if it is not interesting to the learner. Similarly, Fox states that the
first step for material selection is "to find material that the students are likely to be interested in.” Gebhard
and Papalia affirm that the material for the ESL/EFL class should be selected on the basis of students'
interests. With the purpose of finding out students' interests the instructor should make an assessment
about the students' interests and needs at the beginning of the period. Through a survey, interviews or
just an informal discussion, the instructor can ask the students to suggest appropriate topics for the class.
They should also be encouraged to bring their own contributions to the class. Educators can make the
students responsible for selecting relevant reading materials in order to create a file of readings available
for all the students in the class.
Interest is closely related to motivation, as Richard Day proposes: "when the topic of a passage
is not of interest to students, their motivation to read is substantially lessened. Without this motivation, it
is exceedingly difficult to meet one of the generally accepted aims of a reading program: to help get the
learners to read in English on their own, outside the reading classroom.” Considering the students'
interests in the reading selection process is as important as exploring the students' needs.

3. Students' Needs
There has been a great deal of agreement among researcher about the importance of
considering students' needs in the material selection process for the ESL-EFL reading class. Gebhard
states that the teachers should always discover the students' needs before making any decisions about
the course content. Similarly, Gray says that the teacher should be aware of the students' needs to be
able to help them fulfill these needs by providing appropriate materials. According to Grellet, there are
certain needs that all the students have in addition to their individual needs. For instance, all students
need to be able to read fast, to time themselves, to know basic reading techniques, and others. Educators
must then take into account common needs as well as the individual needs in the process of material
selection. The mismatch between students' expectations in regards to their needs and interests can result
in students' frustration, which might imply failure on a reading course.

4. Students' Background Knowledge

Another significant criterion for selecting appropriate material for the EFL reading class is
students' background knowledge. In order to provide the students with suitable material, the instructor
must be familiar with the students' background knowledge. Research findings have emphasized the
importance of considering this aspect in the material selection process. Smith, for example, affirms that
reading cannot be separated from the readers' previous knowledge. Referring to ESL readers in
particular, Lotherington-Woloszyn and Nunan agree that the lack of background knowledge may cause
more difficulties for the ESL reader than language complexity does. Likewise, Fox asserts that
"background knowledge is an important part of the students' ability to read and understand a particular
text.”
It is possible and not uncommon for a reader to understand every word in a passage, without
really understanding what the words mean. For this reason, the role of the teacher is to consider students'
background knowledge when selecting materials for the reading class. This does not imply that it is not
possible to use texts for which the students or the instructor himself lack the background knowledge, but
rather that it is the teacher's responsibility to provide the students with the information required for
comprehending a particular text.
Pre-reading activities are particularly useful for this purpose. In other words, the teacher must be
aware of the need to facilitate the reading comprehension process by either giving the students the
background knowledge along with the reading material, or requiring them to acquire it by their own means,
for example, doing some kind of informal research.
To sum up, the issue of students' background knowledge should be considered in the text
selection process and course design due to the fact that background knowledge plays a critical role in
the reading comprehension process. This aspect is particularly important when the students need to read
in a second or foreign language, for they possible lack the necessary understanding of the target culture.

Aspects Related to the Text

1. Relevance
Choosing reading materials wisely also implies considering the text itself. The topic, the type of
text and the information it sustains make the text relevant. Students must find that the reading material
used in the course is relevant for their professional lives. Richards mentions that the readings should be
related to real world reading purposes. For this reason, it is necessary to involve the learners to contribute
to the reading selection process. Permitting the students to contributing will certainly benefit the educator
as well. Gebhard asserts that “understanding the needs of students in specific fields can provide the
means through which materials can be selected and created.” The teachers can determine how
appropriate the reading materials are by considering whether they are relevant to the leamer or not
(Lotherington). If the instructor carefully selects pertinent reading material for the EFL class, the students
are more likely to be interested in the class and will probably be anxious to use diverse strategies to
comprehend the material.

2. Content
Fox and others agree that the most important criterion for selecting reading material for the ESL
class is content. They affirm that if the selected content is interesting for the students, they will be
successful in the reading process no matter how difficult the text might be. When the students are required
to read a complex text that is at the same time interesting for them or that refers to knowledge required
in other classes, they will probably make more effort to comprehend it, and they will probably use a variety
of strategies to digest it.
In order to select reading material with appropriate contents, it is necessary to take the students'
interests and needs into account. This can be done by asking the students to make a list of topics that
they will study in their specific fields or that they would like to read for fun. A good selection of readings
can result from asking the students to bring their own material to the class. Students could then devote
some class time to studying this material. Teachers might want to get copies of the readings and classify
them according to field of study for future reference.

3. Authenticity
Some researchers regard authenticity as another important criterion for the selection of readings
for the ESL/EFL class. However, whether the material used for ESL/EFL classes should be authentic or
not has been widely questioned by those who advocate the use of teacher-made materials. Among those
who advocate the use of authentic material, Melvin & Stout state that teachers should take full advantage
of the potential benefits of authentic materials. In a like manner, Gebhard points out that authenticity
should be part of the criteria taken into account when selecting appropriate reading material for ESL
classes.
The rationale for selecting authentic material may include the following:
 Students need to be able to comprehend real-life language.
 Teachers can take advantage of the grammatical aspects found in the texts.
 Students will be prepared to read any type of text.
 The fact that language is simplified does not ensure comprehension.
 We can provide the students with different strategies to ensure a better comprehension.
 It is better to simplify the reading process, rather than the text.
On the other hand, there are researchers and practitioners who consider that teachers should
create their own reading materials or adapt existing ones. Researchers such as Lotherington-Woloszcyn
and Cray justify the adaptation of reading materials in order to satisfy students' needs.
The reasons that they have provided for the use of simplified texts are as follows:
 Adapting materials can make them accessible, interesting and informative.
 Arranging materials around one theme allows the learner to build up background knowledge of
the content.
 Attention should be given to what the learners find easy and interesting.
 If the text is poorly presented, it can always be improved.
 Teacher-created materials are based on authentic texts.
 They allow teachers to evaluate their students.
 Teachers must be open minded and carefully analyze the
  advantages and disadvantages of using both commercial and teacher made materials; in this
way they can make informed decisions with

Conclusion
The purpose of selecting reading materials wisely for the ESL/EFL class implies the teacher
awareness as well as student's involvement in the material selection process. ESL/EFL teachers are
expected to provide students with appropriate reading materials. For this reason, the reading selection
process should be a thoughtful process of carefully consideration to those factors involved in this process.
In this important process of selecting the material for a reading class, the teacher cannot neglect the
students' level, interests, needs and background knowledge in order to consider text difficulty, content
and authenticity.
This text selection process requires some effort on the instructor. Some form of assessment is
crucial in order to compile an appropriate set of reading materials for the class: a survey, an informal
discussion, individual interviews, or any other form of inquiry can give the instructors some insight of what
type of materials to select for each particular class. Selecting appropriate reading materials for the
ESL/EFL class is certainly time consuming, but it is really beneficial for the students as well as the
teacher. Smith points out that "for beginners and experienced readers alike, there is always the possibility
of fluent reading and the possibility of difficult reading.” Consequently, the teacher can enhance the
reading process by providing the students
with appropriate texts.
 MODELS OF TEACHING LITERATURE

What is literature in language teaching, and why should teachers use it?
There are a good many reasons for teachers to use literature in the language classroom. For a
range of readings see Brumfit and Carter (1986) for an introduction, Sage (1975) for a how-to guide that
manages to be both well-researched and directly practical, and Hall (2005) for an overview of research
trends. The likely benefits can be usefully considered in relation to Carter and Long’s (1991) three models
of why teachers use literature: the cultural model, the language model, and the personal growth model.

The Cultural Model

The cultural model helps EFL students deal with a literary work in relation to the target culture,
such as literary history or genre. It requires that students explore and interpret the social, political, literary,
and historical context of a specific text. This model provides an opportunity for students to explore cultural
background, which leads to a genuine understanding of literary works and encourages students to
understand different cultures and ideologies in relation to their own.
Literature is “one of the most obvious and valuable means of attaining cultural insights” (Scott,
1964, p. 490). Scott strongly advocates the use of literature as a cultural way in. Literature can be viewed
as a product of historical and social circumstance, as a representative and revealing artifact. Texts can
thus be used to engage and motivate learners and provide more ready and deeper connections with
target cultures (Lazar, 1993). In the EFL class, a selection of texts may thus be employed as an integral
part of a cultural course, to aid intercultural understanding, or the cultural analysis may conversely be
derived from the chosen text(s).
Advocates of this model believe that the value of literature lies in its unique distillation of culture.
In this model, the class reads fiction or poetry as part of their instruction about history, politics, social
mores and traditions.
 stress the value of literature in encapsulating the accumulated wisdom, the best that had been
thought and felt within a culture
 enables students to understand and appreciate cultures and ideologies different from their own
in time and space
 associated with a more teacher-centered, transmissive pedagogic mode, which focuses on the
text as a product about which students learn to acquire information

The Language Model

The most common approach to teaching literature in the EFL classroom is what Carter and Long
(1991) refer to as the language-based approach. This model helps EFL students enhance their
knowledge of the target language by working on familiar grammar, lexical, and discourse categories,
indirectly paving the way for a better understanding of a text and the formulation of meaningful
interpretations. These will facilitate a sensible and aesthetic appreciation of a text. Such an approach
enables students to access a text in a systematic and methodical way to study examples of specific
linguistic features, literal and figurative language, and direct and indirect speech. This approach lends
itself to the repertoire of activities used in EFL teaching—such as the cloze procedure, prediction
exercises, jumbled sentences, summary writing, creative writing, and role play—that are used by teachers
to deconstruct literary texts in order to serve specific linguistic goals.
The focus of the language model is psycholinguistic. Teachers may choose to focus on how
language is used within a given text. A literary text may be used to provide exemplars of particular
grammatical points and/or lexical items. More ambitiously, teachers may ask students to engage in
stylistic analysis of the text, though this may be best reserved for more advanced students. Among the
suggested benefits of the language model are the expansion of vocabulary; increased reading fluency;
enhanced interpretive and inferential skills (due to dealing with texts of increased complexity and
sophistication); and exposure to a greater variety of language (lexis and syntax) due to the use of
ungraded, authentic texts (Widdowson, 1979).
Given that literature is built from language, it opens a path for students to construct their own
understanding of words and phrases. According to this model, reading is of value for the same reason
it’s valuable in a student’s native language: it gives them the tools for more effective communication.
 language is the literary medium, that literature is made from language and that the more
students can read in and through language, the better they will be to come to terms with a
literary text as literature
 supply many linguistic opportunities to the language teacher and allow many of the most
valuable exercises of language learning to be based on material capable of stimulating greater
interest and involvement that can be the case with many language teaching texts

The Personal Growth Model

The personal growth model, or enrichment model, attempts to bridge the language model and
the cultural model by focusing on the particular use of language in a text while simultaneously placing it
in a specific cultural context. This model involves students’ personal, intellectual, and emotional
experiences. Students are encouraged to express their feelings and opinions and to make connections
between their own personal and cultural experiences and those expressed in the text. Another aspect of
this model is that it helps students develop knowledge of ideas and language—content and formal
schemata—through different themes and topics. This function relates to the theories of reading expressed
by Goodman (1970), which emphasize the interaction of readers with texts. As Cadorath and Harris point
out, “text itself has no meaning; it only provides direction for reader to construct meaning from the reader’s
own experience” (1998, p. 188). Thus, learning is said to take place when readers are able to interpret
texts and construct meaning on the basis of their own experience.
The personal growth model offers a more student-centered approach to literature study. The
purpose is to use literature as a vehicle to educate, to promote critical awareness, and to have students
assess, evaluate, and discuss issues within the text and provoked by the text. Examples could include
reader-response activities (Rosenblatt, 1938) that personalize the reading experience, or reactions to a
text that help connect reading to students’ lives (Showalter, 2003). This model is used in different
contexts, but is particularly well suited to the developing language learner reflecting on development
through childhood and adolescence, and thus is particularly suited to the high school and undergraduate
university classroom.
In this model, the focus is on engagement. Teachers use literature to help students understand
themselves better and connect with the world around them in a deeper way by exploring universal
themes.
 helps students achieve an engagement with the reading of literary texts; the test of the
teacher’s success in teaching literature is the extent to which students carry with them beyond
the classroom and enjoyment and love for literature
 the teacher has to stimulate and enliven students in the literature class by selecting texts to
which students can respond, and in which they can participate imaginatively

From the above discussion, it can be said that these three models of teaching literature differ in
terms of their focus on texts. In the language model, texts are used as a focus for grammatical and
structural analysis; in the cultural model, texts are used as cultural artifacts, and in the personal growth
model, texts are considered a stimulus for personal growth activities. Each approach has different
strengths and weaknesses. For example, Savvidou (2004) comments that the cultural model tends to be
teacher-centered, and there is little opportunity for extended language work. Therefore, what is needed
is an integrated approach model comprising key elements of all three models so that literature becomes
accessible to EFL students and most beneficial for their development.
 APPROACHES TO TEACHING LITERATURE

Language-Based Approach
This approach is closely related to the Language Model presented by Carter and Long (1991)
where literary texts are seen as means to helping students’ improve language proficiency. This is done
by providing them exposure to the target language and connecting them to specific vocabulary and other
aspects of the language. A. Maley and Duff (1990) insist that the primary aim of this approach is “quite
simply to use literary texts as a resource for stimulating language activities”. With the use of language-
based approaches, the focus shifted to the learner, the reading process and creating language
awareness in the learners (Too Wei Keong 2007). In line with this approach, a language-based framework
for reading literary texts is proposed by McRae (1991) and McRae and Vethamani (1999) which moves
from lexis (vocabulary), syntax (sentences) to coherence (discourse). It also focuses on phonology
(sounds), graphology (visual effect of the text), semantics (meaning), dialect (variations of standard
English), register (tone), period (archaisms) and function (message in the text).
The following can help teachers employ this approach:
 Guide students to express their opinions towards a text
 Set language activities in literature lesson
 Encourage students to actively participate in the process of understanding the meaning of text
 Students work with their classmates in the process of understanding the text
 Generate language practice using the text
Activities that can be employed by teachers:
 Group work
 Language activities (cloze, jigsaw puzzle, prediction exercises)
 Debate
 Performance activities (drama, role play, poetry recital)

Paraphrastic Approach
This approach deals with the surface meaning of the text (Diana Hwang & Amin Embi 2007).
Rosli (1995) asserts that it allows teachers to use simpler words and sentence structures compared to
the more complicated ones in the texts and sometimes the teacher can translate it into other languages.
He argued further that this approach is suitable for beginners of the target language as it acts as a
stepping stone in formulating original assumptions of the author’s work.
The following can help teachers employ this approach:
 Re-tell the text to students to help them understand
 Use simple terms to explain what the story is about to students
 Discuss what the author says in the text
 Get students to tell the storyline of the text
Activities that can be employed by teachers:
 Translation of text using L1
 Re-tell story to students
 Students read paraphrased notes in the workbook/handouts
 Students re-tell story to the class
Moral-Philosophical Approach
This is an approach which incorporates moral values across curriculum. The focus of this
approach is to discover moral values while reading a particular literary text (Diana Hwang & Amin Embi
2007). It seeks to find the worthiness of moral and philosophical considerations behind one’s reading
(Rosli 1995). Ministry of Education has outlined moral values to be inculcated among secondary school
students such as being independent, being honest, being grateful, and respecting others.
The following can help teachers employ this approach:
 Incorporate moral values in lessons
 Ask students the values they learn from the text
 Get students to search moral values from a text
 Raise students' awareness of values derived from the text
Activities that can be employed by teachers:
 Reflective sessions
 Discussions on moral dilemmas
 Tell moral values to students
 Conduct self-evaluation activities

Stylistic Approach
Stylistics is a distinctive term that may be used to determine the connections between the form
and the effects within a particular variety of language. Therefore, stylistics looks at what is ‘going on’
within the language, what the linguistic associations are that style of language reveals. It plays a vital role
in teaching of literature. Really, the purpose of stylistics is to develop readers’ interpretative procedures
rather than make them dependent on the told meanings.
As Widdoson has stated, “stylistics provides a basis of aesthetic appreciation by bringing it to the
level of conscious awareness, features of the text otherwise will be assessable only to trained individuals”.
Thus, the aim of stylistics is to characterize text as a piece of communication. There are two reasons for
the concern that stylistics shows towards a literary text. They are : (i)methodological, which relates to the
nature of literature , and (ii) pedagogical, which relates to the values that stylistic analysis has for teaching
purposes. This fact brings us to consider how far stylistics is helpful in the investigation of language items
used in the text and how it develops interpretative procedures in readers’ minds.
The following can help teachers employ this approach:
 Guide students to interpret a text by looking at the language used by the author
 Get students to mark any linguistic features from the text that are significant to their reading
 My literature lesson looks at the language of the text, thus, encourages language awareness
 Encourage students to discuss beyond the surface meaning of the text
Activities that can be employed by teachers
 Identify linguistics features (eg. vocabulary, tenses) in a text
 Discuss different meanings of a text
 Extract examples from a text that describe a setting
 Identify adjectives that describe a character
 LEVELS OF COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

Figure 1: Grid for Developing and Evaluating Reading Comprehension Questions

Types of Comprehension
The six types of comprehension proposed and discussed by Day & Park (2005) this taxonomy
has been influenced in particular by the work of Pearson and Johnson (1972) and Nuttall (1996).

1. Literal comprehension
Literal comprehension refers to an understanding of the straightforward meaning of the text, such
as facts, vocabulary, dates, times, and locations. Questions of literal comprehension can be answered
directly and explicitly from the text. In our experiences working with teachers, we have found that they
often check on literal comprehension first to make sure that their students have understood the basic
or surface meaning of the text.
An example of a literal comprehension question about this article is: How many types of
comprehension do the authors discuss?

2. Reorganization
The next type of comprehension is reorganization. Reorganization is based on a literal
understanding of the text; students must use information from various parts of the text and combine
them for additional understanding. For example, we might read at the beginning of a text that a woman
named Maria Kim was born in 1945 and then later at the end of the text that she died in 1990. In order
to answer this question, How old was Maria Kim when she died?, the student has to put together two
pieces of information that are from different parts of the text.
Questions that address this type of comprehension are important because they teach students
to examine the text in its entirety, helping them move from a sentence-by-sentence consideration of
the text to a more global view. In our experience, students generally find reorganization questions
somewhat more difficult than straightforward literal comprehension questions.

3. Inference
Making inferences involves more than a literal understanding. Students may initially have a
difficult time answering inference questions because the answers are based on material that is in the
text but not explicitly stated. An inference involves students combining their literal understanding of the
text with their own knowledge and intuitions.
An example of a question that requires the reader to make an inference is: Are the authors of
this article experienced language teachers? The answer is not in the text but there is information in the
third paragraph, page 2 of this article that allows the reader to make a good inference: "These types of
comprehension and forms of questions are a result of our work in teaching foreign language reading
and in developing materials for teaching foreign language reading." Readers are required to use their
knowledge of the field, teaching foreign language reading, with what they have gained from reading
the article, in particular that sentence, to construct an appropriate answer. That is, readers might
understand that newcomers to the profession generally do not develop materials or write articles, so
the authors are probably experienced language teachers.

4. Prediction
The fourth comprehension type, prediction, involves students using both their understanding of
the passage and their own knowledge of the topic and related matters in a systematic fashion to
determine what might happen next or after a story ends. We use two varieties of prediction, while-
reading and post- (after) reading. While-reading prediction questions differ from post-reading prediction
questions in that students can immediately learn the accuracy of their predictions by continuing to read
the passage.
For example, students could read the first two paragraphs of a passage and then be asked a
question about what might happen next. They can determine the answer by reading the reminder of
the text. In contrast, post-reading prediction questions generally have no right answers in that students
cannot continue to read to confirm their predictions. However, predictions must be supported by
information from the text. Generally, scholarly articles, such as this one, do not allow for postreading
prediction questions. Other types of writing, such as fiction, are fertile ground for such questions. To
illustrate, consider a romance in which the woman and man are married as the novel comes to a close.
A post-reading prediction question might be: Do you think they will stay married? Why or why not?
Depending on a variety of factors including evidence in the text and personal experiences of the reader,
either a yes or a no answer could be justified.
Having students make predictions before they read the text is a pre-reading activity. We do not
see this type of prediction as a type of comprehension. Rather, it is an activity that allows students to
realize how much they know about the topic of the text.

5. Evaluation
The fifth type of comprehension, evaluation, requires the learner to give a global or
comprehensive judgment about some aspect of the text. For example, a comprehension question that
requires the reader to give an evaluation of this article is: How will the information in this article be
useful to you?
In order to answer this type of question, students must use both a literal understanding of the
text and their knowledge of the text's topic and related issues. Some students, because of cultural
factors, may be reluctant to be critical or to disagree with the printed word. In such circumstances, the
teacher might want to model possible answers to evaluation questions, making sure to include both
positive and negative aspects.

6. Personal response
The sixth type of comprehension, personal response, requires readers to respond with their
feelings for the text and the subject. The answers are not found in the text; they come strictly from the
readers. While no personal responses are incorrect, they cannot be unfounded; they must relate to the
content of the text and reflect a literal understanding of the material.
 An example of a comprehension question that requires a personal response is: What do you like
or dislike about this article? Like an evaluation question, students have to use both their literal
understanding and their own knowledge to respond. Also, like evaluation questions, cultural factors
may make some students hesitate to be critical or to disagree with the printed word. Teacher modeling
of various responses is helpful in these situations.

Summary of comprehension types

If we believe that reading is an interactive process in which the reader constructs meaning with
the text, then we need to help our students learn to do this. This means moving beyond a literal
understanding of a text, and allowing our students to use their own knowledge while reading. It may be
challenging, however, for beginning and intermediate students to create their own understanding, if they
are accustomed to reading word-for-word and focusing on meaning at the word- and sentence-levels.
When questions move beyond a literal understanding, students' answers have to be motivated
by information in the text. Inference questions can have clearly correct and incorrect responses. In
contrast, prediction, evaluation, and personal response answers are correct as long as they depend
primarily on students' reactions to what they read. Evaluative and personal response answers not only
depend primarily on students' reactions to what they have read, but they need to reflect a global
understanding of the text.
Finally, research has shown that effective teachers and teachers in more effective schools are
more frequently observed asking higher level questions, questions that go beyond a literal
understanding of a text, than less effective teachers and teachers in less effective schools (Knapp,
1995; Taylor, Peterson, Pearson, and Rodriguez, 2002). This provides a solid reason for teachers to
engage their students in all six types of comprehension.
There is another reason for using a variety of questions that involve different types of
comprehension. Guszak (1967, cited in Pearson and Johnson, 1972: 154) found that students
performed best when answering questions of factual recall, which was the type of question that their
teachers asked most often. This means that students do best at what they have learned and practiced.
Thus, if we would like our students to be able to go beyond a literal understanding of a text, then it is
necessary to teach them how to do this and to give them opportunities to work with different types of
comprehension.
This taxonomy of comprehension types is not an inventory of reading skills and strategies. It is,
rather, an overview of types of understanding that foreign language learners need to have if they are
to read a text with more than a literal understanding. How these types of comprehension can be
approached through a variety of question forms is the focus of the next section.

Forms of questions
We present and discuss five forms that comprehension questions may take to stimulate students'
understanding of texts. This is not a discussion of all possible ways of questioning students. For example,
we do not discuss fill-in-the-blank activities or cloze, as such activities or tasks may be more appropriate
for assessing, and not comprehending, the types of comprehension presented and discussed in the
previous section.

Yes/no questions
Yes/no questions are simply questions that can be answered with either yes or no. For example,
Is this article about testing reading comprehension? This is a common form of comprehension question,
but it has the drawback of allowing the student a 50% chance of guessing the correct answer. So when
using yes/no questions, we recommend following up with other forms of questions to ensure that the
student has understood the text. Yes/no questions can be used to prompt all six types of comprehension.
When yes/no questions are used with personal response or evaluation, other forms of questions seem
to follow readily.
For example, Did you like this article? Why? The follow-up questions may be more useful in
helping students than the initial yes/no questions.

Alternative questions
Alternative questions are two or more yes/no questions connected with or: for example, Does
this article focus on the use of questions to teach reading comprehension or to test reading
comprehension? Similar to yes/no questions, alternative questions are subject to guessing, so the
teacher may want to follow up with other forms discussed in this section. Alternative questions have
worked best for us with literal, reorganization, inference, and prediction types of comprehension. We have
found that they do not lend themselves as well to evaluation and personal response.

True or false
Questions may also take the form of true or false. While true or false questions are found
frequently in commercially available materials, there is a potential danger in relying exclusively on them.
As with yes/no questions, students have a 50% chance of guessing the correct answer. Teachers might
simply accept a right answer, failing to ask why the answer is correct or the distracters (the wrong choices)
are not correct.
An example of a true or false question focusing on literal comprehension is: Is this statement true
or false?: The authors believe that the use of well-designed comprehension questions will help students
become better readers.
True or false questions are difficult to prepare. The false answers must be carefully designed so
as to exploit potential misunderstandings of the text. False answers that are obviously incorrect do not
help teach comprehension because students do not have to understand the text to recognize them as
incorrect. True or false questions may also be hard to write because sometimes, as written, both answers
are plausible, regardless of the degree of comprehension of the text. Like yes/no questions, true or false
questions can be used to prompt all six types of comprehension. When used with personal response or
evaluation, follow-up tasks are sometimes necessary. To illustrate, a personal response question about
this article might be: Is this statement true or false? I like this article. Explain your choice.

Wh- questions
Questions beginning with where, what, when, who, how, and why are commonly called
whquestions. In our experience, we have found that they are excellent in helping students with a literal
understanding of the text, with reorganizing information in the text, and making evaluations, personal
responses and predictions. They are also used as follow-ups to other questions forms, such as yes/no
and alternative.
In particular, wh- questions with how/why are often used to help students to go beyond a literal
understanding of the text. As beginning and intermediate readers are often reluctant to do this, using
how/why questions can be very helpful in aiding students to become interactive readers.

Multiple-choice
Multiple-choice questions are based on other forms of questions. They can be, for example, a
wh-question with a choice: When was Maria Kim born?
 a. 1940
b. 1945
c. 1954
d. 1990
Generally, but not always, this form of question has only one correct answer when dealing with
literal comprehension.
The multiple-choice format may make wh-questions easier to answer than no-choice wh-
questions because they give the students some possible answers. Students might be able to check the
text to see if any of the choices are specifically discussed, and then make a choice.
Multiple-choice questions may be used most effectively, in our experience, with literal
comprehension. They can also be used with prediction and evaluation. However, when used for these
types of comprehension, we suggest using follow-up activities that allow students to explain their choices.
As with true or false questions, developing good multiple-choice questions requires careful
thought. They found that developing a question with four choices works best for students with low
proficiency in the target language. One of the four, obviously, is the desired answer; the others should be
seemingly plausible responses.

An important consideration
Regardless of the level of comprehension or the form of the question, teachers and materials
developers need to make sure that the questions are used to help students interact with the text. This
can be done by making sure that students keep the text in front of them while answering questions on
the text. They should always be able to refer to the reading passage, for we are interested in teaching
reading comprehension, not memory skills. Another element in ensuring that the questions actually teach
is avoiding what we call tricky questions. If the goal is helping students to improve their reading
comprehension abilities, teachers must resist the temptation to trick them with cleverly worded questions
(e.g., a complex sentence in which one clause is true and the other is false). Negative wording in a
question can also make it tricky. Such unclear or misleading questions tend to discourage students. It is
better to ask about important aspects of the text in a straightforward, unambiguous fashion.

Conclusion
In our experience, the use of well-designed comprehension questions can be used to promote
an understanding of a text. However, comprehension questions are only a means to an end. The use of
questions by themselves does not necessarily result in readers who interact with a text utilizing the six
types of comprehension discussed in this article. The teacher, through a combination of teacher-fronted
and group activities, must promote a discussion of the answers, both the right and wrong ones, so that
students are actively involved in creating meaning. We would like to end on a note of caution. Beware of
the death by comprehension questions syndrome. The use of comprehension questions in teaching
reading can be overdone. Even the most highly motivated student can become bored having to answer
20 questions on a three paragraph text. As with most things in life, moderation is the best course of
action.
 ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES IN TEACHING LITERATURE

Assessment is an integrated process of gaining information about students’ learning

and making value judgments about their progress (Linn & Miller, 2005). Information about students’
progress can be obtained from a variety of sources, including projects, portfolios, performances,
observations, and tests. The information about students’ learning is often assigned specific numbers or
grades and this involves measurement. Measurement answers the question, “How much?” and is
used most commonly when the teacher scores a test or product and assigns numbers (e.g. 28 /30 on
the biology test; 90/100 on the science project).

Evaluation is the process of making judgments about the assessment information (Airasian,
2005). These judgments may be about individual students (e.g. should Jacob’s course grade take into
account his significant improvement over the grading period?), the assessment method used (e.g. is
the multiple choice test a useful way to obtain information about problem solving), or one’s own
teaching (e.g. most of the students this year did much better on the essay assignment than last year so
my new teaching methods seem effective).

Assessment Strategies
There are many assessment strategies, each offering its own strengths and weaknesses, that
educators can use to assess their student.
Some of the most familiar assessment strategies are quizzes, tests, state-administered
standardized tests, and essays. While each of these relatively traditional forms of assessment has its
place in a curriculum, many teachers are finding that they are limiting in other, important ways.
Authentic assessment strategies, such as portfolios, performances, and exhibitions, allow
students to showcase their talents and what they have learned in a course in creative manner.
Many teachers are now also experimenting with self-evaluation and peer-evaluation. Some
educational theorists believe that students are more invested in their performance in the course when
they know that they (and their peers) are actively involved in the overall assessment.
No matter the type of assessment, instructors must create unambiguous expectations and be
open to employing a range of assessment strategies assessment: An appraisal or evaluation. self-
evaluation: allowing students to evaluate their own performance on assignments peer-evaluation:
allowing students to evaluate the performance of their peers on assignments.
There are many different types of assessments that teachers can use to analyze what their
students have learned. Some of the most familiar are quizzes, tests, state-administered standardized
tests, and essays. And while each of these relatively traditional forms of assessment has its place in a
curriculum, many teachers are finding that they are limiting in other, important ways. This has prompted
many teachers to design alternative assessments that they feel better match and evaluate the content of
the instruction.
For example, fine arts courses may not be particularly well-suited to any of the traditional forms
of assessment listed above. By contrast, asking a student to put on a performance, to create a portfolio,
or to curate an exhibition might well help gauge just how well students have understood the central
concerns of the course. Such forms of assessments are referred to as “authentic assessment” or, more
neutrally, as “alternative assessment.” Authentic assessment strategies can be used in almost any types
of courses, even those that more often use traditional forms of assessment.
Many teachers are now also experimenting with self-evaluation and peer-evaluation. Some
educational theorists believe that students are more invested in their performance in the course when
they know that they (and their peers) are actively involved in the overall assessment.
 No matter the type of assessment, the following two best practices should guide all instructors’
assessment strategies. First, instructors must create unambiguous expectations. Students cannot
perform well on any assessment if, in the time leading up to the assessment, there is uncertainty
surrounding just what is to be known or done. Second, instructors should be open to employing a wide
range of assessment strategies. Instructors obviously reserve the right to utilize the assessment strategy
of their choice. But they should recognize that different students succeed in different assessment venues,
and, thereby, to try to incorporate a few different types of assessments over the course of a unit. By
utilizing different assessment strategies, teachers can help students experience more success by tapping
into their various learning preferences.

22 Simple Assessment Strategies & Tips You Can Use Every Day

1. An open-ended question that gets them writing/talking

Avoid yes/no questions and phrases like “Does this make sense?” In response to these
questions, students usually answer ‘yes.’ So, of course, it’s surprising when several students later admit
that they’re lost.
To help students grasp ideas in class, ask open-ended questions that require students that get
students writing/talking. They will undoubtedly reveal more than you would’ve thought to ask directly.

2. Ask students to reflect

During the last five minutes of class ask students to reflect on the lesson and write down what
they’ve learned. Then, ask them to consider how they would apply this concept or skill in a practical
setting. Exit tickets using tools like Loop make this easy to administer and review student answers.

3. Use quizzes
Give a short quiz at the end of class to check for comprehension.

4. Ask students to summarize

Have students summarize or paraphrase important concepts and lessons. This can be done
orally, visually, or otherwise.

5. Hand signals
Hand signals can be used to rate or indicate students’ understanding of content. Students can
show anywhere from five fingers to signal maximum understanding to one finger to signal minimal
understanding. This strategy requires engagement by all students and allows the teacher to check for
understanding within a large group.

6. Response cards
Index cards, signs, whiteboards, magnetic boards, or other items are simultaneously held up by
all students in class to indicate their response to a question or problem presented by the teacher. Using
response devices, the teacher can easily note the responses of individual students while teaching the
whole group.

7. Four corners
A quick and easy snapshot of student understanding, Four Corners provides an opportunity for
student movement while permitting the teacher to monitor and assess understanding.
 The teacher poses a question or makes a statement. Students then move to the appropriate
corner of the classroom to indicate their response to the prompt. For example, the corner choices might
include “I strongly agree,” “I strongly disagree,” “I agree somewhat,” and “I’m not sure.”

8. Think-pair-share
Students take a few minutes to think about the question or prompt. Next, they pair with a
designated partner to compare thoughts before sharing with the whole class.

9. Choral reading
Students mark text to identify a particular concept and chime in, reading the marked text aloud
in unison with the teacher. This strategy helps students develop fluency; differentiate between the reading
of statements and questions; and practice phrasing, pacing, and reading dialogue.

10. One question quiz

Ask a single focused question with a specific goal that can be answered within a minute or two.
You can quickly scan the written responses to assess student understanding.

11. Socratic seminar

Students ask questions of one another about an essential question, topic, or selected text. The
questions initiate a conversation that continues with a series of responses and additional questions.
Students learn to formulate questions that address issues to facilitate their own discussion and arrive at
a new understanding.

12. 3-2-1
Students consider what they have learned by responding to the following prompt at the end of
the lesson: 3) things they learned from your lesson; 2) things they want to know more about; and 1)
questions they have. The prompt stimulates student reflection on the lesson and helps to process the
learning.

13. Ticket out the door

Students write in response to a specific prompt for a short period of time. Teachers collect their
responses as a “ticket out the door” to check for students’ understanding of a concept taught. This
exercise quickly generates multiple ideas that could be turned into longer pieces of writing at a later time.

14. Journal reflections

Students write their reflections on a lesson, such as what they learned, what caused them
difficulty, strategies they found helpful, or other lesson-related topics. Students can reflect on and process
lessons. By reading student work–especially —types of learning journals that help students think—
teachers can identify class and individual misconceptions and successes. (See also

15. Formative pencil–paper assessment

Students respond individually to short, pencil–paper formative assessments of skills and
knowledge taught in the lesson. Teachers may elect to have students self-correct. The teacher collects
assessment results to monitor individual student progress and to inform future instruction.
Both student and teacher can quickly assess whether the student acquired the intended
knowledge and skills. This is a formative assessment, so a grade is not the intended purpose.

16. Misconception check

 Present students with common or predictable misconceptions about a concept you’re covering.
Ask them whether they agree or disagree and to explain why.

17. Analogy prompt

Teaching with analogies can be powerful. Periodically, present students with an analogy prompt:
“the concept being covered is like ____ because ____.”

18. Practice frequency

Check for understanding at least three times a lesson, minimum.

19. Use variety

Teachers should use enough different individual and whole group techniques to check
understanding that they accurately know what all students know. More than likely, this means during a
single class the same technique should not be repeated.

20. Make it useful

The true test is whether or not you can adjust your course or continue as planned based on the
information received in each check. Do you need to stop and start over? Pull a few students aside for
three minutes to re-teach? Or move on?

21. Peer instruction

Perhaps the most accurate way to check for understanding is to have one student try to teach
another student what she’s learned. If she can do that successfully, it’s clear she understood your lesson.

22. “Separate what you do and don’t understand”

Whether making a t-chart, drawing a concept map, or using some other means, have the
students not simply list what they think they know, but what they don’t know as well. This won’t be as
simple as it sounds–we’re usually not aware of what we don’t know.
They’ll also often know more or less than they can identify themselves, which makes this strategy
a bit crude. But that’s okay–the goal isn’t for them to be precise and complete in their self-evaluation the
goal is for you to gain insight as to what they do and don’t know. And seeing what they can even begin
to articulate on their own is an excellent starting point here.
 Activities/Assessment
1. Peer Teaching in using right books, reading materials and or comprehensive questions
(focusing of Appropriate Use of Approach, Choice of Learning Material, Comprehension
Questions
2. 3 minute micro lecture on module 2
3. 3 minute video recording taking into consideration the 21st century learners and 21st century
skills in the following statements: important concepts in teaching literature in English;
appropriate methods and approaches to teach literature; and, the right books, reading
materials, and comprehension questions in teaching literature

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Bibby , S. & McIlroy, T. (2013). Literature in language teaching: What, why, and how. Retrieved from: https://jalt-
publications.org/sites/default/files/pdf-article/37.5tlt_art06.pdf

Baumbach, S., Grabes, H., & Nünning, A. (2009) Literature and Values. WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. ISBN 978-3-
86821-143-6. Retrieved from:
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Day, R. (2005). Developing reading comprehension questions. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ689120.pdf

Mustakim, S., Mustapha, R. & Lebar, O. (2014). Teacher’s Approaches in Teaching Literature: Observations of ESL
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