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Amber Ginter

Professor Jones

Teaching Lit for AYA

25 September 2018

Position Paper: The Purpose of Teaching Literature

Much like the purpose of writing, a belief in why educators seek to demonstrate literature

successfully in the classroom can be found in their philosophies for life itself. As important as

faith is to the Christian walk, for instance, upholding literature in a way that magnifies the truth

of its claims, involving passion, pursuit, and clarity strives to exemplify its purpose. In this, I

have come to believe that the purpose of teaching literature is to provide students with the tools

they need not only to see literature in relation to their daily life, but as an experience felt through

styles, reflection, history, and overall meaning as adapted to the ever-changing content, class,

setting, and environmental factors presented in each class.

First, literature in relation to daily life is something that all students need to be taught

how to experience first-hand in order to grow and develop properly in the realm of education.

Whether it be assigning at-home activities, in-class interviews, or group discussions, the concept

of literature is something that reaches much deeper than the surface-level attraction of poets,

figurative language, and classical theorists. Yet, in order to relay this thinking to our students,

we as educators have a duty to accurately define what literature is, why we teach it, and as a

result, what we want our students to learn through the process.

According to Showalter, literature is a conception and study that is ever-changing;

therefore, it cannot ever be defined or pinpointed to a single definition (15-20). Not able to be

fully represented by words, it is a principle understood and felt by experience. Though its
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standard definition resides to “teaching fiction, poems, plays, or critical essays,” Showalter

brings up the antithesis that such a classification, though true in many standards, only portrays

half the story (21-22). Because how literature is taught, for instance, highly depends on the

content of each class, setting, and environment at hand, so too has the purpose of literature

changed over the years with the history that surfaces. Whereas numerous different theories,

values, and even questions of human existence have pondered their connection and purpose with

literature, I believe that literature, because it cannot be defined by a single definition, is taught

for the freedom of interpretation and legacy it can leave behind in those impacted by its moral

belief systems. As Showalter best concludes here, “at some level, whether we believe in

pleasure, politics, or philosophy as the goal, all of us who teach literature believe that it is

important not only in education but in life” (24).

Thus, if educators expect their students to see this tenacity behind why we teach literature

and what it is to them, it is equally crucial for them to understand what we want them to gain

from its teachings. More so than the routine memorizations of ACT vocab lists and Romeo and

Juliet recitations, literature’s goal is not just compromised of what is to be completed via the

syllabus, but the student learning and thinking that is facilitated by the teacher to get to this place

of active awareness and learning within the classroom (Showalter 27). As demonstrated through

a Structured Process Approach, Smagorinsky, Johannessen, Kahn, and McCann remark that such

methods of teaching do require diligence from the educator, but that if done successfully, such

efforts will not be laid in vain (21). Emphasizing modeling, scaffolding, large and small groups,

hands-on activities, and pushing students to their maximum zone of proximal development,

SPA’s move away from Authoritarian teaching and place a gradual release of responsibility on

the students, often pushing them farther than ever thought they could go. Such ideologies,
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previous English Educator and Curriculum Director for Circleville City Schools, Sherry Kneece,

notes, take a lot of work, but are crucial elements to a Developmentally Appropriate Education

(S. Kneece, personal communication, September 11th, 2018).

Evidently, our goal for teaching literature should not be to achieve the highest test scores

or even the most brilliant minds from administering these behaviors, but to create a lifestyle of

independent, and active critical thinkers that are able to go out into the world viewing literature

as a skillfully adapted craft they have now developed within, rather than simply an outward body

of what Showalter calls “isolated information” (26). Helping students to seek further knowledge

by relating to the real world theorizes to students that the reason literature is taught is, so they

may come to know the histories of our past to produce the fruitful labors of our newly adopted

future. Through techniques of both intellectual conviction from the heart, and student-centered

theories, literature can only be experienced in relation to real-life if it is also demonstrated

through a variety of styles.

Just as no two students learn or prepare the same way for a test, the favorable conditions

we reap from a successfully presented view of literature directly relate to the preparation and

way we sympathize with our students. In this sense, Wolf emphasizes holding a conversation

with these works of literature by presenting their details in an array of forms (29-32). Becoming

mindful of our students learning styles and familiarities accustoms us as educators to reach them

where they are, rather than expecting them to jump through large and narrow hoops like animals

at the zoo. Instead, teaching from your experience as an educator, leaving room for growth and

adaptation in lesson plans, and genuinely taking the time to evaluate both the culture and

conditions in which your students live, all relate to the variety of styles we can use to help them

formalize what literature means to them. Though some answers will be painstakingly obvious
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and wrong at times, as authors Rabinowitz and Smith denote, seeking to modify our curriculum

to reach students where they are, especially when it comes to literature, all boils down to how we

present the style (12-22).

Thus, teaching structure followed by creativity is a good method of style educators of

literature can apply to almost any setting. Guiding the interpretation of texts, for instance, can be

aligned with kinesthetic, auditory, and visual methods in the classroom through various tasks that

build in gradual complexity over time. Then, as the students begin to maintain this sense of

independence through their preferred styles of choice, we can push them to new heights through

maladaptive and interesting varieties of memorable lecturing, interactive teaching, effective

classroom discussions, challenging questions, direct modeling, and attention to the newest and

probably favored technology. Using such a wide selection of styles will not only help students to

relate the literature they are reading, seeing, and experiencing in the classroom to their analyses,

but to their educational endeavors outside of those four walls (Scholes 1-12).

As a direct result of diverse designs in conjunction with relational practices, the

experience of this literature will fail if it is not combined with a proper sense of personal and

relational reflection. When a student reads a particular text such as Speak by Laurie Halse

Anderson or Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks, for instance, the fullest meaning of such books

cannot be interpreted without the most profound sense of moral, ethical, and emotional

connection, understanding, and feeling. Thus, to understand and take away from this literature

what we need them to, students need to be given the opportunity to reflect on what they are being

taught and reading. Rather this is through independent and personal journals or prompts written

about, every day students must be writing in juxtaposition with the literature that they are being

taught. As both Scholes and Showalter similarly press, literature apart from writing and
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reflection ends in nothing but a dead end. When students are given a chance to relate the

literature in class to their personal lives and more so, the outside world, work, people, classes,

and activities, that is the true and defined purpose of literature, even if it is seldom spoken like

that.

Though the world of this literature is coined by Wolfe as a subjunctive world in which

what “could or could not happen- in a room, a heart, a mind-flourishes,” allowing students the

opportunity to partake in this reflection takes a risk (30). However, despite the potential

downfalls and regulations, thoughtful reading and writing are only produced when we ask

students to think about how the literature relates to them on a personal level, and then not only

allowing them to verbally express that connection to literature but doing so through journaling

and reflecting as well. Such reflection though is an experience that can only be felt through the

course of history as taught about, analyzed, and learned within the classroom.

When students are given the understanding that the history of literature directly applies to

them as learners, they will be more open to listening to its techniques and formations than if it

were attributed to nonconsequential mannerisms. Take one of my favorite 18th-century pieces,

The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for example. Published in 1892, many

would think upon surface-level reading that the woman in the story who has a strange fascination

with the yellow paper on the wall is just insane. However, in a closer analysis of the time period,

it is easily seen that her actions are merely in response to the social confines of women, and this

tearing of the walls represents her breaking forth from that bondage that once enslaved her. For

those of you who are not familiar with this text, though, I will relieve you by noting that such

historical accuracies can be applied to every piece of literature at hand.

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Despite the authority and power of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or breadth and emotion of

Poe’s The Fall of The House of Usher, each demonstrates extraordinary measures of change

when it comes to the influence of history on such monumental pieces. As interlocking keys,

history and literature walk hand-in-hand because historical correctness not only shapes the

history we are presently reading, but it forms the literature we will eventually be a part of. Thus,

because this literature is ever-changing in content, class, and setting due to the environmental

factors presented in each class, it is essential that we give our students an accurate and working

definition of the literature that surrounds them. Through connections and applications to real-

life, students are given the opportunity to experience literature in its purest form. Felt through

numerous styles, countless activities of reflection, and discovery searches of its founding history,

literature in the classroom will be transformed. From a concept found in the textbook to a

lifestyle with meaning, it will be proclaimed in the fabric of students’ daily interactions as they

grow accustomed to not what literature always was, but what it evidently should be.
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Works Cited

Kneece, Sherry. Personal interview. 11 September 2018.

Rabinowitz, P.J. and Smith, M. W. Authorizing Readers. New York, Teachers College Press,

1998.

Scholes, Robert. The Crafty Reader. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001.

Showalter, Elaine. Teaching Literature. Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Smagorinsky, Peter et al. The Dynamics of Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2010.

Wolf, D.P. Reading Reconsidered. New York, The College Board, 1988.