Integrating Literature in The Curriculum

Language is the vehicle of communication. Everything we do is mediated by language, therefore it is inconceivable that literature can be thought of as a subject area in isolation of other subject areas. “Language offers the opportunity for play, experimentation and even expression through means other than language” (Pachler and Field,1997).

Consider the experience of one sixth grade teacher, cited in the article entitled 'What's The Big Idea? Integrating Young Adult Literature In the Middle School, written by Marshall George in January 2001'. She found that although work in the Young Adult Literature category were of tremendous interest to her students, that there was a key way in which to structure lessons. She discovered that a thematic approach worked excellently, as the themes she chose were interesting and appropriate to her students' ages and stages of development. She also included multiple genres in her selection. “She had found a meaningful way to motivate her students to read and write about literature with a purpose...Not only were they learning about literature, they were learning from the literature”(Marshall George ,2001).

With regard to other subject areas, teachers can collaborate to share resources and ideas on interdisciplinary approaches to integrating literature. Literature teachers can advise other teachers in their selection of appropriate texts per unit topic, as well as offer guidance on how best to use the texts for instruction.

Modern foreign language teachers, for example, have found that one of their challenges “lies in incorporating into lessons suitable material and activities at the appropriate moments. Far from all language usage is purely transactional and much is to be gained from the building of personalized patterns and structures... songs, poems, puzzles, games, the creation of cartoons, artefacts and models can all enhance the learning process, appealing to pupils...”( Pachler and Field, 1997)

One of the main goals of the use of literature is to improve the communicative competence of students. Whether or not grammar should be taught explicitly or implicitly has long been a topic of controversy. It is my view that whatever the approach, the teaching of grammar (the form of a language) must be taught, as knowledge of grammar is a necessary tool for students to develop a comprehensive ability to understand and interpret meaning as well as manipulate craft. How can a student be expected to use language creatively if they do not have the skills needed to decode the language's form? Ray Skjelbed (1997) in his article 'Sound and Sense:Grammar, Poetry and Creative Language', suggested that students be given opportunities to use grammatical structures which they learnt, in their own creative writing. By so doing they discover fantastic techniques for written as well as oral expression.

The following is an example of an interactive lesson on the use of figurative language. Figurative language can be used by students to add exuberance to their written or oral expressions.