Writer: Håvard
This post will be about how you can use literary
texts when teaching English. More accurately: The Hunger Games. This book can be able to grab the pupils’
attention and make the English lessons more interesting. It is a work of
fiction, but has its roots in problems that we deal with today. This is why I believe
it can be a useful and effective tool when teaching.
When using this kind of book, it is
important that you get the pupils to read it. There are different solutions as
to how to work with this. You can give them a set period to read the whole
book, and then discuss it. Alternatively, give them a number of pages as
homework and work through the book together in class. Using this book, that is
not a traditional “boring” schoolbook, it is a possibility of peaking the
interest of the pupils and make them more motivated to read even more books in
their spare time.
In Anna Birketveit and Gweno Williams book:
“Literature for the English classroom,
theory into practice”, they have a chapter about novels for teenage
readers. They list some aims and methodology that is useful when working as a
teacher. I will list two of them here.
1
- . “To suggest and encourage a passion for reading in the English classroom.
- . To highlight what is distinctive about teenagers, thereby increasing understanding of the types of reading matter and themes which might appeal to them most”. (Birketveit and Williams, page 165)
Both of these show that it is possible, and
that these type of books can be used effectively when teaching English. If this
can be a stepping-stone for the pupils to read more books in English, I believe
that it is appropriate to use them.
Sources:
Birketveit,
Williams, 2014, Literature for the English Classroom, Fagbok Forlaget, Bergen
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