literature and language arts textbook online

literature and language arts textbook online

Exploring the World of Literature: An Online Textbook for Language Arts Education

1. Introduction to Literature and Language Arts

The world of literature can prove to be a valuable teacher when, with the right examples, it helps students not just to “learn to read,” but also to “read to learn.” This text, however, focuses not so much on teaching students about literature as on expanding their experiences with literature. It is about helping students become “critical consumers,” citizens, and creators of literature. The time and place are never as important as the mind and heart. But to you, the teacher, time and place may well be important in determining where your students stand in relation to literature itself as a subject. So just where are your students coming from in relation to literature? Where are they going? And finally, how can you get them there? These are important questions. From what countries have your students come, and when, and under what conditions?

What follows are some general thoughts on how you might best introduce your students to the worlds of literature and language arts. The section after this, “Using Literature from Many Times and Places,” will give you concrete suggestions on how to introduce a story, play, or poem from the book. When you know where your students come from and where they are going in their relationship to literature, you can help them to make the journey a meaningful and enjoyable one. But remember that often the best way to get to know a student is to read between the lines and ask each student to keep a journal responding to the literature and issues raised in your class. Then read each journal as if it were a friendly letter from the heart and mind of your student: because, in so many ways, it is!

2. Key Literary Elements and Analysis Techniques

Learning about the key literary elements and analysis techniques can help to make you a better writer and a more empathetic reader. Great literature will have strong character development that makes the characters believable, credible, and human. Great literature features vivid, artful language that brings the characters and settings to life. The context of a story may be crucial to understanding a character’s thoughts, intentions, values, and development. The attitudes, feelings, and support for the characters influence your ability to empathize and become engaged in a narrative.

Many literary elements and techniques are readily applicable not only to fiction, drama, and poetry, but to informational texts as well. Many of the key terms contained in this portion of Exploring the World of English will be used in creative writing, in critiquing literature through literature studies, and in a variety of other types of compositions including essays and research writing. To become proficient in using the terms, it will be important for you to read, write, hear, say, and use them in context.

3. Exploring Different Genres and Writing Styles

3-2 Mystery fiction: This exciting genre of literature can be mystifying and chilling. A story that involves a crime or crime solving that has to be solved. A hard-nosed detective embarks on solving a series of chaotic glamor crimes that have an “end” cause connecting them. They typically revolve around the certain way the crime was done. Throughout the story, the attention will be focused on solving the crime. Even if this involves superpowers, the reader should be given enough evidence to solve the crime themselves. Text writers must also be careful not to let “cheating” occur. “Cheating” means that the writer developed a new clue that solves the crime when the reader would have no access to it.

3-1 Realistic fiction: This prose is simply made up of imaginary reproductions of life in prose portrayals of real life. It can be a contemporary story about kids having very real problems dealing with family, friends, and school. You might identify with some pretty convincing and absorbing personalities who learn how to effectively solve their dilemmas. You just want to keep turning the pages and find out how the story ends or who commits the next crime. Stories that are realistic could happen in the real world and be about people who are living at the same time as you. In realistic stories, the characters solve their problems because they are strong people. The action makes the story interesting, but the people make it exciting.

As we read different types of literature, it is a good time to examine some of the different genres and writing styles available. Authors often use many different types of genres to express their meanings and stories. The following sections will explore some of the major genres of literature and writing styles. In this exploration of different writing styles, students can learn to incorporate similar themes, styles, concepts, and language into their own writings.

4. Literary Criticism and Interpretation

The reader who is able to grasp the suggestive elements which relate an isolated story to a whole complex of experience, philosophical or emotional; who can find that the world of the sensory environment in a certain sequence of words is necessarily not the world meant; who can be aware of the “integration” of the totality of the story and recognize the modulations of its structure both to repetitions and implications – all this is enjoying literature. Whether it is the technical competence or fidelity, the emotional directness or moral wisdom, with the apply the sensitivity of his intelligence, these are the readers who share a common approach to the permanent values of a written world.

In all of our study of literature, the ultimate purpose is to become more perceptive, knowledgeable, and appreciative readers. Of what good is all of our attention to the various and specific elements and conventions of literature if we never use these understandings to interpret and react to the written works we read? Richard Harland points out that while literary criticism can, in some cases, ruin a reader’s appreciation and enjoyment of literature, I believe that it is, at least potentially, possible to broaden and deepen our intelligent sensation of the literature we read.

5. Interactive Activities and Resources for Language Arts Education

Explore the world of literature with interactive activities and creative reading projects. Find online and printable resources here. Sections of this online textbook include: Theory and Research in Language Arts Education, Guide to CyberSurfing, Research Supports the Use of Internet Literature Critics, Tw-Peer Editing, Scaffolded Writing Instruction, Reasoning and Critical Thinking, Hypermedia Assists in Multi-Genre Writing for Preservice Teachers, Teaching Elementary and Middle School Language Arts: Introduction, Perspectives of ECONET as an AT and L Center, Write from the Start: A Teaching Guide for Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Writing Workshops, Teaching Reading in a Second Language, Teaching Language Arts through Literature, Teachers’ Guide to Reinventing Literature, FAQ: Questions and Answers for Teachers of Literature, The New ‘Great Books’ List, Marvels of the World: An Online Interactive Text: Talking Walls, Map Exercise, Reading, Internet Research, Talking Travel, Polish Proverbs, Interactive Reading Initiative, Context Reading, Selected Links: Lesson Plans and Ideas for Language Arts Projects, Art and IRA Links.