TEACHING AND

ASSESSMENT OF
LITERATURE
STUDIES
Modules
Approaches to Teaching
03. Literature and Poetry
The Nature of
01. Literature
Assessment of
04. Literature and
Poetry
Analyzing and
02. Teaching Literary Evaluation
Literature 05. and Appreciation
03
Approaches to
Teaching
Literature and
Poetry
Teachers claim that students read less and less,
while students argue that the books they are
supposed to read for exams have outdated topics.
Researchers have also different opinions about the
usefulness and effectiveness of teaching literature,
Most of them consider that the language used in
literary works is too complex and difficult,
therefore it does not support students in the
acquisition of grammar and lexical structures that
can be used in their everyday lives or as Kay posits,
it does not meet their academic or occupational
needs (Kay, 1982).
There are also researchers (Aina: 1979) who
believe that literature can be taught in an
integrated manner, thus transcending the
limitations of one school subject. Language can be
taught by focusing on the development of four
skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing or it
can be taught by integrating ideas and themes from
various subjects. We believe that literature should
not be considered a mere tool of developing these
four competences but it should develop the
students` literary and cultural competences as
well.
Approaches to Teaching Literature
Cultural Model
● Information-Based Approach

Language Model
● Paraphrastic Approach
● Stylistics Approach
● Language-Based Approach

The Personal Growth Model

● Skill-based Approach
● Moral- Philosophical Approach
Cultural Model
● encourages and teaches students how to deal with a
literary work in relation to the target language. (Hwang
& Embi, 2007).
● stresses the role of literature in condensing values,
ideas and wisdom that have accumulated within a
culture over historical periods (Aydin, 2013).
● Students need to understand and search for political,
literary, social and historical context from the learned
text. It assists students to understand and appreciate
the different cultures and ideologies of thoughts and
feelings which are beyond their time and space.
● traditional approach, teacher-centred, and delivers
information and facts to students (Rashid, Vethamani &
Rahman, 2010).
Cultural Model
Information-based approach
● gives knowledge and information to students
(Thunnithet, 2011). It is teacher-centred and demands a
lot of teacher’s input in giving students various contents
of literary text like on historical, political, cultural and
social background. Knowledge of literature is delivered
as a source of information to students (Rashid,
Vethamani, & Rahman, 2010). It includes reading from
the criticism or notes, explanations and lectures given
by teacher for examinations sake (Hwang & Embi,
2007).
Cultural Model
Information-based approaches:
● Elicit information from students about the text.
● Explain the content of the text to the class. 8
● Ask questions to check students’ knowledge based on
what they have read.
● Provide students with background information.

Information-based activities:
● Comprehension questions exercises
● Lecture sessions
● Read notes from workbooks/handouts with students
Language Model
● comprises paraphrastic approach, stylistic approach
and language-based approach.
● integrates language and literature as a source to
improve student’s language proficiency while learning
the language (Hwang & Embi, 2007).
● uses literature in teaching different functions of
language like grammar, vocabulary, and language
structures from the literary texts to students (Aydin,
2013).
● helps to attain literature aesthetic aspect solely via
expression and communication quality of literature
(Khatib, Rezaei & Derakhshan, 2011).
Language Model

Paraphrastic Approach
● primarily paraphrasing and rewording the text to
simpler language or use other languages to translate it.
Teachers use simple words or less complex sentence
structure to make the original text easy to understand
(Divsar, 2014).It is teacher-centred and does not
contribute much interesting activities towards students
(Hwang & Embi, 2007).
Language Model
Paraphrastic Approaches:
● Retell 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

Paraphrastic activities:
● Translation of text using L1
● Retell story to students
● Students read paraphrased notes in the workbook/handouts
● Students retelling the story to the class
Language Model

Stylistic Approach
● implies literary critics and linguistic analysis. It is for
students to appreciate and understand in a deeper
manner of the literary text. It helps students to interpret
the text meaningfully and develops language
awareness and knowledge (Thunnithet, 2011). It
analyzes the language prior to the elements of literary
text (Aydin, 2013).
Language Model
Stylistic Approaches:
● 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
● literature lesson looks at the language of the text, thus, encourages
language awareness
● Encourage students to discuss beyond the surface meaning of the
text

Stylistic activities:
● 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
Language Model

Language-Based Approach
● helps students pay attention to the way the language is
used when studying literature. It is student-centred and
activity-based for productive use of language. It
improves students’ language proficiency, and
incorporates literature and language skills among the
students (Dhillon & Mogan, 2014). It engages students
more on experiences and responses (Aydin, 2013).
Language Model
Language-Based Approaches:
● 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

Language-Based activities:
● Group work
● Language activities (cloze, jigsaw puzzle, prediction exercises)
● Debate
● Performance activities (drama, role play, poetry recital)
Personal Growth Model
● enables students to develop their language, character
and emotions by connecting and responding the issues
and themes to their lives (Hwang & Embi, 2007).
● encourages students to love and enjoy reading
literature for personal development as well as to relate
their relationships to the environment (Aydin, 2013).
● learners would respond to what they think are the
author’s intentions and what are the meanings that
could be derived from the text.
● motivates and encourages students to read by making
a connection between the themes of the texts studied
and their personal life experiences.
Personal Growth Model

Personal-Response Approach
● encourages students to make sense of their
experiences and personal lives with text themes;
promotes students to associate the subject matters of
the reading texts with personal life experiences (Rashid,
Vethamani & Rahman, 2010).
● engages individual in literary text reading as personal
fulfilment and pleasure can be met while developing the
language and literary competency (Divsar, 2014).
Personal Growth Model
Personal-Response Approach
● Encourage students to relate the themes to personal experiences
● Elicit students' response to a text
● Encourage students to express feelings towards the issues of the
text

Personal-Response activities:
● Explain a text to student
● Journal writing
● Brainstorming sessions
● Small group discussions
● Writing about feelings/reactions towards an issue
Personal Growth Model
Moral-Philosophical Approach
● incorporates moral values across curriculum. The focus of
this approach is to discover moral values while reading a
particular literary text (Hwang & Embi, 2007).
● Learners seek moral values from a particular literary text
while reading it. It helps students to be aware of values of
moral and philosophical and identify them that lies in their
reading (Rashid, Vethamani & Rahman, 2010).
● Students need to go beyond the text for moral and
philosophical inference (Divsar, 2014). With this approach,
teachers are able to direct students to achieve
self-realization as well as selfunderstanding while
interpreting literary works (Lim & Omar, 2007).
Personal Growth Model
Moral-Philosophical 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

Moral-Philosophical activities:
● Reflective sessions
● Discussions on moral dilemmas
● Tell moral values to students
● Conduct self-evaluation activities
Factors Affecting the Choice of Literature Teaching
Approach
Exam-Oriented
Literature learning has become exam-oriented in most secondary
schools. When it is aimed for examination, it kills the students’
interest in learning literature. Students are not keen to read but
learn to pass examination (Awang, Kasuma & Akma, 2010).
Teachers preferred paraphrastic and information-based
approaches for the sake of students in gaining intellectual.
knowledge and assisting them to perform well in the
examinations. As teachers continue with these approaches by
giving students necessary information, this has brought up the
concern of difficulty in achieving higher-order of thinking skills
from students (Hwang & Embi, 2007; Rashid, Vethamani &
Rahman, 2010; Divsar, 2014).
Factors Affecting the Choice of Literature Teaching
Approach

Time Constraint
Teachers are apprehensive to use language-based approach in
teaching literature as they are facing with the constraint of time
and effort especially in preparing drama-based activities (Divsar,
2014). Teachers have to rush through the syllabus in preparing
students for examinations.
Factors Affecting the Choice of Literature Teaching
Approach

Large Class Size

Big number of students in a classroom makes teachers employ
language-based approach especially for debate and dramatic
activities (Divsar, 2014). Rashid, Vethamani and Rahman (2010)
reveal the problem of big number of students in a classroom.
This brings up the issue of employing language-based approach
especially for debate and drama activities. For instance, teachers
have difficulty to organize debate as it only requires a small
amount of students to participate one at a time. As a result,
language based approach is less used by teachers in teaching
literature.
Factors Affecting the Choice of Literature Teaching
Approach

Students’ Passive Attitude

When students show no interest in learning, they will not learn.
Students behave passively to respond to teacher’s questions and they
will just merely copy of what teachers ask them to write (Rashid,
Vethamani & Rahman, 2010).The students’ level of participation is
low because it lacks enjoyable activities. It is difficult for teachers to
implement challenging cognitive activities when students are passive
in receiving input from teachers (Awang, Kasuma & Akma, 2010).
Factors Affecting the Choice of Literature Teaching
Approach

Low English Proficiency

Students’ low English proficiency hampers teachers to conduct
higher level of language activity in class. Reading literary work for
enjoyment is unachievable as students face difficulties in
understanding the texts. It prevents students from being vocal to
express their ideas and opinions. Students need paraphrastic
approach for a better understanding of the text.
Levels of Comprehension
The levels of comprehension is a device that aids in literature
analysis. One way to conduct this literature analysis is using a system
called the Levels of Comprehension.
There are six levels: literal, inferential, appreciative, critique,
evaluative, and essential.
For each level you come up with questions and then MORE
IMPORTANTLY with well developed and thoroughly explained
responses. And it is with these responses that you can easily step into
the paragraphs of an essay. The more in-depth your questions and the
more detailed your responses – the easier an essay is to write.
Levels of Comprehension
LITERAL LEVEL
Here the reader finds the answer in the text. The reader
might be asked to do any of the following:
● Identify the facts, items, details, main ideas of the
paragraph or short story.
● Locate/find details, key information
● Recall details that support the main ideas.
● Organize the sequence in which the main events
occurred.
● Recognize or find X
● Follow instructions
● Identify sequence & location signals
● Recognize common sentence

Examples of literal question starters:

What happened . . . ? How many . . . ? How did . . . ? Who .
. . ? What is . . . ?? Which . . . ?
Levels of Comprehension
INFERENTIAL LEVEL
Write questions and answers, which require the reader to make an
“educated guess” or prediction/s about what is going to happen in
the story or why something is so. Write down all the possibilities
that can be inferred (predicted or guessed) while reading the story
- ABOUT the plot, about the characters, about anything that you
have to GUESS what might happened next, or in the conclusion.
If you are reading a novel - (for your final project) then at the end
of each chapter write on a large post-it-note all the things you can
GUESS might happen in the story, or to the characters.
Example: Do you think Little Red Riding Hood will make it to her
grandmother’s house safely? Why, or why not?
For Essay: Find quote/s that supports why you guessed/predicted
what you did and why you
concluded what you did.
Levels of Comprehension
APPRECIATIVE LEVEL
Write questions and answers that require the reader
to make a personal response to a character or
situation in the story or to the author’s purpose. Write
all possible items to be appreciated from YOUR point
of view - if you lived this story or the lives of these
characters. How would you (I) feel if... is the basic
question. This is the ONE paragraph that you can use
the “I” statement.
Example: How would you feel if you were sent off into
the woods alone? EXPLAIN your answer.
For Essay: Find quote/s that supports or led you to
why you thought what you did.
Levels of Comprehension
CRITIQUING LEVEL
Write questions and answers that require the reader to make a
judgment about the author’s use of language, style of writing,
execution of the text, or the author’s ideas in the text. Recognize the
value of the authors use of language and descriptions, images, style
and values of story concepts, look at the authors work of writing the
story - did they tell a good story - why or why not? Did the author use
descriptive words? or plain flat language? Did they make you SEE
the scenes they wrote in your mind because they were so
descriptive? This is where you JUDGE the author and how well they
wrote the story.
Example: Did the author write the story so that it is relatable for
kids/adults? What style or form did the author write in, was the language
authentic, and was the description rich? EXPLAIN your answer.

For Essay: Find quote/s that demonstrates and supports what you
describe (good or bad) about the authors writing, style, use of language,
or authenticity.
Levels of Comprehension
EVALUATIVE LEVEL
Write questions and answers that require the reader to
make a judgment about an aspect of the story such as a
character’s actions. Write all possible judgments about
characters and issues within story - we judge people
around us everyday. JUDGE the characters as if you knew
them as if they were real. Is someone cranky? or Mean?
Justified? Or self-righteous? or stuck-up? or a bully? Judge
the characters.
Example: Do you think it was right for Little Red Riding
Hood’s mother to send her off into the woods alone? Why
or why not?
For Essay: Find quote/s that demonstrates or supports the
judgment, what a character/s said or did that made you
judge them however you did.
Levels of Comprehension
ESSENTIAL LEVEL
Write questions and answers that requires the reader to
consider an issue that is addressed in the story “outside” of
the story. Bring the concepts of the story to the world
today, can this happen today, does it? Write down all the
possible world issues that the story discusses or implies.
Every story has a theme, apply the themes to the world
today.
Example: How old should a child be before he or she is
allowed to go out alone? What parameters would you set
for the child? Explain your answer.
For Essay: Find quote/s from text or possibly outside
sources that demonstrates and support your statements –
link the concepts of the story to the world today and
situations happening today (or that could happen).