Teaching Literature - Designing A Short Story Unit (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: Good, University of Potsdam (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies), course: Advanced Seminar 'Literature in the English language classroom', language: English, abstract: The seminar " Literature in the English language classroom" should familiarize students with a range of contemporary short stories and approaches to using them in the context of a teaching unit on "Living in a multicultural society". In this context the basic fact that stories in general meet a basic human need and a plurality of methodological approaches especially for young people in order to understand the "other" should be achieved was emphasized as the main potential literature in the English language classroom can have. Because of a high scale of creative activities and product- oriented procedures in experiencing new perspectives and new ethnicities the short story has a great potential to fulfil this basic need. In order to reveal the potential of Zora Neale Hurston's short story for "Living in a multicultural society "with respect to teaching the topic of Black Americans in the USA, the subtopic of the Harlem Renaissance as the period where Black Americans became famous and the learning goals, tasks for the learners as well as the checking of the learning achievements the following parts should provide an insight in my ideas concerning a teaching unit centring on the short story "Sweat".