Charles Dickens and “His Implications in Education”

The main purpose of the essay is to present Charles Dickens as a remarkable English writer who through his works presents important topics which can be useful for teachers to develop them into classroom. In order to fulfil this essay I will refer to Charles Dickens’s biography, but as a general overview. Second, I will describe some social issues in Dickens’s works, as main themes of his books. Then, I will describe some benefits of using Charles Dickens’s works at the moment of learning. Finally, I will conclude my essay giving my personal opinion about the importance of bringing literature into education and students’ lives, using interesting writers such is the case of the English writer.

Since I have learned how interesting, magical and useful books are, literature has taken an important part of my life and also in my process of becoming an educator. For this reason, I remember clearly the first short story of Charles Dickens that we read at the beginning of our English literature class. The story was The Signal Man. It really liked me and called my attention because it presented significance topics that are still present in our contemporary world. Moreover, it made me feel curiosity about who the person behind the story was. I am referring to Charles Dickens.

Regarding his biography, his real name was Charles John Huffam Dickens. He was born in Landport, Portsmouth England 1812, and died in 1870. Among his major works, we can find Sketches by Boz (1836), Pickwick Papers , Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, etc. Charles Dickens is considered the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. About, the most remarkable aspect of his works is that through his stories, the writer tried to give a voice for the injustices of the poor and working classes. For this reason, he is best known as ““The Writer of Political and Social Truths”.

As a second part of my essay, I will relate Dickens’s biography and social topics that are present in the short story called The Signal Man. From my point of view and after reading it carefully, I would state out that the short story is evidently an analogy of Modernity, as one of the main topics. It is a demonstration of how the progress has become a significant part of men’s life, making or transforming him as a piece of this industrialized world. The main character of the story has been doomed to live in a box where he spends the most part of the day working without any contact with reality. In this sense, the most interesting part is the analysis of society that Dickens portrays through his characters. For example, with the signalman the British author wanted to give us an idea about that the man has lost in a certain way his humanity because he is forced to live under a routine and monotony that has shaped his life living like a machine. The main characters of the story illustrated the impact of living in a society who was loosing control because of the desire to be modern. Hence, I would say that they were just victims of this “modernity” or progress, which the only thing it brought to men and women it was disillusion, sadness, depression, darkness and hopeless to their lives.

According to some of the benefits of using Charles Dickens’s works I can mention that in The Signal Man, themes such as Modernity, Progress, technology, individuality, are intrinsically linked with our society. Nowadays, we can perceive that this situation has not changed and modernity still has repercussions in our lives. Furthermore, using these issues can be extremely appealing and useful for teachers at the moment of teaching and learning.

As a first advantage, we can foster learners to develop their critical thinking through these topics, because those themes are contemporary. Moreover, the more we read, the more we learn how to think. Hence, the importance to encourage reading among our future students helps them to appreciate diverse ways of seeing the world that enable us to reflect on what we read. To illustrate, using Dickens’s topics teachers and students can work together, reflecting on the positive and negative advantages of Modernity. Besides, they can relate the short story with similar Chilean literature that takes into account similar topics (Sub-Terra), as well as analyze the impact that progress has brought to our lives. In this sense, we develop the ability of being critical people.

Referring to what I mentioned before, Bernice E. Cullinan, an important American educator, in her book called “Invitation to Read : More Childrean `s Literature in the Reading Program” states that “Graves (1983) and Hansen (1987) among other believe that reading and discussing trade books helps children to become more critical readers and increases their awareness of choices they make as writers.” (14) Lastly, we cannot forget to mention teachers need and have to encourage learners to love or at least appreciate literature as a way to expand their minds and their lives in a meaningful way.

Throughout this essay I have tried to present Charles Dickens as a remarkable English writer who through his works presents important and useful topics for teachers to bring them into classroom. I have also given a brief Charles Dickens’s biography. Moreover I have analyzed The Signal Man and some of its topics that can be use by teachers to take advantages with students. Undoubtedly, there are many other benefits but I just mentioned three of them that from my point of view are the most important and indispensably to bear in mind. It is basically because we are living difficult times which have to do or have a close relation to what happens in the story. Finally, I have described some of the benefits to use definition of literature and how the idea of including literature into the classroom could be seen as an excellent vehicle to teach and increase students’ knowledge, among other things, such as promote critical thinking among learners through brilliant and popular writers such is Charles Dickens.

Works Cited

Cullinan, Bernice E. Invitation to Read : More Children `s Literature in the

Reading Program. Delaware: International Reading Association, 1992.

Voller, Jack G. "Charles Dickens." The Literary Gothic. 24 Oct. 2008. Web. 3 Dec. 2009. http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/dickens.html

Outline

1. Dickens and social problems of Modernity
2. Social issues in Dickens’s work
3. Can we use dickens in EFL class ?
4. Examples
5. Conclusion

V.Woolf

lunasana dijo...

Hi Angel!

First at all I'd like to tell you that I totally agree when you mention that sexuality does not determinate people’s quality. On the contrary, sexual inclination should not be a reason or topic to discuss if someone is good or bad person or writer in this case. However, I disagree with many aspects you raised. For example, I do not believe Virginia had preferences to woman just because she just liked or not women. I believe that it’s more than that. She goes beyond literature and gender issue. In fact, she criticizes and analyze why women have never been taken into consideration in literature as men. Fortunately, she started doing it through her essay, which is the one we read. As a way to help, I suggest you to check your spelling. Moreover, you might improve your analysis doing some connections relating literature to education. In that case what you pointed out about Woolf’s sexuality may be an interesting topic to work with students.

Think about it!
=)

17 de noviembre de 2009 20:53

T.S Elliot - The Waste Land

The Waste Land is well known as “one of the most important poems of the 20^th century”. From my point of view I consider it one of the controversial Elliot’s poems. Its complexity and structure has made it difficult to understand and analyze. The poem changes into two or more speakers as well the situations, location and time. However, even though it is a complex poem I have my own perspective of it. After reading The Waste Land I would say that it refers to a land that is isolated, empty and even dead. A land that is not suitable to use it. The land Elliot makes reference is an analogy of people’s live of the 20^th century. In this case is not a coincidence the poet had written about that obscurity that overwhelmed society. Through his characters, the British poet tries to portray a reality in which people's souls are empty, sad, but in deep they are dead as a consequence of their own history. To sum up, Elliot includes a sense of reality in his way of writing combining it with some tones of sarcasm, irony and coldness.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land