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 usingCharles 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, PortsmouthEngland 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 beendoomed to live in a box where he spends the most part of the day working without any contact withreality. 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 withsimilar 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
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.
The WasteLand is well known as “one of the most important poems of the 20th 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 20th 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.
“The rocking horse winner” and “Odour of Chrysanthemums” are both short stories of D. H . Lawrence.These writings are autobiographical making them more interesting and enjoyable to read. We can find remarkable elements which make the stories more realistic and easy to enhance the reader, because those elements are part of the real life. Elements such as disdain, false love, money, unhappiness are present in Lawrence’s works, but what makes more fascinating these short stories are the female characters.
In “The rocking horse winner” we can see a mother who does not love her children and feels extremely unlucky because of her husband and marriage. Unfortunately her children noticed that. This mother is more concerned about money and her unlucky life than her own family. Moreover, she seems very good and lovely with her children to external people. One of her children realizes that the only way to be lucky (or probably be loved) is riding his horse. However, the little boy become mad hearing in his mind an strange voice which reveals him the winning horse of the competition. In this way her son tries to make his mother happy, giving her the money, but at the end he died because of his madness, and it was there when the mother started to feel a little bit worried or possibly “love” for her son.
Similarly in the “Odour of Chrysanthemums”, the female character called Elizabeth is a woman who has to face an unhappy marriage and also deals with her husband’s drunkenness. In general this woman is absolutely cold and dissatisfied because of his poor live style. Thus, she does not show respect to her husband and their relationship little by little is broken.
In conclusion, D. H Lawrence portrays essentially issues or current events that are closely related to the human nature. The writer explores through his characters what human beings are, how people behave, act and feel in this life.
“A room of one’s own” is an extended essay where Virginia Woolf presents and discusses large questions related to women’s history. What the writer ponders is that “a woman must have money and a room of her own”. According to that, Virginia appeals both real (or room) and a metaphorical space. Nevertheless, what we call “metaphorical space” is the historical perspective she refers to and criticizes. In her essay, Virginia takes into consideration the historical perspective,reflecting that women have never been considered as important as men to write literature, and not only just fiction, poetry also.To Virginia the question is why there have been few high-quality woman writers. Her answer is because historically female gender has been discriminated by chauvinist society, limiting women’s lives in all senses. Indeed Woolf also addresses that one of the problem is education, because men were well educated and women were not, pointing out implicitly how inferior for that society women were in the XIX Century.
Concluding with my reflection, I can argue that when Virginia Woolf states “a woman should have money”, she is claiming that the process of writing involves on the one hand, most part of the day , and on the second hand, time to think to create literature but without interruptions. In fact, it is a way of living and if a woman works to have incomes, then, her art will be affected or interrupted. In other words, Virginia Woolf also infers the education of women needed more money.
Oliver Twist is a film based on Charles Dickens’s story. It is the dramatic story of a poor and orphan English boy who by his conditions is sent to an educative institution.Unfortunately, the child, who is nine years olds, is not well treated there. Refusing to live under a place without love and care, he moves on to live on streets. The movie portrays the life of this little and unlike child who is confronted to live under the most miserable conditions that a human being can face. In fact, one of the main aspect of this film is how well depicts the reality that million children used to lead but in poor and insanity conditions in a society that promoted happiness and progress for everyone.
Moreover, two remarkable aspects of Roman Polanski film are how well harshness and isolation are illustrated. In that time, London city was crowed of people who were trying to look more opportunities to survive, but becoming many of them, including children, in objects to obtain money or others simply dying because of illness or starvation. To conclude, Oliver Twist is an excellent movie to appreciate the complexity and sad situations that modern time brought to humanity, but especially innocent people or victims such as Oliver Twist story.
The short story written by Charles Dickens is clearly an analogy of Modernity. To me, it is a demonstration of how the progress has become a significant part of men’s life, but making of him a piece of this industrialized and sadness world. What Dickens wanted to ilustrate us is the reality of those times in where he was living in. 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. In fact, I would say that they were just victims of this “modernity” or progress, which the only things it brought to men and women was disillusion , sadness, depression , darkness and hopeless to their lives.
On the other hand, in terms of education, this short story could be a really good tool to use it in the classroom. We can teach, show and demonstrate our students the real impact that progress has brought to our lives. Indeed, there are many elements which are still present and teachers can work on them allowing learners to think critically, making a good use of literature into our profession.
After reading Frankenstein I could not stop thinking on my childhood.The image of “that monster” that I used to see in some movies comes to seem for me very different and not as terrible as I used to think.
While I was reading, I started to realize that Frankenstein was not so bad, even if he murdered Victor’s girlfriend. To be clearer, I would say this main character suffered a lot. In fact, he can be seen as the representation of manipulation and the desire of power from a human being, who was Victor in this case. Metaphorically speaking, Frankenstein is like the extension of his creator who wanted to create a being that could be able to do what he could not do, such as loving. From my point of view, Frankenstein was just a victim of the sense of greatness of man, suffering discrimination, unhappiness, loneliness, emptiness, rejection and hate by many members of society.
Concluding with my reflection, I would like to argue that we can use Frankenstein’s story to include it in education. As teachers, we can work with students analyzing elements such as discrimination and relate it with some specific situations that exist within the classroom. We can not forget that probably there are many Frankenstein “inside our own classroom” or which is more terrible and dangerous, some teachers can be “capable to create” little monsters. For this, literature is an important, useful and a really good tool to use it in the process of learning and teaching values!
In Wordsworth’s poem is easily to find nature elements. One of them are those beautiful Daffodils. But what do they represent?Clearly, the golden and striking flowers mean joy, and seem to be part of heaven. The poet is delighted by Daffodils at the moment to watch them over the hills. In this sense, the poet and nature have a magical connection. What nature provokes him is a love, happiness and astonishment manifestation, before so wonderful spectacleof beauty. And this is reflected on the stanza “A poet could not be but gay, in such a jocund company!” However, it is weird to find a happy poet. In fact, people are used to look poets as melancholic and solitary persons, but this sentence clarifies and demonstrates that poets do feel happiness and rejoicing. In short, anything that belongs to nature and life itself, the poet uses these to build his poetic imaginary; and simple flowers such as Daffodils are part of it.
Death is always in the mind of human beings. We usually try not to think about the moment of our death, because it causes affliction and sometimes anguish. We can not, however, avoid this issue that is so natural and unavoidable. In the poem “When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be”, written by John Keats, death is always present. In his work he makes reference to the feeling of dying when you are young and have the whole life to enjoy it, but the adversity of our own destine is different and unlike. Keats shows us that his desire to live, to love and be famous was stronger than death. Likewise, the young poet lived under the frustration to be aware that he was losing his life every moment because of his health. Melancholy, sadness, hopeless and desire to live, all of these feelings, are part of his work, becoming this poem particularly one of the most romantic. Finally this powerful poem reminds us the feeling that being aware of our death, encourage us to live and enjoy our existence day to day.
“It is essential to poetry that it should be simple, and appeal to the elements and primary laws of nature; that it should be sensuous, and by its imagery elicit truth at a flash; that it should be impassioned, and be able to move our feelings and awaken affection”.
Poetry is clearly more than a complex art. It is in fact, the art of discovering the truth, connecting the external world with your inside. What a good poet does is to represent or externalize his or her feelings with a simple language which is full of images, colours, places and even music. And this is what the poet Samuel T. Coleridge does in his poem Kubla Khan. In his work, he includes certain poetic elements that let him known as the poet of the Supernatural. Nature, passion, fervour, music and fantasy are essential elements of his poetry.
Kubla Khan is a poem that invites the reader to another dimension, a place that is beyond of the common or ordinary world, and where the people cannot even imagine it could exist. After reading the poem, I got the feeling I was reading a love song with sounds that belong to another Universe. It is truthfully a world that it could really exists. We could realized of it, if we just open our eyes and then we will able to see that in this Earth there are places which are in front of us. However, we are so far of our human nature that we are not capable to perceive them. Nevertheless, thanks to Coleridge, he invites us to that foreign World through outhis supernatural and fantastic poetry.
The Little Black Boy is an English poem written by William Blake that makes reference to the Universal. In Blake’s work all the elements which are present evoke to the Nature. Elements such are: air, trees, sun, light, flowers, are related to the God’s world, where everyone and everything is the same at God´s eyes. In fact, it is important to mention that the mother taught her son about the love of the father God, because this one is the same as the love of any mother. In fact, it is an unconditional love. At the same time, the mother showed to her child that everyone belongs to the Earth as if we were just one.
Making reference to Blake’s poem, I have chosen The Wild Puppies by Claude Monet. In this master piece Nature is also present as in the poem. The child of the painting is guided by his mother, showing him about the marvelous and beauties that God has created for us. And, men and women are elemental part of this world.
The main purpose of the essay is to present the benefits to use literature in education, and how literature has helped me to grow up as a person and future teacher. First, I will start commenting my learning experience in the course. Second, I will describe literature. Then, I will talk about literature and its benefits in education. Then, I will describe some of those benefits and why they should take into consideration at the moment of learning.Finally, I will conclude my essay giving my personal opinion about the importance to bring literature into education and students’ lives.
Since my brother showed me how interesting, magical and useful books could be for; literature has been an important part of my life. For this reason, I remember clearly the beginning of our literature class. I felt curiosity to know how the course was going to be developed. I was highly enthusiastic to learn more about old English literature but poetry specifically. I really appreciate poetry and I consider it the most attractive genre of literature, because it involves not only feelings but a particular and deep way of seeing the world. One of the first topics we saw in classes was the oldest epic poem called Beowulf from 19th century. It was, however, rather difficult to read but interesting to see how literature has been crucial for human beings to illustrate the way they perceive and feel the world. And, this was the fist thing I learned from this course.
Later on, we studied other texts, letters, poems and tales where we could discuss important topics that are still contemporaries such as love, truth, discrimination, racism, religious, and the role of women in society, etc. We were able to discus, differentiate, tolerate other opinions, share knowledge, experiences and, of course, give our point of view.All of we learned was thanks to literature that covered attractive topics to the class. The idea of including literature in my career, as a future teacher, had a clear purpose. It was to make up my mind about how important the benefits to apply literature with our future students are.However, what do we understand by Literature? Probably, there are many definitions, but I am going to refer to a definition given by some English pedagogy’s students from 4th year, “Literature is the expression of culture using language to express it, such as writing, speaking and listening.”
From this definition, literature is certainly an interpretation and a way to understand the world where the writer’s intention is to reflect, show and invite the reader toward his inside. The invitation is showing his feelings, thoughts and even a perspective of the culture and world. According to an educational context, while a child reads, this one is involves into another world dimension with a different perspective of life. Therefore, this fact is mainly important, because there is an interaction between the reader (child) and the writer that I call it dialogue.Related to this, Tzvetan Todorov states, “Literature opens to the infinite this possibility of interaction and thus enriches us infinitely. It brings us irreplaceable sensations through the real world become more furnished with meaning and more beautiful”( 17). In this sense, the child could feel identified with the text or writer, linking certain facts from his own experience of life, creating a magical and meaningful interaction with the text.
What I have mentioned before gives us a clear idea to confirm strongly that literature is clearly a tool of Education which can be use for many purposes by its benefits and teachers should bear in mind those at the moment of teaching. We can mention literature helps to develop Language, as a first benefits. The language learners have heard and read from wide texts forms the language they will use to speak and write. In other words, Bernice E. Cullinan, an important American educator, in her book called “Invitation to Read : More Childrean `s Literature in the Reading Program”mentions, “language shapes thought just as thought shapes language”(13). In this sense, children enrich their vocabulary and knowledge of grammatical aspects through exposed them by reading books aloud and in silence.In addition, pupils acquire different vocabulary (formal and informal). As a way to illustrate, Cullinan explains, “this is so because the language of literature differs from the language of daily conversation: literature contains a richer vocabulary and more complex sentence s5rtucture” (13). Consequently, students are more capable to handle suitable vocabulary to manage and express their thoughts through a clear and accurate way.
Secondly, literature allows learner’s emotional development. What I said before, about writer’s intention is to reflect, show and invite the reader toward his inside; it is closely related to the fact of developing reader’s emotional side. Referring to this issue, the same author states, “The emotional impact of literature is a major reason it serves us so well in handing down the magic of reading. Because literature deals with the range oh human emotions, it portrays feelings we all experience” (15) Many times reading Sense and Sensibility and Chaucer’s poems, I had felt almost the same writer’s emotions as if they could feel the same as me. Moreover, many people have felt compassion, angrinesssadness etc when they read about characters. Bernice E. Cullinan comments. “Sometimes we clarify our own emotions when we read about another’s experiences in a book”. This is really helpful for children. Using stories, tales, and poems in the classroom can help them to realize that problems or difficult situations are part of the life and should know they are not alone. In this way, students are able to get courage to face and deal with reality.
On the other hand, the third advantage is that literature helps students to develop their critical thinking. In fact, the more we read, the more we learn how to think. Hence, the importance to foment reading with our future students it is crucial to perceive and appreciate diverse ways of seeing the world that enable us to reflect on what we read. In this sense, we develop the ability of being critical people. In Bernice E. Cullinan book, she denotes, “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 learner to love or at least appreciate literature as a manner to expand their minds and their lives in a meaningful way.
Throughout this essay I have tried to present a general overview about some of many benefits to use literature in education and I also have related this with my learning experience in the course. Furthermore, I have given a brief 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 improve child writing, reading, vocabulary, to explore children’s emotional side, to develop their creativity, to teach children values, etc. Undoubtedly, there are many other benefits to use reading in effective language program but I just developed three of them that from my point of view are the most important and indispensably to bear in mind.
Works Cited
Cullinan, Bernice E.Invitation to Read : More Children `s Literature in the Reading Program. Delaware: International Reading Association, 1992.
Todorov, Tzvetan New literary History. Volume 38, Number 1, winter 2007, p17.
