Literature V4, term 2

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Literature V4

week 49

Today, let’s find out the following:

- What is literature according to you?

- Why is literature important?

- What is the literature assignment for this term?

This literature?

Or this?

What do you consider Literature?

Which do you consider literature:
Harry Potter or Wuthering Heights?

Literature

Literature

We value certain stories more than we do others. What is a valuable story and what not has long been decided by rich, powerful men who could just say “this is a good novel” and “this is a bad novel”. Now, we consider the works of Charles Dickens, such as Oliver Twist, a literary classic. But when it first came out, it was considered low-culture; purely enjoyable but with no real value.

Often, what we value in literature is the deeper meaning of the story. These meanings are also called themes. If you read Animal Farm, quite literally the story is about a set of animals on a farm who are sick of their living conditions. Even though talking animals are far removed from reality and real events, still, the novel is considered literature. This is because it has deeper meaning, one of them is criticism on the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union. You will have to work out the theme of the novel you will be reading

A lot of literary works can be distinguished in a genre. A genre is a characteristic of a novel, the type it belongs to; Animal Farm falls in the satire genre. While for example Harry Potter is a fantasy.

We learn about different times through literature.

Why is it important important to teach literature?

Stories

A story is an organization of events with specific meaning. Stories can contain the re-telling of events and experiences of real life. Stories are descriptions of something that is happening or has happened. Stories are made up of elements such as characters (who does it happen to), plot (what happens throughout), setting (where, when it happens), conflict (specific event that changes the course or sets the course of the story).

Some stories become really famous, can anyone name one? Romeo and Juliet.

Some specific stories become part of literature.

Why do we read?

Why do we read?

- Humans seek to connect to one another

-> connect through our shared experiences. We feel better when we read about someone like ourselves struggling and, most often, find their happy ending. It gives us hope for a better future.

- Or we read because we can read about something completely different from what we experience ourselves.

- We read because we want to make sense of (understand) the world we are in. 

And reading is very healthy!!!

Your Literature assignment

Divided in 2 parts:
Elevator pitch about a literary time period (in groups of 3) = 25%

Book task (individually) = 75%

We use the elevator pitches to get a better understanding of different literary time periods. Learn from each other about the most important aspects of a time period.

For the individual task you have to read a book and answer questions, to learn and interpret work.

An elevator pitch, what is that?

An elevator pitch is a quick, punchy set of statements that you can use to sell yourself/a book/information ... to a publisher, agent, or reader. The idea is that, if the person you’re trying to sell to got into an elevator with you, you’d be able to deliver your pitch before they reached their destination.

Aim of our pitches

1. Be immediately interesting

2. Provide all relevant information

3. Feel professional

Book examples of pitches that sell:

The Da Vinci CodeA professor of symbology unlocks codes buried in ancient works of art as he hunts for the Holy Grail.[only 19 words]

Gone GirlA wife (Amy) goes missing, and her husband is suspected of murder. But the sweet diary-writing Amy of the first half of the book is revealed to be a very different woman in the second half . . .[only 36 words]

Your pitch will be about a literary time period

1. The historical background of the literary time period (what was going on in life back then, politics, etc.) 

2. What are important genres/subjects/styles of your time period? 

3. How does the literary time period follow the previous time period (reaction to…) 

4. Promote 2 famous authors and their best-known works. Why were they so important in your time period (see appendix 2). 
No complex language!!

You are going to pitch in week 51 (v4c en v4d)

Make groups

Next week domain: practice and finishing touches

Questions? ask your teachers!

Start working :)

Choose from

Medieval (500-1500)  

Renaissance (1500-1670)  

Enlightenment (1700-1800)  

Romanticism (1796-1870)  

Victorian Period (1837-1901)  

Realism (1820-1920)  

Modernism (1910-1965)  

Post-Modernism (1965-today)