How Do You Teach Literature To College Non-English Majors?
Many non-English majors shy away from college English courses until the very last minute, or until they have no other choice: They either take the required course or they don’t graduate. Students with this sort of phobia haven’t learned, or been shown, how pleasurable studying literature can be. Here are some ways to help them see the light. Have students write in a journal. Tell them that this will be a class requirement, but that grammar and spelling mistakes will not be held against them. They will write on a daily basis, and they will write whatever they want, but the key is to have them write about what they have read or seen (if they have recently viewed a movie, for example). Have students write a short story of their own based on a story they studied in class. Assure them that they will not be plagiarizing, because they are not to use the characters or theme of the story per se; they are to take what they were left with or the feeling they had when they finished the story. It i
