Hye..
Teaching literature with creative approach is a reality. For me, teaching literature without creative approach is soulless . I am 200% agree with Mirahi’s and others’ opinions and I am totally against those who say teaching literature with creative approach is a myth.

Using the creative approaches teachers can do more with their students.For instance, teachers can help students to enjoy and appreciate the beautiful language of literature. While,the conventional approaches or old dull typical approaches can only make the students snoring in the classroom. Even the teacher himself, will feel bored. Am I right?
I have the experienced of using the conventional ways to teach literature during my practicum days. for instance, when i taught 'the Phantom of the Opera' to my students who were intermediate students. Usually, I asked them to read aloud or silently, then i would explain to them explicitly and allowed them to ask me questions if they did not understand anything(as usual Malaysian students wont ask any question) .Then,at the end of the session, i instructed them to answer the questions in the book. I noticed most of them can answer the questions very well because they copied the answers from the answer sheet and i was quite depressed with my teaching at that moment. i also realised that my literature class became very bored for my students and me as well.
then , the following week, i changed my method, i started to use creative approaches like writing dialogue, speech bubles and role play. From that day onwards, my literature class changed to be a fun class and we had a great time during the literature period.

So why dont literature teachers maximize creative approaches available to us? in my oipnion, creative approaches are more effective than the conventional approaches. There are mountains of creative approaches that can be used to teach literature like songs,role play, writing letters, games and debate. These creative approaches can help students to understand the texts well and enhance their interest toward literature. It can also inculcate their love towards language and reading literary texts.

I don’t agree with Mythbuster, there are a lot of creative teaching approaches nowadays so the instructor or teacher can go and find these approaches to attract their student. Now is 21 century, most of the thing have changed, especially the learning attitude of students or learners. We cannot keep on looking back to the past, we as a new era teacher has to look forward to the future. When people heard of literature, immediately they will relate it to something old fashioned, difficult to understand and boring. This phenomenon was caused by the teaching approach which being used to teach literature. Most of the literature teacher themselves don’t really understand what literature is all about, most of them just follow the lesson plan and the traditional way to teach their student. Literature can be something very romantic, fun and interesting. For example, the teacher can make it a short story as a drama or play, and ask the students to play the role in the story. It will make the students to understand more about the story because they have included themselves in the story and the most important thing is, it is fun! Or maybe the teacher can create an interaction with the students, for example the teacher can ask the students to express their view and feeling about the story or create a song for the particular poem. This will improved their interest to literature so that they will like to know more about the poem or short story and eventually improved their understanding to the poem or short story.

Yes, I do agree with RED. Teachers are the ones who determine wheter the lesson becomes boring or fun.Let me share my first hand experience, as a student, being in two different literature classes.

I was in form 4 when literature component was first introduced. As you all knew the component was intergrated into both BM and English and because of that, I had two different styles of T&L processes.

I was very lucky ( and I think I'm still lucky) because i had the chance to learn in good boarding school fully equipped with a team of energetic and fun English teachers.For English, we had all sorts of contests for literature component. My most favourite contests were of course drama ( selected chapters in The Pearl), creative writing ( writing new endings for the short stories) and choral speaking (poems). It was so interesting because our drama presentations were recorded and we could watch them back and gave personal comments on every scene and character. I can still remember listing comments on if "I were Juana..". Though most of us were science students, who could easily get sick and tired of long literary texts, we did enjoy learning English literature component.

In contrast, my Bahasa teacher was a "talk and chalk" person who always asked us to copy down things such "tema & persoalan", " watak dan perwatakan". She was actually a nice teacher as she would try to explain things as clear as possible, but the approach just didn't work. Yes, of course most of us got 1A for Bahasa in SPM, but it is for the sake of good grades. We didn't really try to understand the underlying meaning or message of the texts. We only read notes, did exercises and answered forecast questions.That's all, then after we got an A, we don't think about those "burung bayan", ( one of the characters in a classical short story, I guess) anymore.

Those fun lessons as well as the teachers really inspire me to learn more and more about literature. And now, here I am.. looking forward to be a fun English + literature teacher, just like them.

Teaching literature can be one of the most fun teaching lesson i can ever have.......Why did i say it?Well it simply because, I can do a lot of things in my teaching.....

I have just finish my practikum in schools and I am looking forward to become a full time teacher in another 8 months. During my practikum, I have done many thing in my literature class. I do singing activity, a play and even I am alsao having my lesson outside the classroom...

Back to the question, I simply do ot think that teaching literature in creative approach is not a myth but simply a reality.....

I aslo do not denied taht the beauty of literature is in its language... But it is also not a wrong thing if the literature lesson can be done in more creative and fun at the same time. Don't you think?

For malaysian context of learning literature, I think the best ways to attract the students interesr and also help them to understands is through the creativity in teaching approach....

Show the students how fun is the literature can be and I am sure the next day you come for the lesson they will give you full attention because they now are falling in love with LITERATURE.....

Hai...

I think creative approaches to teaching literature is a myth for those days but not for today, tomorrow and forever because the world has changed, and as teachers, we must change the way we teach literature. I think there are many creative approaches of teaching literature as long as we want to be creative and innovative. Teachers must use their mind to think and create creative approaches to teach the subject so that it won't be a boring subject to learn.For examples, we can create interesting approaches by using music or song, movie,technology or make some quiz to teach literature but we must know how to apply these approaches to literary text learnt.

To teach literature the educators need to create an interesting and a lively learning environment. So, in teaching literature one should use the concept of 'reality' in order to make the lesson flows smoothly. As literature has parts like poems which are most of it difficult to be understood without the teacher's explanation,students need to be taught using creative element so that in the exam they will be able to answer based on their own understanding as there will be no teachers explaining the questions inner meaning. Using creative element in teaching will make the students to explore the lesson individually and they will also enjoy the lesson as literature is a subject that plays with language and words.Creative approach here means despite the conventional way, the teacher could create an environment where students are involve together in the discussion. For an example, in teaching characters, teacher could ask the students to be in groups and create a shape or design just using the main and minor characters name.Eventually the names will be arranged into a design and the group's leader has to come in front to explain why they choose that particular shape/ design. Through this activity, the class will be lively and the students will able to follow the lesson in a fun way and at the same time they try their best to produce the best answer through the process of thinking creatively.Thus, students able to rememver the content of the lesson for a longer period of time.In a sum teaching literature using creative approach should be implemented as they are really reality

Creative approaches to teaching literature are a reality. I would like to share my experience in teaching literature when I did my practicum at school. I taught them a short story, Of Bunga Telur and Bally Shoes and a poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. For the poem, I asked the students to recite the poem and find the meaning of words that they did not know. Then, I explained what the poem is all about. It was so bored and I found some of the students started to yawn! So, when I wanted to teach them short story, I tried to use another approach. (I learnt from mistakes). I asked them to act in front of class based on short story, Of Bunga Telur and Bally Shoes. Some of them were very shy but once they started to act, they wanted to do it again. I can see that they understand the story because they also involved in the story by doing role-play. So, creative approaches to teaching literature are a reality not a myth!

Hello,,,
I do agree with you whiterose, that literature is no more a myth as nowdays the world is changing and moreover our country is moving towards vision 2020,the way of teaching literature should include creative approaches.

Teachers themselves firstly, need to have a positive mind towards literature as they are the person who incharge in creating an interesting learning lesson.Due to this, teachers should be creative and innovative by using various elements/teaching aids in delivering their lesson.

As nowdays, the government has given tecahing aids as LCD, OHP and charts/flashcards in teaching literature components, the teachers should make full use of them in their teaching and not just in the form of chalk and talk. And the most important thing is that, the school 'panitia' also should allow every teachers to use those teaching aids without lefting out the students in the low proficiency level.

When lesson is conducted in an interesting way, automatically the students will learn to love literature and this technique will suits more to the students in the low prificiency level.

Once again it is the teacher who should play an important part in making literature a successful lesson among school students and one way of it is being a lit bit creative as literature is actually reality.

Teaching literature with creative approaches is reality. The different of the teaching approaches is the way teacher conduct and creates the activity itself. I agree that the beauty of literature is in its language. Thus, teacher needs to be creative in creating a lively environment while deliberating the knowledge. Goes back to teacher’s role, as we know teacher is an actor/actress, a singer, a joker and a story teller in class. There are so many creative approaches activities that teacher can use, such as drama, music, popular song, games, choral-speaking, drawing. Literature is not actually just about the language, it contains, self-values, appreciation of life, culture and social life. It about how we play with the language. So, why we should think that creative approaches are myth??

In spite of that, teacher must relate literature text with students’ experiences to make the learning more meaningful for students. Hence, teacher also must know what actually interest students while choosing materials in promoting good literature reading experiences to students. Give them as many different types of literature as possible to avoid students feel bored with the same types of literary text. Teacher can change traditional teaching style from teacher centered learning to students centered learning because traditional teaching style will kills teacher and students creativity. Lets students play with literature. Internet is very helpfulness in helping teacher to find resources and ideas in creating creative approaches in teaching literature.

Clearly, creative approaches to teaching literature are reality not a myth. Example; teacher can use “choral poetry” in teaching poem of “The Dead Crow”. Here, students can play with the language, gesture, emotion and the values. Give students freedom to create their own ways. It will be more enjoyable and fun. It can be used as a good starting point to broad children’s experience with poetry and also can be used for short story.

I would like to share with all you, as someone says literature are more experience than taught. Is it???

I do totally agree with pinkheart that students need to be taught by using creative element so that they can have better understanding on the literary texts especially poems.

Students who are taught by using creative approaches will surely be able to remember the content of the lesson for a longer period of time since they do really manage to enjoy the process in learning and understanding the texts. As I said before, students’ interests need to be capture before they can fully appreciate the beauty of the literature.

Moreover, I do also agree with pinkheart in his/her view about teachers need to have positive mind towards literature because they are the one who play an important role in making literature as an interesting subject among students. Teachers should not only try to use wisely the facilities that have been provided for them but they should also able to be creative in carrying out their lessons.

Many teachers do not even try to think out of the box to search for new ideas in conducting their lessons. They do simply use the traditional method in teaching literature which is focusing mainly on the language learning (like pronunciation and vocabulary) rather than literature itself. Teachers should try to use other more creative methods like the one that can connect students’ feeling with the literary texts. For example, in studying a poem, teacher can ask students to try to reflect whether their will have the same feeling as the poet if they are given the same situation. By doing this, students will see the texts as something that connects with the real situation and this can help them to understand the texts better.