E-06: Teaching Literature: Strategies for Short Stories

This is an introductory level course that seeks to familiarise teachers with the key features of the short story as a literary genre, which can help them understand, interpret and critically engage with a creative work.

Teaching literary works presents multiple challenges, not simply due to the stylised language used but also due to the leap of imagination and abstract thought that these texts entail. Ensuring effective classroom engagement requires a conflation of content and pedagogy that can stimulate critical thinking and interpretative abilities in the reader.

In this course, we will focus on the narrative and representational features that underlie short stories. Using these as rubrics for interpretation, we will explore ways in which the genre lends itself to multiple interpretations. Participants will also be equipped with basic analytic tools to interpret, appreciate and teach a short literary work in class.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course, you will be able to

• Provide an overview of the characteristics and narrative principles of short stories.
• Interpret and critique short stories using the analytic tools, including ICT-based ones, introduced in the course.
• Teach short stories to students using the analytic tools introduced in the course.

Unit Names

• Unit 1: Introduction to Short Stories
• Unit 2: How to Teach a Short Story
• Unit 3: Reflections on Teaching Short Stories in Class

Course Staff

Nishevita Jayendran

Assistant Professor, Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education (formerly, CEIAR), TISS

I am an Assistant Professor (English Language and Literature) at the CETE, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, where I teach courses on language education, critical and cultural literacy and discourse analysis of non/fiction to postgraduate students. A doctoral graduate in English from IIT Bombay, I have been a Visiting Faculty at Stella Maris College, Chennai, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and the Centre of Policy Studies, IIT Bombay. At CETE, I have been part of the English team in a scalable EdTech project, the Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx), that designed, developed and researched the impact and outcomes of ICT-based interactive modules in Communicative English and autonomous learning for high school students in India. I am also a consultant for design thinking in education, have conducted workshops and mentored organisations in developing ICT-based educational modules on themes like language learning, gender equity and violence. I have published in the areas of literary criticism and discourse analysis methodologies. My teaching and research interests include language and cultural literacy, representation and critical theory, the postmodernist historical novel, comparative world literature and cultural studies.

EMail: nishevita.jayendran@tiss.edu