TEACHING LITERATURE

Someone posted a query this evening on the MFL Resources forum about teaching literature at A level. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth:
I am really interested in this, as our ML dept seems to vary greatly in their approach. I tend to get the pupils to copy chapter notes into the book plus any of their own insight in advance, then spend the double period discussing the chapter in terms of why we have picked things out. I have a workbook of exercises they then do. I also give them a set of mindmap sheets, each with a topic the exam board has listed to cover, and they keep these updated with info as we meet in in the course of the novel, using colours for different types of info eg quotes.

None of this is wildly exciting, but I do do some activities such as Random Name Generator (RNG) where they need to talk or write for a minute about whatever topic/character the RNG throws up. You can also do activities such as cutting up a sheet with a lost of events and then placing said events into chronological order, or where you read a statement and they need to write the character it refers to on a mini whiteboard. With Como Agua Para Chocolate, I get the pupils to take a character each and do a MySpace page in Spanish, writing the blog as if they were the character. You can also do group work where one lies on the floor and others draw a body outline round them, then they write all the pertinent information on the shape for that character, quotes in one colour, adjectives in another, facts/events in another. Finally, tools such as Goanimate and Toondoo are useful for showing storylines and character development