ENGAGING STUDENTS IN ANALYZING LITERARY WORKS THROUGH MAXIMIZING PROJECT WORK AND QUESTIONING

Abstract

Abstract

Heading to the global community students should have ability to engage and interact in English, to understand as well as  be able to appreciate the different cultures, even develop their perspective towards the life. Luckily, literary works can fulfil all these requirements since the students should analyze the text they read. They can’t simply do reading comprehension. They have to make inferences, questions, interpretation and evaluation in order to reveal the meaning not explicitly stated by the authors. They have to make sense of the text.  In other words they have to read not what the text says but what the text wants to say. This paper argues for the use of project work and questioning strategies to engage students in analyzing literary works. These strategies are not new, they have been familiar to our ears. However the applying of the two strategies at the same time could expose the students creativity in using language, reading, thinking, analyzing, even arguing. Moreover they are getting use to work collaboratively, decrease their anxiety, express their ideas and appreciate other opinions. Questioning is a kind of facilitation the lecturers apply during the class dicussion that enable them to use metacognitive activities, confirm or disaffirm their analisis or even change their  minds. All of these are going to be discussed in this paper.

Key Words: Literary work. Project Work and Questioning