к.ф.н. Шингарева М.Ю., магистрант Калмурзаева Ж.А.

Региональный социально-инновационный университет

Introducing gothic novel into the classroom

One of my favorite television shows was called Reading Rainbow, which was a children's program promoting reading and literature. Part of the theme song to the show says, “I can go anywhere. Friends to know, and ways to grow . . .” expressing the excitement about getting into a good book. Literature is important because it opens up new and exciting worlds in the future, present, and past, with a plethora of characters, some of whom are loved, while others are hated, but all of whom are memorable and often stay with us long after finishing a book. They teach us things, things we did not know were missing from our lives, and enrich our collective knowledge as individuals and as a society. Apart from this, literature is also full of history and culture, and as a soon-to-be-teacher of English as a foreign language in Sweden, it is important to be able to incorporate the history and culture of the English-speaking world and help students come into contact with it. Reading literature introduces an individual into the greatest club on the planet, where membership is free, and the way literature can make us question the way we think, our morals and beliefs, molding us into critical thinkers is invaluable. Literature can be a tool or a medium for teaching critical thinking, and allow students the ability to do something creative with their acquired knowledge in a way that gives pleasure, if done correctly.

Why is literature important and how can it add depth and new dimensions to our lives? Why are Bram Stoker's Dracula and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight good choices for exploration in the classroom? What are Gothic fiction and vampire narratives, and what sort of themes can be found in them? How does being able to visualize a story make for better understanding, and how can the information discussed in this essay be designed and used in a creative and interesting way in the classroom? These are the questions that will be answered here.

So why are Stoker's Dracula and Meyer's Twilight both interesting, if not unique choices for exploration in the classroom? Students studying English at the “Gymnasium” level, which is equivalent to upper-secondary school are expected to work with during their second or third year “samtida och aldre skonlitteratur . . . ” which means contemporary and older literature, to which Twilight and Dracula provide good category matches in that sense. Moreover, by starting with the vampire narrative Twilight a teacher can activate their students' interest in vampires and the students can then be segued into working with and reading Dracula. In other words, spark an interest in a classic through contemporary literature. Furthermore, the theme of vampires has really exploded within pop culture in the last ten years, seen in the highly popular vampire literature turned into the tv series The Vampire Diaries and True Blood (known as The Southern Vampire Mysteries), not to mention the literally hundreds of other young adult and adult vampire series available. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight is by far and away the best-known among young adults, teenagers, and adolescents. This is also why using Meyer's Twilight as a starting point in the topic of vampire literature and making interesting comparisons with Dracula can be a good idea, particularly since Twilight is a contemporary vampire narrative containing a setting and characters which seem familiar to the young people of today.

In addition, as part of the Amnesplan, or subject plan for English 6, students are also expected to come into contact with “a variety of themes and content found in film and fiction; authorship and literary epochs”. The novel Dracula takes place towards the end of the Victorian Era in England, and it is considered an example of Victorian fiction, where one can see some of the ideals and behavior prevalent in the period such as the evolving role of women in society, as well as the sexual conventions of the period. In addition, the novel also provides a good base for examining what constitutes Gothic fiction, and what role fear plays as fear is a universal emotion that is experienced by all of us at some point. Furthermore, Dracula is, above all else, a primary example of the classic vampire narrative where one can examine the role and world of the vampire by looking at some of the most basic themes in literature: good vs. evil or love vs. lust. As Robert E. Probst explains, “students read literature to know themselves, . . . to create themselves, for reading will enable them to refine and sharpen their conceptions of the world and the people in it” [Probst R. 1988,p.6].

As there is an expectation that many students will have already read Twilight and/or seen the films, considering that the last part of the Twilight series was just released in cinemas in November 2012, it may be the closest tangible idea of what a vampire is for the generation currently enrolled in secondary and upper-secondary school, allowing students to access their prior knowledge about vampires. However, vampires and the vampire narrative have evolved, as shown in this essay, and this is also something that will also lead to interesting and very fruitful discussions during both the pre-task and during the students reading of Dracula where the goal is that they will be using their previous knowledge as well as their newly-acquired knowledge from Dracula. Therefore, Twilight will serve as a springboard to motivate students on the topic of vampires where the students will be shown the first film in the series to refresh their memory of the basic story and provide some important visuals, before moving them to the focus of the classroom lesson-plan and project, comparing and analyzing Dracula and Twilight.

However, for students to be able to succeed in attempting to analyze literature, they have to be able to connect with a story on a personal level, or at least that is what Jeffery D. Wilhelm argues in his book entitled, “You Gotta BE the Book ” Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents. His reason for writing this book stemmed from his personal struggle as a middle- school teacher with his adolescent pupils and their negative attitudes towards reading, which is something also seen in classrooms around the country today. This book should be a must for every English teacher to read because he reminds us that teaching literature is not just about “teaching a set of texts” or books from the literary canon, but that it is about developing, motivating, and engaging students to see the value in literature as a powerful source of knowledge, a way to reflect on what they think about the world and to have an enlightening and fulfilling experience reading [Wilhelm J.1997, p.145]. According to Wilhelm, teachers must act as a central motivator and encourage creativity in the classroom by focusing “on the construction of meaning [where] the classroom can become a place where students not only produce meaning, but a place where they share ways of reading and being with a text” [ibid 11]. Wilhelm's teaching theory is based on the transactional approach created by Louise Rosenblatt, who has influenced much of reader-response literary theory, and his theory focuses on the individual reader's interaction with a text. [ibid 19]. However, it is not enough just to ask students what they think or feel about a text, as part of learning to think critically is learning how to analyze and express why they think or feel the way they do. This will be shown in some of the types of questions that follow later.

How does one go about creating a stimulating and interesting literature project about the novel Dracula, starting from the novel Twilight? The pre-task for reading is crucial for setting the mood and getting the students to start thinking about what they will read as well as triggering their personal or “schematic knowledge”, as Tricia Hedge calls it, because “certain words or phrases in the text . . . will activate prior knowledge . . . in the mind of the reader” [Hedge T.2000, p.190]. This activity is a word-association game, where the teacher gives the students the word “vampire” and allows them to brainstorm a list of words both associated with vampires, but also describing them. It is here that students will start considering how they see the figure of the vampire. For those who feel artistically inclined they can also draw a picture. Hopefully this will be a rich collection of images and emotions describing what is considered to be the modern vampire and also the classic vampire. Some questions to be discussed in class with the teacher and students in small groups are: How do we see vampires? Are they to be feared and rejected or loved and accepted, or do we feel something else in between and why? Are vampires good or evil, or a dichotomy, a mixture of both? It is here that the discussion can take on a more philosophical approach as well, because vampires have symbolically represented the Other in society throughout history. This approach could lead to a fruitful discussion about the Cullen family in Twilight, and where they stand in regard to “Otherness”, which could then lead into how we in society treat those around us whom we consider to fall into the “other” category.

Literature

1. Probst, Robert E. Response and Analysis: Teaching Literature in Junior and Senior High School.Portsmouth, N.H.: Boynton/Cook , 1988.

2. Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. "You Gotta BE the Book": Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 1997.

3. Hedge, Tricia. Teaching and learning in the language classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.