Literature teaching for affective and psychomotor skill development in the learner - An alternative

Abstract

Traditionally, the teaching of a literary text (e.g. a novel) in a classroom involves interpretation, analysis, evaluation and critical commentary on the text concerned to inculcate moral, cultural and universal values in the learner. In our present times, such value-based literature pedagogy is often inadequate and irrelevant to the needs of the 21st-century learner. Conversely, knowledgeable and well informed though they are, such learners often are inept in handling emotions and right attitudes to confront life's vicissitudes. In this paper, we attempt to evolve an alternative pedagogy of literature teaching. In that, we analyse the trajectory of a plot and 'change of fortune' in a novel from the perspective of emotional disbalance, attitudinal idiosyncrasy and the behavioural anomaly of the protagonist. Applying Bloom's Taxonomy, this study proposes a shift from a cognitive domain-based pedagogy to one which attempts to develop affective and psychomotor skills in the learners to achieve holistic development of their personality. As an instance, we present Dr Aziz's character from A Passage to India (1924) to explain this alternative pedagogy