Use of Literature in the classroom

While teaching literature to the students, I just realised something i.e. why is there a need to teach literature to the students? As I was a student of Literature, many people used to comment that there is no use of studying literature and it is just for passing time (reading novels and story books during their past time). Whenever I talk about some novel or a story with my students, many take interest in the discussion while some get bored. Even they are not at all interested in studying literature. Then I interacted with the students asking to share their views regarding teaching or the use of literature in a class. Many were of the view that they(stories, novels) are just for the sake of entertainment and poems were of no use for them in higher studies while some others gave very interesting opinions and shared their ideas about why do they loved literature and which novels or story books had they read. Following are some of the views of the students as well as my explanations to their answers.

Reasons for using Literature in the classroom

1) Literature educates a person as a whole. A teacher encourages learners to develop attitude towards them when they teach them to examine the values in any literary text.

2) Literature expands awareness of language when the learners are asked to give examples of language occurring in any literary text.

3) Literature motivates a person or an individual. When a student understands a piece of highly respected literature, he/she has a sense of accomplishment as literature holds a valuable place in many countries.

4) There are texts which help to share feelings and opinions which is effective for students. Thus we can say that literature encourages interaction among students or individuals.