Literature deserves a place in schools

By A. Chaedar Alwasilah

BANDUNG (JP): Poet and playwright Taufiq Ismail is often quoted calling for a revival of the proper teaching of literature and writing in schools. In his estimation, Indonesian high school students' literary skills lag far behind their peers in 13 foreign countries, where students are required to read and discuss from five to 32 literary works per year -- a situation long absent from our school system (Kompas, June 1, 1999).

His is not a new concern. Underlying it is the conviction that literature is an effective vehicle for promoting intelligence, virtue, morality and wisdom. History tells us that developed and industrialized countries, such as Britain, the United States, France and Germany, have long established literature as an inseparable part of character and nation-building. When the present education system has failed to enlighten our youth with moral and religious values, literature should be viewed as an alternative.

In the last two national congresses on languages in 1993 and 1998, strong recommendations were made on repositioning literature in schools. However, as everybody agrees, next to nothing has been done. This suggests that teaching literature is not simple, but it necessitates thoughtful and reasoned consideration. Any proposed solution should address four major related aspects -- literature, writing, culture and curricular policy.

Literature, as referred to above, is a particular mode of experience represented by text following an established literary standard. It evokes a particular kind of relation between reader and text. Therefore, it requires a particular kind of reading process. Marah Rusli's Siti Nurbaya, for example, represents the author's experiences: cognitive, affective and psychomotoric. Those experiences in the form of a narrative history are found not only in this novel, but also in other forms of writing such as scientific and historical accounts, and social life in general.

A prevalent and yet faulty attitude among students and people in general is: Why should you bother to read novels, short stories, poems and plays when you can find, learn and engage in those experiences in general writings? One of the frustrating jobs faced by teachers is to convert this nonliterary attitude to the literary one, and to provide students with literary reading skills.

Another erroneous attitude is to take literature for granted and leave its teaching to any teacher. In many schools, it falls to the bungling hands of unprofessional teachers. Indeed, our school system is characterized by such professional mismatches.

From the outset, it is essential to approach literature as the best pieces of writing containing the people's values, thoughts, problems and conflicts -- in short, the whole way of life. Roughly speaking, literature is something worth saying and something well said. Literature is a monumental element of a people's culture. Thus, learning literature is part of understanding one's own culture. It stands to reason that wherever there is education, there is the study of literature.

Literature is to be read in a well-prepared manner of reading socially as well as psychologically. Socially and culturally, readers should develop an attitude that reading literature enhances understanding of problems faced by humankind. Psychologically, they must be prepared to adopt an aesthetic stance toward the literary piece. It is not just reading, but an aesthetic reading.

Aesthetic reading presupposes nonaesthetic reading and consists of reading with attention to what readers are experiencing, thinking and feeling. These psychological aesthetic efforts are motivated by textual features such as sound, rhythm, metaphors, similes, associations and choice of diction. Simply put, teaching how to appreciate literature is to enable readers to experience, think and feel the rich nuances generated by text.

The opposite of aesthetic reading is efferent (from the Latin for "carry away") reading, namely, nonliterary reading where aesthetic aspects of a text is carried away. Unskilled readers use the strategies commonly used for reading nonliterary texts such as textbooks, magazines and newspapers. In such poor readers, aesthetic awareness is hardly developed and, accordingly, they do not value literary works. In other words, to teach literature correctly is to emphasize the aesthetic and to deemphasize the efferent.

Given all the arguments above, should teaching literature be a difficult endeavor?

Here are suggestions for improving the teaching of literature in schools:

* Literature should be taught by professional teachers equipped with competency in literary attitude, literary reading skills and literary teaching skills. Literary attitude is evident among others in the number of literary works read, written and discussed in literature circles in the school and beyond. Literary reading skills comprise reading for aesthetic purposes and enjoyment. Recalling structural aspects of fiction such as characters, settings, themes and plots -- which is a common exercise in schools -- is by no means a literary activity; thus carrying away the aesthetic dimension of literature. Literary teaching skills are skills of creating literary engagements for aesthetic appreciation, which is emotionally pervasive through reader's experiencing, thinking and feeling.

* Literature should be thought of as literary evocation. The poet, novelist and playwright, like other writers, wish to interact with readers. In consonance with the literary attitude are transactional views of reading, suggesting a personally, emotionally and intellectually active role for the reader. Louise Rosenblatt (1985) has called the literary evocation "the process in which the reader selects out ideas, sensation, feelings and images drawn from his past linguistic, literary and life experience, and synthesizes them into a new experience".

The implication is that teachers should empower students as readers to snapshot any part of the literary work for aesthetic enjoyment. As a personal act, literary evocation offers readers freedom to interpret literary works to the best of their aesthetic justification. True-false or objective types of tests -- commonly practiced in the national test of Indonesian -- is indeed an antithesis to the principle of literary teaching.

* Literacy circles are media not only for learning literature, but learning in general. Freedom in literary appreciation affirms individualized ways of responding to literature. Often, students zero in specifically on the feelings which were called forth during reading. In literacy circles, these feelings are related to their personal experiences and those of others. Such collaborative engagements promote enriched, focused and refined interpretations of literary works. Thus presented, literature enhances students verbal skills and, to a great extent, freedom of speech and democracy.

* The teaching of literature has been associated with the development of learner's writing skills. Many believe that writing is the least and difficult skill to acquire by language learners. As a matter of fact, this skill can be subconsciously acquired through aesthetic teaching of literature. In literacy circles, readers are encouraged to do "journaling", namely to record their reading experiences in a journal. Through writing, their interpretation is self-reported and thus made authentic. The readers now have unbelievingly become authors themselves.

* In literacy circles, students are to reciprocally read and comment on the journals. Over a period of many days, their reading, writing and responding experiences are continued, refined and, in many cases, they rewrite the journals. These literacy engagements have surfaced as an alternative model of teaching literature, where the paradigm is shifted from traditional text-centeredness to reader-centeredness.

With all the above aspects considered, the curricular issue of teaching literature as a separate subject and allocating more time for language classes sounds far-fetched. Literature is inseparable from language, and should be thought of holistically.

In the final analysis, the principal actor is the teacher. Our schools now badly need professional teachers who develop aesthetic attitude, literary reading proficiency, and literary teaching skills.

The writer is a lecturer in the graduate school of the Teachers Training College (IKIP) in Bandung.