Teaching Literature as a Means to Promoting Critical Thinking -A Teacher Perspective

Abstract: Developing critical thinking and mastering its skills has been a vital priority for the curriculum in Swedish upper-secondary school. The National Curriculum for upper-secondary school and the syllabus for the English subject emphasize the importance of implementing and enhancing the development of the students’ critical thinking which leads to having active learners who are able to think creatively and keeps them away from becoming narrow-minded. The purpose of this study is to explore the prospect of teaching critical thinking through reading literature. Guided by the critical thinking skills that are defined in The Delphi Report including (1) interpretation, (2) analysis, (3) evaluation, (4) inference, (5) explanation and (6) self-regulation, this study explores the possibility of promoting critical thinking skills through reading literature. The study also examines the efficacy of the reader-response approach in helping the students to be critical thinkers and active readers. Using qualitative data from conducting interviews, this study analyses teachers’ perspectives and considered the implications for teaching literature in terms of fostering the students’ critical thinking. The study showed that the teachers’ awareness of the significance of integrating literature in teaching English was found to play a great role in fostering the students as critical thinkers. The study also showed that teachers emphasized the importance of in-class discussions about literary works in order to expand the students’ thinking horizons and enhance their sense of self-confidence as contributors to the learning process. It also showed that the reader-response theory has a significant role in fostering the students’ critical thinking even though it is not clearly stated in the teachers’ perspectives on teaching literature.