The use of blogs in the practical literary criticism classroom

Abstract

This paper explores the use of blogs in the literary criticism classroom as a means of enhancing student interaction with unseen literary passages. Unfortunately, the majority of students find literary criticism challenging since it does not simply require the identification of the thematic concerns of the unseen passage, but also the ability to comment on various literary aspects such as, imagery, diction and figurative language. Therefore, one major barrier that students would need to overcome is that of effectively visualising what the poem or prose passage is depicting. This visualisation would lead to the proper identification of literary aspects and the effect the author or poet intends to create. In other words, students must first establish a sense of confidence with the passage - one that is normally lacking during their first months of experience with literary criticism of unseen poetry / prose passages. This research, based on a pilot project, seeks to address this lack of confidence by using a specifically-created blog where the students are free to express their thoughts and comments on a particular poem or prose passage in an online collaborative atmosphere which goes beyond the classroom setting. This fosters confidence, whilst concomitantly promoting other supplementary skills.