Literature and Language Teaching is for teachers and trainers who want to incorporate literature into the language classroom. It is suitable for teacher trainers, teacher development groups or teachers working on their own. This book contains tasks and activities which encourage reflection on some of the issues and debates involved in using literature in the language classroom and explore different approaches to using literature with teenage and adult learners at all levels. It suggests criteria for selecting and evaluating materials for classroom use and identifies some of the distinctive features of novels, short stories, poems and plays so that these can be successfully exploited in the classroom. A wide range of practical ideas and activities for developing materials is provided. Tasks also encourage the observation and assessment of lessons using literacy texts, and draw on English language material by a variety of authors from all over the world.

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The TESOL Quarterlypublishes brief commentaries on aspects of English language teaching. For this issue, we asked two educators to discuss the following question: What role can literature play in the ESL classroom? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? from “The Tyger,” by William Blake (Heaney & Hughes, 1982)

This teaching note describes the design and implementation of an activity in a 90-minute teaching session that was developed to introduce a diverse cohort of first-year criminology and sociology students to the use of documents as sources of data. This approach was contextualized in real-world research through scaffolded, student-centered tasks focused on archival material and contemporary estate agents’ brochures so as to investigate changes in the suburbs that surround a university in north London. To contribute to the growing discussion on pedagogic dialogical spaces in teaching research methods, we provide empirical evidence of students’ greater engagement via group work and the opportunity to draw on experiential knowledge in analyzing sources. Beyond stimulating students’ engagement with research skills and methods, the data also show the value of our approach in helping students develop their analytical skills, particularly through a process of comparison and contrast.