Abstract:

In a broader context, the aim of the paper is to question the nature and the position of literary education in the period shaped by electronic technology and media. Specifically, the paper informs about diverse ways contemporary teachers of literature may and should use while introducing literature to their digital-native students. The paper publishes the results of observations and action research conducted in academic year 2022/23 the aim of which was to identify, explore and analyse innovative approaches to teaching literary interpretation within Anglophone literature courses for students of English as a foreign language at a selected Slovak university. The applied approaches combined reading classical literature with the reception of creative works of pop culture (films, documentaries, TV series, video games) as well as incorporating a diverse scale of information sources (traditional textbooks along with online dictionaries of literary terms, virtual encyclopedia of authors, recorded video lectures and instructional videos, as well as products of generative AI) the students could use while working on their own interpretations, and both oral and digitally-supported peer assessment of their final interpretations. The results confirmed the effectiveness of the approach in terms of students´ higher motivation and better learning results. However, the author argues that using any educational technology in teaching literature should eventually lead to developing autonomous critical thinking, re-discovering human values, and re-establishing human connections and human interactions.

Keywords:

Digital, interpretation, literature, technology, humanities, AI.