Topic 3

Discuss whether the checklist provided is suitable for use in the Malaysian classroom.
Please make suggestions and justifications.
I think the checklist provided by Lazar is suitable to be used in any literature classroom
around the world not just in the Malaysian classroom. We may find difficulty when applying
all these categories for the whole class as the individual students may vary in their maturity,
interests, cultural and literary background, and linguistic proficiency. As Lazar suggests,
when selecting the materials, you will need to try to find texts that are suitable for the
majority of the students in the class.
Malaysian students may find some of the text studied appeared to be remote in term
of the time and place, but as what I believe, that is not the problem as it is the chance for the
Malaysian students to know or live in, learn, understand about other culture. The other
problem is the difficulty of the language. Lazar suggested that we need to select texts which
are linguistically relatively simple but challenge them in the other ways. Language difficulty
issue might be experienced by the minority students but as their teacher, we should be there
to aid them and motivated them by the other factors of the text such as the moral value or
the relevant o learning the text.
Topic 2
Identify the unique characteristics of literature texts/materials for young adults.
The students cultural background.
The texts that studied may come with cultural, time and place background that are much
varied from the learner cultural background, so as their teacher, we should provide them with
a basic understanding of the literature texts. We should make them curious about another
culture and enjoy the class.

The students linguistic proficiency
Language difficulties issue often demotivated our young adult learners to study the texts
given. As their teacher, we should ask ourself some whether or not to use the texts. The
questions would regard students familiarity with the norms of language used, the language
in the texts students will able to infer, relations of students motivation and language
difficulties, other factors motivate the students, and the relevance of the texts specialized in
its language.

The students literary background.
The young adult learner might have studied literature in their language but that doesnt mean
that they have the literary competence to study literature in other languages. They might
understand the texts given but not the one between the lines, behind the texts. Our students
might need guidance in making sense of the deeper literary meaning.When choosing our
texts, Lazar (1993), suggested that we should look not only at the grading of the language in
the texts, but as its specific literary qualities and whether our students can navigate their own
way through these.
Topic 1
What does it mean to you, personally, to be teaching literature to young adults? Discuss.
Personally, I love literature and I would like to share my reading with students. Teaching
literature to young adult is like bringing them into another part of this world, let them live and
understand that part of the world through the text. The young adult learners might find the
cultural, literary, time, and place setting varies from their, but it is our job their teacher to
provide them at least a basic understanding of the texts (Lazar, 1993).
Every literature texts have their own message to the reader, so using the texts that are
relevant to our young adult learners would much help them to face life issues and also
gaining positive values from the texts or the characters in.