Teaching "The hunger games"; Read - Write - Speak - Listen

Abstract

This essay explores how the best-seller The Hunger Games can be applied in the classroom. In the curriculum for the English courses in Upper Secondary School the students should develop an all-round communicative competence including receptive, productive and interactive language skills. The aim of the essay is to find methods that provide a variety of activities which give the students opportunities to develop all language comptences: reading, writing, speaking and listening along with grammar and vocabulary, within the same book project. This essay presents pedagogical methods regarding the structure of a book project, with activities challenging all language skills, and is designed from a socio-cultural perspective with the focus on the students’ needs and interest. Today, there is a resistance among many teenagers to read books and many teachers find it timeconsuming to work with literature. For these two reasons, I have designed a book project which contains activities that correspond to much of the content of the curriculum, and I believe the book I have chosen may appeal to a great number of students. Suzanne Collins, the author of the book, has received a number of prizes for writing a different as well as a very exhilarating book that one cannot stop reading. I have also chosen this book because it contains several different and interesting topics, such as societal issues, politics, future scenarios, ethical dilemmas, love, relationships, gender issues, survival strategies, TV and media, and violence. These topics can be related to the students’ own experiences, the society of today, and the future. I would like to see more books in the classrooms, and students that enjoy reading. I think the genre of popular literature can be very useful when introducing literature, which is what the following chapters will try to demonstrate.