Paving the Way to Literary Analysis Through TV Commercials

Abstract: This article presents an approach to introducing literature to high school and college students in their second or third year of French. The aim is to reconcile the goals of literature courses with the backgrounds and motivations of students, by taking advantage of the popularity of TV commercials. After showing the close connection between advertising and literature, the authors present a detailed lesson structure, both student- and text-centered, that helps students analyze commercials and their effects on TV viewers. This procedure, based on the work of Compte (1993), is then applied to the analysis of a literary selection. Key words: bridge between language and literature, high school and college language learning, task-based instruction, teaching of literature, TV commercials Languages: Relevant to all languages Introduction With the exception of major curriculum revamping (Byrnes & Kord, 2002), in most foreign language departments there is a lack of continuity between lower level courses, which are mostly structure based, and upper level courses, which focus mainly on literature. Kramsch and Kramsch (2000) noted that "literature has consistently provided the cultural backbone and, very often, the intellectual legitimation for the teaching of foreign languages. . . . Yet coexistence of the two activities in the same department has not in itself established a link between them" (p. 568). As a consequence of this frequent curricular dissonance, language courses too often do not prepare students for literature courses. When asked to interpret texts in literature courses, students are either intimidated or, on the contrary, too careless, imagining that one opinion on a text is as good as another. They often have no sense of what is meant by analysis or interpretation. For example, in an informal survey conducted by one of the authors, a student in an upper level French course defined her text analysis strategy in this way: "I read the text once for content. I pause and I think. I read it again to find the hidden meaning. Then I read it a third time to find whatever I missed the first two times." Although students like this one have rarely been taught how to read and analyze a text, teachers usually expect them to be ready to do so when they enter upper level classes. In their recent articles on high school and college students' motivations for studying French, both Hoyt-Oukada (2003) and Ossipov (2000) emphasized that students' main goals are gaining oral fluency and acquiring marketable skills that could be an asset in their future careers. Most students choose their courses based on whether they have "a payback in their individually determined sphere of investment" (Hoyt-Oukada, p. 722). Literature courses often do not meet this expectation. There is no reason why teachers should not provide students with the opportunities to acquire marketable skills and oral fluency. However, McCarthy (1998) warned about the danger of teaching competence without literacy, insisting that we go beyond teaching "only practical, marketable skills," to help students "penetrate the superficial language system in order to get at the meaning expressed in, through, and around that system" (p. 13). Language learning should be centered on the discovery and understanding of multiple cultural artifacts (including literary texts) that in turn make the acquisition of new forms necessary (Etienne & Vanbaelen, 1999). Furthermore, literature should be a necessary ingredient of language classes because reading, and especially foreign language reading, helps students develop critical thinking skills that are practical, marketable, and thus invaluable in our society, even though students may not perceive them as such. According to Langer (1995), Literature makes us better thinkers. It moves us to see the multisidedness of situations and therefore expands the breadth of our own visions, moving us toward dreams and solutions we might not otherwise have imagined. …