How should we teach fiction?

There is a lot of confusion in schools today over how students should read fiction. Political, moralistic, and philosophical purposes all compete to make fiction into what it is not.

How exactly should we teach fiction? Cana Academy has the best answer. Check out the 2nd Edition of Teaching Fiction From the Inside Out.

Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Flannery explains how this exceptional book answers the question on the mind of teachers, students, and parents:

“Why should middle and secondary school students study imaginative literature? And how should they do it? In her new and revised edition of Teaching Fiction From the Inside Out, Jeannette DeCelles-Zwerneman, answers both of these questions, and her answers are highly instructive and beautiful. She shows not only the urgent and profound importance of

imaginative literature in shaping the minds and hearts of young students but the joy for both student and teacher of studying such literature together. Human beings are story-loving and story-telling beings, and because narrative is closer than logic to the human heart, its effects can penetrate deeply and can last a lifetime. The wisdom and experience of a true Master Teacher enrich every page of this book. Teachers will especially enjoy, and profit from, the many examples of good reading that are woven into the instruction. One after another, passages from Aeschylus, Dante, Flannery O’Connor, Homer, Ray Carver, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, James Agee, Dickens, and others are explored with searching intelligence and high-minded sympathy." —Christopher Flannery, Senior Fellow, Claremont Institute

For a complete set of resources for teaching classic works of fiction, visit Cana Academy.

Andrew J. Zwerneman is co-founder and president of Cana Academy. He blogs weekly at www.canaacademy.org and is the author of History Forgotten and Remembered (2020) and The Life We Have Together: A Case for Humane Studies, A Vision for Renewal (2022).