If You Teach It, They Will Read

What does it mean to 'teach' a poem, novel or play? Surely it is about lessons in comprehension and improvements in language facility, but what does literature teach us beyond literacy? Students can read substantive literature for what its authors intended: an insight into the human condition. Students, even those who appear indifferent, struggle with questions of right and wrong, good and evil, love and loss, self-interest and self-sacrifice.