ADVANTAGES OF USING LITERARY TEXTS IN INTEGRATION

Abstract

In integrative teaching, which is based on the holistic principles of integration as the connection of knowledge from different areas of human life, the starting points that enable such connection play an important role. Literary texts, due to the inexhaustible richness and complexity of their subject matter, can play the role of important integrative starting points in teaching. This way of working has numerous advantages because it contributes to the acquisition of practical, applicable knowledge, and in the paper are determined the benefits provided by literary texts as a starting point in integration when it comes to encouraging students: 1) activities in class; 2) desire to read; 3) desire for independent research and 4) developing imagination and creativity. The mentioned advantages were examined from the perspective of classroom teachers, who are the most called upon to implement integration in practice and are a segment of a wider research that included 225 practitioners in the Republic of Serbia during 2021 and 2022. The results show that the largest number of teachers have very positive attitudes about all the previously mentioned advantages of using literary texts, as over 80% of respondents fully or partially agree with them. Practitioners most positively value the contribution that the use of literary texts in integration has when it comes to developing students' imagination and creativity and increasing their activity in class (88,0%), then the contribution to encouraging students' desire to read (83,5%) and in the end, although highly valued, the contribution reflected in the encouragement of students' desire for independent research (80,9%). The results are an indication that the theoretical and methodological efforts that promote integration and the role that literary texts play in it are recognized in practice and raise the issue of further implementation of this way of working in teaching.