Impact of Including History in Teaching Literature and Language

This paper intends to explore the significance of history being incorporate into learning language and literature, as students would be able to understand literary works better through background-documented histories. Incorporating history into the teaching of literature and language offers an extensive approach that enhances students' understanding of both texts and contexts. Analyzing literature within its historical, social, and cultural settings divulges much about the authors' intentions, situations and issues related to the works of literature. With the help of this interdisciplinary approach, students can probe into the historical, cultural, and sociopolitical influences that have moulded literary works. Through the contextualization of literature into its historical setting, learners can gather knowledge, understanding and insight into the forms and complexities of language including the changes of meaning and the function of a specific language in reflecting and forming societal values. Additionally, as students come across a variety of understanding and opinions spanning different eras and geographical locations, studying historical contexts fosters and nurtures critical thinking, empathy, and cultural understanding. The process includes the usage of project activities and history lectures with original works including audio, video presentation to enrich critical and analytic skills. Literary studies, when done side by side with the history of a text, allows students to view works of literature as their particular time and place call, which instigates empathy and awareness about cultural context through educational richness. This approach encourages students to establish connections between the past and present in their academic and personal lives. Keywords: Pedagogy, history, literature, language, cultural context.