Study of J. R. R. Tolkien's Woks at the Lessons of Home Reading

Abstract

The school course “World Literature” is an important component of the national literary education in Ukraine. The task of multicultural education remains topical in the modern teaching of Foreign Literature because it’s considered as the search for links between the way of thinking, the peculiarities of world perception, set of mind, and cultural heritage of different countries. The new World Literature course geared toward children of the 5th – 9th forms organizes the work of the teacher to develop the key competencies and to nourish the domain-specific competencies. The implementation of the course’s goals and objectives is provided at all World Literature lessons, regardless of the type and form of the lesson chosen by the teacher. The lessons of home reading as well as other lessons should be learner-centered that means the teachers draw on the students who acquire knowledge and skills independently. The objective of the teacher is to show the students the world of the book, learn them to orient within it, find the right and good book, and develop the ability to use it properly. The choice of the novel “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien for the lessons of home reading in the 8th form (the novel is in the list of works for home reading) was made due to the main aspects of the conception of character education and to the personality of R. Tolkien who was a worldwide famous writer and teacher whose didactic ideas found their way into his works. The appropriate methods, techniques and forms of work, background knowledge, interdisciplinary links (the English language), different kinds of the illustrative materials will provide the achievement of the goals and objectives of the home reading lesson through the novel “The Lord of the Rings” (we recommend the first part of the writer’s trilogy). The lesson of home reading devoted to R. Tolkien’s novel “The Lord of the Rings” encourages the students to orient within this work creatively, improves students’ skills in analyzing and interpreting the novel in terms of its problems, deepens students’ theoretic and literary knowledge (fantasy, science fiction, epic literature, novel), enhances the level of students’ creative self-dependent work.