Interdisciplinary Interaction in Literature Teaching

Bahçelievler Gökkuşağı Koleji IB students read literary works by bringing them together with music and visual arts. We share this interdisciplinary experience.

In their literature lessons, Bahçelievler Gökkuşağı Koleji IB Program students did not merely read the canonical works of world and Turkish literature; they experienced them by bringing them together with different branches of art such as music, painting and model-making. Carried out under the guidance of their subject teachers, this interdisciplinary work made learning more creative and lasting.

A Novel Read with Music

The works were examined through critical reading and structuralist criticism methods. In a process where in-class activities were freely designed, some works were read to the accompaniment of particular music. For example, Dino Buzzati's cult novel The Tartar Steppe, studied in the second term, was read and discussed to the accompaniment of the instrumental album Le Voyage de Sahar by the Tunisian musician Anouar Brahem.

According to the teacher, very positive feedback was received from the students: they said that in their later readings they too began to search for music suited to the novel, and even used music during the book readings they did as a family at home.

From Novel to Painting, Composition and Model

With the same approach, students turned selected passages from Füruzan's Parasız Yatılı, William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis into paintings. Some students composed and wrote lyrics for the novels, while others brought the plot of Zamyatin's novel We to life with a three-dimensional model.

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Gökkuşağı Koleji · When literature meets the arts.