Teaching Literature Effectively: A Pride and Prejudice Case Study in Making Classics Accessible

You know what’s not the best way to make Pride and Prejudice appealing to teenagers? A 102-slide PowerPoint.

Yep, you heard us right. 102 SLIDES. And we’re not talking about those presentations that look super long because there’s only one key point on each slide. These slides were full of text.

We’re still cringing about it.

When it comes to teaching literature, more information definitely doesn’t equal better instruction.

Teaching literature of any kind, but especially classic literature, poses significant challenges for ELA teachers. Take Pride and Prejudice. First, it’s long, over 120,000 words. And those 120,000+ words are not easy to wade through: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” takes a lot longer to parse than “Everyone knows that a single, rich man is obviously looking for a wife.”

Add in the cultural distance (Regency era? Patrimony? Entailment? Landed gentry?), and you’ve got yourself a challenging read that students find entirely irrelevant to their own lives. (Now, as teachers who witness the daily drama of teen relationships, we know that’s not true, but convincing them of that is something else entirely.)

Teaching literature effectively—whether it’s Pride and Prejudice, Shakespeare, or The Grapes of Wrath—means finding the balance between honoring the text’s complexity and making it accessible to today’s learners.

Our 102-slide PowerPoint was not the key to success, but after wearing ourselves and our students out with that plodding discussion, we developed a focused and thematic framework for teaching classic literature that transformed our most challenging texts into some of our most successful units.

The Challenge of Teaching Literature to Modern Students

Why Teaching Classic Literature Feels Impossible (And Why It’s Worth the Fight)

It’s tempting to throw out our “traditional” curriculum, replacing it with high-interest, contemporary reads.

After all, when we’re desperate to get our students to just read something, classic literature isn’t a natural choice. Its sheer length makes it a hefty time commitment, and more often than not, it features hundreds of pages filled with language barriers and dense prose. Cultural and historical distance make the text seem entirely irrelevant to modern life, and you’re stuck answering endless choruses of, “But why do we have to read this?”

And those are just the barriers for students. We face our own intimidating obstacles.

In trying to address the cultural and historical distance, we feel pressure to cover everything there is to say about the historical context. We want to make the text accessible while still maintaining rigor, so we’re constantly concerned about “dumbing down” the text. And then we have a packed pacing guide to follow: it’s not like we can devote an entire school year to reading aloud one meandering British bildungsroman novel.

But classic literature still has a place in our curriculum (even as we try to widen the traditional canon): our students benefit from realizing just how relevant these “old” texts can be, the occasional lengthy challenge is essential for building reading stamina, and we want to add to our students’ cultural toolkits.

Successfully teaching literature to students of any level requires acknowledging these challenges while refusing to abandon the goal.

Framework Step 1: Find Your Focused Thematic Lens

Stop Teaching Everything and Start Teaching Something

Ineffective as it was, our 102-slide PowerPoint for Pride and Prejudice tried to solve a problem we’d encountered in previous attempts to teach the novel. 

We had focused on characterization, guiding our students through analysis of one character at a time. But this too-broad approach didn’t point to a clear theme. As a result, students’ final essays often featured oversimplified and clichéd theme statements about “pride” and “prejudice” that they couldn’t support with specific details.

Our 102-slide PowerPoint, then, was an attempt to delve more deeply into the novel, looking closely at specific events and integrating multiple clips from the BBC miniseries and 2005 film version to build interest.

But, as you can imagine, we all were over it by about halfway through the novel. Trying to cover everything had diluted the impact of our unit, and students checked out, undermining our attempt to push them beyond surface-level engagement.

We didn’t start to see success until we selected one theme to focus on: what Austen had to say about marriage. In Regency England, women’s entire role in life was to make a good marriage match that would ensure their family’s financial security—the quality of their lives in that marriage was of little concern. But Austen challenges that mindset, suggesting that women are the rational equals of men and that when marriage is not between equals who respect one another, it leads to a host of problems.

The idea of good and bad relationships is something our students were interested in, and focusing our character analysis through this lens allowed us to explore one non-clichéd theme deeply, rather than ensuring students understood every nuance of the novel.

Teaching literature through a focused lens transforms overwhelming texts into manageable and meaningful experiences.

Framework Step 2: Hook Students with Contemporary Relevance

Make the Old Feel New

Whether it’s in the thematic lens you select, the introductory activity you create, or just in the language you use during discussion, it’s important to intentionally highlight the relevance of the text to students’ lives.

With Pride and Prejudice, we played up the idea that the novel was an early “enemies-to-lovers romance,” familiar because it established an archetype, not because Austen relied on a clichéd trope. We connected the different relationship dynamics to modern relationships, using terms like “gold digger” and “toxic relationship.” We pointed out how ridiculous Mrs. Bennet is, helping students to see that we’re supposed to laugh at her, not take her seriously.

These subtle turns of phrase go a long way in helping students to see the universal truths laid out in classic texts: we’re still reading them because they speak to human nature across time and space. And when they make a connection to the world around them, reference a current blockbuster, or just chuckle in class, we feel that small sense of accomplishment that we long for as English teachers.

While our efforts in Pride and Prejudice had more to do with what we said rather than how we framed the unit, we’ve also taken a more direct approach. We read Julius Caesar as detectives investigating a crime, and we frame our Odyssey unit in discussions about heroes and the hero’s journey, helping students to see that Odysseus might fit quite nicely into a modern team of superheroes.

Teaching literature becomes more effective (and less of a drudgery) when students see themselves in these centuries-old stories.

Framework Step 3: Frontload Context Strategically

Give Students What They Need (Not Everything You Know)

Whether it’s out of enthusiasm (can you believe our students didn’t want to know about every inch of the Globe?) or intimidation (like our first Hamlet discussion, loaded with quotations from literary critics), classic literature tends to bring out our inner lecturer.

Students do need background knowledge to understand classic texts. Sometimes knowing a little bit about the author adds to their cultural toolkit; other times, the text takes place in a world so different from our own that students won’t understand it without context.

But too much context overwhelms students and delays engagement: instead of getting right into the story, they’re taking notes as we give a history lecture. When frontloading context, we must find the balance between what’s interesting (to us) and what’s essential (to them).

For Pride and Prejudice, we prioritized contextual information that directly supported our thematic lens about marriage. We spent some time discussing social hierarchy and financial matters in Regency-era England, which was necessary because the traditional attitudes toward marriage were economic rather than emotional. We also discussed women’s roles and limitations because it’s Austen’s critique of them that has made her a “must-read” author.

For many years, we provided this information in a traditional lecture format—sometimes, it’s the most efficient way to convey information. But adding interactive components (like turning a recording of the lecture into a Nearpod with embedded questions or creating an escape room) can provide students with needed information without creating a barrier to engagement.

Even if your approach leans more toward a traditional lecture, you can integrate visual aids and video clips to keep students’ interest and help them better understand the world. One of the most successful things we did when introducing Pride and Prejudice was showing the first episode of the BBC miniseries. Not only did students get a feel for the world and start to distinguish the abundance of characters, but seeing it helped them grasp the humor more quickly than they would in the text itself.

To make the background information purposeful, it can’t be a one-and-done experience. We referred students back to their notes in our guided reading questions and referenced the background information during discussions.

Teaching literature effectively requires context, but it also requires us to curate context strategically, not comprehensively.

Framework Step 4: Guide Students Through the Text

Scaffolding That Actually Works: The Backwards Planning Approach

As we learned early on when teaching AP Literature, assigning a text without any written assignment doesn’t work well. This is true for any text, but especially for classic literature. 

Students who do read (far fewer than you’d like) are either rushing to finish or so bogged down in trying to understand the plot that analysis goes out the window. Discussions become plot summary sessions where we try to clarify misunderstandings and catch students who haven’t read up to the rest of the class. Students’ final essays lack specific textual evidence; instead, they’re overgeneralized interpretations that don’t score well.

This is why we provide guided reading questions for students to complete as they read. It’s important to resist the urge to ask everything about a text, keeping the number of questions to 25–35. Use the questions to focus students’ attention on the details that are most relevant to your thematic lens and final assessment. As we mentioned above, including context callbacks reinforces the background knowledge as something essential to understanding the text rather than mere trivia.

Given the challenge of many classic texts, it may be worthwhile to scaffold your discussion as well.

When we discuss short stories and more contemporary novels with our students, they are responsible for providing the key insights about a text. While we use Google Slides to guide our discussions, the information in them is meant to recap and enhance students’ responses to focused questions.

But for Pride and Prejudice, we flipped it around. Knowing that students found the novel challenging and would struggle to provide specific examples in their final essays, we provided key insights and asked them to find supporting evidence.

For example, when discussing a marriage based on practical need rather than love (Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins), we asked students, “Find evidence throughout the novel of Charlotte being practical and Collins doing what he believes is expected of him.”

Students worked in pairs or small groups to find examples, which they shared in our larger discussion. This approach accounted for the text’s complexity while still helping students build their literary analysis skills and engage with details they might otherwise have missed.

After guiding our students through a discussion of the five other marriages in the novel, we turned our attention to the evolution of Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship, helping them to see the nuances and successfully analyze dynamic and foil characters.

We ended by having students write theme statements for the novel—meaningful statements about marriage and relationships rather than clichéd statements about “pride” and “prejudice” or morals like, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Teaching literature through backwards scaffolding helps our students see the forest and the trees, ultimately leading to stronger literary analysis.

Framework Step 5: Integrate Multiple Opportunities for Skills Practice

One Text, Multiple Learning Goals

One challenge to teaching classic literature—whether it’s in standard-level or AP classes—is the amount of time it takes. This is why it’s essential to make the most of that time, addressing multiple skills in one unit.

No matter what text we teach, we try to ensure that our unit moves beyond plot comprehension and reading accountability. We incorporate opportunities for close reading practice, making and supporting claims, integrating and citing textual evidence correctly, and developing theme statements.

For Pride and Prejudice specifically, we knew that the extra days we’d need to devote to providing background context and guiding students through discussion would take away from our short story units. So, in addition to our usual Q3 practice at the end of the unit, where students write an essay about the novel as a whole, we created practice Q2 prompts, in which students close read an excerpt from the novel and analyze the literary techniques Austen uses in that excerpt to develop her characters.

It’s important to keep balance in mind, however, by mixing in accountability measures like multiple-choice quizzes, discussion questions, and completion-based assignments that don’t overwhelm your grading load. 

It’s also important to maintain a clear connection between daily work and the final assessment: activities just for the sake of activities run the risk of frustrating you and your students. Even when we added a second essay to our Pride and Prejudice unit, we selected scenes illustrating the relationships between characters, keeping with our thematic lens and allowing our students to practice the same character analysis skills we’d focused on in discussion.

Teaching literature by integrating skill development with content mastery allows our students to practice essential skills within a meaningful context and offers multiple entry points for students with different learning styles. Ultimately, every activity builds toward a deeper understanding of a difficult text.

Real Results: What This Framework Achieves

From Resistance to Engagement

So what does this framework actually accomplish? This approach to teaching literature creates lasting learning rather than temporary compliance.

Of most immediate concern, student engagement increases. We won’t claim that every student came to love Austen (though some did!), but more students read this lengthy text, more students wrote quality theme statements that went beyond surface-level interpretation, and more students wrote well-reasoned final essays with specific textual evidence.

The skills students gain from grappling with a classic text also transfer to future units: they’re better prepared to apply analytical thinking to other texts, better able to find evidence supporting complex claims, and more aware of how literary elements work together to create meaning. In the long run, this prepares them for college-level literature analysis, gives them more confidence in approaching challenging texts independently, and sometimes even grows their appreciation for classic literature’s continued relevance.

But this approach isn’t only beneficial for students—it benefits you, too.

Narrowing down to a manageable scope prevents overwhelm for you and your students and allows for focused discussions that build understanding. Backwards planning ensures that your activities and assessments are aligned, making grading more meaningful. And the framework isn’t only applicable to classic texts—it’s something that can work no matter what you’re teaching.

Adapting This Framework to Any Classic Text

Making It Work for Your Text and Your Students

Teaching literature isn’t a one-size-fits-all skill—it requires adapting proven frameworks to your unique context.

Some classic texts don’t require the same level of frontloading, and some student populations already have the context to understand a genre or time period. Some student populations require more scaffolding through the text than others. 

If you’re teaching standard-level, rather than AP, students, engagement will likely play a far bigger role in your decision-making process. We regularly use adapted texts and excerpts in our standard-level classes, keep our background context to the most “need-to-know” information, and prioritize alternative forms of demonstrating mastery like crime scene reports and gameplay over formal essays.

Remember that a successful unit also takes time to build. Our Pride and Prejudice unit evolved over seven years (remember that 102-slide PowerPoint?). Focus on your most challenging text first, and start with one element rather than overhauling everything: even if it’s just translating a key scene into “modern teenager language” during discussion. As you achieve successful teaching moments, build on those, refining until you have an engaging unit that you and your students love.

Most importantly, remember that teaching literature of any kind, and especially classic literature, isn’t about covering everything—it’s about uncovering what matters most. The greatest teaching moments happen when we prioritize depth over breadth, connection over coverage.

We encourage you to identify your most challenging text and apply one framework element today. If you do, please email us and tell us how it went! We’d also love to share more details about our Pride and Prejudice unit if you’re interested—we’re always looking to learn which materials teachers like you need most.