Teaching Literature for Employability

The revolutionary changes brought about by 21st-century technology have significantly altered the way we view teaching, learning, and employing literature. Many are supporting the claim to its redundancy and are advocating the closure of literature teaching departments in universities quoting the lack of employability of degrees in literature in the tech-driven world of 21st century. While it may appear that literature has lost its immediate value as a direct livelihood tool, this does not mean that teachers, students, or lovers of literature should abandon this discipline. Instead, it is imperative to adopt new pedagogical approaches that reposition literature as a skill-building and employability-oriented field, rather than one confined to passive reading and aesthetic enjoyment. Literature is the storehouse of knowledge and experiences of highly imaginative genius minds and ignoring its teaching would be an injustice to the progeny of humanity by denying them this rich area of knowledge and aesthetics.  Besides, teaching literature means helping people, tell, listen and analyze the stories of individual as well as collective. Abandoning teaching of literature would deny this opportunity of storytelling to humanity. 

Literature must evolve into a discipline that fosters transferable skills essential for navigating the rapidly changing technological and economic landscapes of the 21st century. UNESCO and the World Economic Forum highlight at least five core competencies required for sustainability in contemporary society: critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration, cultural understanding, creativity, and digital literacy. Literature, when taught innovatively, can nurture all these skills and thus ensure its continued relevance. Teachers can transform literature classes into dynamic spaces for skill development. For instance, Critical Thinking can be cultivated by comparing dystopian texts such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which encourage students to analyze power, surveillance, and gender politics from different angles. Cultural Literacy can emerge through reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart alongside Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, prompting students to reflect on colonialism, identity, and cross-cultural conflicts. Communication Skills can be enhanced through debating Shakespeare’s Hamlet or staging scenes from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, exercises that sharpen persuasive expression and public speaking. Creativity and Innovation can be encouraged by asking students to reimagine Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a modern AI ethics narrative, blending literary study with technological imagination.

Beyond classroom engagement, literature teaching can be reoriented towards employment-oriented activities. In today’s digital economy, content creation for blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, book reviews, and storytelling platforms has become highly significant. For example, students analyzing Emily Dickinson’s poetry can transform their interpretations into short-form video essays for TikTok or Instagram, thereby practicing digital communication and audience engagement. Similarly, classes on narrative structure can be linked to scriptwriting, journalism, or creative advertising, opening pathways into the creative industries. Teaching literature may emphasize more on these proliferating activities rather than simple classroom analysis. Moreover, the study of literature also provides opportunities to explore leadership and ethics. Shakespeare’s Macbeth offers a case study in ambition and moral compromise, while Orwell’s 1984 raises questions about propaganda, governance, and truth, which are skills relevant for leadership training, policy analysis, and media literacy. Furthermore, with the global demand for English and multilingual communication, literature can serve as a resource for teaching and interpreting language. For instance, analyzing Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies allows students to see how cultural translation, empathy, and nuanced communication operate—skills essential for international careers.

To remain relevant, literature must also embrace artificial intelligence and digital humanities. Students can use text-mining tools to compare language patterns in Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies or create digital corpora to track the evolution of themes such as migration in contemporary fiction. AI can also be used to generate visual adaptations of texts, such as book trailers or interactive storytelling projects, combining literary study with technological fluency. A revolutionary shift in pedagogy is required, moving from traditional instruction to project-based and interdisciplinary learning. Literature can relate to psychology (Freudian readings of Kafka), politics (postcolonial readings of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o), economics (Dickens on industrial capitalism), media studies (film adaptations of Jane Austen), and environmental studies (eco-criticism in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide). Experiential approaches, such as theatre workshops simulating historical debates, or student-led podcasts reviewing contemporary novels, can make literature more interactive. By encouraging learners to design newsletters, blogs, or social media campaigns inspired by texts, teachers help them practice professional communication in digital formats.

Ultimately, literature is no longer just about books; it is about cultivating skills for life, society, and work. In the 21st century, literature must be reframed not as a relic of cultural tradition but as a living discipline that equips learners with vital competencies. Through critical thinking, creativity, cultural understanding, digital literacy, and communication skills, literature can contribute meaningfully to employability and social development. By embracing interdisciplinary approaches, digital tools, and experiential pedagogy, literature teaching can prepare students not only to appreciate texts but also to thrive in an increasingly complex and technologically driven world.