Nikos Kazantzakis At the Palaces of Knossos; Teaching the Novel to Today's Children: Five Examples of Text Reception

Abstract

This paper presents five examples from the teaching of the novel At the palaces of Knossos in third grade primary school pupils, according to the method of “co-reading”. The teaching nature of the ancient myths is well known, as well as Kazantzakis' teaching intention in the novel. The first example links the literary narrative to the historical knowledge that students acquire through it. In the second example, the students apply the mythological method, using the mythological content, as presented by Kazantzakis, in order to narrate their own personal stories. In the next example, narrative perspective technique allows students to re-narrate the original text from the perspective of other heroes and indirectly express their own views on it. In the fourth example, students become characters of the novel and present their narratives through visual arts. In the last teaching example, the literary text connects with the maths lesson, transforms into a "language game" and contributes to the understanding of mathematical concepts from the students. Through these five teaching examples we focus on the pupils’ text reception as well as modern readers’ interest towards a narrative from another era.