A weekly online presentation was given to the English Department staff by Assistant Lecturer Bandar Abdul Qahar Muhammad, a staff member at the department, on Monday 7 of November on helping students improve their language skills and critical thinking. A summary of the presentation is given below:

Literature, especially poetry, can help students improve their language skills and critical thinking. The key is the teaching style and the in class activities. To analyze a poem, one needs to know something about the poet, his era and title/theme to put the poems in context. Then analzying the structure and content is easier.

In this seminar, the poem (caged bird) by Maya Angelou is systematically analyzed to show how literature can help students language skills and critical thinking.