3.2: Selecting Literature

Overview

Choosing literature for oral interpretation involves much more than picking a piece you enjoy. It's about selecting a text that resonates with both you and your audience. A strong piece for performance should be personally meaningful, suitable for oral delivery, and appropriate for the intended audience and occasion. According to Gura and Lee’s (2004) framework, quality literature should meet three essential criteria: universality (themes that are widely relatable), individuality (unique or fresh in presentation), and significance (the power to provoke thought and emotional connection). When these qualities are present, a piece of literature becomes more than just words. It becomes an engaging and impactful performance.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Old books with warped pages. (CC-BY-SA; Tom Murphy VII - Old book bindings)

Learning Objectives

• Identify and apply the three literary selection criteria—universality, individuality, and significance—when evaluating texts for oral interpretation.
• Analyze various types of literature (e.g., poems, song lyrics, letters, monologues) for their suitability in oral performance, considering audience, clarity, structure, and emotional impact.
• Select and justify a literary piece for performance, demonstrating a personal connection to the text and an understanding of how it aligns with the needs and expectations of a specific audience and occasion.

Selecting Literature to Perform

The label of “literature” can be placed on many different forms of the written word. While the term often conjures vision of Shakespearian plays or Homer’s Odyssey, those works are only examples of more specific categories of literature. For the purposes of oral interpretation, one might perform works such as those but may also choose to perform song lyrics, letters written by soldiers in World War II, or even text message exchanges between lovers. So, with so many possibilities, how does one go about choosing literature that would be good for performance?

When selecting a piece for oral interpretation, it’s essential to begin with personal connection and interest. Choose a text that you genuinely enjoy and feel confident interpreting. Your passion for the material will naturally come through in your performance and help you form a meaningful connection with the audience.

Next, consider the suitability of the text for oral performance. Ask yourself whether the audience will be able to connect with the material in just one hearing. Look for clear language that creates vivid imagery. Texts with dialogue are especially useful, as they allow for expressive reading and character portrayal. Additionally, avoid works with overly complex sentence structures that may hinder comprehension during performance.

Audience and occasion are also key factors. The content and tone of your chosen piece should align with the age, interests, and emotional state of your specific audience. Likewise, consider the setting and purpose of the performance—what might feel appropriate and impactful in one context could be out of place in another.

In terms of literary merit and meaning, opt for texts that carry lasting value and speak to universal human experiences. A strong, clear theme will help the audience connect with the piece. Stories that include some form of conflict or tension often create more engaging interpretations.

Finally, don’t overlook practical considerations. If you choose a short passage, make sure it can stand alone and still represent the broader work effectively. For longer texts, you may need to edit or cut them strategically—maintaining the narrative flow and core message. Also, think about whether you can convincingly portray multiple characters if the piece calls for it.

In summary, a strong text for oral interpretation should be meaningful, exciting, and suitable for the audience and occasion. It should provide opportunities for expressive vocal and physical delivery, while being clear and accessible in both content and structure. Not all literature is a good fit for oral performance. Texts that make the best fit are those are of literary merit and that the criteria to determine that merit are as follows (Gura and Lee 2004).

Universality

If a value or idea is “universal,” this means that it is tangible to a wide audience. For a work of literature to have universality, it must have messages or themes to which many people can relate.

As a performer considers a piece of literature for performance, they should think about their audience and the sorts of topics that can be significant to them. For example, I might really love the poem, Richard Cory, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. However, this poem deals with the theme of suicide, which might not make it a good choice if I was performing for a younger audience or perhaps at a happy, celebratory event. However, perhaps Waddy Piper’s children’s book, The Little Engine That Could, about a little train engine who repeats the mantra, “I think I can, I think I can” to conquer a trek over a tall mountain could inspire a group of college students to continue their education. When evaluating literature for performance, look for themes you know you can connect to your audience.

Individuality

While you want to find universal themes for your audience so they can relate to the literature, you also want to ensure you aren’t simply selecting works that might be overworked or overdone. Audiences love relating to pieces, but they also appreciate novelty. The literature you choose to perform should be unique in some way. This can be through language/style, or perhaps through the characters in the piece, or maybe in the way the author tells a story, etc.

This is not to say that performers should steer clear of classic or popular literature known by many. However, if you do choose to perform a work with which your audience is very familiar, ensure that you infuse it with uniqueness that can make it appeal to your audience. If you choose to perform a scene from a recent popular movie, for example, do not feel you have to imitate the characters as they appeared in the film. This approach, unless you are a gifted impressionist, can be disconcerting to an audience. Analyze the literature, discover what it speaks to you, think about the attitude and feelings of the characters, independent from any previous conceptions you had about the work. Allow yourself to view it through a different lens before making performance choices.

An example of a popular story that was transformed into something new is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. In the United States, students constantly hear the Founding Fathers narratives in school. Historical biographies of early American figures have been performed, retold, and adapted for centuries. The traditional performance style (white actors, classical music, conventional staging) had become predictable and culturally narrow. Miranda’s interpretation was unique in the following ways: 

• Casting: Using actors of color to play historical white figures.

• Music: Replacing traditional Broadway styles with hip-hop, rap, R&B, and pop.

• Structure: Blending modern language with historical content.

• Tone: Mixing humor, grit, vulnerability, and contemporary commentary.

• Perspective: Making a forgotten founding father the center of a high-energy, modern narrative.

This is a textbook example of taking well-known material and transforming it in a way that audiences had “never seen before.” Like a great oral interpretation piece, it starts with familiar source material, analyzes and reimagines the characters from a new angle, refuses to imitate older performance traditions, speaks both to universal themes (ambition, identity, legacy), and brings novelty through voice, style, and storytelling. Even those who knew Hamilton from textbooks found themselves experiencing it completely differently.

Although it can be the “easy choice” to search for literature with which you are already familiar for an oral interpretation performance, it is also important to spend some time looking for work that is new to you and to your audience. Performing literature is a wonderful way to expose ourselves and our audience to material we might not otherwise encounter. Take advantage of this opportunity.

Essentially, when performing oral interpretation, aim to present your audience with literature and/or an approach to it that they’ve never seen before.

Significance

Perhaps the most important of Gura and Lee’s touchstones is that of significance. Literature with significance has impact beyond its own existence. It makes the reader, performer, and audience think and make connections to their own lives and/or the world. Have you ever seen a movie that you could not stop talking about for weeks? Ever had an amazingly easy time writing an essay about a poem in an English class because you had so much to say about it? Then, you have encountered literary significance.

I once had a student who chose to perform a series of silly poems from a children’s book about going back to school. He performed them very morosely, darkly, highlighting themes adults could connect to as they identify the drudgery of tasks they do every day. I loved the way it made me reconsider the sorts of daily chores I find boring that I remember being enamored with as a child. It gave me an appreciation for the fact that I can do them at all, and this wasn’t something the student pointed out directly. I found this connection through watching the performance and comparing it to my own experiences.

If you choose works that speak to your audience, you make their experience watching you perform more meaningful. It is also easier to choose universal themes and ideas to highlight for your audience through your performance when you choose literature with significance.

Many students in an oral interpretation course are authors in their own rights. You may have some poems you have written as a hobby, or maybe you wrote an interesting essay or creative non-fiction story in previous course. You can and should absolutely consider using your own work. Be sure to take a fresh look at it and measure it against the touchstones described above to help you decide whether you would like to use it.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Activity 1: What Counts as Literature?

Objective: Critically analyze and expand the definition of literature using diverse examples.

Instructions:

• As a class, brainstorm different types of texts (e.g., novels, plays, poems, song lyrics, text messages, social media posts, speeches).

• In pairs, choose one unconventional text type (e.g., a tweet thread, a letter, or a rap verse).

• Write a short argument (1–2 paragraphs) defending why your chosen text should be considered literature. Use ideas from the reading to support your case.

• Share your argument with another pair and discuss: Is your text literary? Why or why not?