Looking at literature and plays

At any time of the academic year, millions of teen students are studying books and plays in their English literature lessons. Each year, national examination systems select 'set books' and plays for study. For instance, my daughter is currently studying the play An Inspector Calls by J B Priestley.

Students will be searching online for help on essays and projects – a practical felt need. And many others will have an interest in literare too. Here is a great chance to offer them some commentary which has a Christian world view. Most plays and books lend themselves to a gospel redemptive analogy which could gently raise questions about faith, meaning, purpose etc. Many books, plays and films contain these echoes of eternity – just waiting for us to use them! An Inspector Calls is just waiting for this sort of treatment! It is a wonderful starting point to discuss guilt, God's omnipotence, and then lead in to appropriate aspects of the Gospel, and has indeed been performed by Christian theatre groups for this purpose. The opportunities are enormous. Yet the few sites I am aware of take a book as a starting point – an exception is Tolkein' writings:

• HobbitLore – a popular look at all things Hobbit
• Tolkein Collection – a range of "pre-evangelistic and apologetic materials that often leads to evangelistic conversations" from apologetics site LeadershipUniversity

If you are an English literature teacher, or just have an interest in literature and drama, why not write some genuinely useful study-guides for books and plays, which look at the story-line in this way? This could even be a collaborative evangelistic website project, something like www.studyinghelp.com or www.setbooks.info – so that a range of writers could have their articles placed online by a webmaster. This could be an ideal project for a (possibly retired) English teacher.

An entire portal site could be designed around a literature/drama homework topic.

There are many other opportunities for online evangelism to children and young people, including the use of resource material relating to school religious studies.

Online short stories and poetry also have potential for outreach.

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