THEMES FOR TEACHING


© Odense City Museums

DIG has developed five themes in order to inspire students and teachers in upper secondary schools in Denmark to work with Andersen in a modern context.


However these themes can be appropiated for teaching the mother tongue subject in other languages and other school subjects.

The themes present Andersen under the shared headline "Andersen CROSSWISE" to stress the fact that during his lifetime he crossed virtually all the barriers of 19th century Europe.

Four of the themes for teaching can be found complete with texts, background material and suggestions for how to work with the texts on the Danish site. Here the themes are presented in a shortened version.

Follow the three links in the menu if you would like to:

  • read the english presentation of the four themes for teaching. See The Themes.
  • study the fifth theme, which is a longer text taking the reader through the general themes of Andersens fairytales. See Fairytales Crosswise.
  • study the fairytale The Little Mermaid thoroughly, by use of this material that has originally been developed specifically for mother tongue teaching in english. See Around the Little Mermaid.

Alongside with the themes go all the theme-related texts we have gathered. To overview or study this textmaterial and to find recommendations for translations of Andersens works, follow the link Theme-related Texts.