One aim of the FLLITE project is to host an archive of FLLITE texts in different languages so that foreign language instructors have access to a rich resource for the development of FLLITE lessons. The texts on this page serve as resources for FLLITE lessons and are also designed to give you a sense of the scope of the literary in the everyday.
A FLLITE text can be any genre and may include different forms of multimodality: words, images, videos, audio. The key to recognizing a FLLITE text is that it must reflect the intersection of “the Literary” (one or more dimensions of language play) and “the Everyday.” (See the About the FLLITE Approach section under Project for further explanation.)
To make texts readily searchable, they will be tagged with a common set of metadata: Genre, FLLITE Categories, Author, Language/s and Description (key content, context/s and how the FLLITE categories of the literary can be applied).
Examples of FLLITE texts:
| Genre: | Postcard |
| FLLITE Categories: | Symbolic Play, Genre Play |
| Author: | Robert Jourdan |
| Language: | French |
| Description: | Handmade postcards from a French prisoner of war during WWII addressed to his family in which symbolism of language and images was used to bypass Nazi censors. |
| Genre: | Graffiti |
| FLLITE Categories: | Sound Play, Grammar Play |
| Author: | Acción Poética – Trenque Lauquen |
| Language: | Spanish |
| Description: | This graffiti plays with the notions of sleeping and dreaming. What does it mean to sleep a little but dream a lot? Perhaps, the person who wrote this is a daydreamer whose constant dreaminess keeps him from sleeping? At any rate, the graffiti clearly plays with the meanings of “sleep” and “dream” in Spanish. |
| Genre: | Social Media (Internet meme) |
| FLLITE Categories: | Symbolic Play, Culture Play |
| Author: | Unknown |
| Language: | German / English |
| Description: | This meme was part of a mass response to a broken door at a German university and mixes an English quote from the US TV Futurama with the German reference to the repairman who still hasn’t shown up. |
| Genre: | Film (Trailer) |
| FLLITE Categories: | Symbolic Play, Culture Play, Narrative Play |
| Title: | Hilfe! Ich bin ein Junge [Help! I’m a Boy] |
| Author: | Oliver Dommenget, Ronald Kruschak |
| Language: | German / English |
| Description: | This film plays with the familiar plot line of the body swap and typical symbols of gender, in order explore issues of sex roles, friendship, and empathy. |
| Genre: | Poetry (Haiku) |
| FLLITE Categories: | Sound Play, Grammar Play, Genre Play |
| Author: | @keefstuart (twitter) |
| Language: | English |
| Description: | Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that is associated with themes based on nature. However, these haiku plays with the genre by drawing on the world of digital games rather than nature. |
| Genre: | Advertisement |
| FLLITE Categories: | Symbolic Play, Genre Play, Perspective Play |
| Author: | Ikea |
| Title: | Die kleinen Freuden des Alltags [The Little Joys of the Everyday] |
| Language: | German |
| Description: | In an ad for the Swedish chain of furniture stores, well-known German literary critic Hellmuth Karasek reviews the IKEA catalog, playing with genre norms of advertisements and reviews — as well as perspectives of literariness. |
| Genre: | Comics (Political cartoon) |
| FLLITE Categories: | Symbolic Play, Narrative Play |
| Author: | Unknown |
| Language: | Arabic |
| Description: | This political cartoon was created in 2008, after then President George W. Bush narrowly missed being hit with a show thrown by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a press conference. The cartoon references the current situation and a classical Arabic story that helps to express the sentiment of that moment. |
| Genre: | Fairy Tale |
| FLLITE Categories: | Genre Play, Culture Play, Narrative Play |
| Title: | Le Petit Chaperon Rouge |
| Author: | Charles Perrault |
| Language: | French |
| Description: | A classic French fairy tale provides the basis for exploring genre and cultural conventions of the 17th century in order to provide students with the tools for updating and personalizing the genre. |