Carmen's written reflection 2

I read Melissa Comer’s article, Young Adult Literature and Alternative Assessment Measures (2011), and I found the article to be useful for us as beginning teachers. Nowadays, teaching students Literature can be quite a challenging task as the normal traditional way of teaching and assessing their knowledge and literary skills do not really appeal to them. Like Comer had mentioned, our students today belong to the era of technology users. This means that our students are constantly making use of technology, be it for research or social networking. In order to appeal to our students’ interest, we as teachers should take the first step at making Literature more relatable to them and what better way than to introduce it through technology, which is what they are most familiar with?

I came across an article online titled Teaching with Twitter: how the social network can contribute to learning which talked about a lecturer from the University of Wolverhampton had adopted Tweeter to educate and involve her students in Literature. The lecturer got her class to role play the character in the text and discuss about certain issues in the text through the voice of the character. I thought that this activity was engaging for the students and secretly helped the lecturer to get her class to read and closely analyze the text without the need of telling them explicitly to do so. By role-playing a character in the text of study, students are able to better understand the character and the text and this falls exactly under characterization and plot.

I also like the fact that Comer’s reading also mentioned about the choice that students have in their learning. Based on the students’ interests, the teachers can set the curriculum such that it appeals and aids them in their learning. However, I feel that students can also be given more autonomy in their learning (student-centered learning). For example, the teacher can set a list of assignments that students can do (Eg. journal writing, creative writing, scrapbook, etc.). Out of the set of assignment, students are allowed to select a few assignments of interest to carry out. This will hence motivate students in learning Literature out of interest and they will be encouraged to take on more ownership in their learning.