Geraldine's Written Reflection 2

In Singapore, many teachers are guilty of being too 'exam-cultured'. They are so tied down by the need to produce results from the examinations that they become limited in the strategies they use to engage students. Therefore, Comer offers a different perspective as she emphasizes the need to shift away from this "assessment of learning" towards a more flexible "assessment for learning" approach  (Comer, 2011,  p. 240) . I like how this approach focuses on the learning process rather than just the product. It encourages teachers to brainstorm creative, innovative ways of infusing literature and learning.

I particularly liked the way Comer points out the importance of text choice. She believes a teacher should conduct an "interest survey" (Comer, 2011, p. 241) to find out the taste and preferences of the students. I think this a very effective activity for the start of a new academic year. The teacher gets to know her students' personalities, learning styles and interests which are all useful for gathering teaching resources and planning lessons. 

In terms of ICT, it is a fact that technology has become irreplaceable in literature education. It enhances the process of studying literature in schools. A mundane activity of summing up your thoughts about a novel could be transformed into a fun and interactive process with the use of Twitter. Twitter is a relevant and efficient mode of sharing information between students. The consistent updating of the twitter feed makes the exchanges between peers very fast and this allows students to view other responses or give feedback in a highly-interactive, highly-communicative manner. Students would also be more motivated to respond as they are using a platform of which most of them are "accustomed to" (Comer, 2011, p.243). Even the shy students ,who would not normally air their views verbally, may make use of twitter to have their voice heard. However, twitter is limited to only 140 characters. As such, the teacher has to think of questions where the answers will be kept within that word limit. Perhaps an alternative could be the equally popular platform, Tumblr. Tumblr is almost like a combination of tweeting and blogging. With a Tumblr blog, the text posts are not limited and students can share a wide range of media texts to their peers. The useful part of Tumblr is the home page, where the posts of the people you follow would appear in a live feed (just like twitter). Once a teacher follows all her students, she will be able to monitor and evaluate each student's posts easily. Having a personal blog, which one could personalise, instills a higher sense of ownership as compared to a Twitter account. Furthermore, Tumblr allows easy access to blogs worldwide. Students can broaden their perspectives by searching the tags such as "prose", "poetry" or "spilled ink" where people post interesting literature-related posts. Perhaps, due to its complex nature, Tumblr could be used for the older or higher ability students.

Whether is it Twitter or Tumblr, these are just two of the many ICT options for teachers to incorporate in their lessons in order to make learning an enjoying process. Our students have evolved and they require teachers to implement teaching strategies which are relevant to them. Teachers have to move away from viewing assessment as just a process of grading students. The point of assessment is to understand what "students know and do not know" and then making "responsive changes" (Comer, 2011, 243). Changes which could alter the way students learn in the literature classroom.