Shariffah's Reflection 4

Dunman Secondary School offers Literature in English at the Upper Secondary Level, and both NA and Express classes can take Literature at the O-levels. For lower secondary, Literature is part of a general Arts programme called MEDAL (Music, Dance, Art and Literature) and the text taught is The Good Earth by Pearl S.Buck. For upper secondary, we are currently doing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Generally, I think the school is very supportive of Literature. Having said that, I feel that they could invest in a wider range of Literature books in their library beyond those covered in the school curriculum.

Assessment methods for Literature at lower sec is akin to comprehension assessments for English. At upper sec, there is an acute focus on author's technique and characterisation, not so much on theme. The pace at which lessons are taught at the NA and Express levels are noticeably different, however. Express classes have the freedom and trust from the teacher to annotate and present their ideas to the class. The teacher takes on a more facilitative role hence. NA students go at a much slower pace, but ironically I feel that they reap a lot more from the text.

My new CT Mdm Irmawati has applied a strategy to help the Sec 3 NA class better their writing, which is to get them to write a simple writing exercise on any topic on the last 15-30 minutes of the week. It can be in answer to a trigger question, theme-based, on characterisation, personal feedback or even a summary of the scenes covered in the week.  This routine I think is useful to condition students in writing and knowing how to use Literary vocabulary like imagery, diction and characterisation. I am so grateful to her for teaching this to me. She is also great because she has made me realise how important it is to make Literature texts personal for students. Her prompts for me to make my lessons "about them," as in the students, has made me realise this. It also follows Shivani's idea in Chapter 14 where listening to students' voices is vital. (Loh, Yeo, Liew, 2013, p.166). This is something I will treasure hopefully for the rest of my Literature-teaching experience.

It's a privilege for me to attend this school also because one of the contributors to Teaching Literature in Singapore Secondary Schools, Miss Faith Ong, is actually from Dunman Sec. From what I noticed in my last practicum, she is an asset to the school's Literature culture because she has made events such as an actual face-to-face interview with Julie Wee, the actress playing Juliet for a local production of Romeo and Juliet, possible for students. This enriches their Literature experience by providing varying instructional methods and sources of information for students to stretch them to their full potential (Loh, Yeo, Liew, 2013, p.159).