Reflection 4

Literature Assessment Reflection 4

Hua Yi Secondary School  is quite a patriarchal, Chinese school, and discipline is quite strict here. Many a times, students have to sing the national anthem or say the pledge twice if they are not loud enough, or have been fidgeting slightly during the morning assembly. Morning announcements are also carried out before the morning assembly to save time, though sometimes after the pledge reciting, the principal would speak to the school to address matters like proper social etiquette and behaviour. The school's values are instilled rather deeply in the students, and would frequently be brought up to guide their behaviour. The "Quote of The Week" that each class has to present on also addresses the school's values- 任义智群, namely Responsibility, Justice, Wisdom and Togetherness.

In terms of the school's state of Literature, HYSS does not offer upper secondary Literature because it claims that there were not enough students applying for it last year- only 14 Students instead of 20. I feel that the school does not give enough opportunities to the Literature department, and it does not help that we are not even in a proper "department" - torn between English Language and the Humanities (Geog, History). I think the Lit teachers are relatively enthusiastic, but because they are burdened with teaching English, and there are not enough English teachers, Literature takes a backseat. The school principals are likewise neutral and not very enthusiastic about teaching this subject, though they are more supportive of inculcating the school values in students.

However, the English department is rather strong, and there are a few programmes for it in the morning, such as Quote of the Week, DEAR (Drop Everything And Read: whereby students read certain news articles that have been pre-selected and printed for them by the teachers) and DEAL (Drop Everything And Listen: to a short audio clip while reading the words off the slides. A different genre each Tue, Thur, something like General Paper content style- Can be extremely varied).

In this school, Literature teachers in this school get to be inventive in what they teach as long as it has been previously discussed and stated in the Scheme of Work (and approved of). Last year, the Art department collaborated with Literature teachers to do a project on "Painting With Words", which is to do a painting and compose a Haiku that draws inspiration from the painting. This year, a mini project that students did is to design a book cover for the Literature text "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas".

Principles at Work:

1) Creativity in Literature. Teachers in my school try to make Literature lessons as interesting as possible, and this is usually collaborated with the Art department, as seen above, or assigning students to do tasks that are related to arts and craft. My teachers also plan for lessons to be music-audio related, so songs or videos or excepts of movies will be played during Literature lessons to help reinforce a point. In teaching The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, my Literature teacher also uses the movie version to help garner students' interests in studying the text, though this is usually played after covering the main points in the text. In continuation with the style of teaching in HYSS to reinforce their interests, I plan to show a short trailer on ' Cloud Atlas ' to use it for discussion on the theme of Oppression next week.

2) Technicality. My Literature teachers like to focus on techniques, such as for writing, using the PEEL (without the L as of yet) framework to start scaffolding students on writing. As such, power-point slides printed for students also employ the PEE framework to demonstrate to students how it is being used- By first making a Point, then showing the Evidence and giving an Explanation on it. Several examples will be given to students, as clearly explained in the power point slides. I feel that students are generally still rather spoon-fed at this stage, but my CT says it is necessary before they can start practicing it themselves later on. For my lessons, I also follow the structure of how Literature is taught in the school by teaching the technique of selecting important quotes. Students are encouraged to highlight or draw brackets on significant quotes that I point their attention to, and make notes at the side of the text or on small post-its (which I ask them to purchase). Students then practise selecting quotes "that address or hint at why Herr Liszt is significant in Chapter 9" (for The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas) before it is being discussed in the following class.

3) Passivity. As across all subjects, I feel that students are rather passive, because all they do is sit down and copy notes. Occasionally, they answer the teacher's questions, but even so, not all students take turns doing that. I wish they could do more. Like stand up and head to the library to find more information out themselves. Or go to the computer lab to do research, though of course this is rather time-consuming, and needs to be more properly planned. Literature teachers do try and "take students out of the classroom" through use of ICT like movies and videos, but ultimately, the real "Learning Journey" is very much lacking. What can be done?

Debate on ST:
What troubles me is that Literature is seen as a subject that is largely dying. And I think it is due to the government's refusal to actively do something about the dying subject. I agree with Hafiz that we should introduce Literature in primary schools. Perhaps if students start young, like with English, they will not feel that it is a "difficult" or "difficult to score" subject. I also think that perhaps an official compilation of Literature notes, skills, and local poetry, prose and plays could help the study of Literature become a little more structured, since many people cannot deal with its fluidity. They may have problems with "Where do I start studying" or "How do I study", and some sort of guidelines could assist students.

On the other hand, the ministry also needs to lend its support to schools offering Literature. This could be done by investing in courses that can help students better understand Literature, or enjoy taking the subject. The ministry should also seek to encourage more students to take Literature by organizing more talks and debates about the study of Literature, perhaps on national television. In her article "Irony of Literature's Decline", Dr Poon states that "Ironically, not publishing the distinction rates in the case of O-level humanities subjects has led to the perpetuation of erroneous ideas about the alleged difficulty of a subject like literature. " I think perhaps local Literature teachers could start to push for this subject by being well-aware of the percentile of students attaining distinctions in Literature, as well as in passing the subject, so that they can better convince HODs and Principals to take up the subject. This is especially also since Dr Liew's research have found that " According to official data, however, the pass and distinction rates in literature have increased slightly over the last 10 years." in his article" Is the subject worth saving".

I think in these times of "war" on the survival of Literature, Lit teachers ultimately need to be proactive and push harder to fight for a place for this beloved subject in the O levels.

Velvet Ng Siew Ping