CHIJ St Joseph’s Convent has a strong history of cultivating Literature in the school. Statistically, there are almost 300 students taking Pure Literature this year (110 Secondary 3 Express and Normal Academic, 136 Secondary 4 Express and Normal Academic, and 40 Secondary 5 Normal Academic), and additional 60 students from across the level taking Upper Secondary Elective Literature. The school is also fortunate to have a large pool of Literature teachers –about 11 permanent Literature teachers – to teach Lower Secondary Literature, and Upper Secondary Elective and Pure Literature.
From the short interview sessions with some of the Literature teachers, apparently the previous principal, Mrs Susan-Crossley, strongly advocated the teaching and learning of Literature in the school. The teachers here believe that the girls have a lot of potential, and most of them have the language proficiency to do Literature for O Levels. In addition, there are no additional requirements from Lower Secondary to take Literature in Upper Secondary, unlike the other two humanities subjects. Besides, they have a larger pool of Literature teachers as compared to History and Geography teachers, and the quota placed on these two subjects encouraged students to take up Literature in upper Secondary.
According to the Upper Secondary level coordinator, Mr Andrew Teo, who is a Literature teacher himself, the students are already drilled into write essays since Secondary 1. They have been taught the skills to write essays even from the start as their focus on Literature programme is to prepare students for ‘O’ Levels. The school incorporated various types of Literature texts in classes, including the unconventional animated films. For example, for the past 7 years, the school used Dreamwork’s ‘Shrek’ to teach Secondary 1 students the concept of heroes and protagonists. They recently changed it to Disney’s ‘Tangled’ to adapt to student’s changing interests. By using these films, they entice the students, especially the Sec 1s who are new to the subject, into loving the subject.
The students were also brought to a variety of workshops, mainly inviting external speakers to talk more about the texts that they are studying. Workshops were also conducted in the school for Literature teachers to enhance their teaching strategies. In the upcoming March holidays, the Sec 5 students will be watching the play ‘SISTER: the untold stories of the sisters islands’ by Jean Tay. Not only will this play be useful for the students, it also gives them an ‘out of the classroom’ experience in stage-play.
I am pretty lucky in the sense that my school still strongly advocates the teaching of Literature in school. According to the various recent articles on the decline of students taking English Literature for O Levels, not many schools are offering this subject because lesser students are applying to take this subject for O Levels. Literature teachers in my school do not believe that Literature is hard to score. More than 50% of the students who took English Literature for O Levels last year scored distinctions. My CT herself, Mrs Lau Hay Pin (who has been teaching for 17 years), thinks that it just takes a little more effort to get the A.
What I feel about this debate is that it is important to cultivate a good Literature environment for the students from Lower Secondary. It will be even better if Literature is offered in Primary School, to give students access to a variety of poems and short stories to study and analyse. Not only will this encourage children to read, it will get them to explore a lot of areas such as values (outside of CME) and expand their imagination. Students must have the opportunity to express their thoughts and opinion, moving away from seated work.
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