Literature is critical

Reflection 4 

The State of Literature in your school

For TP2, I am very lucky to be posted to a school different from my TP1 school. My TP1 school did not have Upper Sec Literature, and my Literature CT did not seem to like teaching Lit very much, often treating the Lit text like an advanced comprehension passage. Her Lit lessons consisted of chapter by chapter fill-in-the-blanks worksheets and test at the end of a couple of chapters. This time round, it is very obvious that the teachers who teach Lit are passionate about it (and are actually trained in Lit). There are 3 teachers who teach Lit, the 2 who teach Sec 1 have Lit as their 2nd CS (their 1st being English) and the Lit coordinator, Izzan, only teaches Lit, taking Sec 2, 3 and 4. While he is an excellent teacher, he is also a BT - one year our senior. For a BT to take on so much is extremely challenging, and it is rare for BTs to take graduating classes, but the school lost their Lit teacher of 12 years Mdm Irma due to a transfer and as such, Izzan had no choice but to take it on. With such a heavy workload, I hope he is able to stay passionate and continue inspiring the kids without burning out, because I think, more so than any other subject (other than maybe Art), Lit teachers must stay inspired and passionate if they want to feel the subject. For Sec 1, both Express and Normal do Bridge to Terabithia, which I think is a lovely choice to introduce them to Lit - the language is simple enough, yet the ideas of a fantasy world and children's problems of dealing with parents, peer pressure, bullying and teacher crushes are dealt with in the text. For assessment, my Lit CT focuses a lot on getting the students' opinions and personal response, using questioning to get them to discuss orally, and giving them opinion questions for them to work on writing out their opinion (e.g. Why do you think he did this? instead of What did he do?). For Sec 2, the students do The Merchant of Venice. The Sec 3s (17 of them) are currently doing Everything but the Brain by Jean Tay, while the Sec 4s (23 students) are doing Boom, also by Jean Tay. The Lower Sec students will be doing poetry and prose from Mining for Meaning textbook in the upcoming terms, while Upper Sec will be doing Telltale: 11 Stories.

Referring to Dr Dennis Yeo's note on Facebook 'Teaching Literature: A Teacher's POV', I guess I can understand why my previous Lit CTs had difficulty in teaching the subject and resorted to compre-style lessons - it is not for the faint of heart and I agree with Dr Yeo that Lit is the most difficult subject to teach, given the extreme time constraints, diverse student profiles etc. Perhaps cynicism and weariness were also factors that led to the drop in quality of Lit teaching - if so, I do not blame them.

The principal seems to support Lit. She was a Lit major and Lit teacher herself, who started off teaching Lit and GP at Pre-U, then taught in secondary school, before moving to primary school. She enthused about introducing Lit even at primary school. During the Lit lesson study, I learnt that she also seems to give her opinions about Lit teaching, as she had expressed her disapproval at using images to help students' envisionment when teaching poetry.

My English CT does current affairs, and one of the things that came up was Literature since it's being discussed in the papers. She asked them why they didn't choose Lit, and for the N/A students, they felt it was too difficult (they take Art or F&N or POA instead), and for the Triple Science Express class, they said that they chose Triple Science "for a brighter future", implying that they think there is no future in taking Lit. I don't blame them - they can't help that they're part of this kiasu society with its misplaced elitism, myopic thinking and obsession with money.

I asked the Sec 3 Lit students why they chose to do Lit. Some of them said 'because I qualified' (there was a requirement for them to have had at least A2 for Lit and B3 for English at Sec 2 to be able to take Lit). But I could tell from their class that they actually like doing the subject, and it's students like these who will be the fuel that keep us going as we fight this (losing) battle for Lit.

The Lit Debate

I wanted to cry reading Dr Poon's article again, because she so astutely and cleverly turned the argument on its head.

"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. Literature thus has the dubious distinction of being the policy victim of both an over-emphasis on academic achievement and the move to de-emphasise grades. Failure to discern the irony just proves my point that Literature as a subject should be strongly encouraged, and not needlessly allowed to be collateral damage in the false name of greater curricular choice."

It's my favourite line out of all the articles pertaining to the Lit debate - "Failure to discern the irony just proves my point that Literature as a subject should be strongly encouraged". How many of our Lit students would actually understand and appreciate irony, one of the most difficult concepts to teach and understand? Without the benefit of Lit, would people actually appreciate irony? And so many of life's little nuances that Lit strives to appreciate and grapple with? How dull would conversation and life be, without us not being able to use literary language to express ourselves? We already do it unknowingly, through conceptual metaphors, but being able to better understand metaphors will help us better extend and express ourselves through them.

Lit is life
I love that little Allison had wisdom far beyond her years when she wrote that "literature ... does not feel like a subject at all; it is more like an initiation into humanity and life itself". Lit makes you feel things, feel being human - and this is what makes us human, is it not? I don't think any other subject, other than maybe Art, can inspire as much as Lit can - when we face extreme emotions, we turn to beautiful words to even attempt to express how we feel. Inspirational words and poetry, I would argue, are interchangeable - words that inspire are poetic, and poetry, being 'the best words in the best order' can be inspiring. So without Lit, how can we be an inspired people?

'Critical'
Dr Suzanne Choo's article in The Sunday Times also highlighted Lit's value to teach values. Her headline read 'No literature? Sadly, a missed opportunity to teach values', but I felt it should have read 'critical values', given her brilliant argument, lining out historical factors that led to the current state of affairs, and the need for critical values education in the 21st century, now more than ever before. Like Dr Poon, Dr Choo's clever wordplay was moving - on one hand, 'critical' referred to questioning and challenging and critiquing. On the other hand, the use of the word 'critical' in its capacity of being something vital and of utmost importance also reflected how she felt that moving away from 'utiliarian education' and 'restor(ing) the centrality of literature education' is imperative.

People power
As such, individual Literature teachers and people who have the authority to make change are vital if we want to turn things around. Ms Indranee Rajah mentioned that there are enough Lit teachers to go around, but I question, given my experience, whether some Lit teachers actually want to teach Lit and/or have even been trained in the discipline.

I think the way forward for now is to pander to the ignoramus, and as much as I hate it, package Literature as a means of improving English language, as suggested by some of the forum writers. This can be started even in primary school, as one writer noted that our 'textbook answer' culture stems from primary school. Then we who know better sneakily get students to question status quo, read below the surface and see that there is more to life than just money. No longer can the Ministry get away with producing passive, unthinking machines. But all this is so much easier said than done. Can we recruit enough good Literature teachers to fight the good fight? And keep those good teachers passionate and not tainted by cynicism and disillusionment from all the obstacles they face, Lit-related or not?

Carmen's Reflection 4

Being two weeks into practicum, I was able to learn more about Literature as a subject in my school, St. Andrew’s Secondary School (SASS). I was assigned to a Secondary 3 class for Literature, which is made up of only 30 over students out of the entire Secondary 3 level cohort. Due to the small number of students taking Literature in Secondary 3, I only had 5 periods of Literature lessons as compared to my 13 periods of Mathematics. In SASS, Literature is only taken as an elective and the school does not offer pure Literature. The subject is also seen as just an elective and hence does not seem to hold the same importance as the other core subjects like English, Mathematics and the Sciences. Despite the principal’s interest in the arts, the number of experienced Literature teachers (with teaching experiences of more than 3 years) in this school was disappointingly very limited. The number of beginning teachers teaching Literature here was also quite small in numbers.

I had the opportunity to talk to some of the Secondary 3 boys taking Literature before lesson began. I asked them what they had learnt so far in Literature.  To my horror, some meekly replied that they had not learnt anything at all since the start of the year from the Literature lessons! I then asked them their reasons for taking Literature and some stated reasons like Literature seeming to be the elective that is easiest to score or no choice since Literature seemed like the “lesser evil” out of all the electives. During lesson, I had also observed that most of the boys did not display enthusiasm or interest. Very few of them actually participated in the class discussions and did very “half-ass” jobs for their work. The usually vocal trait of a typical SASS boy was missing in the class and even the ones answering questions in class did not seem to have the confidence in answering, as they mumble their answers out to the teacher and the teacher had to guess roughly what they were saying.

Currently, the Secondary 3 boys are learning Unseen Poetry, followed by Unseen Prose and Lord of the Flies in the next term. I only managed to observe a lesson that the my Literature CT taught. (The other periods for observations were wasted on term test and free period due to the teacher’s absence.)From the one lesson that I had observed, I noticed that it was very teacher-centered, where the teacher talked and the students listened most of the time. The teacher also showed model answers on the screen and got the students to copy them down. On one hand, this was good as the students could learn from the model answers how to display their answers in the PEEL format. However, on the other hand, it did not give the boys much room to come up with the answers themselves. Most of them just waited for the answers to be shown to them and half the time that the teacher talks, the boys were copying the answers instead of listening. Copying of answers also got the boys to focus o the wrong things. They were more interested in the skills to write a good essay than appreciating the poem that they were analyzing.

Looking at the articles on the recent drop in number of students taking Literature as an O levels subject, I find this situation even more depressing. If you were to compare the class size of a Literature class with that of a Geography or History class, you can see that the Literature class is considered really very small in comparison. It is even more depressing to see that some students are even deprived of the opportunity to take Literature as an O levels subject due to the lack of numbers to form a class. Fortunately, this problem does not affect SASS as students are given the opportunity to choose the elective of their choice and the students will then be streamed into classes for their elective. This means that the Literature class comprises of students from different classes and the school does not need to meet a requirement of having a minimum number of students to form an elective class. 

I find that Literature is no longer a subject that students study for enjoyment. Rather, pressured by the results-inclined society we live in, students only care about the right techniques in writing a Literature essay. As a result, in order to cater to our students' needs, teachers have to adapt their lessons accordingly. Lessons become more dry and boring with teachers constantly drilling the many different literary devices and techniques in their students instead of appreciating the Literature as it is. Maybe, it is time for teachers to stop spoon-feeding our students with the "right way" of writing Literature essays start cultivating the students' interest in Literature. 

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

Reflection 4

State of Literature in my School

Currently, the texts that lit students are studying are Lord of The Flies by William Golding, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (pure lit) and The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.

In terms of teaching focus (for upper sec), there is a lot of emphasis on writing. Students are taught the PEEL model and are often reminded on it when they write. Group/classroom discussions are also evident and encouraged in the classes that I observe. I would say that literature in my school is thriving and is doing well.

The school offers both pure and elective literature for upper secondary students. While lit elective was made compulsory in the last few years, students are now given the option to do either lit or history elective. Despite this, there are still quite a number of students taking both elective and pure literature. I find this move by the school to make literature a non-compulsory elective subject a good one. My reason for this is simple: People have different subject interest. By allowing students to choose, teachers will get students who are passionate about the subject. Of course I can argue that all students should study literature as it teaches students to empathize and appreciate the world around them better. However, by saying that, it would imply that the other elective subject is not as good as literature, which is of course not true.

Teachers in the school are enthusiastic and passionate about the subject. They’re very approachable and are always open to discussion on matters concerning literature. As there are only a handful of literature teachers (6 to be exact), they often share their teaching experience and the problems encountered in teaching literature. One concern that they often highlight is the lack of motivation and interest of students in the subject (especially among students that were forced to take the subject). During one of my lesson observations, a student came to me asking for help on a poem that they were analyzing in class. While I was talking to him about it, the student mentioned that Literature is a “difficult subject”. On another occasion, a student told me that literature is a “difficult subject to score”. Both students are secondary 4 students who were not given the choice to choose their elective humanities subject.

Addressing the drop in figures of literature students

While teachers can try to motivate such students, more importantly I feel that we need to address the mindset that most people have about literature being a “difficult subject”. In reference to the ST articles, it is clear that there are many opinions on why there is a decline in students studying literature in schools. However, I must agree with Jane Ng who mentions in her article “Reigniting the spark of literature” that “it would take a larger mindset change from society to reverse literature’s decline”. We need to inform parents and students that literature is NOT a difficult subject. It is like any other subjects that require hard work and dedication to score.

So, I don’t think it’s about MOE’s decision to make literature a compulsory or non-compulsory subject in schools. Instead, I believe that more effort should be spent on trying to change the mindset of the masses who feel that literature is a “difficult subject”. How we should we do it then? My suggestion is to include literature in primary schools. We should let our primary school students experience the joy of literature. 

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).

Grace's Reflection #4

Give a brief description of the state of Literature in your school, including a description of the school culture, texts used and assessment methods. Distil your observations into what you see as two to three key principles at work with regard to Literature education in your school. (Deadline: 9 March 2013, Saturday)

School:                       Crescent Girls' School
Streams Available:    Express, Special

State of Literature in the school: 

90 Core Lit students, 85 Elective Lit students (Sec 3, 2013)
HOD of Literature, Mrs Rupa Beng Choo and HOD of English, Mr Tan Yew Hock, have co-written a chapter in Teaching Literature in Singapore Secondary Schools (Loh et al., 2013). CGS has a strong culture of Literature and has hosted the Literature Festival and Literature Symposium for secondary schools. 

School culture for Literature:

Lower Secondary (Whole-school approach) "Literature is not an isolated subject, it is part of the school culture"

Sec 1: Communicative Arts lessons (combination of English and Literature)
           Poetry Slam Inter-class competitions, Share-A-Thought (performances for the school during
           School Assembly), Commonwealth Essay Competitions

Sec 2: Abridged version of Shakespeare, Book sales in school, trips to support SYF Drama
           performances, Debate lessons (conducted by external vendors)

Upper Secondary (Partnerships with other schools) "Literature teaches skills applicable in other Humanities Subjects and trains higher order thinking required in Tertiary Education"

Sec 3,4 : Book club (partnering other schools which study the same Literature Text, visit plays
               produced and performed by seniors - e.g. ACJC's "Crucible", get seniors to come back and 
               sell Theatre Production tickets)

Texts used: 

Lower Sec: Animal Farm (by George Orwell)
Upper Sec: Fasting & Feasting (by Anita Desai), Romeo & Juliet (by Shakespeare)

Assessment methods:

Summative (Assessment of Learning) - Dramatization, Literature Journals (in 1 semester)
Formative (Assessment for Learning) -  25-mark Essays (prose, drama, poetry)

Principle 1: Literature is not an isolated subject. 

Literature teachers emphasize that skills learned in the study of Literature are applicable in other Humanities Subjects (e.g. Social Studies, History, Geography) since the O-Level Literature Essay format (1 Paragraph consists of: Main Point, Elaboration, Analysis and Link) is applicable to other subjects and even in tertiary education (e.g. Writing a General Paper essay or Conducting an analysis of a Business Model in Polytechnic)

Principle 2: Literature teachers must motivate students by inspiration.

Teachers should not teach Literature by writing summaries. Thematic and holistic approaches to the study of Literature will tremendously motivate students. The rationale for this approach is that the focus will move away from linguistic ability and towards the depth of analysis required in Literature.

Principle 3: Literature is not English.

Student-centered activities are good but it should not be microcosms of study. Instead, every lesson should ideally be linked to the overarching macro themes and 5 Areas of Study (MOE, 2013). Teachers should avoid conducting extremely engaging lessons that are fun but have no relevance to the 5 Areas of Study in Literature. For example, the use of ICT must be meaningful and unless the teacher is able to substantially explain how the use of ICT is critical to the lesson, chalk-and-talk lessons are adequate and suitable.

Reflection #4 - Practicum School Culture

      Give a brief description of the state of Literature in your school, including a description of the school culture, texts used and assessment methods. Distil your observations into what you see as two to three key principles at work with regard to Literature education in your school. (Deadline: 9 March 2013, Saturday)