Describe how Literature is being taught in the school you are posted to for Teaching Practice?

At Riverside Secondary, Literature is not offered at the Upper Secondary level. Hence, lower-secondary literature lessons are seen as an accompaniment to the students’ English lessons. While there may not be an extensive plan for Lower Secondary Literature, this gives me the opportunity to introduce games and other devices to get the students interested in literature.

For example, while the given worksheet for one particular lesson requires students to write a summary of the chapter, I did a close-reading of the chapter with the students instead. This, I feel, would be more beneficial than writing a summary as Secondary 1 students may not know how to analyze their texts. Furthermore, students can use the reading skills that they pick up from this lesson in their English class, as comprehension is still a key component of their exams.

Literature lessons are very fun for the students, as they do activities that they may not do in other lessons. For example, students were given the opportunity to act out various scenes from their text as they learned how to empathize with the characters.

While students may not realize the difference between English and Literature at this point in their studies, I don’t feel that this hinders their learning. In fact, because of their limited subject options when they are Upper Secondary students, combining English and Literature seems to make lessons more effective.