State of Literature in Practicum School

The secondary 1 students in NCHS are embarking on the school's new language arts programme, and are studying the novel Malgudi Schooldays by R K Narayan. The programme follows a modular system where each module sees specific English Language skills being taught through literature/ creative writing. This is as much as I know right now, as I will only be more involved in the curriculum during or after the March holidays. The previous batch of secondary 1 students used the textbook Flights of Fancy: A Journey through Poetry, Prose and Drama. Teachers focused on teaching close reading, characterisation, plot and themes through prose, and taught them the PEEL technique in answering questions.

The secondary 2 students focused on unseen poetry in the first term of 2012. As there are only 3 single-periods allocated to Literature every 2 weeks, the students were only exposed to 2 poems before their common test on unseen poetry at the end of the first term--some said they felt unprepared and didn't know what was going on--they understand and can identify poetic techniques, but they do not know how to approach a poem and how to answer questions. The 2 poems are: William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and Nissim Ezekiel's "Night of the Scorpion". The common test required them to analyse Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est".

They will be focusing on The Boy in the Striped Pajamas for the rest of the year. There is a coordinator who sourced for and collated online resources, and who drew up an SOW. These resources are shared with all Literature teachers, but teachers are given the autonomy to pick and choose what to teach and what resources to use during lessons. All teachers are also to come up with a one-page worksheet for every 3 chapters, which will be used across the level. There is a blog where teachers can upload resources and students can post questions--it has just started and there is currently only one post by a teacher there.

The upper secondary students are studying Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Journey's End. From what I've heard, there is only a small cohort of less than 20 students studying Literature at upper secondary level.

Most students at NCHS are inclined towards Korean pop culture, and English Literature bores them. Still, some are very insightful and contribute meaningful answers during class discussions. Although they get excited when learning about the historical context and background of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas , many of them do not have the patience to sit through the first 10 chapters. They need much visual and audio stimulation.