What have you learned from your experience during TP? What kinds of challenges do you foresee as you develop as a Literature teacher in your specific school context?
I think as far as Literature goes I have had a very encouraging experience in my school (Westwood Secondary) as the school stresses on communicative studies and includes drama and literature into their English curriculum. On the whole the departmental thrust is that of making literature likeable and popular among students so much so that even the NT stream are roped in projects that enable them to come up with artifacts that are literature based such as skits, role play etc. Having said that, it doesn't mean that the students have a real knowledge of reading literary texts because the motive is making literature more accessible, students are not really taught literary devices or figurative language very well-lower secondary literature is more about having fun-which hampers the students' understanding of literature and their expectations of literature when some of them happen to take it in upper secondary level.
I teach only full literature (called pure lit in my school) to a group of 14 students (1 boy and 13 girls), the class is extremely well behaved, so much so that I have to literally beg them to voice their opinions. But this is only my second challenge, my number one challenge is to make them read the text. Though they have taken literature, they do not want to read the texts allocated to them! They will only read the chapter I have specifically asked them to read. Challenge number 2 is to make them voice their meagre opinions on the chapter. Because they do not read, they have no prior knowledge of any kind related to the text, they do not even bother googling the novel or the author before coming to class. The students do not know how to make connections, so when I ask them, "You must have read about World War II, right?" I am met with blank faces and no nods, whereas my 1 NT class could tell me who Adolf Hitler was (response: the Nazi man, WWII, killed people)
How do I activate schema when they pretend not to have one?
Second incident:
As we are doing Lord of the Flies, a student asked me how come the plane crashed elsewhere and not on the island the boys were dropped. So I explained to them that when such a maneuver is made, passengers are dropped first and then the pilot would eject and the plane would probably crash a little further from the point where everyone was dropped off because the plane would be carried on due to momentum. Blank faces and question: What is momentum? Sec 3 Express. I ask them have you heard of Newton's Law of Motion? Nothing. Inertia of rest, inertia of motion? Nothing. Apparently they never did Newton's Law and have never heard of momentum.
I trust these students, I don't think that they would bluff me, they are not the joker kind, some of them are really interested in learning new things...but when I asked one of the science teachers, she was quite surprised that the students couldn't remember having heard of momentum. So perhaps they only study for exam purpose and quickly forget the concepts that they had learnt for exams.
We keep on talking about higher order thinking. When I tried to talk about postcolonialism, the feedback I got was, just concentrate on the areas of study and don't talk too much on concepts the students are not likely to understand. Yet, I persevered with the class, I taught White Man's Burden and Shooting an Elephant and tried to talk about colonization...showed them videos, I only got a bad APT form as a consequence. Then I decided to just go with the areas of study.
The challenges that I face and will continue to face while teaching literature are firstly, to ensure that students actually feel an ownership in their involvement in this course. I want them to understand that they have taken this course as their choice, having ann active interest in reading and researching on it would make their own lives easier. Once this can be achieve, having students understand that literary discourse believes in intertextuality and metatextuality. Therefore they must apply their knowledge of the world and of all that they have learnt about the world to use as they read texts. Only then, can they move towards being critical thinkers.
I think as far as Literature goes I have had a very encouraging experience in my school (Westwood Secondary) as the school stresses on communicative studies and includes drama and literature into their English curriculum. On the whole the departmental thrust is that of making literature likeable and popular among students so much so that even the NT stream are roped in projects that enable them to come up with artifacts that are literature based such as skits, role play etc. Having said that, it doesn't mean that the students have a real knowledge of reading literary texts because the motive is making literature more accessible, students are not really taught literary devices or figurative language very well-lower secondary literature is more about having fun-which hampers the students' understanding of literature and their expectations of literature when some of them happen to take it in upper secondary level.
I teach only full literature (called pure lit in my school) to a group of 14 students (1 boy and 13 girls), the class is extremely well behaved, so much so that I have to literally beg them to voice their opinions. But this is only my second challenge, my number one challenge is to make them read the text. Though they have taken literature, they do not want to read the texts allocated to them! They will only read the chapter I have specifically asked them to read. Challenge number 2 is to make them voice their meagre opinions on the chapter. Because they do not read, they have no prior knowledge of any kind related to the text, they do not even bother googling the novel or the author before coming to class. The students do not know how to make connections, so when I ask them, "You must have read about World War II, right?" I am met with blank faces and no nods, whereas my 1 NT class could tell me who Adolf Hitler was (response: the Nazi man, WWII, killed people)
How do I activate schema when they pretend not to have one?
Second incident:
As we are doing Lord of the Flies, a student asked me how come the plane crashed elsewhere and not on the island the boys were dropped. So I explained to them that when such a maneuver is made, passengers are dropped first and then the pilot would eject and the plane would probably crash a little further from the point where everyone was dropped off because the plane would be carried on due to momentum. Blank faces and question: What is momentum? Sec 3 Express. I ask them have you heard of Newton's Law of Motion? Nothing. Inertia of rest, inertia of motion? Nothing. Apparently they never did Newton's Law and have never heard of momentum.
I trust these students, I don't think that they would bluff me, they are not the joker kind, some of them are really interested in learning new things...but when I asked one of the science teachers, she was quite surprised that the students couldn't remember having heard of momentum. So perhaps they only study for exam purpose and quickly forget the concepts that they had learnt for exams.
We keep on talking about higher order thinking. When I tried to talk about postcolonialism, the feedback I got was, just concentrate on the areas of study and don't talk too much on concepts the students are not likely to understand. Yet, I persevered with the class, I taught White Man's Burden and Shooting an Elephant and tried to talk about colonization...showed them videos, I only got a bad APT form as a consequence. Then I decided to just go with the areas of study.
The challenges that I face and will continue to face while teaching literature are firstly, to ensure that students actually feel an ownership in their involvement in this course. I want them to understand that they have taken this course as their choice, having ann active interest in reading and researching on it would make their own lives easier. Once this can be achieve, having students understand that literary discourse believes in intertextuality and metatextuality. Therefore they must apply their knowledge of the world and of all that they have learnt about the world to use as they read texts. Only then, can they move towards being critical thinkers.
Seemingly dream class of 14 that you have, Priya but looks like it will still be an uphill task getting them to buy into and learn deeply. It's a tough balance - when Lit at lower secondary is very fun and engaging, students love it but they may not be exposed to the rigour required of them at upper sec. Hence, the tough job you now have!
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