- The website suggested multiple ways of conducting pre-activity exercises to stimulate the interests of students before they embark on the process of dissecting the literary texts. For instance, in poetry analysis, students discuss about the poet’s purpose for writing the poem, as well who the intended audience is. I think this is an effective way of inciting the curiosity of the students toward a particular poem so that they are able to engage with the poem on a more profound level.
- Besides, students are encouraged to write their personal reflections on the literary texts and relating the text to their own experiences. This encourages them to think about the relevancy of the texts to the society/world that they are living in. This is a form of informal assessment that allows students to express themselves with ease and fluency as they do not feel restricted by certain writing rules, unlike in a situation where they are expected to produce a proper essay on practical criticism of a certain text.
- Finally, students rewrite a movie into a screenplay and are made to decide on the location and casting of the movie. I feel that this is an excellent way for students to get a better understanding of the text as they come up with stage directions, gestures, intonation and even costumes for the characters.
The method of writing of reflections and relating it back to the personal experience of the student or individual have been widely discussed in many articles of late and I personally believe that such is a wonderful method to be applied to the students learning process. First of all, jotting down reflections allows the student to pen down their thoughts and emotions about the particular text that they are reading on. This is very often overlooked and tends to be dismissed despite its extreme importance simply because the focus tends to be on the supposed understanding and reading of the text. Association to their emotions and thoughts seen through the reflection, heads towards the direction of rendering the text to a much higher level than just an outlet for skills and theories to be applied. From this platform, students will then subconsciously relate the text back to their personal experience and make connections to their own lives. Such as mentioned in the website Qian Ling has mentioned, promotes association of the text to the relevancy of the occurrence in the world and facilitates not only understanding of the text and the message behind the text but also the importance of this awareness. It is from here that students will make sense of the theories taught during literature lessons and thus be able to see that such theories do not make sense unless they are applied to the real world and once it is applied, students will then be able to see for themselves how literature provides them will multiple lens to view the worlds.
ReplyDeleteI especially liked the idea of having the students rewrite a movie into a screenplay. It is interactive, it is hands on, but most of all, it allows for creative expression from the students. I firmly believe that it is only with their own input, and their personal ideas being put into action that students truly learn. Seeing their ideas and efforts coming to fruition undoubtedly acts as a stimulus for students to research more on and even generate further interest into the study of literature. That, is perhaps the biggest gift a teacher can provide to their students, an introduction to a new world in which they can explore and the thirst to know more about it. We would be extremely successful if through this method, students take on learning as their own responsibility.
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