English Literature at Riverside Secondary School

At Riverside Secondary School, Literature is only offered at lower secondary level. Both the Secondary 1's and 2's are currently studying Red Sky In The Morning and both levels study the exact same thing. There is little variation in the worksheets (and thus the skills) that are taught at Secondary 1 and Secondary 2. I'm not too sure what the students in Secondary 2 learnt when they were in Secondary 1.

Literature, even at lower secondary is not considered a 'major' subject. There is no semestral exams for the students and their CA grades are calculated through a series of assignments. Literature is taught more as an extension of English language and this is reflected in the assignments that students are given.

Students do not learn Literature skills as much as they learn content i.e. what happens in Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

There is a set of worksheets that is given to students at the beginning of the term and all the classes use the same set of worksheets. The worksheets generally are made up of chapter summaries, character analysis and 100-word personal reflections on chapters.

Most of the lessons I have observed, the teacher generally adopts a lecture-style teaching approach where the teacher teaches, students do worksheets individually and then hand up the worksheet/file to the teacher.