Literature Lessons at Yusof Ishak Secondary School

The text the Secondary 2 Express and Normal Academic students are dong in Yusof Ishak Secondary School is Free! by David Grant.

It is a new text and not many schools are engaging in this. It is about a group of students in a classroom and the mischief they create in the absence of the teachers. In Yusof Ishak, literature is mainly taught through drama. The students are very familiar with dramatic works and plays. The school is pretty famous for some of its school productions. Drama is also chosen because the students do not like reading and sometimes a whole text is intimidating to them. A play is chosen as it gives an illusion of lesser text. Thus, the text is chosen based on the student profile.

In Secondary One, the students are reading a book called Buddy. It is relatively short and about friendship. This is taught in a very comprehension style as the students do not understand why they need to see things differently in the text. Tests and issues are taught through comprehension and with the use of extracts.

In Secondary Two, they learn a play and poetry. The first half of the year focuses on the former and the second half, the latter. In teaching the play, characterisation is taught through group work and visuals and the use of mind maps. The students visually represent what the characters look like and their various character traits. After which, the teacher gives them a worksheet with their traits and the respective quotes that are relevant to them. In that way, they are kind of spoon fed.

After the first 10 weeks, they dwell more into the themes of the play. Literature is only once a week so no much can be done. In the express classess the students read the book. However in the normal academic class, they do not engage with the text and do not read it also.