Creative Lesson - Poetry

I don't think the lesson is considered creative, but it was interactive as it generated discussion from the Sec 2 NA classes, and I enjoyed teaching it.

The poem I used was Grace Chua's "Letter From Home" which can be taken from http://210.193.6.218/story.asp?id=95 . Having the context of the poem in mind,  I started the lesson by asking the students, if they could pack up and leave the country alone tomorrow, to study in a different country, would they? The replies I got were mostly Yes (for obvious reasons?), and they were very enthusiastic to share the countries of their choices - Paris, London, USA, Japan... Asking the students why they would choose to leave, elicited even more responses.

The discussion really kickstarted the class and I did not hear any complains when I handed out the poem, and told them to keep what they said in mind. The discussion I carried out with the class focused on the themes and the mother's emotions. At the end of the class, I checked back with the students by asking them how would they feel if they had receive such a letter from their mothers while they were away, and what would they do. While most of them said they would Skype, email or write their mothers, there were a few (even the boys) who said they would cry or even come back home. It was very endearing. I think both the students and I enjoyed the lesson.

A creative lesson plan

The lesson is done with my Secondary 2 Language Arts class. The focus of the lesson is on character study of some of the key figures in Animal Farm—Old Major, Mr. Jones, Napoleon, Squealer, Snowball and Boxer. As this lesson is conducted during the school’s theme on popular culture, I have decided to ask the students to work in groups to create a found poem based on the character allocated to them.

What they are supposed to do is to select appropriate words and phrases from the first 3 chapters of Animal Farm that will help them create a found poem that illustrates the character traits of the particular character. In their found poems, they should include descriptions of the character as well as the key events that are related to the character. They can also play around with the color and fonts used, as well as the structure of the poem. However, they will need to explain why they have chosen to present their found poem in a certain way.

After the groups are done with the found poem, one representative from each group will have to write down the main discussion points on the whiteboard. This enables the students to learn about other characters aside from the one they are working on. In a single period lesson, the students have learnt about the 6 characters although they have been working only on one for their found poem. Selected students are to present on the group’s found poem.

My creative lesson at Presbyterian High School

My “creative” lesson was not so much as creative as it was a different style of approaching the novel for the students. As it was highlighted in the first post, Friedrich is approached in a very methodical manner, whereby only the key chapters are covered in depth in class. In these lessons, a summary is provided, the chapter is read through as a class and the teacher highlights important quotes and issues along the way.

Although I understood that Literature is being approached this way so that the Secondary 1 students can find this new subject manageable, I found it problematic as students took the novel just as it was being taught to them- in chapters. They did not make cross-references to other chapters or understand the significance of certain events. They also did not sympathize with the character Friedrich for the sufferings he had to go through as a Jew.

So in my first lesson with the class, I started the lesson by claiming that the chapter in focus for that lesson (“The Pogrom”) showed ‘Change’. They looked completely mystified as they never had approached a chapter thematically before. Then, instead of reading through the entire chapter with them, I highlighted important quotes from “The Pogrom”, where these quotes were either on an event or a character. For every quote from “The Pogrom”, I followed it by a quote from another chapter, on the same event or character. Then for every pair of quotes I showed, I flashed the questions “Is there a change in how Jews are treated?” and “Are they being treated better or worse?” and told them to mentally consider them.

Essentially, the lesson flowed like this.
Claim about ‘Change’
“The Pogrom” quote 1
“The Way to School” quote 1
Questions flashed.
“The Pogrom” quote 2
“The Way to School” quote 2
Questions flashed…

Again, I can’t say I was being creative. I was just presenting the chapter to them in a different way. For one, they actually looked interested, paid attention (this class is notorious for being unable to do that) and responded well. I was able to guide them to the understanding that the seemingly random events/characters in the chapter do actually bear significance. Along the way, I introduced new concepts like ‘private space’ and ‘mob mentality’ which they happily applied effectively in their homework. This was my creative lesson.

A creative lesson plan

The objective was for students to identify dramatic tensions in a text.
In the pre-activity the students will listen to two audio clips and are to write down three words that describe the the audio/vidoe clip.The first audio clip is from the Jaw's soundtrack (the theme song). The second is a video clip from the movie Shining. (It is a horror movie and the scene chosen shows a boy on a scooter riding along a narrow path, he will then hear the voices of two girls calling him and speaking to him. The clip will be cut before he sees a scene of the two girls lying in a blood pool). I asked students for their responses nd discusses with them how in an audio clip tensions can be brought out through the rhythm, beat and creseando while in a video it is through the silence, darkness, what is seen and unseen. The fact that most students wanted to know what happens next is evidence of the tension that is built up in the clip. I then discussed how tensions help in engaging the audiences' attention.
In the main activity I taught them four kinds of tension. They are tension of task (need to achieve a goal), tension of relationship (arguments between people), tension of surprise (you know whats going to happen but not when likewalking into a haunted house and knowing you will be scared) and tension of mystery (when you do not know hwat will happen next). I then discussed with the students how these tensions are similarly seen in play. We looked at extracts from the play and I modelled how to identify the tension and with what clues.
There were 5 extracts in the worskeet. I modelled and did the first one with the students. The second extract the students and I did it together and the students were told to do the third extract in pairs.
I then went through the answers and made them highlight relevant dialogue, stage directions and expression.
For the post-activity I showed them one more video and they were to identify what kind of tension was expressed.

Their homework was to do the last two extracts. 

A Creative Lesson Plan for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

One creative lesson plan that I conducted successfully involved using role-play to get students more physically and emotionally involved in an introductory lesson about the history of racial discrimination in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. It was a 60 minute lesson, and I started off the first half giving the students a very brief summary of the what happened in the years leading up to  the novel itself, which was set in Mississippi of the 1930s. I prepared a short Powerpoint Presentation and used a lot of pictures to explain the early years of slavery and the American Civil War. Then I spent a little more time setting the scene of the novel itself, outlining 3 main issues of the times: The Great Depression, Jim Crow Laws, and the prevalence of lynching.  Rather than pilling them with a mountain of facts, I was trying to get them to understand and empathise with the plight faced by African Americans during that time.

In the second half, I instructed the students to push their tables and chairs to side, and form a large circle of chairs in the middle of the classroom. They were quite familiar with this practice, so it was carried out fairly quickly. Before the lesson, I had scripted 3 scenarios about racial discrimination, selecting bits from pre-existing texts such as Angelica Gibbs’ short story, “The Test,” a scene from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and a final one from the movie, “The Colour Purple.” The 3 scenarios also involved an increasingly large number of students and an increasing amount of action. Only the selected students were given the scripts, while the rest of the class was assigned to predict what would happen, based on the character profiles provided for each scenario. I then gave the selected students 1-2 min to prepare themselves and run through the lines with their fellow actors. Although the students started off quite shy and embarrassed, they gradually got into the flow of things, and the 3^rd scenario was done quite well I think, given the limited time they had to prepare.

Finally, I showed them the original clip from “The Colour Purple,” which the 3^rd scenario was based on, so they could examine the differences between their interpretation and Hollywood’s version of that same scene.   

A creative lesson plan

I do not know if this was very creative but I personally liked this lesson plan because of the amazing work given by the students. It really made me laugh and smile.

The main aim of the lesson was for the students to realise that poems create an image and it was to break their fear of looking at all the words. This lesson was for Secondary two Normal Academic students. The theme of the poems chosen was on saving the environment. Hence, I started the lesson by showing them the climax of Lorax. Once I showed them the video, I elicited what the message was from the students. Once they managed to point out “Saving the environment”, I introduced the first poem, “The Day the Bulldozers Came”. I picked a student to read a stanza and I showed them an image of what the stanza was about. I repeated this process with stanza two and three. Hence, the students got an idea on what it meant by the poem trying to depict an image.

Then to develop the lesson, I introduced the second poem, “In Defence of Hedgehogs”. Students were to get into groups of four and I allocated one stanza per group. There were five stanzas and ten groups. Each group had to draw out the image(s) of their allocated stanza. After giving them about 15 minutes, I collected back all the drawings and we went through the poem as a class. We read each stanza and I would show the pictures drawn for that particular stanza. This way all their work was seen by the classmates and it was also a way for me to provide feedback.  At the end of it, we put up the pictures to look like a comic strip. The best thing about this lesson plan was seeing all the creative ways in which they depicted the image(s) in their stanza.  At the end of it, the students understood the poem and also realised that it was not that hard.

Blog Post 3

Frankly, I have not had the chance to test out my 'creative' lesson due to time constraint. As such, I will present a not-so-exciting lesson that I had implemented.

The students in my class are in the habit of shouting out generalized answers without checking for its accuracy in the text. As such, I was trying to encourage them to actively look for details in their texts, instead of recalling sometimes (in)accurate facts off their heads.  

In this lesson, I needed students to recall the details of the physical transformation (from a male to a female) made by the main character Andrew, in the short story “Father and Son” by Catherine Lim, to help them visualize how Andrew could turn into a girl by the end of the story. So, instead of having students shout out generalized answers, I drew a picture of a boy on the whiteboard and told students that they are to look for specific details of Andrew’s physical transformation then, run up to the board to make changes to the picture.

Initially, the changes made by students were conservative, where they only added details to the image. However, they quickly warmed up to the ‘game’ and started erasing details I had drawn, and replacing it with details they had identified in the book. For example, they erased the black shorts I had drawn, to replace it with a red cheongsam.

While this has not been a particularly creative lesson idea, the students had fun as they were excitedly volunteering to draw the next transformation. Through this activity, apart from being able to visualize the physical transformation, students also familiarized themselves with the specific changes that Andrew had taken, to transform himself from a boy to a girl.

Creative lesson plan for teaching Drama at Yusof Ishak Sec

One creative method that I used for teaching characterisation in the drama text, Free!, is that I told my Sec 2 Normal (Academic) students to describe their classmates in terms of physical appearance and personality. They are not allowed to reveal the identity of the classmate they are describing. After that, a few students would be selected to read out their descriptions to the class. The class is supposed to guess who the person being described is. For this activity, students are encouraged to use figurative language where applicable to make their description as vivid and coherent as possible. How successful the class is at accurately predicting who the person is would determine how detailed and specific the description is. This gives students a sense of how characters are sketched or constructed by the playwright, in terms of the character’s speeches, the way they behave and how they relate to other characters in the play. For the main activity, the students have to use the PEEL (Point, evidence, elaboration and link) approach to do a brief analysis of one of the characters in the play. They would have to talk about both the character’s negative and positive traits. For the second activity, my students have to imagine themselves to be in the position of a teacher, and they have to write a testimonial for one of the students in the play by highlighting the positive attributes and qualities that he or she possesses. The follow-up activity would require the students to write an email message to one of the students, telling him the reasons why they disapprove of his behaviour in class.

Share one creative lesson plan that you have used successfully with the students

To be honest, I don't think I've done a particularly creative lesson.

This is because the tasks are very specific, for example, 'write a diary entry from the viewpoint of Shrek highlighting his views on Love and Friendship'... and we are working on a tight deadline because the storyboarding task at the start of the year met with loads of difficulties, pushing back all the tasks.

One of the lessons I find the kids enjoying quite a bit was my lesson on tableaux. The objective was for them to familiarize themselves with tableaux so that they can use it as a medium to complete their SA task on creating an alternative ending to Shrek, the movie.

The students were grouped based on their SA Task group. They are first taught explicitly on what a tableau is, what features we can expect in a tableau, the use of props, costumes, facial expressions, etc. They are then asked to give captions and point out the features we have just talked about in a series of shots that I presented to them. Took this from a video, so after the shots, i showed them the video to let them know if they were accurate in their captions. They mostly were.

Then I provided them each with a scene from Shrek, and they are tasked to do the following:
- pick out the key information they would like to highlight about the scene and show it through 4 shots.
- discuss how they would enact the shots

They then present to the class. Each group is given a particular scene, and the rest of the class has to guess which scene is being acted out, and why they believe the scene is, well, the scene they guessed. Then the students on the floor will then be able to provide feedback for how they can improve, etc.

The students had a lot of fun with this because they enjoy the acting as well as the guessing. The students are generally good students, so they took well to the feedback and there were improvements to subsequent groups' presentation.

Creative Lesson Plan for Static/Dynamic Characters

A lesson that I would consider relatively interesting would be the lesson I conducted on static and dynamic characters. The character in focus was Ah Boh from “Lottery”, which is one of the short stories in Catherine Lim’s Little Ironies. I first gave the students a basic definition of the terms “static character” and “dynamic character”. After that, I showed them the changes that 3 characters went through and asked them to decide if those changes allowed the characters to be counted as dynamic. The changes I chose were: 1. Cinderella from rags to ball gown, 2. Professor McGonagall from human to cat, and 3. Professor Snape from a supporter of Voldemort to a traitor to Voldemort. The purpose of this activity was to guide them to notice that most characters do undergo some form of change in the course of a story, and then to help them appreciate that there is a difference between mere physical change and a deeper psychological change.

After discussing the types of changes in these characters, we then went on to discuss whether Ah Boh showed any significant changes in her thinking and belief system. The students filled up a worksheet in which they were guided to analyse how Ah Boh was like at specific parts of the story. The purpose of breaking down the story into various parts is so that students are able to chart the different events in Ah Boh’s life and analyse whether she showed any development through those events. At the end of the lesson, the students answered a reflection question on their worksheet, which asks them whether they sympathise with Ah Boh when she cries and begs for forgiveness at the end of the story. Students were encouraged to keep in mind what they had discovered about whether Ah Boh matures as a character when answering that question.

Creative lesson plan for poetry

With the mid year examinations approaching, and the fact that my classes are very weak in language and writing, I wanted to prepare my classes for the components that they would be tested on. Therefore, I decided to structure a lesson around an unseen poem, teaching them a way to write an essay about it. This will hopefully teach them the skills needed to write an essay regarding an unseen poetry text.

However, I did not want to put them off the topic with the knowledge that they are going to have to write copious amounts of words (to them), therefore I broke down the points the question requires them to answer, and assigned groups of 3-4 to write down the paragraph in the PEE format. They had to look at the poem and come up with the point, evidence and explanation/ elaboration on their own. After which, the groups presented their answers, explaining their answer and the process of coming up with it, to the class.

Subsequent lessons, which has yet to be conducted, would include me putting the points the students come up with together, and analyse the newly put together essay with the students. Through this, the students will be exposed to the methods and skills used in writing a comprehensive essay of an unseen poetry text. They will also have a better understanding of what makes a good or bad essay.

Blog Post 3

I don't have anything particularly creative so far... I suppose this is my most er... creative so far.

This class was supposed to introduced my Secondary One students to a stage adaptation of Dracula. The lesson was basically in two parts:
1) Introduction to basic elements of a horror story
2) Character roles - Hero vs Villain

In the first part, I got the kids to look at the film poster of Bella Lugosi's Dracula (1931) and asked them a series of scaffolding questions that would lead them to discuss atmosphere and setting of the film and play.

Then I got them to debate the difference between the portrayal of vampires in the 1931 film and Twilight by asking them "Who they think is the Real Vmapire" and flashing two images of Edward Cullen and Lugosi's Dracula under the heading.

I then got the class to discuss and vote for who they thought was the more convincing vampire while writing out some of their reasons for saying so on the board. My main goal aside from this was to ensure that the class understood that vampires were villains in the play and not some sort of romantic hero and I wanted to tie this in by getting them to discover for themselves the distinctions between hero and villain.

For that, I had placed a number of adjectives about vampires on a PowerPoint slide: these included those that described:
1) physical attributes (outer qualities): e.g. pale, mysterious, handsome, charming etc
2) characteristics (inner qualities) e.g. protective, brave, sinister, coward etc

I then got the students to categorize them all into what they feel were traits of a 'hero" or a "villain".
Some of the kids would immediately point out that some of the traits could be applied to both but others would assume that "pale" or "mysterious" might be villainous traits.

The final prompt would be then getting students to do a "Think-Pair-Share" and getting them to discuss what distinguishes a villain from a hero. You can expect students to answer that it's not just about a character's appearances - it's also their intentions.

Creative Lesson: Teaching Inequality and Exploitation in Sing to the Dawn

This lesson was aimed at Secondary 2 Normal Academic students and the purpose of the lesson was for students to understand what inequality and exploitation were and how they existed in Sing to the Dawn.

In the first part of the lesson, I identified five students and grouped them into Group A and named them  "Radollans" while I told the rest of the class that they were all part of the same group known as "Gaverills".

Instructions for the Gaverills were as follows:
Each student was to walk up to me individually and collect 1 sweet then return to his/her seat. Each person will have to repeat this three times.

While the Gaverills were doing this, the Radollans were instructed to sit down, relax and talk to each other. However, when the Gaverills had finished collecting the sweets, the Radollans were instructed to collect 2 out of 3 sweets from each Gaverill. After which, the Radollans were shown 2 huge bags of Twisties and were told that they could exchange their sweets for these Twisties which they were allowed to share only amongst the 5 of them.

After the activity, I asked the Gaverills to explain how they felt and I asked how the Radollans felt. The Gaverills who were representative of the villagers were able to explain that they felt that the activity was unfair and they were unhappy while the Radollans expressed that they were happy because they received more than what they asked for without having to do any work, which was representative of the Landlords.

Based on this activity, I distributed a worksheet and asked the class to identify how this system of injustice and exploitation made the villagers in Sing to the Dawn feel.

A creative lesson plan: Studying Characterisation through Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

My creative lesson was aimed at a Secondary 2 Normal Academic class. One of the biggest issue with this class is getting them to complete written work. While they enjoy giving their opinions and/or talking about issues in the text, the thought of working on a worksheet bores them and immediately makes them disinterested in the lesson.

For this particular lesson, I decided to try and incorporate the game "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" into the lesson in a bid to get them to work on their worksheet.

To begin with I got mini whiteboards from Daiso ($2 each!) and divided the kids into groups of four. Once the student formed their groups, I handed out a whiteboard and a marker to each group and briefed students on what to do.

I downloaded the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game template from the internet and used the same questions from the worksheet to create the game questions. This way the students will be doing the worksheet, just through a more interesting means. However, unlike the worksheet which would have required students to comb through their text (a play entitled 'Reunion Dinner'
) to find quotes associated with a particular characteristic/characteristics associated with a quote, I shortlisted four quotes/characteristics for the students to chose from. This was done to facilitate the playing of the game.

It looked something like this:


For each question, students are given 1 minute to deliberate with their team mates before they have to write their answer on the whiteboard. When the teacher says "Show me your answers", students will all raise their boards at the same time in order to showcase their answers. Each correct answer is worth 2 points. However, in order to ensure that the students are not just picking answers at random, an extra point is awarded to the group that can explain why a particular answer is the correct answer. This will ensure that students actually discuss and engage with the text, rather than merely point to random answers.

At the end of every question, students are to write down the answers in their worksheet. This ensures that students are still doing their worksheet.

The idea of a competition and allowing students to be doing something in this lesson made them a little more inclined to complete the worksheet.

A creative poetry lesson on the poem "The Longest Journey in the World"

This lesson is a continuation of a previous lesson of a study on the poem “The Longest Journey in the World” by Micheal Rosen, found in Rainbow Volume 2 (their literature textbook). The poem talks about this little boy (the speaker) who competes with his brother every night to get ready for bed, as the last one to get ready would have to switch off the lights. This lesson was taught to my sole literature class, a banded class of 21 secondary one students from the normal academic stream in a 40 minute period. The objective of the lesson was for the students to understand the imagery (personification) and the themes that appear in the poem.

I started the activity by getting the students to close the windows and lights to ensure that the room was as dark as possible. Next, I got them to blindfold their eyes with black cloth. I told them that they would have to listen to the sound clip and let me know what they thought the sounds were, why they thought that those sounds were what they thought they were and how they felt as they listened to the sound clip. Thereafter, they had to write their thoughts on the whiteboard. This sparked off a discussion on the idea of imagination and fear of the dark (themes) and attitude of the speaker in the poem.

Next, I distributed worksheets for the students to work in groups of threes and got them to generate responses to a series of questions related to the ideas of imagery and theme. The worksheet was fairly simple and I used mind-maps and a graphic organizer to help them organize their points. Thereafter, the students had to share their responses.

Finally, in the last part of the activity, I returned the students the floor plan of a room. Previously, they had worked on sticking stickers of various objects (objects which appear in the poem eg Bed, Painting, Water Pipe, Light Switch, Pyjamas) on the floor plan of the little boy’s bedroom so that they had an idea why the little boy was so fearful of the journey between the light switch and his bed. The students will draw a new object on a sticker and paste it in the room. They will have to explain the following on their worksheet: i. their choice of object ii. the reason for their choice of the object (how the object would be frightening to the little boy when it comes alive (personified) in the dark. 

A Creative Lesson for Sing to the Dawn

This lesson was an extension of the previous lesson whereby my 1NA students focused on identifying social ills in the City in Chapter 4 of Sing to the Dawn. Students were tasked to create a comic using the website: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix.

Students agreed that it would be logical to expect a conversation between Dawan and her mother as they are walking back home from Noi’s house (when asked, students articulated promptly: “It was three long kilometres!”) even though Kwai comes into the picture after a while. This activity fits in with the dramatization task whereby students are also encouraged to incorporate ‘missing scenes’. Students are to: (1) include at least two negative aspects of the City; (2) demonstrate the likely reactions of Dawan and her mother based on what they have read from Chapters 1 to 4; and (3) help Dawan support her decision to go to the City based on evidence from these chapters. To facilitate students' understanding of the task requirements, there was a modelling process prior to the activity. Having created a script (assigned as a take-home activity in the previous lesson), they were brought to the computer laboratory where they focused on creating the comic.

The website was chosen as there are quite a few characters students could choose to portray Dawan and her mother; each character is presented in four varying appearances along with different gestures; the students had to explain their choices e.g. how they accentuate the characterization (or particular attributes) of Dawan and her mother.  It was quite successful; the students generally have short attention span but all of them demonstrated great engagement with the task for the entire period; some even demonstrated great characterization in their comic. The students gave very positive feedback after the lesson and requested to have more of such activities in future.

Creative Lesson: Character Analysis using The Good Earth

Class: Secondary 3 Express (Elective Literature, Set-text)

To analyse the character of O-lan, one of the main characters in the novel, I got my students to first identify her character traits from a list that I had provided. The list also contains some traits that are not applicable to the character. This is to test on their understanding. After a short discussion, the class came up with their own list of character traits for O-lan, using the one that I had as a guide.

Then I divided the class into 4 groups and got each group to choose 2 traits from the list. Based on the traits they have chosen, they were to imagine that they are a group of matchmakers in ancient China and they have to come up with an advertisement, to promote O-lan as the potential wife. They are to use the PEEL structure as a guide on what to include in their presentation. The advertisement cannot be in the form of a poster or a brochure. Basically the students have to act out their advertisement. In order to provide evidence to support their promotion, they have to act out the scenes from the novel that displays the trait of O-lan they are promoting. During each group’s  presentation, the other groups who were not presenting will play the role of the ‘single men’ who are looking for a wife and will decide whether they would want O-lan as their wife based on the presenting group’s advertisement. After all of the presentations, there was a need to consolidate all of the points for the students to take away from.

A Creative Lesson Plan for Macbeth

As an introductory lesson to Shakespeare’s Macbeth with my Year 3 students, the students were split into 2 groups of 10 and tasked with performing different versions of a condensed version of Macbeth, “The 32-second Macbeth”, available from the Folger Shakespeare Library. The lesson objectives were to help the pupils understand that plays are written to be performed and that different interpretations of the same play would influence the the way it is performed. To better illustrate this point, the groups were given different interpretations of the cause of Macbeth’s downfall:

1. Macbeth’s downfall was caused by his own greed and ambition.

2. Macbeth’s downfall was manipulated by Fate and the Three Witches, and was therefore inevitable.

Students were tasked with preparing a performance that would clearly illustrate their given interpretations.

As the class is generally vocal and eager to perform, they were engaged in the performance activity. In terms of the effective delivery of their given interpretations however, the quality of work was varied. It was consequently important that a teacher-led class discussion was conducted after their performances to evaluate what was effective or ineffective about the performances and how it could have been improved.

Creative Lesson Plan- The Emily Hunger Games

I did this for my CT lesson observation with Sec 2E3.

As the students have already been exposed to the analysis of Emily's (in Emily of Emerald Hill) character study, this lesson objective was to challenge them to evaluate her character using the context of the movie The Hunger Games.

The students are divided into their drama project groups and tasked to send one "tribute" to the front of the class after 15 minutes of preparation. Their goal is to convince the audience (that is, their classmates) that they are the real EMily. Each group is assigned one personality trait-domineering, efficient for example. They have to use the PEE structure to act out the entire 1-2 minute presentation.

The role of the audience was to write down in their handouts what was presented by each of the Emilys and they had to come to a vote. The losers are those who failed to make use of the PEE structure to convince them that they are the real identity of Emily.


I aired the trailer at the beginning of class and after that, role played as Effie Trinket, the woman who picked the names of the main characters. It was interactive and really fun as the students got to use something that they already know and are excited about, and apply it to something that is a little more complicated.

Creative Lesson at SOTA

At SOTA I carried out a lesson with the Sec 2s to teach narrative tone. The text that they are doing is Island Voices, and I wanted them to pay closer attention to the way the narrative voice shapes our impressions of characters and objects in the story.

Basically, dividing the class into groups, I assigned them a series of important scenes involving dialogue in the story. With a series of scaffolding questions written on the board, I directed them to discuss, in their groups, previously explored ideas of characterization, context, and literary devices to help think specifically about how the narrator and each of the characters would say their lines. Finally, each member in the group would assigned a specific character, and they would read the scene out to the class. I decided on simply reading, instead of acting, because the focus was on tone.

The kids enjoyed this a lot, although, as one would expect, there were a few who were more withdrawn. I tried to correct this by distributing and assigning the more energetic and vocal kids in each group to narrate the particularly pertinent roles involving tone. Nevertheless, the acting generated a lot of authentic responses which served to impress on them the effect of the narrative tone. For example, in one scene a man is crying, but he is described as having "Yellow-streaked saliva" dripping from his mouth as the narrator said these lines , the kids accurately cringed at this despite the pitiful subject material. These authentic responses allowed them to accurately analyze and identify how tone influences our impressions of characters, and allowed me to tap onto their responses to teach how things like word choice create a tone that deliberately influence our impressions of characters.

A Creative Lesson Plan doing Animal Farm

There were two versions of this lesson plan that I did with my students at Manjusri Secondary and I will be elaborating on both. Basically, the main purpose of the lesson was to get students to pick out the events in the text that shows how the 7 Commandments in Animal Farm were broken.

For my first class, the students were broken off into their respective literature groups. The leaders would then come up to the front and pick out a commandment from a box, making sure not to let the other groups know what commandment they picked out. The leaders were then told to go back to their groups and tell them what commandment they got and discuss an event in the text that shows it being broken. They then had to act it out in front of the class while the other groups tried to guess what commandment was being broken and the event in the text that shows it. Point would be awarded to the groups that guessed and acted out the scene successfully. Most of the students seemed to enjoy this lesson. The only downside was that since there were so many groups, the lesson had to drag on after school but this wasn't a problem as it was their last period already and (surprisingly) they didn't seem to mind finishing it up.

For my second class, seeing how there wouldn't be enough time based on my previous experience with my first class, I decided to ask the students to draw it out instead. I got miniature whiteboards for this and gave it out to each group. The problem was that instead of drawing out the event, many of the groups simply drew out the commandment they got in picture form. In terms of engagement, many of the students also seemed a lot less engaged as compared to the previous class. Guess I should have just stuck with the acting but as mentioned, I was afraid there wouldn't be enough time and in their case, I couldn't drag on as it wasn't their last period.

A creative lesson In CGS

Due to the host of datelines and presentations, my interaction and teaching of literature has therefore been limited and confined to just 3 lessons. With that, implementation of lessons has to therefore fit the dire needs of the literature department such as error analysis to better prepare the girls for the mid-year exams. However, one very simple lesson which can be considered rather creative when compared to error analysis would be the lesson on introduction to poetry. Since the girls have not be introduced to poetry analysis in detail (apart from exposure in the communicative arts programme in the lower secondary level where the girls were generally just having fun and enjoying literature), this lesson serves to introduce basic poetry analysis skills such, focusing on literal and symbolic representation and the purpose of usage in poem (context specific).

 I started the lesson by giving each girl a slip of paper and instruct them to write down one thing they hate about poetry before asking the class to share their thoughts and collecting the slip of paper. The girls generally convey hatred that lies along the line of poetry being too “sophisticated”, “chim” and “deep” which complicates understanding. Using these general causes of hatred, I instruct the girl to imagine themselves as poets and using the title on the board, the girls are to think of 3 things or ideas to write their poem, basing on any level of difficulty that they are comfortable with either for themselves or their target audience. The girls are then to share their ideas with their peers before sharing it with the class and writing of the common ideas on the board.

With that done, the girls are then given the poem for them to read. The girls generally complain about not understanding the poem and that it was too difficult etc. I then channel their attention to the ideas that have generated on the board and instruct them to identify the different ideas into 2 categories, namely literal and symbolic representation and meaning. With that level of understanding, I proceed with reading the poem with the class, checking for understanding of the poem stanza by stanza. Once the girls have displayed a general understanding, I set the girls off on a task to identify the meaning behind the poem or rather what they understood from the poem apart from identifying literal and symbolic representations used in the poems. This is done in pairs to allow the girls to tap on the ideas and thoughts of their friends, facilitating understanding of the poem hence boosting their confidence.

Although this might appear to be rather mundane, I felt that the general attitude of the class differs from other lessons. The girls are generally more open to discussion and open in voicing out their views etc which I thought was rather interesting and beneficial for the girls who would normally just sit and “absorb” what the teacher has to deliver. Also, since I was pretty much restricted to this 50 minutes lesson whereby the girls will go back to error analysis and presentation the following lesson, focusing on literal and symbolic meaning and representation through analysing a poem provides the girls with a sense of confidence and ability to read, understand, analyse and to some extend appreciate the poem.  

How Literature is being assessed at Riverside Secondary School

In my school, there is no summative assessment for Literature. Students are not ‘assessed’ in the traditional way i.e. through exams. There are, in fact, no exams for Literature. Instead, students do a series of assignments (about two) and a class test which makes up the 100 per cent grade they get at the end of the term.

For instance, in term one – the Secondary 2s students were given two assignment tasks and 1 class test. The first assignment was to write a diary entry from the main character’s point of view. The second assignment was to create a pamphlet on disability because the main character’s brother was diabled. Their class test was a passage-based question. It is very much tailored to be a comprehension passage, with little room for creative response. Students are only required to know direct answer skills and low-level inference skills.

The Secondary 1 students were also given two assignment tasks and 1 class test – a) write a diary entry from the main character’s point of view and b) write a cover letter and resume (this has no link whatsoever to the Literature text students are studying) and the similar passage-based question test.

There is little differentiation between the levels and assessments taught/skills they are supposed to have.

Creative Lesson Plan - Aaron Lee's "Road-Works"

I did this for my NIES lesson observation with my IP students. 

"Road-Works" is divided into 4 stanzas, each with its own set of images that are tied closely to the issues explored in the poem. 

As my CT and I have previously discussed that the class is generally weaker in paying attention to the use of imagery, I decided to draw their attention to the images in "Road-Works" through a "creative" manner. For each stanza, I prepared a package with materials related to the corresponding images.

E.g. I put in an orange, a bag of sand, a piece of paper, and pictures of machines in a paper bag for the first stanza - 

Sometimes it is hard

to believe that creatures of flesh and bone
may tear up the roads like paper,
peeling the rind of the earth
as carelessly as eating an orange.
When they fall to the ground and devour it,
the scenario is one
of blasted sand, harsh talk
and machinery.

Each paper bag is accompanied with a question slip specific to the stanza and is selected randomly by a group representative. Students are instructed to make use of the realia in ways that can help them understand the poem better. The group that got the bag above started peeling the orange, tearing paper and feeling the rough texture of sand. During the group presentation session, they shared with their classmates how they made use of these objects to arrive at their understanding of the stanza. 

Overall, I found this method to be effective in engaging and sustaining their interest. It also helped to direct their attention to the use of imagery in the poem. 

Successful Creative Lesson Plan - The Crucible

It was one of the introductory lessons where we touched on characters, conflict and plot. As the names of the characters could get rather confusing, I decided to draw out a mind map of all the characters that they could remember from reading the text. Students would call out the names that they could remember and I would arrange them accordingly on the whiteboard. Thereafter, I prompted them to provide the relationship between each character before highlighting certain motives underlying each relationship (e.g. unrequited love between Abigail Williams and John Proctor leads to the motive of vengeance and jealousy between Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Proctor.) Once everything was on the board, I handed out an A3-sized paper to each student to copy down the mind map. I did not pass them the A3-sized paper before the activity so they could focus fully on the mind map. I told the students that as we study more of the text, they could also add on to the A3-sized paper, and this sheet of paper could act as their quick revision before the examinations.

After that, we did a quick verbal quiz, which tested the basic knowledge of the students (e.g. how old is Abigail Williams) and to assess how much of the text the students had actually prepared. There was also a quote analysis section whereby students would identify the speaker of the quote and provide the context. The verbal quiz went surprisingly well as the students were able to identify and analyse the quotes accurately. While the students were providing the answers to the verbal quiz, I typed in their responses on Microsoft Word, and later printed out their answers for everyone. It saved time, and students were also engaged throughout the lesson.

My Creative Literature Lesson

The objectives of the lesson were to:

1)      Get students to relate better to the theme(s) of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol by providing them with the socio-historical context of the book and the writer’s background (i.e., childhood, financial status)

2)      Get students to always consider the underlying intentions and reasons for why any story is written, the underlying messages and authorial impetuses.

Introduction:

Lesson began with a recap of previous lessons in which they learnt about motif (and their different forms) and themes (and how to derive them) of the/a text, emphasising on trying to answer the questions “Why did Dickens write the story?” “What personal experience made him feel so strongly about the theme to take out 6 weeks of his time to write it?”

A short BBC Animation detailing Dicken’s life from birth to death was shown and discussed, followed by another clip providing information about the social context of the Industrial Revolution in London.

Discussion:

Students were then to discuss in pairs how they felt the children living in that social era felt or lived, what their childhood was like, and the kinds of families that existed then. Some pairs were picked to share their opinions.

Reflection:

Next students were asked to compare the modern social context, with Dicken’s social context of poverty, factory life, and severe working and living conditions. Guiding questions like – What is different? What difficulties do we face now? What are our most significant struggles now? What conveniences do we enjoy now? – were asked and reflected upon. Again students were picked to share their opinions.

Creation:

Finally, students were asked to readapt the plot to convey they type of problems/struggles faced now using characters in A Christmas Carol to tell their story. They could change traits of characters and the things they would potentially say.

Students then shared their creations.