QCR523 Blog Post 2 (TG1)

What is good writing in literature? How are the criteria for “good writing”different and similar for your other core subject (CS)?

Readings

1. Cohen, B. (1963) Writing about literature (chapters 2 & 3). Wichita: Scott Foresman.

2. Sample examination papers & Cambridge Reports.

QCR523 Blog Post 2 (TG2)

What is good writing in literature? How are the criteria for “good writing” different and similar for your other core subject (CS)?

Readings

1.        Cohen, B. (1963) Writing about literature (chapters 2 & 3). Wichita: Scott Foresman.

2.        Sample examination papers & Cambridge Reports.

QCR523 Blog Post 1 (TG02)

Describe briefly the literature and assessment culture in your Practicum school. What did you learn during Practicum?

1.        Read Shepard, L. A. (2000) The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher 29(7): 4-14.*

2.        Earl, L. (2005) Thinking about purpose in classroom assessment. ACSA.

QCR523 Blog Post 1 (TG01)

Describe briefly the literature and assessment culture in your Practicum school. What did you learn during Practicum?

1.        Read Shepard, L. A. (2000) The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher 29(7): 4-14.*

2.        Earl, L. (2005) Thinking about purpose in classroom assessment. ACSA.

Questions to ponder for the reflective essay

Some questions to reflect on for micro-teaching (and teaching in general):

1. How easy/difficult was it to translate the script (i.e. lesson plan) into a live performance (i.e. the lesson)?
2. To what extent did my “stage persona” influence the success of my performance as a teacher?
3. Did I pitch my lesson tasks/activities at a level that was appropriate for some or most - or even all - of my students?
4. To what extent did I achieve my stated learning outcomes with (most of) my students?
5. What unstated or unexpected learning outcomes did my lesson achieve?
6. Could I have achieved more with less in this lesson?
7. How do I ensure that the learning outcomes (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) of my lesson endure or are “internalized”?
8. What did I find particularly challenging about facilitating classroom discussions?
9. Were my questions effective in eliciting students’ higher-order thinking (i.e. analysis, application, synthesis, evaluation)?
10. Was my questioning technique effective in eliciting students’ higher-order thinking?
11. Did I provide (most of) my students sufficient wait time to come up with thoughtful answers to my questions?
12. To what extent did I try to provide students with feedback that was both encouraging and challenging?
13. How would I better prepare my students to develop habits of higher-order thinking?
14. Were students given opportunities to evaluate each other’s thoughts, opinions, and answers? 
15. Why were some of my students disengaged with the lesson? Were these reasons within my “locus of control”?

Here are some web resources that provide ideas for teaching literature in your classroom:

The English Teacher - http://teacher2b.com/

Some teaching techniques from Merry Bee - http://merrybee.info/techniques/recip.html

Techniques for Teaching Literature - http://www.teachingliterature.org/teachingliterature/chapter1/activities.htm

Teaching persuasive techniques in writing about literature - http://www.ehow.com/info_12196721_teaching-persuasive-techniques-literature.html

How to make a classroom storyboard - http://www.ehow.com/how_12115384_make-own-classroom-storyboard.html

Techniques for teaching literature in a language classroom - http://www.ehow.com/info_7921057_techniques-teaching-literature-language-classroom.html

Using journals in teaching - http://www.ehow.com/how_7801945_use-journals-teaching-methods.html

How to use classical conditioning (behaviorist theories) in the classroom - http://www.ehow.com/how_8012206_can-classical-conditioning-used-classroom.html

English Language Institute of Singapore (ELIS) - http://www.elis.edu.sg/

Romeo and Juliet: What's your take?

For those of you who attended the Wildrice production, what's your take? Btw, SRT is putting up Twelfth night at Fort Canning next month. For those of you who want more Shakespeare.

Rewriting Singapore's future: Change agents for changing times?

Couldn't resist posting this link ("Stories of Singapore") and an extract from it:

I step off the bus and walk towards a building called AS3, an open-air classroom building at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Sciences. There’s a nice breeze in the hallway when I turn into a bright orange, green, and yellow room to find 17 students sitting in desks arranged in a circle.

Rajpal Singh, an NUS student, invited me to his discussion section for the NUS lecture “Government and Politics of Singapore.” We had spent the night discussing academic freedom in the country, and he said he wanted to show me a political discussion at his school. Twenty minutes into today’s class, the conversation turns towards Singaporean restrictions on free speech.

“You just get a sense that the government distrusts you and that they treat you like children,” says a girl sitting across the room in black, thick-rimmed glasses, clearly frustrated. “What we have are petty ways to show that we are angry, since deep down, we cannot stand there and say something.” Since the newspapers are commonly censored and protest is illegal, she explains, most Singaporeans complain via Facebook or blogs — the equivalent of “slamming the door of your room when you’re angry with your parents.” The girl’s comments stir a heated debate over whether Singapore is a free country. Would they trade some of their society’s order, the students ask each other, in exchange for fewer government restrictions?

The teaching assistant cuts in after some time, but he’s smiling and laughing. His lightheartedness seems genuine, though it’s unclear to me what his motivations are — on the one hand, the students are getting worked up about a lack of civil rights, but the class has also strayed from the course material.
“We’ll save this revolutionary talk for the next session. I’m not teaching a class on how to bring down the state,” he says, laughing. Then he turns to me and adds, with a self-mocking smile, “Make sure that’s written.”

The students echo his laughter, and the conversation turns back to the day’s proscribed topic.
It’s hard to say where the line is drawn in Singapore between government censorship and peer censorship, says Wang Yufei, a student at an elite junior college called Raffles Institution that sends students to both Yale and NUS. When the government declares a topic “out of bounds,” she says, the effect can “trickle down” to the population, and eventually the people censor each other and themselves.

Alex Au — whose blog, Yawning Bread, is widely read throughout Singapore — says he sometimes finds himself self-censoring his work in an attempt to avoid the defamation lawsuits the Singaporean government has used against those journalists and bloggers who criticize Singaporean officials. “In Singapore, our judiciary has adopted the view that the more public you are, the more watchful the law shall be to protect your reputation,” he says."

Provocation 6

“As we attempt to analyze dialogue as a human phenomenon, we discover something which is the essence of dialogue itself: the word. But the word is more than just an instrument which makes dialogue possible; accordingly, we must seek its constitutive elements. Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed – even in part –the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.” (Paulo Freire, 1970, p. 75)

How can we as Literature teachers empower our students to read and write the word/world?

Readings
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed[excerpts]. New York: Continuum.
Apple, M. (1992.) The text and cultural politics. Educational Researcher, 21(7), 4-12.
Liew, W. M. (2012). Valuing the value(s) of literature. Commentary, 21, 57-71. (This is just a quick-and-dirty summary of my take on critical pedagogy through literature. Take it or leave it..;-)

Provocation 5

“As we attempt to analyze dialogue as a human phenomenon, we discover something which is the essence of dialogue itself: the word. But the word is more than just an instrument which makes dialogue possible; accordingly, we must seek its constitutive elements. Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed – even in part – the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.” (Paulo Freire, 1970, p. 75)

How can we as Literature teachers read and write the word/world?

Readings
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed [excerpts]. New York: Continuum.  
Apple, M. (1992.) The text and cultural politics. Educational Researcher, 21(7), 4-12.
Liew, W. M. (2012). Valuing the value(s) of literature. Commentary, 21, 57-71. (This is just a quick-and-dirty summary of my take on critical pedagogy through literature. Take it or leave it..;-)

Singapore, are you not my country?

Provocation 4

This week's "4th Provocation" also pays tribute to Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive skills...

1) Description/Retrieval: Recall your educational experiences in secondary school, junior college, and/or the university. How would you describe the peer culture(s) that you felt most at home with outside the formal classroom? (I, for one, was happily trapped in my nerdy culture of pseudo-intellectual chess players obsessed with playing chess as part of our CCA. Ugh!!)

2) Analysis: To what extent did the culture(s) of learning in your Literature classroom in those days resonate with the peer and home cultures that you were most comfortable with? (Think, for example, about the cultural ways of speaking, interacting, writing, thinking, and feeling that were encouraged at home, among your peers, and in the formal classroom.)

3) Evaluation: How well did your Literature teacher relate the subject to your own and your classmates' socio-cultural worlds?

Readings
Heath, S. (2005) What no bedtime story means. In A. Duranti (ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader (pp. 318-342). Oxford: Blackwell.
Gutierrez, K., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19-25.

Provocation 3

This week's "3rd Provocation" pays tribute to Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive skills...

1) Description/Retrieval: Recall your own experiences as students of English Literature (in secondary school, junior college, university). What were the most memorable pedagogical approaches, strategies, or techniques (it may just have been ONE) that your teacher(s) employed to help you learn?

2) Analysis: Which learning theories (behaviorist, humanist, social constructivist, sociocultural theories) were implicit in this/these pedagogical approach(es) and technique(s)? (Refer to Warren's Lecture 5 slides or your Ed Psych course readings for a summary of these educational theories.)

3) Evaluation: On hindsight, was/were this/these pedagogical approach(es) and technique(s) effective in helping you appreciate Literature? Why (not)?

Readings
Heath, S. (2005) What no bedtime story means. In A. Duranti (ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader (pp. 318-342). Oxford: Blackwell.
Gutierrez, K., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19-25.

Provocation 2

For this week’s e-discussion, I’m opening two free-for-all forums to start encouraging intergroup dialogue and solidarity. Enter this one or the other (or both, if you wish). But do two things first:

1) Read the book chapter by Michael Smith & Jeffrey Wilhelm (2010) titled “Teaching so it matters.” (This was referred to in Chin Ee’s lecture.)

2) Read the article by Alex Kendall (2008) titled “Playing and resisting: Rethinking young people’s reading cultures.” (This is the new reading that will be covered in Warren’s lecture next Monday.)

The aim of these readings is to provide you with a conceptual vocabulary and theoretical handle to grip and pry apart the rich ideas and experiences you’ve all been sharing. So once you’ve read them, start posting your responses to this provocation:

To what extent does MOE’s literature curriculum (including the lists of recommended texts for different streams and levels) betray the presence of “othering discourses” that see young adult readers as “‘passive,’ ‘uncritical’ consumers of ‘low-brow,’ ‘throw-away’ texts” (Kendall, 2008, p. 123)? Some of you, for instance, defended your choice of texts like Twilight by appealing to the general relevance of films and pop-cultural texts in our lives and the lives of our students. So why are literature teachers and curriculum planners resistant to the inclusion of such “alternative” genres? How might your views on this matter be informed by writers like Eagleton, Booth, and, for that matter, critical theory?

Provocation 1

For this week’s e-discussion, I’m opening two free-for-all forums to start encouraging intergroup dialogue and solidarity. Enter this one or the other (or both, if you wish). But do two things first:

1) Read the book chapter by Michael Smith & Jeffrey Wilhelm (2010) titled “Teaching so it matters.” (This was referred to in Chin Ee’s lecture.)

2) Read the article by Alex Kendall (2008) titled “Playing and resisting: Rethinking young people’s reading cultures.” (This is the new reading that will be covered in Warren’s lecture next Monday.)

The aim of these readings is to provide you with a conceptual vocabulary and theoretical handle to grip and pry apart the rich ideas and experiences you’ve all been sharing. So once you’ve read them, start posting your responses to this provocation:

Kendall (2008) argues that students’ reading choices are never value-free. A corollary to this is that teachers’ reading choices are inescapably value-laden. Looking at your own and others’ reading recommendations in last week’s online posts/discussion, ask yourself and each other:

What are your implicit criteria for selecting or valorizing certain texts in the literature classroom? TG2 mentioned, for instance, the criterion of “literary merit” on Monday, but “What makes a text literary?” and “What is Literature/literature” are the essential questions that we started with in our first week’s lecture and tutorial. For another example, I heard some of us talking about “age-appropriate” texts in terms of their moral-ethical themes, but what makes reading a literature text “ethical” whatever the presumed age of your readers? You may want to refer to (a) Terry Eagleton’s cultural materialist analysis in his introduction to Literary Theory (one of our readings in the first week) and (b) Wayne Booth’s liberal-humanist discussion of the ethical possibilities of literature pedagogy (also a reading from our first week) to clarify your thoughts on this issue. Think also about how different critical theories provide ways of complicating the ethical import of different texts (e.g., some “innocent” children’s stories can be made risky/risqué through psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer readings). Concomitantly, would the deliberate privileging of certain critical theories reflect a discriminatory "othering"approach to literary interpretation in the Singapore classroom?

TG1 & TG2: Creating dispositions of appreciation, understanding, criticality and creativity

Hi hi, this is not a compulsory blog post but follows from the lecture today. If you have any thoughts from today's lecture about how we can create the environment for encouraging these dispositions of appreciation, understanding, criticality and creativity, please share them. And any other thoughts springing from today's lecture.

TG1: Read a text of your choice. What are the problems with using this text in the literature classroom? What are the possibilities?

Readings

Purves, A. (1993) Towards a reevaluation of reader response and school literature. Language Arts, 70, 348-361.

Holden, P. (1999) The great literature debate: Why teach literature in Singapore. In Chua, S. H. & Chin, W. P. (1999) Localising pedagogy: teaching literature in Singapore (pp. 79-89). Singapore: NIE Press.

Harold Bloom’s list of the Western Canon. Retrieved from http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

Poon, A. (2007) The politics of pragmatism: some issues in the teaching of literature in Singapore. Changing English, 14(1), 51-59.

MOE Syllabi’s Aims and Outcomes.

Other Reference Texts

Wee, W-L. (2010). Culture, the arts and the global city. In Terence Chong (Ed.), The management of success: Singapore revisited (pp. 489-403). Singapore: ISEA

Greene, M. (1995) Releasing the imagination. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (excerpts)

Sinfield, A. (1998) How to read The Merchant of Venice without being heterosexist. In Cole, M. (1998) The Merchant of Venice: Contemporary critical essays (pp. 161-180). London: Macmilliam Press

Eagleton, T. (2001) Literary theory: an introduction (2nd ed.). London: Blackwell Publishing.

TG2: Read a text of your choice. What are the problems with using this text in the literature classroom? What are the possibilities?

Readings

Purves, A. (1993) Towards a reevaluation of reader response and school literature. Language Arts, 70, 348-361.

Holden, P. (1999) The great literature debate: Why teach literature in Singapore. In Chua, S. H. & Chin, W. P. (1999) Localising pedagogy: teaching literature in Singapore (pp. 79-89). Singapore: NIE Press.

Harold Bloom’s list of the Western Canon. Retrieved from http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

Poon, A. (2007) The politics of pragmatism: some issues in the teaching of literature in Singapore. Changing English, 14(1), 51-59.

MOE Syllabi’s Aims and Outcomes.

Other Reference Texts

Wee, W-L. (2010). Culture, the arts and the global city. In Terence Chong (Ed.), The management of success: Singapore revisited (pp. 489-403). Singapore: ISEA

Greene, M. (1995) Releasing the imagination. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (excerpts)

Sinfield, A. (1998) How to read The Merchant of Venice without being heterosexist. In Cole, M. (1998) The Merchant of Venice: Contemporary critical essays (pp. 161-180). London: Macmilliam Press

Eagleton, T. (2001) Literary theory: an introduction (2nd ed.). London: Blackwell Publishing.

TG2: How would your knowledge of literary theories and critical approaches be relevant to your work as a literature teacher?

Readings for Week 2:
Lynn, S. (2005) Critical worlds: a selective tour. In Lynn, S. (2005) Texts and contexts: writing about literature with critical theory (4th ed., 13-35). NY: Pearson.
Miller, L. (2001) Step-by-step guide to Practical Criticism. In Miller, L. (2001) Mastering Practical Criticism (pp. 77-96). London: Palgrave.
Liew, W.M. (1999) "Thy word is all": Différance in George Herbert's Christian hermeneutics. Literature and Belief: The Tradition of Metaphysical Poetry and Belief, 19,(1 & 2), 191-210.

List of critical interpretive approaches:

· New Criticism · Biographical & historical criticism  · New Historicism · Psychoanalytic theory/theories  · Deconstruction

· Marxist criticism · Postcolonial criticism · Feminist criticism · Queer theory · Ecocriticism

Sub-question (for tutorials): Which approaches would you authorize or valorize in your literature classroom? (Describe the context of your particular literature class.) Explain your pedagogical rationale.

TG1: How would your knowledge of literary theories and critical approaches be relevant to your work as a literature teacher?

Readings for Week 2:
Lynn, S. (2005) Critical worlds: a selective tour. In Lynn, S. (2005) Texts and contexts: writing about literature with critical theory (4th ed., 13-35). NY: Pearson.
Miller, L. (2001) Step-by-step guide to Practical Criticism. In Miller, L. (2001) Mastering Practical Criticism (pp. 77-96). London: Palgrave.
Liew, W.M. (1999) "Thy word is all": Différance in George Herbert's Christian hermeneutics. Literature and Belief: The Tradition of Metaphysical Poetry and Belief, 19,(1 & 2), 191-210.

List of critical interpretive approaches:

·                 New Criticism   ·                 Biographical & historical criticism   ·                 New Historicism ·                 Psychoanalytic theory/theories   ·                 Deconstruction

·                 Marxist criticism ·                 Postcolonial criticism ·                 Feminist criticism ·                 Queer theory ·                 Ecocriticism

Sub-question (for tutorials): Which approaches would you authorize or valorize in your literature classroom? (Describe the context of your particular literature class.) Explain your pedagogical rationale.