3 Books and A Selection for O’Level Set Text

Young Adult: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

If something terrible happened to you, would you tell someone?

In Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson articulates the self-effacing silence experienced by Melinda Sordino after a high school senior rapes her at a party. No one knows of what happened to her. But overnight, Mel becomes the most unpopular girl in high school because everyone remembers her as the girl who called the police to the party. Unable to come to terms with the incident, Mel refuses to speak - for any matter. Her only sustenance in high school are Mr. Freeman’s art lessons, an Agelou poster and a janitor’s closet that lets her disappear from the world. Encapsulated in external silence and internal noise, Mel gradually slips into depression and neglects school life at the cost of keeping her secret safe. However, her silence is tested when Andy Evans, the senior who raped her, appears in her life again. How the re-entry of the monster results in Mel becoming the new hero of Merryweather High School forms the climax of the story.

Anderson crafts a delicate novel that not only empathises with the emotional conflict faced by high school teenagers but also brings to life the realities as experienced by those suffering from post-traumatic disorder and depression.

Text Recommended by MOE: Emily of Emerald Hill by Stella Kon

“My big strong son.”

A play in two-acts, Emily of Emerald Hill is a masterpiece by Stella Kon in the manner it unravels the domestic diva and demon hidden within Emily Gan, the matriarch of the mansion. The play opens with Emily’s dominance in her household and high society. Emily initially comes across as manipulative and demanding. However, as we continue to be enraptured by her social gathering monologues, we learn that Emily was not always feisty. Married off in her youth, Emily needed to quickly learn the curry-favoring tricks of the Peranakan household in order to gain authority over her older sister-in-laws and to win the affections of her in-laws. Emily’s identity and value to others were nested in her belonging to Emerald Mansion. As with parliamentary politics, Emily soon discovers that domesticity come with its fair share of losses as well. Emily’s overpowering and calculated love for her son, Richard, smothers him and eventually kills him, resulting in the biggest loss in her domestic career.

With layers of pathos and wit, Stella Kon’s Emily of Emerald Hill is an irresistible read.

A Choice for O’Level Set Text: A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

“As with a wound on one's own body, 

it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things.”

Arguably one of Ishiguro’s finest works, alongside Remains of the Day, A Pale View of Hills is a meditation on strained human relationships in a selfish world. The book engulfs the reader in its pin-drop silence as we trapeze between the unreliable memories of Etsuko, the guilt-ridden protagonist of the novel, to get into the core of her emptiness in the vast lands of her new home: England. 

On the outset, Etsuko is a grieving mother in bereavement over her daughter Keiko’s suicide. Unable to come to terms with Keiko’s death, she stagnates into reminiscing about the times in postwar Nagasaki when Keiko was alive in her womb. In her first trimester, Etsuko meets Sachiko and Mariko, a strange mother-daughter pair, who had just arrived to her neighbourhood. Sachiko is a rich woman made poor by the war and is in love with Frank, an American solider stationed at Nagasaki. Desperate to leave the country to escape from the war trauma, Sachiko pins her hopes on him despite his spurious promises of a new beginning. Single-minded in her desire to move away, Sachiko shows no desire to send her daughter to a school or pay any attention to Mariko’s bizarre behaviors. As Etsuko’s memories shift back and forth and blend into a state of disarray, we soon realize that there is no innocence remaining in this story of alienated individuals and their fragmented identities.

This is a suitable text for O’Level because:

Ishiguro delves into accessible themes such as motherhood, war and memory in broad strokes. The language is accessible and yet textually rich with layered meanings. A prime example for this is the climax scene. There is no dominant interpretation in the novel as to what actually happened at the riverbank. Likewise, there are hints of what could have happened but Ishiguro does not explicitly state how does Mr. Sherringham and Frank intersect if Etsuko is indeed Sachiko. Therefore, the gaps in the narrative allow students to exercise critical thinking skills to come up with their own analytic glue to piece together Etsuko's memories.

Singapore students do have background knowledge of World War II, as it is part of our history and social studies syllabus in secondary school. However, they do not have access to Japanese lives post-war. Most of the history textbooks stop at the surrender of the Emperor and the subsequent seppuku by the soldiers. Thus, this book offers another perspective for students to consider apart from the ones given in the sanctioned narratives. It allows students to consider the perspectives of ordinary Japanese and how their lives were disrupted by the atomic bomb.

Reading reflections

Hey guys! The three texts I will be covering in my post are: (1) Emily of Emerald Hill, (2) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and (3) Pride and Prejudice.

Here’s my short (and by short, I really mean short. haha) summary of these texts:

(1)   Emily of Emerald Hill (by Stella Kon)

This play is a one-woman monologue about a young girl who marries into a rich Peranakan household and how she manipulates her way around the household. While she manages to gain power and status, her tight control over the family and household affairs results in: the death of her son (he commits suicide!), her husband had an affair (and he doesn’t want to see her on his deathbed!) and her other children leave the mansion (she is left all alone!). The play ends tragically as Emily descends into madness.

(2) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (by Mark Haddon)

This novel is revolves around the life of, Christopher Boone, a fifteen year-old Math prodigy with Asperger’s Syndrome. The story, told from Christopher’s point of view, starts out with his discovery of the carcass of his neighbour’s dog and he subsequently attempts to find out who had killed it (hence the title!). His father, however, is vehemently against this but Christopher stubbornly continues to investigate into this curious incident. During the course of his investigation, he finds out that his mother is not dead (his father had lied!) but had actually had an affair and had moved to another part of the country to start a new life with her partner. He also uncovers the truth behind the killing of the dog—his dad’s the murderer! (the horrors!) The story ends on a happy note with Christopher getting a dog and an A for his A-level Math paper (which is damn amazing ’cause he’s only fifteen. I mean I can’t even solve simple Math sums). J

(3)   Pride and Prejudice (by Jane Austen)

A story about an average family with five daughters (and a horribly annoying mother) and their attempts at getting married to rich men, and how pride and prejudice (along with issues of class and status) get in the way.

Chosen text

The text which I feel is suitable as a secondary/O-level text is… The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time! (No prizes for guessing correctly! Ha!) I think the book, apart from being entertaining, interesting and atypical (I might be biased), touches on the themes of disability and discrimination which are pertinent, though perhaps often overshadowed by other forms of discrimination such as racism and sexism. That disability is often ‘invisible’ makes this text all the more useful as a rich resource in developing students’ awareness and ability to think critically. This text also facilitates discussion of other similar issues such as mental illness. In addition, the text is not intimidating as it is not hard to understand and the language used is also simple, making it appropriate for secondary school students. I really think students (and everyone else who haven’t read it) should be encouraged to read it even if it’s not a set text! 

Addison: Explore Literary Devices in Popular Lyrics

This website is like a Wikipedia for teachers - contributed by teachers to help and inspire teachers. It has a collection of lesson plans and ideas that others can draw inspiration from or adapt into their own lessons.

The specific page that I linked above has a similar theme to an English Language lesson that I did earlier this year. I had a free period with my class one day (we had completed the lessons scheduled for the week early) and so I decided to do something fun and plan a lesson around Macklemore's song "Wings," a song about a boy in New York in the 1960's and his obsession for sports shoes. It's a song about the pursuit of identity through consumerism and an attachment to brands, logos and the power of purchase.

The slides that I used for the lesson can be found here.

The song has a lot of interesting subtext, allusions and figurative language which the class had fun decoding or deciphering. The subject matter of the song, itself, was an enticing one for the students. This lesson wasn't done during a Literature period. It was a fun activity during an English lesson aimed at putting forth to the students the beauty and power of language. But if done in a Literature context, there could be so much more to explore to teach literary devices through songs. It's a great way to draw the students into the lesson, especially when the teacher uses songs that the students are familiar with or artists that they admire. It is also a great way to link literature to daily life and make a point about how language and art exits everywhere we turn.

Inklewriter

Inklewriter is a wonderful storytelling tool for both students and teachers. Unlike many other publishing websites such as Medium and Blogger, Inklewriter allows anyone to craft interactive stories. (That’s ICT right there!) Reading an Inklewriter story is similar to reading a choose-your-adventure novel: you can allow the reader to make different decisions about the story, which allows them to participate in the reading. 

It doesn’t hurt that Inklewriter’s very beautiful and user-friendly. Inklewriter stories, once written, are given their own unique webpage, which can then be shared with anyone.

An example of the story in Read mode, where you can choose between two options.

As an Inklewriter, you can craft a story to be as complex or simple as you want. Your story can be divided into different fragments, allowing you to control how your story is delivered to a reader. You can write different choices for your readers, or even create a text-based role-playing game for your reader. The possibilities are endless!

Example of the story in Write mode, where you design your interactive story.

So how can Inklewriter can be used in the classroom? Here are some of my ideas.

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1. Teaching Narrative Structures

Inklewriter can be used to introduce narrative structures to a class. There’s a map function that reveals the entire story in a flowchart, which is incredibly helpful for visualizing plot. I imagine students could illustrate their understanding of a novel by using Inklewriter to craft an interactive plot summary. They could then share their summaries with other students in the class!

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2. Different Perspectives
Inklewriter’s a fantastic way to invite students to consider and explore multiple perspectives. Because Inklewriter allows for multiple options and storylines, a student could design a story showing the perspectives of a single event, told from the point of view of different stakeholders. This can be very effective for unpacking scenes of conflict, as it invites a student to not only empathize with each character, but to be persuasive about each point of view.

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3. Literary Mindmaps

Inklewriter’s a great way for students to map their understanding about different domains in a text. This is especially helpful if you’ll like your students to create a knowledge map for a specific text. As they develop ways of understanding, they can create links between common quotes and establish relationships between different elements of the text — all of which can be captured in Inklewriter and revisited when necessary.

What I also love is that you can choose to save your notes in the form of a mind map, or in a running text form. Very helpful for different learning styles.

A simple structure in map view:

The same structure in read view: 

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4. Scaffolding Essays
Inklewriter’s great for writing structured essays. You can even create and name sections, and link different sections together. For beginning writers, using such Inklewriter will make scaffolding (such as PEEL) much more palatable. The reverse activity — getting students to split a good essay into its components in order to understand arguments better — could also be an effective strategy.

However, I wouldn’t recommend forcing experienced writers to divide their essays into fragments – this is definitely something for weaker students who need structure.

The above structure is then formatted automatically into this beautiful being: 

And the best part? Inklewriter is completely and absolutely FREE.

Literature Circles

http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/northernadelaide/files/links/mysterylessonplans.pdf

This website (well actually, online PDF file) suggests a way to introduce the use of Literature circles into the classroom using a series of steps in increasing difficulty:
1. Book talks - to expose students to a wide range of books and help them decide on a book to explore in further detail
2. Journalling - to help students stay on-task by reading regularly and reflecting on their experience and thoughts as they read
3. Role sheets - to plan and delegate jobs within each circle
4. Circle discussions - to meet and discuss books read!
5. Evaluation (of self and of group)
6. Reflection

This long process of reading, sharing and reflecting allows students to take ownership of their own reading and their learning through reading, as they are encouraged to constantly reflect on what they're reading, how it makes them feel, what they like/dislike about the writing, what speaks to them, why a text is effective/not-so-effective...It also helps students pay greater attention to literary techniques than they might if they were to be reading for leisure only.

Through Literature circles, students can reflect on their own reading in a collaborative setting and thus learn from their peers. The peer relationship going on here also provides a 'safer' and more comfortable environment for students to share their ideas than a teacher-directed/lecture style classroom, where students might feel more afraid to speak up.

The document even provides rubrics for self-assessment and peer-assessment along the way, so students can monitor their own learning progress and be more engaged in their learning. The rubrics help to structure students' thinking and understand what's important and what they should focus on (e.g. for circle discussions, "I gave reasons for my opinions", "I disagreed without hurting others' feelings").

For those who'd like ideas on scaffolding Literature lessons (like myself), this document would be perfect! Since it breaks down the process of getting students to engage in Literature circles into simpler steps.

Oral Interpretation of Poetry as Assessment

It is perhaps a widely known secret that my favourite genre of literature is War Literature, perhaps due to it's vividness, universality and complexity of themes, characters and ethical considerations.

I have thus chosen to explore a lesson plan on War Literature that is adopted from , which incidentally Joshua has also previously explored. This site provides a rich selection of teaching and learning resources across a wide range of subjects, and provides interesting lesson plans for the area of Literature.

In the sample lesson plan I am exploring ( ), here the lesson serves as a good point of introduction to War Poetry vis-a-vis Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage, and other poems)and a novel mode of formative assessment through Oral Interpretation. War poetry is perhaps apt for this exercise because war poetry are often narrative and situational, or at other times filled with rich sound techniques and imagery that are easy and suitable oral delivery.

Here, oral interpretation first involves students getting into groups and starting with the basic close reading skills of identifying and interpreting the meaning of a poem and its craft: sound (repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme), language (word choice, imagery, figurative language), and form (stanza division). Next, students then orally read this poem, by paying attention to delivery of meaning and interpretation of craft: e.g. where to pause, where to place emphasis, where to change tone and pacing, and who will read which stanzas, reader order, one student at a time? Two in unison? All in unison? These considerations will push students to go beyond understanding and analyzing a poem, towards evaluation and creation by presenting the poetry in a different form.

This oral interpretation exercise by each group of students is followed by a Q&A panel discussion, where each group must explain their rationale for their interpretation and delivery, and discuss the meaning of the poem and significance of poetic techniques. The panel then addresses questions from the 'audience', which comprises the rest of the class.

With regards to assessment, there are perhaps some considerations:

1. The teacher may grade the groups' oral interpretation and panel discussion as a mode of summative assessment, culminating in a group grade that should be awarded equally to all members of the group. Different roles such as poem readers, panel 'experts', etc should not warrant differential marks within the group.

2. Additionally, the Q&A from the class and the teacher to the panel, would serve as formative assessment, as students can clarify, challenge or affirm portions of the group's effort, and the teacher can close each panel discussion with his/her summative feedback.

3. As a bonus task, the teacher may set a reflection homework for students via pen-and-paper journals or ICT tools like padlet, blogs, for them to discuss the process of oral interpretation and the insights they gained from their peers' feedback.

In conclusion, this lesson plan provided by allows a vocalization of war literature, and a novel appreciation of poetry and its craft, while allowing for a diverse range of assessment modes depending on the teacher's intentions.

Magnetic Poetry

As a Secondary School Literature student, I was always intimidated by poetry. Having an unfortunate lack of creative writing abilities, I was in awe of poets who could wield words so powerfully. In my mind, poems were pregnant with meaning - meaning that I sometimes felt unworthy or incompetent to decipher. This led to considerable fears in the act of critical analysis - how can I critique what I felt I could not understand?

The website I'm introducing in this blogpost is inspired by my adolescent fears: Magnetic Poetry.

I am quite certain that most of you (reading this post, anyway) has come across this concept before. Ready-made magnetic words and a blank canvas. Poetry in the making.

This website could be used to make poetry more accessible to students. Hopefully, in the act of creating their own works, they would come to be less intimidated by poems, or even be more attuned to the ways poets use literary devices with the intention of creating certain effects. The magnetic poetry website would be ideal for this as it has ready-made words for students who may feel less confident in their linguistic abilities.

As a follow-up activity, students could be tasked to critique the creative work of their classmates, enabling students to see how their intentions in the writing of their poems might not be translated to reader interpretation, thus helping them understand the dynamics of the reader-writer relationship.