Instructions for rest of e-learning task

Dear all,

Just to remind you of the last two sections of your e-learning tasks.

With best wishes,

Angus


(ii) In groups of 3 (you can work with classmates from your own or other schools): Drawing upon the ideas and strategies that we have explored during the past three sessions, share a creative way to teach and assess an unseen passage not discussed in class (no more than 500 words) (deadline 19 April 2011).

(iii) Individual (optional): Please post three constructive responses and comments on classmates’ ideas (deadline 26 April 2011).

Teaching the Unseen in Upper Secondary

In teaching the Unseen Prose, I teach the various Literary Elements like, Setting, Mood & Atmosphere, Style, Tension & Suspense etc to the students. Many times, I try to infuse the teaching with visual texts (images or videos) to help students to better understand the various elements.
After I explicitly teach, there students will be given either individual tasks or group tasks where they need to apply what they have just learnt. This way, I get to see whether students have learnt - are they still unclear about certain elements (do they know how to identify them from the texts).

Students will usually discuss/present their answers in class - the other groups are often encouraged to ask questions and not take the answers as it is but to ask if what they say are valid.
This way, it forces the students to think deeper and not be superficial in their answers.

Teaching the Unseen (Anglican High School)

As my school is a Chinese-speaking SAP school, the majority of students have a weak foundation in English. The school also does not have a strong reading culture and many students do not explore reading materials beyond their assigned school texts. Thus, Literature teachers frequently find it an uphill task to engage un-motivated students who find it difficult to read, understand and interpret Unseen poems/prose. To kick-start the students’ inertia and allay their anxieties about reading and interpreting, we would typically start with scaffolding activities to activate the students’ schema and ease them into the text. These scaffolding activities include the use of anticipation guides (true/false questions about a particular theme in the poem that would help the teacher assess the students’ prior knowledge), or group discussion activities on audio or visual stimuli-pictures, posters, advertisements, songs, film clips, etc. These hook activities are sometimes also done to contextualize or situate the poem/passage so that it becomes less culturally or linguistically alien for the students.

Not only are these activities less intimidating and more manageable, students are also more confident to read/interpret the poem/prose subsequently when they see their responses to previous activities validated by the teacher during class discussion. Once the students have read the Unseen once or twice individually, it would then be broken down into manageable, bite-sized portions for close-reading and group discussion (with guiding questions from the teacher).

Teaching Unseen Poetry

I started teaching my very first very first upper secondary Literature class this year, and it’s been an interesting experience so far. I started the year with unseen poetry, and I used many pictures and advertisements to get students to think about what it means to be able to think critically. We broke down into smaller bites the meanings (and hidden meanings) of different advertisements, and then students had to look for one advertisement of their own and do a critical analysis of it as an assignment.

For poetry, I used a number of songs to teach the different devices – “End of the World” and “Firework” were used to teach sound devices and imagery respectively. I tried my best to break it down so that students were able to understand how the devices worked at their most basic then link it to effect and poet’s intention. From the song/picture/sound, I would move on to lines/stanzas, then to full poems. Students were able to follow and have a better grasp of the concept this way. I really hope that through this course I would learn skills and strategies to enhance my students’ learning and to make Literature meaningful for them.

teaching the unseen

I am teaching a Sec 3 class this year. I've not really covered much of the unseen last term as we were more focussed on hitting the ground running with the set text. The few unseen lessons I had with my class were discussions-based. I would give hard copies of selected poems and get students to think and contribute points, bouncing off ideas from one another. It helps greatly that there are only 11 students in my class and most of them are responsive and enthusiastic about lit. I have used songs and videos related to the poem or theme of the poem to activate schema for students. With regard to content knowledge of literary devices and elements of poetry, i tend to do a bit of explicit teaching with examples before letting them apply the skills on their own.

Unseen in Peicai Secondary

I am quite fortunate (unfortunate?) to have only 4 combined Lit students and 1 Pure Lit student in my class. Having a small class means I can actually spend undivided attention on them and it also means that I have to prepare a lot for that 5 students. I can't really do groupwork as I always end up having one group only. Like Dr Whitehead, I used pictures and advertisements to teach them to think critically and bring up the point that things (words) exist for a reason. The assessment is that they have to use the literary devices, such as diction, alliteration to create a commerical on their own. Hence, students can apply the literary devices that they learnt. Next, I get the students to think of a theme, and they have to cut pictures that suit their themes. For example, the theme could be on growing up and the relevant pictures are paths, friends, angles, candles etc. One of the Themes can be on peace. Colour blue, dove can be used to signify peace. This year, I will also be asking students to craft their own Literature questions. A poem or prose is given to the students and they have to craft their questions. The questions can be on themes, characters, the techniques etc. They have to come out with the answer key too. students can be independent in their learning and have higher order thinking skills. After this exercise, Students will (hopefully) pay more attention to the requirement of the question and know what entails a satisfactory answer.

Teaching Unseen Prose

When I started teaching Upper Secondary Literature two years ago, I was unsure how best to approach the Unseen in an fun, engaging and meaningful manner. I wanted to move on to activities and learning tasks, besides just pen and paper exercise, to stimulate my students' thinking and learning. More importantly, I wanted to adequately prepare my students for formal assessments in the Unseen section of the Literature assessments especially the at the 'O' Level. With suggestions and hand-holding from my very experienced colleagues, I have managed to create learning tasks that my students apparently have enjoyed and done well so far. One of the approaches was to get students to select songs they like and do a literary analysis on each of them. When students presented their analysis, they had to orally defend their assertions when their peers questioned them in class. My colleagues also looked at music videos and got their students to do real-time online discussion with the teachers. A lot of the work we have been doing centers around group and class discussions on print and non-print materials. What has really helped for me as a new Literature teacher has been the generous sharing of resources as well as ideas in the department.

Teaching and Assessing the Unseen_Norani Hasan, PRCS

Just like Shelia, I am also from Pasir Ris Crest Secondary. Most of the current Sec 4 teachers in my school taught the unseen using the SPECS and SLIM which was mentioned in Shelia's post as an introduction to the unseen. I also find the textbook (`Mining for Meaning') which we are using really helpful not so much because I like the practice it provides the students but more because the students feel more `secure' that they actually have something to refer to. I usually like to teach the unseen by giving students various examples of texts which share the same theme. For example, I started off one of my earliest lessons on unseen poetry using Burns' `A red red Rose' because it is one of my favourite and perhaps its because I feel it is easier for my students to pick out the different literary features in the poem eg. rhyming pattern, use of hyperbole, symbolism. I then let them move on to Blake's `The Sick Rose' and let them try to compare and contrast the 2 poems in terms of meaning and literary devices used. To close the series of lessons on unseen poetry, I then showed them West Life's rendition of`The Rose' on youtube. However, so far I have not assessed my students formally as their assignments were mostly formative ones. Also because in Term 1 the Sec 4 teachers mostly concentrated on trying to cover as much ground for our short stories and have postponed the teaching of the unseen to Term 2. Thus, I feel this course that I am doing right now will help me gain more ideas on how to make teaching of the unseen more exciting and relevant to my students.

Teaching Unseen (NHHS)

Hi all I have not been teaching the unseen for the past 3 years as I am only teaching the set text for the time being. This is what I remember about teaching the unseen: I believe students need help, especially in the initial stages, to activate schema and spark off their analytical skills. The first unseen lesson, I showed the students a picture of the painting 'St George and the Dragon' by Uccello. We considered the two characters in the painting and raised questions about them. Following that we used 'Not my best side' by Fanthorpe, which is based on that painting, to explore characterisation and point of view. I remember that lesson because the students were engaged and intrigued by the unexpected version of the story in the poem. From there I would at times use pictures/photographs to activate schema or start discussions. I also tried my best to use excerpts from texts of different genre and cultures (incl Singaporean literature) to expose students to various types of writing and perspectives. Lastly, I feel that once the core skills are taught, students should be exposed to many types of questions and have sufficient timed practice

Unseen in FTP

I just transferred to the school in Jan 2011, and it is also my first time teaching Literature after 6.5 years in the service. So everything is relatively new to me. I started of the year teaching unseen at Sec 2 but it is poetry. At first I teach them the skills such as identifying similes and metaphors and the effect and then I started to expose them to more poems so they can practice what they have learnt last year and this year. I had even used songs to teach rhyme and rythm. They had fun when I use funny poems and songs to teach. What my HOD wants to see apart from understanding the skills, is personal response. So, usually I will have at least 1 or 2 open ended questions for the students to answer after analysing the poems.

Teaching the Unseen in Bukit View Sec

One of the main aims is to ensure that the students enjoy poetry and prose so that barriers towards the Unseen are broken down. Texts selected will be varied with themes of war, love, teenage years and even urbanization. Besides hard copies of texts, some material(for poetry) is also garnered from the Youtube- with lyrics of songs by Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel. Lyrics are shown without music initially. Discussion follows on how the writer crafts his words to his purpose via imagery, rhyme, beat etc. For the prose section, texts from various short stories, novels and past years’ school papers are chosen to highlight the writer’s use of suspense, contrast, tension, and how the dialogue in the text helps us to form the character. One problem we face is that the O level Elective Lit results do not state how students actually scored in the Lit paper or the Social Studies component.

Teaching and Assessing Unseen Prose_Divya

Frankly I thought using adverts as a starting point to teach The Unseen is a brilliant approach. I personally find that my students have a problem developing opinions and have an even harder time expressing their opinions. Some are handicapped by the lack of vocabulary and some even write awkward sentences so their opinions literally get "lost in translation". I ususally get them to watch video clips about thought provoking concepts such as euthanasia, the holocaust and such which would wrench an emotion or two out of them. They would need to be provided with exercises and activities that would merely require them to circle appropriate adjectives to describe character, feelings, moods etc. The next step was looking for evidence for their choice of adjective and so on. I felt that this step had to be done before they moved on to tackle poetry and prose proper. Poetry is handled by (1) close analysis by way of a thorough study of the diction, language , form, rhythm etc (2) Responding by way of expressing the kind of mood & feeling the poem evokes etc. Prose always seems a littel easier because the structure is pretty standard - When i teach close reading, the focus would be on character study, tone of text - author's intention, Literary devices etc. & of course practising these skills on past year exam papers ; / Divya Raman

Reflection on the Teaching of Unseen Prose

Currently, I am teaching Sec 1 Language Arts. Prior to this, I have only taught English Language and have no experience teaching Literature. For Sec 1 LA, the students have not been taught unseen prose yet. If I were to teach unseen prose, I would probably start by getting my students to be familiar with the literary terms such as characterisation, plot, theme and etc. Following that, the students can be guided to identify and annotate the elements as well as the use of the literary devices in given texts. Samples with annotation and model essays will be given to students to guide them in their learning process. The students will also be taught to structures to adopt when writing their essays.

Teaching the Unseen BPGH

Hi All!! I am a beginning teacher in Bukit Panjang Government High School. I taught unseen poetry last year to my Sec 3s. One of the things I tell my students (not to sound morbid) is that doing unseen poetry is like doing an autopsy. You need to observe the details in the poem. To get them started I expose the students to unusual ads or music videos to get the students to be more aware of the details in the visuals and the impact on the readers. I explain to my students that poetry is similiar to pictures and movie clips except that they are in words. I usually ask the students to pick up words that stand out as they first glance through it. I then ask them why they think the words stood out to them. And usually the students find that the words that stood out to them play a crucial part in answering the questions that are being asked.

In my opinion, I feel that students are not exposed or more rightly put, they do not question what they see or read. My approach is to get them to notice details and ask questions in order to generate answers and higher order thinking.

Reflection on teaching unseen prose

I teach Language Arts instead of Litearature in my school. Unseen prose constitutes only one part of the programme. There are not many opportunities to teach unseen prose and so far, two unseen prose lessons were taught by me. In one lesson, students were taught how to identify character traits based on a set text (To Kill A Mocking Bird); thereafter, they applied the same set of skills on an unseen text. The students were expected to articulate their interpretations and justify how they derived the interpretations. In another lesson, the students were required to analyse the setting of a short story to explain how it created a sense of fear in the story. I guided the students step-by-step in unpacking the various setting of the story to see how the sense of fear was created. In both lessons, the students were given opportunities to share their work and this had allowed the class to see things from different perspectives. In the second lesson, the students generally did not address the question directly - many found it difficult to explain how the setting created the sense of fear.

Teaching the Unseen in PRCS

Hi all, In Pasir Ris Crest Sec, we start the students off with the acronym: SPECS & SLIMS. (Subject Matter-Point of View-Characterisation-Style: Structure-Language-Imagery-Movement (Rhythm)-Symbolism). We also refer closely to 'Mining for Meaning', and get the students to attempt the questions in the book itself. Our teachers frequently employ the use of video clips & even songs to get the students interested in the unseen. One of the biggest challenge we face in PRCS is to instill the importance of the subject itself as quite a handful of the students feel 'forced' to take Literature (which is a compulsory subject, except for the Normal Technical and lower-end Normal Academic classes). -Shelia- (Pasir Ris Crest)

Teaching the Unseen Prose

For our school, we try to build upon the literary skills and strategies of close analysis that students have been familiarized with in the lower secondary syllabus. For example, we still focus on characterization and how a character may be depicted through his appearance, actions and words. This allows us to spiral up the level of difficulty, while still providing scaffolding for students through emphasizing the core skills needed for literary analysis. Prose texts from both 'Mining for Meaning' as well as 'Mastering the Unseen' are used as part of teaching unseen prose. Other than that, we did touch upon the generic features of texts -- tragic, comic -- as well as the use of irony. In teaching the unseen texts, we place emphasis on how students have make judicial use of evidence to support their inferences and arguments. We thus get students to highlight particular parts of a text and to explain/justify why that text is tragic or ironic.

Teaching the Unseen

I have used short film. Students view a short film then discuss the devices found within the film and how they contribute to atmosphere: mood and tone, plot, themes and even characterisation. Once they finish their discussion on how visual and auditory cues found within the film contribute to uncovering the nuances of meaning within the film, we then start on a discussion of a prose passage.

Reminder concerning e-learning assignment i)

Hi, Angus here!

Can we remind everyone that there is an e-learning element to this course (kudos to thos of you who have already helpfully posted). For the first e-learning activity, could I ask you to do the following:

(i) Individual task: in approximately 100 words write a reflection about how you/ your school currently teach the unseen (deadline 28 March 2011).

Your reflection should be posted on our blog by the deadline stipulated above.

If you have any questions about this or any other matter please do not hesitate to email me. Looking forward to seeing you all again next Tuesday afternoon.

With best wishes,

Angus

Ps As I mentioned last week if anyone can help me track down copies of the 2009 and 2010 GCE Lit copies (a photocopy/ scan perhaps?) I would be most grateful (extra ‘brownie points’ of course!)

Teaching the Unseen

The first time I taught the Unseen, it was quite the struggle because it is THE UNSEEN. The uncertainty that comes with the paper doesn’t just plague the student. So I started off with the text “Mining for Meaning” and “Mastering the Unseen: Prose and Poetry”. I taught the different skills like conflict, characters etc. I also introduced students to literary terms. Now the difficulty came in the application of these skills into analyzing the text. This would only make sense after all the teaching was done. So we left 6 months to analyse questions and poems and prose. We practiced on past year papers regularly. We analysed the rubrics so that students are clear on the expectations and demands of the paper. I also held dialogues outside curriculum for students who were weaker or less confident. After all that, I think the most important thing is to allay student's fear of poetry. I spend some time convincing them to look very closely at both their options before selecting their choice.

Edward Veronica Elias

NHHS

Approach to Teaching Unseen Prose at the Lower Secondary Level

At the lower secondary level in MGS, we approach Unseen Prose in a segmented manner to begin wih. We usually start off with the less complex aspects such as character, setting, narrative viewpoint first before moving on to other more challenging aspects such as mood and atmosphere which would involve examining the writer's craft. For each aspect we cover, generally short extracts with accompanying questions are given to explore that particular aspect in detail. Mining for Meaning is a resource that we find very useful. Short clips of movies are also sometimes used as students sometimes find it easier to explore a director's craft in a movie, for example in the creation of tension. It is a good stepping stone because many students are much clearer about what is expected for a "technique" kind of question. They go beyond re-telling the content of the story and instead realise that they need to identify the techniques that the author uses, just like they had previously done for the movie clip.

Marianne

Annisa (CCHMS)

Individual task: in approximately 100 words write a reflection about how you/ your school currently teach the unseen

The unseen is taught in two components- poetry and prose, although the prose is typically favored for assessment purposes. The rationale is that unseen poetry adds a level of rigor to the teaching and learning process and that if students can understand what is implicitly expressed in a poem then a prose piece, with its more straightforward language, would potentially be easier to access. (Of course, this isn’t always the case!) Approaches to teaching include guiding students on how to identify literary devices and how the devices contribute to the overall tone and mood of an unseen piece. ICT tools are used as well. Most recently a youtube clip of an MCYS advertisement was used to help bridge the link between the issue of filial piety and an extract from ‘Tanjung Rhu’. Teachers also employ visual cues to help students create an image of an unseen text. A trainee brought in images of how orchid plants grow, creeping its way up the side of a fences for support, in order to give her class a clearer picture of how reliant a character in an extract was on her husband. Students are also at times given prose or poems that are thematically related to the texts that they are studying. (Eg: Things Fall Apart and poems by Maya Angelou)- this gives them some form of background knowledge which they can apply to the unseen piece.

Annisa here!

Hello everyone :)

Mohd Said checking in...

Used the Interrogating Unseen Prose/Poem checklist in class today.

The checklist will be more effective if used whilst analyzing a short story or two.

Will modify the checklist such that each aspect is accompanied by appropriate examples from different short stories/poems.

Testing testing

Dr Whitehead has signed in successfully.

Teaching and Assessing Unseen Prose

Hi, you're on the right page if you're in Angus Whitehead and Loh Chin Ee's inservice course for teaching and assessing the unseen.