limericks in literature class?

why not? Limericks can be one of effective way to introduce students with poems, it is not as heavy as poems but it still share some features with poems. It is an interesting activity to do, and it also can be a good experience for students if they want to try to do ‘creative writing’. One thing that I had discovered from this activity is teacher must know how to manipulate every material that he has in order to suit the lesson with his students’ ability. In short, he must be creative, but of course it won’t be an easy work to do. For example during the ‘limerick’ activity, dr Edwin mentioned that instead of having the students to create their on limerick, we can have it by asking the students to arrange words in order to create one –especially for low level students. we can’t let this group of students being left out in our lesson just because of their language limitation, therefore we must know how to help them to participate in the class activity.

learn from autobiography?

autobiography is another type of text that we had read in this course. Instead of getting the students understand the text, this text also can make the students to know more about the person, -it might give some inspiration to the students when they read it and become a better person or just to develop patriotism in them. may be we can work together with the history teacher, use the ‘content based’ principle. This might help the students to understand the lesson as their will have some background knowledge about the person and able relate it in other subject! Rather than using an autobiography of a person who the students don’t even know him, it would be more effective if we bring in someone who they can see the relevance of learning about him.

Dr Edwin asked us to watch some movies regarding to teacher, which have different issues but basically share the same idea, the teacher’s credibility. However, the main thing that played in my mind after watching it, how they can handle their students. The teacher manages to get the student to 'really' learn and make them to actively participate in the lesson activity, it is not an easy work to do and not all teachers will be able to do it. what I can say about it is sometimes teacher need to do something that is not the students routine in class, or cliché, it must be something that is ‘out of the box’. Teacher need to be creative to deliver their lesson, so that students won’t feel bored and ‘painful’. They must be able to teach and at the same time ‘entertain’ their students -of course with out over doing it.

my research paper (part 2)

when i told my friends about my topic, most of them gave me the "really?" kinds of face expression..i don't know why? may be for them it is not a heavy topic that i can make a research on it -i thought! but for me, it is an interesting issue, we have been listened and read too many crime cases that involved juveniles, as we will dealing with this group of people, i think we can do something about it. yes, it is impossible to believe that 'just a teacher' can solve the problem, but to some extend, sometimes teacher do influence their students. however there are people who just can believe that this issue do exist, and in my research paper it show how actually juveniles can turn themselves into someone who able to commit crime, or to have a serious behaviour problem. i hope that there will be more research on on this issue, specifically on teacher's role...

my research paper

Finally! I just finished my research paper, and it is my last assignment for this semester. And frankly speaking it is one of the assignments that really stress me up. There are many stages that I need to face before I can summit the final work -summiting the outline, the draft and meeting with the supervisor almost every week. And it is not like the position paper where everything comes from our personal opinion, in this assignment I need to refer back to other’s critiques, articles and analysis regarding to the issue that I choose, in short there are too many reading involves. But, of course there are also advantages that I get from this assignment, at least if I want to pursue my study, I know what I need to do, where do I need to focus on, or how to write a research paper, how does a research paper looks like, as I had experienced it. :)

'vivaldi''s song in literature class?

To just use classic songs -alone, in literature class, I don’t think it will work as it is difficult for the students to appreciate or understand a song just by listening to the music without any lyrics, even though just as a set induction activity. I, myself having a difficulty to understand how we can enjoy it -it is my first time to really listen to it. just like what dr. Edwin said, it might only work if teacher use it with other material such as poem, use it as the background music while reciting the poem, to make the reading session more interesting. Personally, classic music is another form of art that not everyone know how to appreciate it, just like painting. I hope one day I can become one of the persons who listen and appreciate this kind of music, it’s actually kind of music that ease to ear. It is a good way to introduce art work like classic music and painting to students in order to expose them to it and develop their interest in art and then being able to appreciate it.it also can help the students to develop their 'personal response' skills, e.g: teacher can ask their opinion about the song.

a walking stick...

Teacher is like a walking stick to a blind man. A walking stick can help the blind man to enable him to choose the right place to step on, in short to have a safe journey to anywhere that he wants to go. It also helps him to have more steps and go somewhere further, if he chooses to. This situation, somehow can be seen in teachers, -specifically I see myself in the future. With the knowledge that I have –with is not only academically, I can help my students by share it, and the knowledge that they have will enable them to determine their future.

which text?

When we learned about marginalized literature, I just realized that certain text do has ‘gender’. Teacher can’t just teach any text that they want to teach, they must consider the appropriateness to bring it to class, consider how the students might perceive it. As different gender of the teacher will bring different effect when they teach certain text that can be considered as sensitive issues. We had learned a poem, ‘becoming a women’, it is one example of the foregoing. A male teacher is not supposed to teach this poem in a class of female students, as it will make the students feel uncomfortable to discuss about it. therefore, it is important for teacher to choose a suitable –or right, text for the right students!

diaries?

Bringing diaries to class? in language class, yes. I can see how it can contribute to the lesson. but if in literature class? I don’t know how. Can a diary be considered as a literary work? It is true that from diary we can learn something, there is moral values in it.. but somehow I find it difficult. Maybe I need to sit and really look close on it if I want to bring it in the literature class and of course not Kafka’s type of diaries. Because it is too confusing.

simplified material

I think it is one good way in order to expose students with varies kind of material, in literature class or even the language class. It is because I think there it is difficult to find a reading material that is interesting and at the same time accessible to the students in term of the level of difficulty. For example, the drama about eodipus, it is an interesting story. But with that kind of language, I don’t think students will get interested to read it. therefore the only solution for this problem is to rewrite the story in modern language or change the form, from drama to prose. Just like what we did with the story icarus, we change the language to a more modern language. Even though, it involves lots of effort, I think its worth.

love and sacrifice...

We had learned a myth from India entitled, the mahabrata, its about love and sacrifice between a father and his son. Somehow these two words are connected, ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘Love’ it seems like same but it is not actually. And obviously it is difficult to define it. but one thing for sure, if you are willing to sacrifice something for the sake of someone, that means you love that person. But if you said you love someone it doesn’t means you will always willing to sacrifice for them. difficult to understand, but easy identify...

It is interesting when we can get involve with the issue that been discussed in a text that we work on, as there will be lots of thing to talk about. I think that is way it is important to bring in a text with familiar to students, where they can relate the story with themselves.