A Beautiful Experience

April 17, 2008.

Society, State and The Individual students did well in the Cultural Event. They did their very best and willing to sacrifice money in fact to earn marks as well as to impress. They were indeed very resourceful. I feel proud of their accomplishment and wish that it was for a longer period so that more students and lecturers can share the experience.

Special tribute to those lecturers involved who made this happened.

Simile, metaphor and rhetoric

I taught rhetorics in my class yesterday.

I used to think that similes, metaphors and alliteration are a nuisance in my reading materials. I felt that they are tiresome and exhausting for my reading. I wanted only the gist of what I read and not elaboration and overexaggeration of ideas and concepts.

After I taught rhetorics to my students, I discovered a purpose of using similes, metaphors, alliteration and other styles of figurative language. It concurs with what I read in McRae's Literature with a Small "l". Figurative language is a language to express ideas in a colourful way and more vivid to the imagination. The function is to give readers a frame of reference to the concept. For example, using a simile of "as strong as an ox" gives readers, who are usually familiar with cattles and their behaviors, a vivid impression of the persona in discussion.

I now discovered that figurative language serves a different function than academic language that is more direct to the point. Academic language serves a more formal discourse but figurative language is used to express and represent ideas in an enriching way. It is more expressive and sometimes more accurate depiction of thoughts and ideas.

Value of literature exploration

According to Mc Rae, representational material is a powerful tool for students learning process. It transcends the objective of the language curriculum. We want our students to comprehend meanings of the language but small "l" goes beyond that. Students receive longer-term benefit from discussions of representational materials.

Comprehension is said to be a beginning, not an ending to small "l" exploration. Students are taught to get in touch with their emotion as well as their imagination. TVs and computers have done a lot of thinking on our behalf in our daily life. Many of us have become "brain dead" individuals who lack the capacity to process information without spoon feeding from the machines surrounding us.

To challenge this phenomena, representational material plays an important role. It becomes a basis for training students to develop their linguistic ability that is derived from their own ideas and thought process. Their mind is trained to busy itself with activities that has been much in the past suppressed or laid dormant. Students would have to deal with activities such as reflection, developing insights, and constructing personal interpretation of small "l" materials.

To do this, teachers need to find text that is interesting, rewarding, stimulating and contains teachable qualities that allows the text to "speak for itself". It should be intrinsically rewarding so as to break the walls of inhibition among students, thus inviting participation and sincere involvement from students.

Teaching and learning literature

Literature? Scary and intimidating word. Honestly speaking, many of us think that literature is for the gifted. Some people are born for literature and some are not, just like talents for numbers. Mc Rae asserts that this is the typical excuse for not bringing literature into the classroom. We put limitations on ourselves. Anybody, he says, could teach and learn literature. Especially the small "l".

True to some extent, yet the opposite view still rules in practice. Somehow, it seems that literature talent lies with the right brain persona, the more intuitive individuals. They are emotionally rich and articulate their thoughts and feelings fluently. The rest of us use language mainly as a basic function, that is to convey messages and put meanings across.

To employ literature in the classroom is to expand this basic communication into more complex activities. Language is used not just to deliver important messages but also to express viewpoints, thoughts, insights and our own personal revelation. It demands courage to expose our inner turmoils. It demands us to unravel the ideas inside us and put them into coherent thoughts to be expressed to others. It demands us to share our understanding of our surrounding.

This openness and sharing may subject us to personal attack. This becomes another fear of teachers teaching literature. Some people are not prepared to reveal themselves in the sharing component of literature discussion. Some may value their internal privacy and try to preserve this private space as much as possible.

It can be argued that literature is reserved for those who are talented in the field. The resistance is not simply due to misunderstanding of the correct approach but could be because of some people lack the artistic capacity to express themselves unlike others. It is for the same reason why you can't force some people to love math.

Discovering Literature

I'm reading McRae's Literature with a small "l". He asserts that referential language communicates on one level. It is static and very basic. Whereas, representational language is very dynamic. It is rich with content and meaning. Very insightful. Very interpretative. It goes beyond basic communication or survival language skill. It relies on connotative features of the language and quite abstract for learners. It doesn't give the speakers framework in talking, but stimulates imagination and incite authentic responses. The result is integrative form of language. "Where referential language informs, representation language involves" - McRae, p.3 Textbook uses referential language - it describes. Literature as reading materials is representational, - it involves the reader. Textbook language is mechanical or technical relying on accuracy of grammatical forms and structures as measures of proficiency or fluency. In contrast, representational materials such as literature, advertisement, songs or cartoons helo students acquire the language. The result is the fifth skill in language learning, that is, thinking in English! the objective of representational language is to make the language automatic, putting content above the mechanics of the language. Using appropriate register and suitable discourse is more primary to basic comprehensible language. In general, representation language gives wider frame of linguistic reference.

COMPARISON OF CONTEMPORARY AND TRADITIONAL YAL

Both contemporary and traditional works of young adult literature focus on young adults as their main characters. They focus on issues that young adults normally face and how they resolve the issues. However, contemporary works can focus on realities that are too harsh yet undeniably true challenges that young adults face nowadays. Contemporary young adult literature touches on the problems that young adults usually go through. The issues are pressing and quite complex in nature. Due to sociological changes that society goes through at present, the physical as well as psychological challenges are much more complicated. Changes in technology, communication, demography, economy put more demands on teenagers and many of the literature highlight the dilemma that young adults face in order to cope in the current complex world. The demands are emotionally taxing and many authors capture this as the essence of their story such as in “Hero” and “”Chocolate War” More traditional works of young adult literature have different types of challenges than the contemporary ones. The surrounding factors at those times seem not as complex as in the current society. The central issue normally lies on character building of the protagonist such as “Tom Sawyer” and how the character develops himself throughout the challenges and problems that he faced. However, the classical works has more complex sentence structures. They are richer in details using language in much more complex manner. The use of imagery, word choice and literary language is more prominent in the traditional works. On the other hand, contemporary works normally relies on simpler and more authentic use of language that appeals to many teenagers or young adults. It is interesting to note that more traditional works of young adult literature has very minor roles for female. Most protagonists are males and females normally appear as mentoring adults in the stories. It can be said that different styles of writing young adult literature emerge in different eras.

ROLE OF DISCUSSION AND WRITING IN READING

Discussion forces us to come up with words to describe our experiences through reading. We will need to choose our words to convey the ideas that we have about the story. The feedback that we receive from others would help trigger more ideas that we might have overlooked. It could go to details of the scene, plot and characters. It refines our thoughts and understanding of what we have absorbed from the story. Normally, I would use discussion to clarify my jumbled thoughts on various issues that were raised in a story. Discussion with my friends helps me gather and sort my thoughts together and later declare a revelation based on the reading and discussion activities. What we read on our own might be a misinterpretation of what the author tries to convey. Discussion would help to shape my understanding of the story more accurately. Writing is almost as useful as discussion to generate ideas and form understanding of a story. It is a method to convey thoughts and reflections on the story. It is also a channel to deliver interesting insights, which might be gathered through reading. Sometimes it requires me to have an in depth response in order to put my point across for others to understand. However, writing does not give the opportunity for readers to get feedback from other people immediately. It is a solitary activity and somehow introspective. Our interpretation and view towards the story could be distorted and would remain distorted without comment from others. Relaying information through discussion and writing usually helps clarify my thoughts and ideas and make them crystal clear. I would be more appreciative towards the story after that.