Starting from the year 2009, the Ministry Education of Malaysia has introduced the new literature component for Form 1 up until Form 5. For this post, I would like to outline the poems, short stories and novels as decided by the ministry for the lower secondary level. In the mean time, I will touch on the upper secondary level in the next upcoming post.
Form 1
Poems
1) The River - Valerie Bloom ( meaningful poem on how nature could take over our lives)
Students learnt words such as "hoarder", "gobled" "winder" and "vexed".
2) Mr Nobody - Anonymous ( a fun, tricky poem which touches on our inability to own up to our mistakes)
Short Story
1) Flipping Fantastic- Jane Langford
( The term "handicapped' is well-defined here = You could always be handicapped emotionally and socially, not just physically)
Graphic Novel
1) The Boscombe Valley Mystery- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( in Selangor)
(Mystery unfolds as Holmes tried to find the real murderer in this novel)
(Sherlock Holmes' Novel)
Form 2
1) I Wonder- Jeannie Kirby ( a poem which makes us think on how significant the questions usually asked by small children, but easily ignored by adults )
2) Heir Conditioning - M SHANmughalingam ( a poem which shows us how bad it is the state of our environment)
Short Story
1) One Is One and All Alone - Nicholas Fisk ( human cloning issues)
Drama
1) Rumpelstiltskin - ( a fairy tale from Germany, collected by Brothers Grimm)
( the antagonist as the namesake, is actually a goblin)(* Selangor )
Form 3Poems
1)A Fighter's Line - Marzuki Ali ( the need of the younger generation to be brave and speak up, as voiced out by the war veteran i.e the independence fighter)
2) Leisure - William Henry Davies ( the need to take our own time and look around us, enjoying our beautiful life
Apparently, due to students' responses, I could say that the new literature component has brought us new perspectives in literature learning. The main reason of learning literature is to make students think, feel and grasp the issues of life. Apart from that, we need to train our children (students in this case)to have the empathy and sympathy towards the others, to know that life is not just around the borders of Malaysia, thus the introduction of foreign authors.
I applaud the move of the ministry in introducing the new texts in literature component, simply because I think there is a need to explore new genres and issues. From my opinion, the old texts could be quite boring at times as some of the issues are not really suitable to 13 to 14 year old students.
Meanwhile, all English teachers should be happy as we got to explore new texts, we learn as we teach our students. I remembered once having a tough time discussing weddings and budgets for wedding preparations as we explored the short story "Of Bunga Telur and Bally Shoes" to wide-eyed Form 1 students. Not to say that the short story is not in my favour, but I certainly think that "Of Bunga Telur..." is suitable for fifth formers, as they would have understood it better, due to what goes into a marriage, etc. As it is, we study the texts as we prepare lessons for our students. As said by Thomas Carruthers- the Edinburgh Golf Club Maker , " A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary". Happy learning, everyone ..... ;)
