Limmericks

We were doing limmericks with Dr. Edwin in previous class. It was a fun lesson. We got to create our own version of limmericks. And, my group's limmericks sound very interesting (I think). I felt that a lesson to let students create their own poems and limmericks is an interesting idea, although it only fits to students who are in certain level of proficiency. Hopefully I can introduce this to my students. Literature is not solely reading and intepreting but beyond that. Students can enjoy reading literature and create their own as well. This is good to make them realize that creating a good piece of literary work is very difficult and takes a lot of creativity and brain work. Thus, they will cherish others' writings and find meaning from what they have read.

Freedom Writer

The movie 'Freedom Writer' is such a motivating movie. I never can imagine a teacher would give up her husband for her students. And, she is doing so much in order to get students' trust on her. Her determination indeed inspiring. how many teachers can do the way she did? She treats the weak performance students equally by giving them new books to read and respects their opinions. She even dares to correct their wrong perceptions that might bring risk to her life. Who dares to shout at a teenager that carries a gun?? They are very impulsive and need to put so much efforts to make them believe in your good intention. AND, the most unbelievable thing is, this movie is adapted from a real-life story! Hope that there will be more and more teachers like her in our society. Hope I can be one too :)

The Reader

This is a movie starred by Kate Winslet and obviously it is not a literary book we are studying. However, I think it is relevant for me to share my experience regarding what I have learnt about literature, whether it is within the classroom or not.
So, talking about the movie, there is a familiar scene in which the illiterate main character, Kate Winslet, trying to learn to read by circling the words in the text. This is so similar to the way we have learnt in Dr. Edwin's class. The old female character (in her sixties or seventies) is so determined to read that she is even able write her will in essay before she hangs herself. How much can we learn in our old age? How strong will our determination be to accomplish a task in our golden age? This character is definitely amazing...