Poems on Global Conflict
Key Skills Taught
Close analysis of literary techniques
Comparison of perspectives
Student
Profile
Student
Profile
The unit is suitable for any middle-tiered school. Students should already have learned how to practice close-reading analysis on literary texts, paying attention to literary techniques. They should also have learned to write full paragraphs in response to literary texts and to express their analyses with clarity. Students who are predominantly audio-visual learners will benefit from using multimodal texts in class to encounter poetry, such as images and videos.
Level /
Stream
Secondary 3 (Express)
Unit Objectives
In the course of this unit, the teacher will guide students to:
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Understand the relationship between literary texts and historical/cultural/social/political contexts
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Analyse how poetic elements (such as imagery, personification, enjambment, diction, and juxtaposition) produce meaning
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Compare and contrast various perspectives between literary representations of war experience
Learning Outcomes
Strand 1: Interpreting and Engaging with Texts
LO 1.6:
Demonstrate understanding of the relationships among the Areas of Study within texts
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LO 1.7:
Demonstrate understanding that texts are written and read in specific contexts (e.g. historical, cultural, economic, political, social)
Strand 2:
Developing and Communicating Responses to Texts
LO 2.1:
Develop personal and critical responses to texts
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LO 2.3:
Respond to different views and perspectives
Strand 3:
Reading and Appreciating a Wide Variety of Texts
LO 3.2:
Read and appreciate texts that reflect diverse contexts and concerns
Rationale
There are eight 70-minute lessons in this unit, which collectively enable students to progressively acquire skills of literary analysis. The issues and concepts involved in the classroom implementation and discussion of each topic also demand more of the students’ critical thinking skills as they become increasingly complex. The first half of the themed unit focuses on the poetry of the World Wars in the twentieth century as a way of introducing students to general ideas associated with the experience of war. The latter half of the unit affords students a closer look into regional experiences of war, and introduces them to the presence of alternative views to dominant narratives of conflict.
This unit employs three pedagogical approaches in connection with the aims of the MOE syllabus: new criticism, reader-response, and poststructuralism. In line with theories of new criticism, students will be taught to identify and analyse various literary techniques within the poetic text to understand and to create meaning. This rigorous close analysis enables students to "cultivat[e] a questioning mind." Students are further encouraged to "explor[e] personal and social issues" through an immersive experience of war poetry, and in turn express themselves verbally, textually, and performatively. Students also "interrogat[e] and manag[e] ambiguities and multiple perspectives" through considering issues of trauma and memory in relation to historical perspectives through the lens of poststructuralist pedagogical methods.
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Bibliography:
Ministry of Education (Singapore). Literature in English Teaching Syllabus 2013. Singapore: Ministry of Education, 2013.