Understanding 'A Poison Tree' through Poetry Bingo!

In my previous post, I shared a poetry lesson I had with my students after the school reopened. As a follow up lesson to check how much they had understood the poem, I decided to do a poetry bingo with them. 

Zoe - Trying to get her first 'BINGO!'

The lesson was intended to check how much they had understood (formative assessment)  the poem from the previous lesson. This was done to ensure students' understanding of the poem 'A Poison Tree' and planning the 'What's next?".So, I decided to try out 'POETRY BINGO' with them. 

The reason I chose Poetry Bingo because I wanted to them to enjoy learning poetry. At the same time while maintaining social distancing in the class, they could do something fun.  

Ever since they came back to school on 24 June, they did not get the opportunity to move and do exciting activities as teachers were worried that they might be reprimanded for not following the S.O.P. and I also sensed growing restlessness and boredom as a result of being confined to their seats all day.  So, I decided to plan activities that were both fun and do not require them to move from their places.........   

......and I started looking for activities from the old literature modules. (they are really old. I mean who would still be keeping modules from 'The Drover's Wife' generation? I do as they come in handy at times) That was when I bumped into 'POETRY BINGO'. 

'Poetry Bingo' is not something new. In fact, teachers who had attended the 'CEFR- Aligned Formative Assessment Workshop' in 2018, would have come across this activity. Just dig your files and you may find it, just like how I found it in an old literature module.... 

So, this is how the lesson was carried out : 

Students were given an empty bingo sheet and they were required to fill in 9 words from a list of words from the poem A Poison Tree. The word list was given as well.  Once they had filled in the words, I read the meaning of the words and they had to identify the meaning. If you are teaching the weak or very weak students, you may discuss the meaning of the words with them and help them to identify the words but if you are dealing with above average group,  reduced support will do. 

Students were told that if there was a BINGO, they were to stand and shout out 'BINGO!'. They may continue doing so when they get the second, third and fourth BINGO. 

Kalai Malar- trying to make her 'Bingo' sheet as 
colourful as possible

I continued the activity till everyone got a BINGO, till the last word. 

After completing the word level BINGO, I continued with a second round, which was more difficult compared to the earlier one. In this round, they were given a list of lines from the poem and they were to choose 9 sets to fill in the bingo box. 

The second round was about making interpretations of the lines in the poem. So, I read the interpretations and they had to identify from the lines - whether they had written in the box or left them outside. In this round, I chose to read the interpretations of the 10 most difficult lines in the poem. This was because, I was very sure that they would only fill in the bingo boxes the lines they had understood the best and ignore the difficult ones; true enough, that was what they exactly did! I did not want them to shy away from the difficult lines, so I picked the difficult ones.

However, it was not completely difficult as I made the interpretations easier with 'clue words' for them to understand. There were more clue words for the weaker ones and less for the good ones. 

Some students got back to back bingos!

After completing this activity, I moved to the SPM based activitiy which was a breeze, students could answer the questions effortlessly.  You may download the 'Poetry Bingo' activity task sheet here. 

Chong Chi Rou - attempting the SPM type literature
questions after the 'Bingo' activity

The following video shows how the 'Poetry Bingo' activity was done in my class : 

Tips: 

Do not try a third round of BINGO. It will not work, the excitement dies after the second round. So stop after the second round and try something else. 

Happy Teaching!

Adding Colours to 'A Poison Tree'

I taught my students the poem 'A Poison Tree' entirely online during the MCO period. We never had the opportunity to discuss the poem during our face - to - face lessons before the announcement of the  MCO. So when the school reopened last week, I decided to revisit the poem with them. Each of the students was given a sheet of paper with the poem 'A Poison Tree' printed on it and I asked them to make their own notes. 

They were instructed to do the following things. 

a) Identify all the important words and phrases, write their meanings on the left side of the poem. 

b) Write the interpretation of the poem for every two lines from stanza 1 till stanza 4, on the right side of the poem. 

Students were provided with coloured pens to make their notes and interpretations. They were excited to do things differently. It is a norm at times to just print notes for students to read and understand while doing some SPM based practices. I decided to beat this norm and do things in a different way by guiding my students to make their own notes so that they would understand the poem better. 

Before they started the note - making activity, we had a short discussion on things that they had understood about the poem from our online lessons. From the discussion, I moved my students' attention to the words and the first stanza of the poem, once we were done with the discussion, students started making their notes and when they completed one stanza, I moved to the next stanza and it continued till the last stanza. 

Since the control movement order is still in practice and students are to maintain 1 - metre distance from their friends and teachers, I did not allow them to move or sit in groups. Instead, they were asked to do the task individually. However, they were allowed to discuss with a peer sitting closest to them, that too in a metre - distance. 

To check students' understanding, there were quick questioning sessions after the completion of one stanza and before moving to the next stanza. The sessions worked really well especially after they completed their notes for every stanza as I could actually check how much they had understood and what was missing so that I can do some sort of reinforcement before we could move on. 

I did not provide them with notes as I wanted them to make their own notes based on the power point presentations as well as discussions and rely on their own notes to understand the poem. The following is an example of a work done by one of the students : 

work done by Melissa Annabel from class 5V2

maintaining 'social distancing' while explaining one the of the stanzas 

Sabrina from 5V1 -  diligently making her notes. 

girls from 5V2  - proudly showing their products

It was a fruitful lesson as students displayed their understanding of the poem 'A Poison Tree'. After they completed their colourful notes, I gave them an SPM based exercise and they could actually complete the task by referring to the notes that they had made. That was when I wrote in my reflection - 'objective achieved'. 

By they way, excellent students can complete the note - making task in an hour lesson but the average and weaker ones should be given a lot of support and  time to digest the content of the poem as it is not an easy poem work on for the weaker ones. The following YouTube video shows more examples of my students' work. 

Happy Teaching!!

Answering SPM Literature Component (Sing to the Dawn)

The question given in the slide above requires students to relate an event and how the event has affected the way they look at life. The question may seem to be difficult but if students have good understanding of the story it would be very easy to link one of the events and how it has changed their perspective towards life. 

Students can always start with a brief introduction but they should always keep in the mind that they should answer; in this case the event and their view on life. 

It is essential for students to always make things very clear in the beginning of their answers. In this case, they should make it very clear which event they are to narrate. They should also know what is an event so that they do not deviate from hitting the nail right. In many cases, students do not understand events and end up narrating the entire story as event which may not fetch them a high score. 

Sustainability is also important while answering a 'literature question'. Many a time, I have noticed that students would start off well but get carried away and write answers which are irrelevant to the question. It is important for students to stay relevant at all times. To stay relevant one should always stop and read their answers and think how it is related to the question. The elaboration in the slide above has linked to the event very well. In this answer, the student has chosen to write about Dawan's encounter with Bao in the marketplace and has related to her own life on how things are better for her but not everyone has a good life, therefore she has learnt to appreciate what she has. 

The student has also further elaborated how her perspective on things around her has changed based on that one event. To answer well it is important for a student to think and plan the answer well. There may be many events in a story but selecting an event that we can elaborate better is important as we will have more ideas to link, but always remember do not try to dump everything in one idea, that may make your composition messy. 

In this slide, her elaboration leads to the ending note. It is important to notice that, from the beginning till the end the student has linked her perspective towards life based on only an event as required by the instruction. The utmost important thing is we should not only read the story but  understand  the content well and try to link the ideas. I notice that the questions for the literature component has changed and they are most likely to be HOTS. 

Sing to the Dawn...Made Simple

I have compiled some notes and sample answers to make things easier for students to understand the novel Sing to the Dawn.At times, students may not be able to understand the gist of the story due to the lengthy and wordy elaboration, Therefore, to make students understand the story better, I have compiled a simplified version of the novel which I compiled from various sources. Please click here and here for the module and sample answers.  

Sing to the Dawn by MinFong  Ho

Form 3 Lit - Com Workshop - Bintulu Division

The Bintulu Division Lit - Com training session was conducted today and I was the trainer. 20 teachers from Bintulu division participated in the session and was quite nervous as this was my first time handling a group of senior teachers and some of them, their experiences are my age!! However, I had a blessed session with all of them as they were all humble and was willing to share their experiences as well as accept my ideas..... The session went on really very well...They were even very excited to take part in the group activities that I had prepared for the training session. Here are some of the pictures that I would love to share.. Thanks to Pn. Nancy Jupei ( PPD Officer) who was more than willing to be with us throughout the session.... God Bless

Form 3 Novels and the Zones

Here I would like to share the topics for the Form 3 novel and the respective zones that will be using the novels. The poems for Form 3 will be The Leisure and A Fighter's line. I was informed that only the poems learnt in form 3 will be tested in the new PMR 2012. However, there is no circular stating this so we will just wait and see..

Around the World in 80 days
Sabah,
Sarawak,
Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan,
Johor,
Pahang
Terengganu

The Railway Children (I really love the story)
Perlis
Kedah
Pulau Pinang
Perak
Kelantan

How I met Myself
Selangor
Kuala Lumpur
W.P Putrajaya
Negeri Sembilan
Melaka

La vita'e bella La vita'e amore ( Life is Beautiful, Life is Love)

The park bench was deserted as I sat down to read beneath an old willow tree. I felt the world was dragging me down. Then, a young boy approached me, all tired from play. He stood right before me with his head tilted down and said with great excitement. " Look what I found!" In his hand was a flower, and what a pitiful sight. The flower had wilted. I faked a small smile and then looked away. But instead of going away he sat next to me...

He said, " It sure smells pretty and it's beautiful,too. That's why I picked it; here, it's for you." The weed before me was dying or dead. But, I knew I must take it, or he might never leave. So I reached for the flower.

Instead of placing the flower in my hand, he held it up mid - air. It was then that I noticed for the every first time that the boy could not see.I heard my voice quiver. I thanked him for picking the very best one.

" You're welcome," he smiled, and then he ran off to play.

Through the eyes of a blind child, at last I could see. I vowed to see the beauty in life. I held that wilted flower up to my nose and breathed in the fragrance of a beautiful rose.......

Form 3 Lit - Com Course for teachers in the Land of Borneo

My groupmates and I are demonstrating one of the ways to conduct literature lessons. It was interesting, trust me it was interesting.


Tengku Irene - presenting the novel 'How I met myself'








Mr.Ng.Yew Kee - presenting the "Leisure"

I was one of the fortunate JUs to be selected to attend the Form 3 Literature Component course which was conducted in Miri from 1st till 4th November 2011. This was the third and the last cycle for the latest literature component.... 20 JUs throughout Sarawak and 30 from Labuan and Sabah attended the course. It was very enlightening as various issues were discussed. The officers from Bahagian Pembangunan Pendidikan were very friendly. Thanks to Mr. Ng Yew Kee, Tengku Irene and Diana for making the sessions interesting. Teachers were allowed to give comments and recommendations on improvising the modules and making it more interesting. Teacher had hands - on experience by experimenting the activities in the modules. The following are the components to be taught to form 3 students in 2012

Poem

a) A fighters line

b) Leisure

Novel

a) Around the world in eighty days - Sarawak

b) How I met myself

c) The railway children

Though Sarawak will be doing around the world in eighty days, the officers from KPM said that the schools are given choice to choose the novels that they find to be easier for the students. However, the decision should be made by the school authorities. The JUs are required to conduct their training sessions in their district. I will be conducting a training session for the form 3 teachers in Bintulu on next year in January. Will upload the modules soon.....