Multiple Intelligences and Post-reading Activities in the ESL Literature Class
Mallika V Govindarajoo, Malaysia
Mallika V Govindarajoo is a high school teacher in Kajang, Selangor. She enjoys creative writing and exploring literary texts with her teenage ESL students.
Email: malivasu@yahoo.com
Menu
Introduction
The common ground : young adult development
The poem
Introducing ‘Quiet Eyes’
Follow-up activities
The curve and its tangent
Aida: visual representation
The journals
The rappers
The eyes have it: drama
Conclusion
References
In Malaysian secondary schools literature in English was re-introduced as a taught and tested component of the English language subject in 2000. Apart from aiming to increase the ESL students’ proficiency in English and to encourage the reading habit, the country’s curriculum developers also hoped that the selected texts would contribute to personal development and encourage appreciation of creative language use. While the fulfilment of these goals ideally points towards an integration of the cultural, language and personal growth models of teaching literature (Carter, R & Long, M. 1991) and would not only improve language proficiency but enable students to make a connection between the texts and their personal lives, in the Malaysian ESL classroom the approach seems to swing towards the cultural model which views literature as a source of facts or information and the literary text as a product. ( Sidhu, 2003 ) One reason for this would be the examination emphasis placed on language learning and the urgency of preparing students for the ‘examination stuff.’ Another reason why English language teachers are sometimes hesitant about allowing students to interact and respond to the texts independently is the student composition, which sometimes places students with extremely different levels of language proficiency and subject aptitudes in the same group. This divergence of abilities sometimes causes difficulty in establishinging a ‘common ground’ when reinforcement and follow-up activities need to be done and this often deters English language teachers from this part of the literature lesson.
Despite these differences in interest and language proficiencies, students in the Malaysian secondary English language classroom share the single common factor of being in the phase of young adulthood where they begin to achieve emotional independence from parents and other adults, acquire a personal ideology, adapt to physical changes and form a perception of self in relation to the opposite sex. (Havighurst, 1972). At this developmental stage also, they experience vicarious pleasure in reading by identifying themselves in relation with what’s going on in the text. (Carlsen, 1980 ) It is probably an awareness of these developmental issues and the need for literary texts that were able to hold the young adult students’ interests as well as to elicit emotional responses that prompted the inclusion of the poem ‘He Had Such Quiet Eyes’ by Bibsy Soerhanjo as part of the literature component in the Malaysian English language syllabus in 2010. The poem itself is a brief recount of a girl who is deceived by the demeanour of innocence and desperation in a man’s eyes, which she mistakes for true love. She succumbs to his advances and later has to deal with the emotional trauma of his subsequent desertion, and the many conflicting unanswered questions in her mind.
He Had Such Quiet Eyes
by Bibsy Soenharjo
He had such quiet eyes
She did not realize
They were two pools of lies
Layered with thinnest ice
To her, those quiet eyes
Were breathing desolate sighs
Imploring her to be nice
And to render him paradise
If only she had been wise
And had listened to the advice
Never to compromise
With pleasure-seeking guys
She’d be free from the ‘hows and the whys’
Now here’s a bit of advice
Be sure that nice really means nice
Then you’ll never be losing at dice
Though you may lose your heart once or twice
When I first introduced the poem to my secondary ESL class it was met with a very enthusiastic response from students of all English language proficiency levels due to the theme’s familiarity which had an almost universal appeal to teenagers. Thus, despite the fairly wide language proficiency gap between different students, the warming up activities, which included brainstorming for possible meanings and interpretation of the terms and phrases, managed to elicit a wide range of spontaneous responses from students even though they were partly delivered in their mother tongue. The students themselves asked whether the persona was the deceived girl herself, or whether it was the voice of a third person narrator. Some said it sounded like someone they knew, a well- meaning aunt, while others said it was definitely a gossipy neighbour with the ‘I told you so’ inflection in her voice. An interesting point brought up by several male students was that the poem reflected a form of gender bias and that in real life boys stood an equal chance (along with girls) of being the wronged party in a romantic relationship. When the discussion veered towards some possible substitutions of the word ‘eyes’ in the poem, one of the boys who had a relatively higher English language proficiency volunteered a parallel first stanza;
She had such quiet hands
He did not make demands
To ask her to the dance
He didn’t stand a chance
The warming up and subsequent sessions facilitated students’ general comprehension and familiarising with difficult words and also gave them several insights into the possibilities of the poem. The questions and comments they made reflected their keen interest. Even the most reluctant language learners seemed to have a toe inside the poem and now the task was to get them totally immersed. As their language teacher, I needed to make these students believe that they could actually ‘possess’ this poem and make it their own at some level. Also I was aware that even in the same class I had students who enjoyed creative writing and were capable of producing prize-winning essays alongside others who, while very good in science and mathematics, nevertheless had difficulty in constructing simple sentences. The school ‘streaming’ system had also inadvertently placed students with different subject aptitudes in the same class. In order to allow every student an opportunity to interact with the poem in a way that was most meaningful to them, I drew upon the concept of multiple intelligences (Howard Gardner, 1983) which proposes that students will benefit more from a more diverse vision of education and by using different methodologies, exercises and activities as a loose framework for the post-reading activities.
As a follow up activity to the poem, students were given the assignment of interpreting the poem in any way they wanted, either in groups or as an individual activity. Some suggestions were made: they could present a visual representation of the poem, they could transform it into a cartoon strip or manga, they could perform it, etc. A few students wanted to interpret the poem as a song and others opted to dramatise it. Students who were more inclined towards mathematics were given the option of incorporating mathematical or scientific theories into the poem. Although they looked a little sceptical at first, they quickly formed a group and began discussing the possibilities. Several students chose to make journal entries and this was also encouraged. The students were given one week to prepare their presentations.
The group that volunteered to present first was the one which had opted for a mathematical representation. They had used the concept of a tangent to a parabolic curve to relate to the poem, as illustrated below.
Blue parabolic curve : y = x2 + 1 (Girl)
Red straight line: y = 2x (Boy)
Point of intersection (1, 2)
The equation of the girl was quadratic (y = x2 + 1) which was correctly represented by a parabolic curve and the equation for the boy was a tangent (y = 2x) that touched the curve at only one point.(1,2) The interpretation for this was that the boy was a tangent in the life of the girl, touching her life only once and then forever completely shooting off. The explanation provided by the group for their choice of mathematical representation was interestingly novel. In the girl’s quadratic equation y = x2 + 1, the variable x is raised to the power of 2 to show that girls were generally more emotionally vulnerable compared to boys. According to the group, the ‘plus’ 1 (+1) indicated that often girls imagine or project images that weren’t real. As for the boy’s equation, the explanation was pretty straightforward. y = 2x indicated that the boy was two-timing the girl, The point of contact where the boy’s tangent brushes the girl’s curve is also (1,2) significant of ‘1 girl with 2- timing boy.’ Needless to say, it was an all-girls group who had done this and it brought out a fresh realization of what could be done with poems and how such seemingly diverse disciplines as mathematics and literature could come together. It also made me think the reverse might be possible, that is, a mathematical formula might be interpreted or transformed to create a poem. More importantly, it demonstrated to me as a teacher how literary texts could be used across different disciplines, that logical-mathematical intelligence could be successfully incorporated into the verbal-linguistic in language learning and that these were definitely not mutually exclusive.
To the group, it gave a sense of being able to connect with poetry by relating it to a format that was close to their educational academic preferences. When they presented their work to the rest of the class, I could see many heads nodding in agreement at the maths equation and there was a definite and observable sense of achievement among the group.
Aida was the shy one, the girl who was a little smaller and a little slower than the rest of her classmates. She was left without a group as most had already found one and some had chosen to do their work independently. Finally she came to me and asked if she could ‘draw the poem.’ I told her she could and at the end of the week Aida handed in a crayon drawing on a sheet of A-3 sized paper of a wide- eyed, slightly lost-looking girl weeping a torrent of tears from which the verses of the poem spilled out. Although the drawing was simple, Aida had nevertheless managed to capture the essence of the poem visually, thus demonstrating spatial visual intelligence. and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye It brought home the point that students like Aida, who may be limited in verbal linguistic skills and generally slow learners were nevertheless adolescents and sensitive to the same issues as the others. Even if they found it difficult to express themselves verbally they could still understand what was happening in the poem and relate to it. Perhaps the visual representation was over-simplistic yet it meant something important to the artist.
About six students chose to make journal entry responses to the poem. Most of them had a higher level of English language proficiency compared to the others and even occasionally wrote their thoughts and reflections in their own diaries too. This however was the first time they had been given a poem as a form of stimulus for their journal writing.
The following are extracts from three separate journals.
Extract 1
This poem is the best poem that I read before because it happened to me when I in form two. When I read this poem I remember what happened to me 2 years ago when I like a boy, he also in form two. I like him because his face is handsome but he cheated me. When I knew he have a girlfriend I broke up with him. I can’t imagine, I like him almost 9 month but we just couple for three days. I think it’s the most stupid things that I have done. (sic)
Extract 2
This poem make me felt sad when I read it for the first time. It reminds me of my first relationship. I was in form 2 while he was a form five student. We study at different school but everything was just fine. We chat every night and text every day. After four months he left me without telling me the reason. He just disappeared like that. I was so lost. I don’t know what to do and where to find him. I cried every night after the day he left. Now I am a form four student, it means that he left me for two years plus already, but there is still a scar in my heart. But I don’t cry anymore. Everytime I see him I just smile and keep quiet. Maybe I recover already? I don’t know I still miss him for sometimes. (sic)
Extract 3
After I read through this poem, the first image that came into my mind is my sister. My sister is at the age of 15 and I knew that she had fall in love with someone. I found this out when I saw her phone messages while she went out for tuition. I tried to advise her but she didn’t even care what I said. Although that I didn’t know more about that guy and what are his characteristics, but I really hope that my sister won’t end up like the ending of this poem.(sic)
The journal entries reflected intrapersonal intelligence, which involves introspective and self-reflective capacities. Multiple Intelligences theory categorizes people with intrapersonal intelligence as intuitive and typically introverted and skilful at deciphering their own feelings and motivations. Although the students who had chosen to do the journal entries were not typically introverted, they were the ones in the class who usually wrote essays that reflected a deeper understanding of the self and their own emotional reactions.
By writing about their own experiences in relation to the poem, the journal entries also brought home the vulnerability of the students at this stage and revealed the conflicts they were facing as young adults caught between childhood infatuations and the real heartache of broken relationships. The journal interpretations also provided an insight into the feelings of adolescents who are becoming aware of their own sexuality in relation to the opposite sex. The significance of this is that it provided an avenue to the students themselves to reflect on their own feelings and come to terms with it by recording it in a journey towards self –discovery, which is also one of the stipulated objectives of the literature component.
One group of three boys used the poem to create a rap song which they performed to the rest of the class. While the main text of the poem remained unchanged, the ‘rappers’ had ad-libbed certain parts, added actions and created their own accompanying musical beat. The poem was the same but now it had been subjected to a form of genre transfer that was appreciated and understood by most teenagers. What the boys had done also reflected the use of kinesthetic-linguistic intelligence which includes musical intelligence and a sense of timing.
What was especially significant in this was the obvious enjoyment and enthusiasm with which they had planned, rehearsed for and finally presented the poem. The poem ‘lyrics’, rap beat and rhythm in fact proved to be an effective method of memorizing the poem when it caught on to the rest of the students, and could be heard in different parts of the school throughout the year.
The last group chose to do a skit based on the poem. It was a five minute play with four main characters. The girl they named Dina. Robin was the boy - the owner of the quiet eyes. They added two other characters : a friend of the boy, Dina’s Malay aunt and the voice of someone called Tiara over the cell-phone. The play was contextualized to a Malaysian setting with a number of Malaysian euphemisms thrown in. This form of genre adaptation involved Gardner’s Interpersonal-linguistic intelligence, which has to do with interaction with others. The drama added another dimension to the poem and the creation of characters, script and setting seemed to bring it to life in the language classroom.
The attempt to incorporate multiple intelligences into post-reading activities in the ESL literature classroom resulted in many pleasant surprises both to me as an ESL teacher and to the students themselves. First, although there was a great deal of overlapping among the different ‘intelligences’, students generally chose to interpret the poem in the way they were most comfortable with and best at. Each of them had a personal entry point into the poem and for many this proved to be a first-time experience of interacting with a literary text on their own terms. This also gave them a sense of empowerment and helped to build confidence and an enthusiasm towards exploring the other texts. It provided even students with very limited language proficiency with an avenue to enjoy and appreciate literary texts that might previously have seemed unattainable . To me, as the language teacher, it was also a lesson in not underestimating the depth of feelings and thoughts within teenage ESL students, even if they were unable to express themselves eloquently through words alone.
Beach, Richard. (1993) A Teacher's Introduction to Reader Response Theories -. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English
Bontempo, Barbara. T (1995) Exploring Prejudice in Young Adult Literature through
drama and role play, The Alan Review 22,3 Retrieved 6 August 2010
Carter, R & Long, M. (1991). Teaching Literature, Longman
Carlsen, G. R.(1980) Books and the Teenage Reader: A Guide for Teachers, Librarians and Parents. 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Row
Gardner, Howard. (1999) Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st
Century. New York: Basic Books
Havighurst, Robert J.(1948) Developmental Tasks and Education. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, IL, US
Holland, N (1968) The Dynamics of Literary Response Oxford University Press, 1968.
Ministry of Education, Malaysia (2009) Literature Component for Secondary schools. A Collection of Short Stories and Drama Form 4 and 5, Kuala Lumpur:
Sidhu,G.K.(2003) Literature in the Language Classroom: Seeing through the eyes of learners. In G. Subramaniam (Ed.) Teaching Literature in ESL/EFL Contexts 88- 1 110; Petaling Jaya, Sasbadi Sdn.Bhd
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Drama Techniques for Creative Teaching course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Advanced Drama Techniques for Creative Teaching course at Pilgrims website.
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