Reading Reflection: Twilight, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Alchemist - Fadilah

The following information will be my reference on how I evaluate the effectiveness of the three books I have chosen as secondary school literature texts:

“The study of literature encourages students to enter imagined worlds and explore, examine and reflect on both current and timeless issues, as well as their individuality and humanity” (MOE teaching Syllabus, 2013).

If I were given a chance, I would include Twilight by Stephanie Meyer as a literature text for my secondary school students. The last time I read Twilight was when I was 17. And I read it three times consecutively (I kind of liked it). For the sake of the assignment, I read it again recently and of course, with the now-more-mature-me, I reflect upon the book differently.

As a literature text, Twilight offers my students ample room to explore plot, character, setting & atmosphere, theme and style in the book which is the five key areas of study according to the MOE Teaching Syllabus 2013. Twilight explores not just the theme of love and desire but also of sacrifice, beauty and most importantly, the theme of family. Interestingly, the three families portrayed in the book are not nuclear families. For instance, Bella, the book’s protagonist comes from a family where her parents are divorced and her mother remarried to another man. Bella thus have to move from the sunny Phoenix, Arizona to the rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father as her mother has to travel to places with her new husband, a basketball player. The relationship dynamics between this daughter and father is one of the potential domains that students can explore and examine in the book in order to have a critical understanding on the notion of families and relationships.

Through this book, students will also get to enter the imagined worlds of vampires and werewolves and through these worlds, widen their imagination and thoughts as well as stimulate their thinking about humanity, beliefs and cultures. However, I do not discount the possibility of shallow reading of the book because of the ways society and media have sensationalised the Twilight movie and its actors such as Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Therefore, if Twilight is to be taught as a literature text, teacher has to ensure that students take a more serious stance towards the book and approach the book as an academic student of literature and not a casual reader. 

The next book is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. This is an MOE recommended text and is already being taught in schools. The boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a fictional story of a friendship between Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant and a Jewish concentration camp inmate, Shmuel.

I remember the first few days of my contract teaching experience where I was tasked to co-teach this text together with another experienced teacher to the secondary two Express classes. The teacher introduced this text to the class by relating to them her real-life experiences visiting the Auschwitz concentration camps during one of her holiday trips. It was just a couple of simple stories shared but the effect that these stories had on the students, I would say from the reading of their faces and gestures, incredible.

From there, I realised an essential factor that I should consider, amongst everything else, when I choose texts to be taught to my students. The text I choose has to provide for the students a reality they cannot buy from their Science or Math classes and in which they are personally interested in. In this case, it is the reality of the holocaust. They have perhaps seen or heard of the holocaust in their history classes or TV programs and documentaries or newspaper articles and historical exhibitions. However, through this book, these students are able to get into the narratives of holocaust and explore the various perspectives of the characters involved. By reading through the lenses of Bruno, the protagonist and narrator of the story, the book is able to develop in students a sense of empathy for the victims in the story and a questioning mind about issues such as humanity, ethical and moral values, the good and the evil as well as to educate students on history of the holocaust and most importantly, the world outside of Singapore. 

The third book is The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. I first read this book when I was in secondary four at the recommendation of my literature teacher. The Alchemist follows a young and adventurous Andalusian shepherd named Santiago in his determined journey to Egypt after having a recurring of finding a treasure at the foot of the Egyptian Pyramid. The book offers ample room for the study of symbols and philosophical themes such as the necessity of personal legends, spirituality and nature as well as the danger of fear. 

Personally, I find the book particularly meaningful and aesthetically beautiful and there is no doubt about how Coelho’s storytelling, his language and imagination can capture the readers’ minds. For a literature text to be taught to secondary school students, The Alchemist might pose as a challenge for these students to comprehend and analysis because of its supernatural and philosophical in nature. Rather than a compulsory text, the book could be used as a part of an unseen exercise with the class to expose them to the genre of fable or simply as a motivational piece to be shared with the class.