Cross by Langston Hughes

This poem is not difficult to understand at all. He pretty much says exactly what he means. He is a child of multiracial decent. Like many other blacks in his time, he battled with identity, blaming his parents. When he matured, he realized he was wrong to blame others, because he was truly proud of his heritage, regardless of the difficulties it caused him. He expressed the difference between the death of a white man and the death of a black woman, one of privilege, one of poverty. This may not actually be how his parents died, but in those times, many rich men had children with African American women, yet they kept separate lives, and often kept it a secret. This poem is representative of the mindset and segregation of races during Hughes’s adolescence and even adulthood.

10 things to do with Biography in the Classroom

1.       Have students write biographies. Using some of the same methods of “LIVES OF”, kids can write their own autobiographies, or write portraits of their neighbours, kids in their classroom, teacher, families, their favourite creative person or hero. This activity could be used to teach research skills, especially the all-important one of how to use the library.

2.      Make creative bookmarks based on heroes or heroines from history.

3.      Have you class write and illustrate its own book: FUTURE LIVES OF THE STUDENTS: FAMILY, FAME, FORTUNE. Each student will write a brief autobiography of themselves as future adults. What did the students accomplish? What were their highs and low’s? What quirky, funny things took place? What have the neighbours noticed?

4.      Explore the subject of creativity. How do people create? What is it like to live a creative life? What are the secrets of success?

5.      Put on imaginary talk shows with students playing the roles of famous people. Learn how to interview people, how to make a list of interesting questions and go about finding the answers, how to take another’s point of view.

6.      Make a “hero quilt” using your favourite method of classroom quilting, such as having each student contribute a decorated piece of heavy construction paper. Students will each pick a hero from history and illustrate in words and pictures on a “quilt square”.

7.      Design imaginary “hero fanny packs”. What personal items would each hero be likely to be carrying around?

8.     Use these life stories as a way of exploring history. What was going on during these people’s times? How and why did things change? Why, for example, there were so few women in early literature and art history? How did wars and upheavals influence the creation of masterpieces?

9.      Use these biographies as a way of discussing how religion can be a factor in shaping a person’s life. Look up a famous person’s religious affiliation and discuss how this was an influence.

10.  Use biographies as a way of discussing tolerance of or discrimination against women, minorities, or people who stand out as “different”. How did prejudices of the times shape each person’s life? How did each person cope?

How to Teach Legends in the Classroom

Malaysia is home to many natural wonders, which are wreathed in legends. From popular island getaways to tranquil lakes and awe-inspiring mountains, there are fascinating stories behind them all. Be enthralled by these mystifying tales, which have been told and retold over the years from one generation to the next. Rich in adventure and sagas about fairies, heroes, magic curses and heavenly celestial beings, these legends are fascinating to all. Interesting characters, some heroic, others destructive make these legends most engaging. Below is the list of legends found in Malaysia.

1.       Langkawi’s Legend Brawl

2.      Magical Lake of Pregnant Maiden

3.      The Seven Magical Wells

4.      The Legend of Mahsuri

5.      Mystical Cave of Stories

6.      Kedah’s Legendry Fanged King

7.      Sri Rambai, The Magical Cannon

8.     The Mysterious Giant Footprint

9.      The Adventures of The Singing Sea Captain

10.  Perak Royalty Rituals

11.   The Fairy Princess of Gunung Ledang

12.  Colonial Period Styles

13.  The Legend of Princess Sa’adong

14.  The Dragon of Lake Chini

15.   The Mysterious Jugra Lighthouse

16.  The Kinabalu Dragon’s Gem

17.   Legend of Perhentian Island

Using legends to teach is a way to get children interested and learning through fun stories. Above are some good legends that teachers can use as platforms to teach similes, metaphors, personification and more. Below are the stages in teaching legends.

1.       Introduce to the students the definition of a legend. Explain that a legend is a story handed down from generation to generation and included information about the past. They usually take place during a specific time in history and in a specific place.

2.      Read aloud a legend to get children familiar with what a legend is. Discuss questions with the class such as what the legend tells you about the time period, what characters of the story were important, what parts of the legend makes it interesting to people.

3.      Check your state standards and see what specific standards your students need to know. As a class, begin to read the story given. As the story is read, list on chart paper the structural elements of the legend. Save the chart paper and later, as you read different genres, such as fairy tales, fables and myths, begin to discuss with children the structural differences.

4.      Introduce vocabulary words that students are not familiar with. Provide students with a student-friendly definition that they will understand. Have them record it in a vocabulary notebook.

5.      Focus on figurative language that takes place in the story and point it out to the students as you go through the text, such as similes, metaphors, hyperbole and personification. Have the class record them in a notebook.

6.      Map the story using a graphic organizer. Have children list the characters, setting the problem and the events that take place in chronological order.

Feminist Writing: Becoming a Woman by Hilary Tham

Hilary Tham’s “Becoming a Woman” highlights the receiving of maternal wisdom that only women who are going through it. This poem presents various portraits of the transition from childhood to adulthood. Becoming a woman is a rite of passage that starts with the changes of early puberty and ends with a woman’s first periods. A girl grows and changes in ways that prepare her to be able to have a baby. These changes occur in certain stages. Gender representation on female clearly takes places in this poem. The poet perhaps tells the story within her own experiences on becoming a woman. After all, it becomes necessary for a little girl going through this phase; becoming a woman, and it is someone called mother to teach her little child about becoming a woman through her own experience and from what her later mother’s told her. Then, it becomes a woman responsible, the great responsibilities carry out from generation that men can’t do - give birth. It’s an honour for a woman to give birth and it becomes mother’s responsibilities to carry out their jobs to tell their child especially girl on becoming a woman.

Rhetoric/Speeches

Sometimes words can be more powerful than actions and when spoken by great orators, they inspire us to greatness and connect us to the world around us. After I watch the video of “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr., I it attracts my attention to listen to more famous speeches in the world. Therefore, I search online to get more information. These are the greatest speeches ever spoken; a collection of messages from some of the greatest and most notable orators in history.

TOP 10 Greatest Speeches:

10. Socrates “Apology”

9. Mahatma Gandhi “Quit India”

8. John F. Kennedy “Inaugural Address”

7. Queen Elizabeth I “Against the Spanish Armada”

6. Franklin Delano Roosevelt “Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation”

5. Winston Churchill “Their Finest Hour”

4. Nelson Mandela “I am Prepared to Die”

3. Abraham Lincoln “The Gettysburg Address”

2. Jesus Christ “Sermon on the Mount”

1. Martin Luther King “I Have a Dream”

Iroquois: The Girl Who Was Not Satisfied With Simple Things

The girl in the story has not been accepting any man to be her husband because she thinks everyone is not good enough. But when she thinks she has chosen the best life partner, she regrets when seeing him reveal his true identity. There are plenty of these kinds of cases in real life. Not to mention about relationship things, it happens in other aspects as well. They are all about complaining and the feeling of discontentment. When you stop complaining, every job is happily done even though with low pay, every house is comfortable to stay as long as it can provide us shelter, every child is the gift of God even though he or she is disabled, every trip means you have holidays that you can stop, sit back and relax, every call you receive means you still have family, friends and relatives who remember and care about you. And last, every breath is the symbol of staying alive!  

On-line Task 4

1. Think of at least 3 benefits of using speeches by famous figures, in the classroom.

a)     Most of the time, speeches by famous figures are trustable. Famous figures will not make up stories but they will relate to the facts in reality. Their speeches might influence students to be great thinker in the future.

b)     Good speeches not only influence students’ thinking, they also inspire students to achieve higher performance in their study.

c)      Speeches by famous figure can be good examples for students to produce quality writings. The guidelines can be useful.

2. Go to www.youtube.com and find the audio-visual on the speech. In not less than 50 words, state would the audio-visual be of any use in helping understand the speech better? State your reasons.

Students are poor listeners most of the time. They would prefer visual input if possible. Nevertheless, it would be even better if both audio and visual exist at the same time. The concept is just like people tend to watch more television than listening to radio. We cannot deny that audio-visual speech has helped students to understand the speech better as in the context of they can learn from the facial expressions, intonation, speed, gestures and body languages during speech delivering. The liveliness at least can attract their attention to listen and focus.

3. Who is Martin Luther King?

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. On the evening of April 4, 1968, while he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

4. Based on the questions below, analyse the features of the given written speech:

a. What is the purpose of the speech?

The purpose of Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech was to unite both white and coloured people. King Jr. was an African American, so he felt the discrimination between blacks and whites firsthand. He wrote the speech in hope that the people listening would be able to feel the pain that the African Americans were going through, and they did. King Jr. played a major role in stopping discrimination.

b. What is the tone of the speech?

The tone of the speech is persuasive, sincere, intellectual, honest, passionate and motivational.

c. What interesting major feature(s) can you see from the speech? (i.e. Repetition of phrases, emphasis on certain things said etc)

In the speech, there are quite a number of repetitions of phrases: i) “I have a dream”, ii) “Now is the time”, iii) “One hundred years later”, iv) “We can never be satisfied”, v) “With this faith”, “Let freedom ring” and “free at last”. Emphasis through repetition makes these phrases more memorable.

d. Any interesting facts that you can gather based on the background of the speech?

1) The speech is known as “I Have a Dream” but those words were never in the original draft, they were ad libbed on the day.

2) It lasts 17 minutes and is widely considered to have been drafted in New York and then in Washington in the hours before the rally.

3) As a result of the speech, Dr King was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine in 1963, and won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

4) Dr King drew his references from a wide variety of sources, including the Bible, the US Declaration of Independence and Shakespeare.

5) The speech was watched by more than 200,000 people assembled for the March on Washington, the largest march of the civil rights movement, as well as millions on television.

6) According to his co-authors, Dr King was so busy with the march that, 12 hours before the speech, he still did not have a firm idea about what he was going to say.

7) It was ranked the top speech of the 20th Century by a poll of academics.

8) It is said to have had several names and drafts, including “The normalcy speech” and “A Cancelled check”.

9) Dr King was the subject of one of the Irish band U2’s most famous songs, Pride (In the Name of Love).

10) Describing watching the oration, his co-author Clarence B Jones said the speech “went on to depart drastically from the draft I'd delivered”, adding: “In front of all those people, cameras, and microphones, Martin winged it.”

5. Suggest a while-reading activity that can be derived from this particular speech.

Role-play.

On-line Task 3

Mother Teresa
Loving, compassion, caring and patience
The founder of Missionaries of Charity
Who loves serving the sick, destitute as well as impoverished
Who detests poverty, suffering and loneliness
Who wants to see all those people to be loved, wanted and cared
Resident of India, by later
Mother Teresa, the mother of Calcutta

by Jenny So Yieng, Malaysia

On-line Task 2

Do we have a canon for Malaysian literary works? Let's say we do, who do you think are in it? Consider the fact that their works are well-known and most importantly included as part of the school syllabus- (both in BM and English)

Malay Literature

Dato’ Shahnon Ahmad

1982: Gelungnya Terpokah (short story) for SPM level

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh

1991: Anak Global (poem) for SPM level

English Literature

Kamaluddin Muhamad (Keris Mas)

1981: Jungle of Hope (novel) for SPM level

Datuk A. Samad Said

1986: The Dead Crow (poem) for PMR level

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Haji Salleh

1991: Si Tenggang’s Homecoming (poem) for SPM level

The poems by Erica Jong raise some feminist issues. What are they?

The feminist issues raised by Erica Jong in her poems are sex-positive issues, gender difference, gender bias, patriarchy and oppression of women, male dominance in love and family relationship, gender equality for women and women’s rights and interests.

Do you think they are suitable to teach at the secondary school level? Explain.

I think they are not suitable to be taught at the secondary school level because her works are sexually explicit and it might corrupt the young minds. However, her works are suitable for adult readers. Erica Jong is an American woman and she has been married four times. Her works reflects her thoughts and her community’s culture. Some issues discussed in her poems and other literary works are taboo in the eastern culture.

Is Hillary Tham's poem more suitable?

Hilary Tham is a local Malaysian writer. Therefore, her poems are more suitable for our eastern culture and they can be taught at the secondary school level because the use of language in her poems are more moderate and her poems often deals with common female issues.

The short tale from the Native American group is about a girl who is unsatisfied with her life. How is this universal experience? Can it teach our students anything?

This is a universal experience across all countries, societies, races and religions because no matter how much people get of something, they want more and more. In other words, people nowadays are ungrateful and never content with what they have. In relation to the real life, the people nowadays are very materialistic. Even if they have earned a lot, they are still not satisfied and they demand more than ever. Another example which I can relate to is some people are not satisfied with their marriage life so they end up having extra marital affairs. Referring to the story, the girl was deceived by the handsome outlooks of the man who turned out to be a horned serpent.

We can use this story to teach our kids to be grateful and content with the simple things they have already had. They need to appreciate their god, parents and teachers for the things they have given to them. They also need to learn that having something is better than having nothing. Other than the above, another moral value from the story is not to trust someone by their appearances because they might have bad intentions. They look good outside but they are bad inside.

From your findings about his background, tell me about the dilemma he conveys through the poem CROSS.

This poem explores the deepest emotions and troubles of a young man born into a world of confusion. He is confused by his heritage but arrogant in his pride. He is growing up in the whirl of a white society, and cannot decide whether he is white or black. Hughes, using a black mother and white father, completely makes it easy for the readers to understand and almost foreshadow where this poem is going. It is evident that there is an inner sense of not belonging in this child.

In line three to eight, it is clear that the child is sorry for all the pain he has brought on to his parents, unknowingly. He shows remorse for all the curses and bad wishes he said to his parents, now that they are dead. But this is all because of a bigger problem. Now that his parents are both dead, he has no one to turn to, to help him figure out whether he is going to die, in riches or in rags. The white father dying in a fine house whereas the mother dies in a shack, depicts the common view of the white race as being a more upscale and richer society and the black culture oppressed in poverty and forever boung to the slums of the world. This is the great dilemma Hughes presents to the readers and leaving the audience in query to this unanswerable question.  

I find "Dinner Guest: Me" laden with irony and sarcasm. Briefly state if you feel the same.

“Dinner Guest: Me” by Langston Hughes is full of irony and sarcasm because of the following lines:

Stanza 1, Line 1 & 2

I know I am

The Negro Problem

Stanza 1, Line 9, 10 & 11

Of darkness U.S.A.—

Wondering how things got this way

In current democratic night,

Stanza 1, Line 14

“I’m so ashamed of being white.”

I personally think that this poem is about Langston Hughes being invited to a fancy restaurant by a white person and the two of them were discussing race. You can tell by the way he says “Asked the usual questions’ and how the white person is embarrassed to be white. A black person in a fancy restaurant was a big deal back in those days. Not only do they have to wait for service in the restaurant but their discussion is about the answer to race relations and in the end of the poem he says; the answer to the problem is to wait.

The experience in the poem Harlem is one that is true for many people. Do you agree?

Yes, I agree. It is about the unequal treatment among the blacks and the whites. The blacks are marginalized and they are treated like second class citizens. In 1951 (the year of the poem’s publication), frustration characterized the mood of American blacks. The Civil War in the previous century had liberated them from slavery and federal laws had granted them the right to vote, the right to own property and so on. However, continuing prejudice against blacks, as well as laws passed since the Civil War, relegated them to second-class citizenship. Consequently, blacks had to attend poorly equipped segregated schools and settle for menial jobs as porters, ditch-diggers, servants, shoeshine boys and so on. In many states, blacks could not use the same public facilities as whites including restrooms, restaurants, theatres and parks. Access to other facilities such as buses, required them to take a back seat, literally, to whites.

Langston Hughes fights for the voice of his people. What is the movement called?

New Negro Movement.

Emily Is a Murderer

William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in 1897. One of the twentieth century’s greatest writers, Faulkner earned his fame from a series of novels that explored the South’s historical legacy, its fraught and often tensely violent present, and its uncertain future. Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize in both 1955 and 1962. He died in Byhalia, Mississippi on July 6, 1962, at the age of sixty-four.

“A Rose for Emily” was Faulkner’s first short story published in a major magazine. The story tells about the life Emily has gone through. When she’s young, her father holds the major authority that she has no freedom to choose her own life partner. After her father dies, she meets Homer Barron and falls in love with him. Unfortunately, Homer cuts clear that he is not a marrying man. Her heart is broken. She remains single since then. Forty years passes, on her funeral, townspeople find out that Homer’s corpse is in her house. They also discover Emily’s hair on the pillow.

From the story, people believe that Emily is a victim. She is controlled by his father during her youth. Her father drives away every young man who comes to propose her. This is because she is weak and she is unwilling to take a stand against her father in life. After her father’s death, she eventually can seek for her love freely. She meets Homer Barron and they have a romantic relationship. But when everybody in town believes that she’s going to marry him, Homer disappears. Again, she’s a victim in relationship for being jilted by her lover. She’s a victim throughout her life for being lonely, friendless, urged to pay taxes and people even complain her for the smell in her house.

However, I don’t see her as a victim. She is a murderer instead. She hates her father and decides to kill her father for controlling her too much until no man dares to approach her. Later, she falls in love with Homer but Homer jilts her and leaves the town. Her love turns into hatred. She wants to take revenge. So she invites Homer to her house and poisons him with arsenic chemical. Thirty years after both men she loves die, she can hardly get any man to love her anymore. She, like her great aunt, has gone completely crazy at last. She commits suicide. She has kept companion with Homer long enough. It’s time for her to say goodbye to her lover. There are too many evidences showing that Emily is killing people and therefore it is my belief that Emily is a murderer.

My first supporting point is Emily kills her own father. When we look into the issue seriously, her father’s death is only mentioned in Section II of the story, but it never mention about how he is dead. The readers only know that “When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her…” and “The day after his death all the ladies prepared…” There’s a big question mark here. Why does the author not indicate he’s died of illness? Or perhaps an accident? This is just so obvious that he’s killed by his own daughter, Emily.

As we all know well, “A Rose for Emily” tells of family history of insanity. “People in our town, remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were.” Emily’s father should have known their family history of insanity long time ago. And he must have discovered this sickness in Emily since young. Out of love and over protection, he purposely creates a perfect image of Emily so that no man can match her and no man will court her. He knew if any man hurts Emily’s heart, she could do anything, like killing herself, out in despair.

But, he would never know that everything he does is not appreciated by Emily. Emily blames him for forbidding her to seek for her true love. Out of anger, she kills her own father accidentally. Another proves of her possibility of killing her father is Emily shows signs of a mental collapse when her father passed away. From “She told them that her father was not dead”, we know that She couldn’t believe that she really kills her father. She doesn’t mean to kill him.  She keeps his body in her house for three days and did not show any sign of grief. She thought he will be alive and healthy again. Until the day she finds out that she’s the real murderer, she falls sick for a long time and cuts her hair short.

Now I will move to my second supporting point. Emily kills Homer Barron. Emily feels hatred toward Homer for humiliating her. Emily wants revenge as the thorns of the rose appear inside her. But this time, she does it with plans. Firstly, she goes to buy arsenic. “I want the best you have. I don't care what kind” shows how insisted she is. Secondly, Miss Emily “had been to the jeweler’s and ordered a man’s toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece” and “had bought a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt,” although plans to kill Homer, she wants to keep him with her. It might not be possible for them to get married; at least she can “own” him in her own way.

Next, Homer Barron is most probably killed in Emily’s house as “A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the kitchen door at dusk one evening.” It comes to the most interesting part where town people break down the door of the locked room for forty year, “The man himself lay in the bed”. It is the corpse of Homer Barron! Last, that is where “the smell” comes from: two years after her father’s death and a short time after Homer deserts her. It is that time Homer got killed and his rotted body releases the smell.

My final supporting point is a cruel one. Emily kills herself. I can’t deny that it could happen the same thing on Emily as well like how “old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last”. She has killed two men who she loves the most and she has kept Homer with her long enough. She loves no one else and nobody will love her in return. She lost hope throughout these years. It’s time for her to end her life but she doesn’t know how. The only way is to commit suicide.

Although there’s a part telling us Emily “fell ill in the house”, it shows uncertainty. The town people “did not even know she was sick”. Emily’s death happens in the house, people will only know if the people inside the house tell them the news. But think in depth, townspeople actually never receive any news from Tobe, the Negro maid and the only one staying with Emily in the house. You see, they “had long since given up trying to get any information from the Negro”. And that he “talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from disuse.” If Tobe talks to nobody, and townspeople never ask Tobe, how do townspeople know Emily is died of illness? And so I believe Emily kills herself, most probably using arsenic as well. She chooses to die comfortably “in a heavy walnut bed”. If she wants to stay alive, she should have gone to hospital for further medication.

From all the evidences mentioned above, I believe that Emily is indeed a murderer. She kills her father to gain freedom on her own marriage. Later when Homer does not offer to marry her, she loses hope. She does not want to be abandoned again, so she kills him and keeps him in her room for the rest of her life. She also has a family history of being crazy. She is totally insane that she ends her own life eventually. I suggest she deserves a jail sentence instead of a rose.

On-line Task 1

Folktale

List some of the well-known folktales from Malaysia.

1.       Sang Kancil and the Crocodile

2.      Sang Kancil Helps Kerbau

3.      Bawang Putih Bawang Merah

4.      Princess Santubong and Princess Sejinjang

5.      The Legeng of Mahsuri

6.      The Curse of Sang Kelembai

7.       The Shy Mimosa Plant

8.      The Catfish in The River

9.      The Woodpecker’s Crown

10.   The Cockerel That Crows

11.    The Haunted Cave

12.   Raja Bersiung

13.   The Princess of Gunung Ledang

14.   Si Tenggang

15.   Badang

16.   Mat Jenin

List some of the possible issues found in The Son of the Turtle Spirit

1.)     In the Chinese belief, some spirits are said to commit adultery with human men / women. This normally takes place during the seventh month of the Chinese calendar where it is believed that the gates of hell are opened during this period. There are some claims which I have read in the newspaper stating that a male spirit impregnated a Chinese woman during the seventh month of the Chinese calendar.

2.)    It is also known in the Chinese culture that some turtles has spirits which manifests at night and disappear at dawn before the sunrise.

3.)    The Chinese community may shift their ancestral / elders remains if the necessity arises. For example, they may shift their ancestral / elders remains upon the request of the dead one through their dreams or they may shift the remains if they find a more suitable place to bury it. The costs of shifting the remains are quite expensive not only in the story but also in the real life. The Chinese community has a strong belief system that the location of the burial ground is very important because it affects the wealth and the well-being of the deceased descendants. In this story, it is stated clearly in the 8th paragraph that “the sons and grandsons of anyone buried there would certainly rise to high honours.”

4.)    Regardless of race and religion, we have a common belief system of ‘fate’. The son of the turtle spirit was supposed to place the remains of the rich man’s grandfather in the dragon’s mouth. Instead, he hung the bones on the dragon's horns because he followed his mother’s instructions. Finally, the son of the turtle spirit became the Emperor, and the son of the rich man was his minister. That is why I said that our life depends on our fates. We can only plan for something and work hard for it but as we all know our fate is predetermined by god. Everything in the universe works in accordance to the Almighty’s good will.

Are those issues universal in nature or are they only relevant in the Chinese culture?

Issues one to three are only relevant in the Chinese culture. Meanwhile the fourth issue is universal in nature regardless of race and religion.

Fables

What are the other morals that can be gotten from the other fables by Aesop? List at least two.

1.       Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends. (from The Bear and the Two Travellers)

2.       Do not attempt too much at once. (from The Boy and the Filberts)

3.       There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth. (from The Shepherd’s Boy and the Wolf)

4.       Union is strength. (from The Lion and the Three Bulls)

5.       Birds of a feather flock together. (from The Farmer and the Stork)

Myths

One well-known literary figure from the Elizabethan age used Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe as a model to one of his famous plays. Who is he and what is the play?

He is William Shakespeare. The play is Romeo and Juliet.

Legends

List some of the popular legends we have in Malaysia

1.       Langkawi’s Legendary Brawl

2.       Magical Lake of Pregnant Maiden

3.       The Seven Magical Wells

4.       The Legend of Mahsuri

5.       Mystical Cave of Stories

6.       Kedah’s Legendary Fanged King

7.       Sri Rambai, The Magical Cannon

8.      The Mysterious Giant Footprint

9.       The Adventures of The Singing Sea Captain

10.   Perak Royalty Rituals

11.    The Fairy Princess of Gunung Ledang

12.    Colonial Period Styles

13.    The Legend of Princess Sa’adong

14.    The Dragon of Lake Chini

15.    The Mysterious Jugra Lighthouse

16.    The Kinabalu Dragon’s Gem

17.    Legend of Perhentian Island

1. Who is Thomas Malory?

He is an English author of Le Morte Darthur (“The Death of Arthur”).

2. When was Le Mort d’Arthur written?

It is written in the early 1450s.

3. How many books/ parts are there in LMDA?

There are 8 books/parts.

4. What is book 8 about?

It is about “The Death of Arthur”.

5. Who were the two people who had an affair?

Sir Launcelot and Queen Gwynevere.

6. Book 6 has a strong connection to a popular modern fiction which is now a movie. What is the title of the popular modern fiction?

“The Noble Tale of the Sangreal”.

7. State three well-known facts about King Arthur/ his time as a King

1.       Arthur was the son of King Uther and Igraine.

2.       Arthur was raised by Sir Ector, who had a son named Kay.

3.       Arthur was betrayed by his greatest knight, Sir Lancelot.

Think of 2 ways in which you can use folktales/fables/myths or legends in the classroom. Explain briefly.

1. I would use folktales/fables/myths or legends in the classroom by creating a group activity such as role-play to induce the students’ interest in the subject matter. It is good to encourage and increase co-operation level among the students. This is vital because the co-operation skill will be applied by the students in the tertiary level and also in their respective careers.
2. However, role-play might not work for every student. Some might be shy and refuse to participate. Therefore, I would as well carry out individual activity like sequencing. Sequencing worksheet can be modified for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners. This activity can enhance students’ understanding of the plot of the story.