Queenstown Secondary School making a case in the Upper Secondary Set Text Debate (To Kill a Mockingbird) against Peicai Secondary School.

The Book Trailer competition was one of the four main events at the annual National Schools Literature Festival 2009, which was held on 5 September 2009 at St Andrew's Secondary School. The event, with the theme "Lit Up!", attracted 52 schools and more than 1,400 students, many of whom took part in activities such as the Upper Secondary Set Text Debate, Lower Secondary Poetry Slam, and Literature Book Parade exhibition.

"The Festival is a ground-up initiative that was started in 2004 by Literature teachers who wanted to share their love of the subject, explains Mrs Sharon Tay, Festival chairperson and head of the English department at Regent Secondary School. "It's evolved over the years and is now a great platform to enthuse and inspire our students about Literature. It's also a lead-up event to the Singapore Writers' Festival (SWF) and the winning schools will be invited to perform at the SWF."

Guest of honour Dr Cherian George with the poetry slam team from Siglap Secondary School.

Opening minds, learning empathy

The guest of honour at the National Schools Literature Festival was Associate Professor Cherian George, a former Straits Times journalist, who cast a firm vote for literature when he related an anecdote from an Indonesian journalist he had met. The journalist, who had studied at a madrasah in Indonesia that later became an infamous breeding ground for terrorists, noted that all modern subjects were taught at the school, except literature. It was not taught because the subject encourages multiple perspectives and empathy, and was therefore deemed incompatible with the closed minds that the school wanted of its students.

Associate Professor George, now Head of Journalism and Publishing at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, calls literature "the most adult of all subjects" as readers can continue to draw inspiration from the same titles over the years. He himself still derives pleasure and "value" from each reading of his secondary school texts To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm and Julius Caesar. He adds that unlike other subjects, there can never be a "literature prodigy", simply because the interpretation of a text requires the wisdom of experience.

Literature enthusiasts among the students echoed Associate Professor George's sentiments. "We learn to look at things from different perspectives," says Sec 2 student Tan Xin Ya of Bedok Green Secondary School. "It's an awesome feeling when I understand what the poet is trying to say," adds her schoolmate Angeline Teo Sim Yee, while another schoolmate notes, "I think Literature teaches me to think out of the box." The three students were participating in the Lower Secondary Book Parade and manning an exhibition booth showcasing various students' projects.

Passionate performances

Assumption English School's creative presentation of Animal Farm at the Book Parade offered fun photo opportunities and hand puppets.

Ask the quartet that makes up Zeste - Sec 3 students Siti Umairah bte Salleh, Amanda Low Yan Ting, Hamka Afiq bin Mohd and Kieran Cheang Yu Rong of Hua Yi Secondary School - what they have learned from poetry, and they'll say "better pronunciation", "stage presence", "drama" and "confidence". The group specialises in poetry slam, where the focus is as much on performance and delivery as it is on words and rhythm. An opening act at the National Schools Literature Festival, Zeste had entertained the audience with four original poems.

"We were introduced to poetry slam when we attended an introductory talk last year," says Siti Umairah. "It was quite fun, so we took a course with Word Forward, where we learnt things like not dropping the last consonant and projecting our voices." Word Forward is a not-for-profit organisation created in March 2003 to build a strong, active and supportive literary community in Singapore. It was a co-sponsor of the National Schools Literature Festival and also organised the Lower Secondary Poetry Slam competition at the Festival.

Judging from the tension that permeated the rooms where the Upper Secondary Set Text Debates were held, the crowds that surrounded the Book Parade exhibition booths, and the rousing applause following each performance of Poetry Slam and Book Trailer entries, the 2009 Festival has successfully engaged the students and fuelled their interest in the subject.

Sec 2 students of Bedok South Secondary School, with their Literature teacher Mr Lee Beng Wah, showed their creative interpretation of Animal Farm at the Book Parade.

"The standard of performance this year is generally quite high," says teacher Miss Kodi Krishnan from Pei Hwa Secondary School, a judge for the Book Trailers. "There was a really creative trailer where the students stopped exactly at the most exciting moment; the very compelling hook demonstrates a good understanding of the text," adds fellow judge Ms Diane Hu, a teacher from Singapore Chinese Girls' School.

Perhaps the biggest endorsement for the event came from the Sec 2 students of Bedok Green Secondary School, who say they want to study Literature as an "O" level subject next year. Why? Because it is "interesting" and they can "learn about life". Lit up, indeed.