Why do many students dread Composition? This, is a question worth asking, considering Composition is one of the few components in the PSLE English paper where students have a chance to express a little bit of creativity.
The answer could lie in the way Composition is commonly taught. Built on the premise and focus of ‘getting the job done’, students are fed model expressions / words / phrases and instructed to fit their stories into a prescribed narrative mould. While this approach has its merits in helping less experienced writers get started, overdoing it stifles creativity and takes the fun out of writing.
This approach is probably responsible for why more-compositions-than-you-can-count start with “white fluffy clouds drifted across the cerulean sky” and end with “this incident will forever be etched in my mind”.
What can we do to bring fun and creativity back into writing for learners while elevating their standards of writing?
If we acknowledge that every youngster’s brain is inherently wired for creative thinking, and give them some room for creative expression, what results might we expect? If we encourage independent thinking, would they write better, and dare we say, even enjoy composition writing?
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