SJI Literature Festival celebrates The Beastly and The Beautiful
1 May 2023
Our Literature Festival explored 'The Beastly and the Beautiful' through quizzes, costumes and a Macbeth game.
SJI celebrates Literature Festival every year to promote the love for English Literature through a wide range of activities beyond the classroom. The theme of the festival was ‘The Beastly and the Beautiful’. A spin on the title of the classic fairy tale, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, the theme invites Josephians to examine how these two concepts are often used to represent opposing forces that exist within human nature. Students were challenged to consider that even those who exhibit negative behaviour or traits may justify their actions as necessary based on their personal beliefs and experiences. This further underscored the importance of empathy and understanding, as everyone has the potential for both beauty and beastliness within them.
The activities for the Literature Festival were peppered across from Week 4 to 8 in Term 2. All Year 1 and 2 students participated in a Literature Quiz and the winners from every class formed a team to represent their fraternity in the closely contested Lit Quiz Finals which was held live before their respective cohorts. In addition, Dr. Ian Tan, Assistant Professor of English and English Literature from the National Institute of Education delivered a talk to the Year 1 students to deepen their understanding on the theme.
The most exciting event was the costume competition where students dressed up as their favourite character. Each class in Year 1 and 2 was represented by a team who dressed up for the competition, and the contestants were cheered on with great gusto by their classmates as they paraded through the Founders' Hall to present their character.
The final activity was a game conceptualised and carried out by the students taking Literature in the Upper Secondary levels. The game was designed around Shakespeare’s Macbeth to stretch the creative and critical thinking skills of the participants.
All in all, the Literature Festival this year was truly a collaborative effort by the English Language and Literature teachers who believed in learning beyond the classroom. The students thoroughly enjoyed the wide array of activities that were curated especially to infuse fun into their learning experiences.