enl*ght: resources for literature teachers

enl*ght was a publication that I founded in 2010 with a group of enthusiastic literature pre-service teachers. It was my first year teaching at NIE, after completing my PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at SUNY Albany. One of my Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) students, Nadia, had approached me for something interesting to do outside of class time and I had been thinking about creating resources for Literature teachers.

Cover of Volume 7 of enl*ght, focusing on Home-Grown Poetry

The first team made up of a small team of six was a simple affair with ideas for teaching Boom by Jean Tay. The pdf issue was a mere 8 pages. We produced another issue the following term with 14 pages, focusing on Literature and Creativity.

In the last ten years, we have taken to publishing bi-annual issues with more contributions. The latest issue of enl*ght (Volume 7) is 44 pages, and is put together by more than 20 PGDE students, BA students on the NIE Teaching Scholars’ Programme, former NIE alumni and NIE faculty members. This excludes those who have kindly offered their time to be interviewed or to share their resources.

The 2016 and 2018 volumes of enl*ght were printed in hardcopy, with support from the English Language and Literature Academic Group, and distributed to teachers during the bi-annual Literature symposium. However, this volume is fully online given the COVID-19 situation preventing physical gatherings.

Volume 7 of enlght focuses on home-grown literature and is co-edited with Associate Professor Angelia Poon. From the time we started enl*ght in 2010 to now, we have seen the Singapore literary scene explode and grow more rich in its diversity, complexity and quality. We hope this issue alerts teachers to home-grown international quality literature.

In the spirit of the times, we have hyperlinked as many resources as possible in the hope that teachers will be able explore other resources and websites using enl*ght as the starting point. We hope that teachers will use these resources to help them in their journey to educate our students in the essential business of learning to read literature, and to see the world through it.