Components

Year 2 takes the foundational skills from Year 1 and builds upon them. The focus shifts to skills necessary for effective argumentation, laying the groundwork for them as they move on to Secondary 3, whether they are in the Integrated Programme (IP) or the O-level programme. In Year 2, students are exposed to a wider range of texts that are more complex in nature. The programme emphasises content mastery of specific themes such as education, youth, leadership, and politics. Advanced literary analysis, including the study of poetry and drama, is also a key focus of Year 2. The programme provides a deeper dive into:

Discursive Essays and Personal Expository:

The fundamental PEEL structure is introduced and established, along with relevant organisational structures and text frames. Students learn a range of techniques and workshop various elements of non-narrative writing in order to improve the structure, logical flow, use of evidence, and overall coherence of their writing.

Advanced Rhetoric:

Building on the rhetorical techniques covered in Year 1 for more effective communication.

Literary Comprehension:

Critically deconstruct, analyse and respond to narrative texts, including the use of language and literary elements. Accurately analyse literary devices, use of language, textual features and their specific effects on the reader. Paraphrasing skills and techniques are persistently reinforced.

Expository Comprehension:

Explore information-dense texts and learn to discern meaning in rhetorical devices and other textual effects. Analyse language accurately and insightfully.

Literature:

Analyse literary devices with insight and understanding, through established literature essay structures and text frames. Develop coherent and insightful analysis of literary texts, including unseen poetry and prose. Combine literary analysis with semiotic systems analysis, including that of literary artefacts and multimodal texts.

Multimodal Analysis:

Use semiotic systems analysis as a critical tool to effectively analyse multimodal texts with insight and contextual awareness. Respond with precision to questions about textual effects and language use.

Summary:

Accurately and critically source points in information-dense texts, including opinion editorials and journalistic writing. Paraphrase idiomatically in context and in a concise manner, employing critical strategies to ensure the retention of meaning.

Stimulus-Based Critical Writing:

Create insightful, coherent and information-rich textual responses to various stimuli or sociocultural artefacts, employing various textual effects and rhetorical devices.

Grammar:

Employ a critical literacy grammatical framework to understand the function and effects of grammar in texts.

Vocabulary:

Use technically accurate and precise vocabulary in context to paraphrase idiomatically and express ideas with clarity. Use vocabulary to create effects in writing across a variety of text types.

Skills Your Child Will Gain

Critical Thinking:

The ability to assess, analyse, and synthesise information.

Effective Communication:

Mastering the art of conveying thoughts in both written and spoken forms.

Time Management:

Learn to organise thoughts quickly for academic and professional success.

Cultural Awareness:

Exposure to diverse narratives fosters empathy and perspective-taking.

The Academia Advantage

Language Arts Programme:

Texts are intentionally architected to expose students to a stream of global diverse texts with high sociocultural and corporate value, endowing them with real-world skills.

Literary Immersion:

Students are immersed in a high-culture, high literary value environment that enables them to engage and produce a wide range of texts serving a variety of high-value functions.

Self-Aware Performance:

A competitive training culture managed in a structured and psychologically safe manner under the auspices of a 360 coaching approach ensures that students are able to manage their own performance with self-awareness and understanding.

Critical Literacy:

Students are well-equipped to successfully critically analyse texts, including their inferred meanings, textual effects and use of language at the highest examination levels.

Metacognition:

Students possess awareness of texts, their abilities, and learning objectives in various objectives, endowed with the skills and strategies to allocate their time, energy and resources efficiently throughout the year.

Optimised Flow:

Students successfully enter psychologically optimised flow states at peak performance, enjoying high-functioning mental states in all conditions.

A Deeper Dive

Narrative Comprehension 

Narrative Comprehension in Year 2 elevates the foundational skills taught in Year 1 by introducing students to a more complex and nuanced range of narrative texts. These texts challenge students to apply their understanding of language subtleties in new and diverse contexts, enabling them to prepare for Secondary 3 and beyond.

Skills Advanced

Advanced Reading Fluency:

Building on Year 1, students will practice reading more intricate texts with greater speed and comprehension, navigating complex sentence structures and unfamiliar vocabulary.

Sophisticated Textual Analysis:

Moving beyond the basics, students will delve into advanced literary devices such as foreshadowing, allegory, and irony, enhancing their analytical acumen.

Advanced Vocabulary Expansion:

Exposure to specialised terms and complex language patterns accelerates vocabulary development, aiding in textual interpretation.

Critical Inferential Reasoning:

Students will practice making nuanced deductions based on a synthesis of explicit and implicit information in the text.

Ethical and Moral Understanding:

Through engagement with narratives featuring intricate dilemmas, students will develop a nuanced understanding of ethics and morality.

Teaching Techniques

Comparative Reading:

Students engage in genre analysis to deepen their understanding of various types of literary texts. They explore how fictional elements can function in non-fiction texts to add depth and resonance, thus enhancing their analytical skills across genres.

Think-Aloud 2.0:

Teachers model complex cognitive processes for breaking down intricate texts, offering advanced comprehension strategies.

Advanced Socratic Seminars:

Group discussions are facilitated at a higher level of complexity, encouraging deeper analytical and critical thinking.

Text-to-Global Issues:

Themes from the text are related to international and ethical issues, augmenting the skills needed for advanced academic exploration.

Discourse Analysis:

Advanced classroom activities where students break down the communication strategies used by characters or narrators in the text, teaching them to recognise persuasive techniques, biases, and underlying agendas.

Beyond reinforcing the foundational skills gained in Year 1, Year 2’s advanced curriculum equips students with a sophisticated set of analytical tools, preparing them for the rigours of Secondary 3, whether in the Integrated Programme (IP) or the O-level programme.

Literary Analysis 

Navigate the complexities of literature with our advanced Literary Analysis curriculum, a key component designed to elevate your child’s analytical skills to new heights. Building upon the foundational knowledge acquired in Year 1, Year 2 aims to make your child more independent in their critical engagement with a wider variety of texts. Here, they’ll delve into sophisticated themes and narrative techniques, sharpening their skills in both textual analysis and argumentative writing. This advanced course sets the stage for a deeper understanding of literature, equipping your child with the skills necessary for rigorous academic challenges ahead.

Skills Advanced

Advanced Textual Analysis:

Students will independently dissect texts to understand their underlying themes, motifs, and narrative techniques.

Critical Evaluation:

Armed with a foundational understanding of the PEEL method, students will become more confident in evaluating texts and defending their viewpoints.

Sophisticated Textual Interpretation:

Focus will be on understanding the mechanics of literary devices and their function in emphasising themes within the text.

Global Contextualisation:

Students will learn to connect their analyses and arguments to significant global and local events, enhancing their critical literacy skills.

Teaching Techniques

Guided Analysis Projects:

While still designed to foster a sense of independence, these projects involve a scaffolded approach where teachers provide initial guidance and then gradually reduce their support, encouraging students to apply the literary analysis skills they’ve learned.

Debate Forums:

Students will engage in debates that focus on themes from the texts studied, defending their interpretations and evaluations using evidence from the text.

Literary Device Lab:

Interactive workshops where students will work together as a class to delve into the use of literary devices in various texts to understand their role in enhancing themes.

Current Affairs Integration:

Students will be given articles or reports on global or local events and will be asked to integrate these into their literary analyses, thus practising the skill of drawing parallelism between literature and real-world situations.

Stimulus-Based Project Writing

In Year 2, students elevate their skills in our Stimulus-Based Project Writing course by analysing articles and posters to dissect their rhetorical effectiveness. Based on this analysis, they craft speeches or letters to articulate their own stances. Advanced teaching techniques, including Rhetorical Dissections and Semiotic Case Studies, deepen their understanding of argumentation and visual cues, preparing them for more complex communication tasks.

Skills Advanced

Advanced Rhetorical Analysis:

Building on Year 1 skills, students will delve into the nuanced world of rhetoric to dissect articles and posters, understanding the elements that make them effective or ineffective.

Semiotic Proficiency:

Going beyond text, students will analyse visual elements in different media, learning how images and text interact to convey messages.

Complex Argumentation:

Students will use their advanced understanding of rhetoric and semiotics to construct comprehensive and nuanced arguments in response to the texts they analyse.

Multimodal Communication:

Understanding that messages are conveyed through various channels—be it text, image, or sound—students will learn how to interpret and respond to multimodal texts.

What Makes Our Approach Unique?

Audience Awareness:

We guide your child in customising their rhetorical strategies to suit specific audiences, enhancing the effectiveness of their argumentation.

Context Mastery:

Students will refine their skills in adjusting tone and language according to the particularities of the situation, honing this essential life skill at an advanced level.

Purpose-Driven Writing:

Building on Year 1, we delve deeper into ensuring that each argumentative point and rhetorical device used serves a specific purpose in bolstering the student’s position.

Examination Excellence:

Our curriculum continues to align with local examination formats but adds an advanced focus on rhetorical analysis and semiotic interpretation, providing a nuanced edge in academic performance.

Teaching Techniques

Rhetorical Dissections:

Advanced exercises where students deconstruct articles and posters to identify rhetorical devices, thereby gaining insights into effective argumentation.

Semiotic Case Studies:

Students will work with visual elements such as posters, videos, or infographics to apply principles of semiotics in understanding how meaning is constructed.

Debate and Deliberation:

Activities that build on scenario role-plays, pushing students to use their advanced rhetorical skills to argue for or against a given position based on their analysis.

Multimodal Response Projects:

Assignments that require students to analyse a topic using various media types (text, images, audio) and craft a comprehensive response.

Critical Reflection Workshops:

Sessions that encourage students to look back on their rhetorical and semiotic analysis, identifying areas of strength and opportunities for improvement.

Masterful writing skills lay the groundwork for nuanced communication, an essential asset in our complex world. This elevated component is crucial for students advancing through their secondary school journey, where not just clarity, but depth and persuasiveness in communication become imperative.

Non-Narrative Comprehension 

In Year 2 of our Non-Narrative Comprehension module, students delve deeper into the intricacies of non-fiction texts. Building on their foundational skills, they will critically analyse literary devices used to convey arguments, enhancing their understanding of persuasive techniques and rhetorical effectiveness.

Skills Advanced

Advanced Information Retrieval:

Students will efficiently locate and extract nuanced information, including implied meanings.

Rhetorical Analysis:

A focus on identifying and understanding the role of literary devices in shaping an argument or viewpoint.

Independent Summarisation:

With a firmer grasp on paraphrasing techniques, students will confidently condense complex texts on their own.

Textual Understanding:

Students will delve deeper into the structure and flow of non-fiction texts, understanding how each section serves the overall argument.

What Makes Our Approach Unique?

Depth Over Breadth:

Beyond merely understanding text, students will learn how to dissect it to understand the underlying arguments and techniques.

Analytical Maturity:

Our methods prepare students for more advanced reading comprehension challenges they will face in their academic careers.

Customised Resources:

In line with Singaporean exam requirements, but pushing beyond to foster globally competent readers.

Teaching Techniques

Literary Device Workshops:

Exercises focused on identifying and understanding the use of literary devices in non-fiction.

Rhetorical Analysis Tasks:

Assignments where students evaluate the effectiveness of persuasive techniques used in real-world texts.

Contextual Analysis Exercises:

Activities designed to help students identify and understand the specific circumstances that inform an argument or idea in the text.

Independent Summarisation Exercises:

Students will be guided to summarise articles or texts independently.

Expository Essay Writing 

In the second year of our programme, students transition from narrative to expository writing, tackling complex topics and crafting persuasive arguments. Each unit, lasting 3 to 5 weeks, is an immersive experience in the art of argumentation. Here, students learn the craft of structuring their thoughts concisely and cogently through the use of the reverse outlining method and mastering the PEEL paragraph structure.

Skills Advanced

Argumentation:

Learn to build and present compelling arguments.

Structuring:

Master the art of organising thoughts clearly through reverse outlining and PEEL paragraphs.

Peer Review:

Gain a nuanced understanding of expository rubrics through peer assessments.

Editing and Revising:

Acquire the essential skill of iterative writing—because good writers are made, not born.

Why These Skills Matter

Writing is a skill honed through practice and refinement. The ability to construct persuasive arguments is not only vital for academic success but also serves students well beyond the classroom. At Academia, we focus on the long-term development of writing skills, instilling in students the importance of drafting and redrafting as they refine their techniques.

Teaching Techniques

Reverse Outlining Workshops:

To clarify and structure arguments.

PEEL Paragraph Drills:

Focused exercises to master the elements of Point, Evidence, Explanation, and Link.

Peer Review Sessions:

Structured assessments to encourage critical thinking and alignment with expository rubrics.

Rewriting Clinics:

Dedicated time for editing and revising, emphasising that good writing is an evolving process.

By combining these elements, we aim to equip our students with the skills to excel in expository writing, empowering them to become articulate, persuasive communicators.

Conclusion

At Academia, our Language Arts curriculum is designed to be a transformative two-year journey. In Year 1, we establish the foundational skills crucial for reading and writing proficiency, integrating modules on Comparative Reading, Literary Analysis, Stimulus-Based Writing Projects, and Non-Narrative Comprehension. As students transition to Year 2, the curriculum advances to further challenge their analytical and critical thinking skills. We increase the emphasis on independent textual analysis, rhetorical evaluation, and the application of these skills to real-world contexts, all while aligning with local examination requirements. Our comprehensive approach ensures that students are well-equipped with a diverse skill set that serves them not just academically, but in the broader world as well.