Off Centre: A Necessary Resource

Mon, 20 Jul 2020
2 min read
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OFF CENTRE: A NECESSARY RESOURCE
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY ALVIN TAN, LAREMY LEE AND AKANKSHA RAJA

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource is the much-awaited guide to Off Centre, one of Singapore’s most celebrated plays. This resource guide comprises material that will greatly benefit all educators and students of Off Centre. It features pedagogical notes, insights on the play, as well as a question and answer section with the playwright, Haresh Sharma.

Off Centre made history in 2007 by being the first Singapore play selected by the Ministry of Education to be offered as a GCE O- and N-Level literature text. The play, best remembered for presenting an honest and unflinching look at mental illness and the social prejudices surrounding it, has been back on the syllabus since 2018.

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource also features:

  • Founder and Artistic Director of The Necessary Stage, Alvin Tan shares his insight on directing and staging Off Centre
  • Educator Laremy Lee provides a useful guide on approaching narrative, characters, themes, and theatrical and stylistic devices in the play
  • Journalist Akanksha Raja reflects on her experience studying Off Centre

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource is available at The Necessary Stage and other select bookstores.

Email admin@necessary.org to purchase a copy now.

Retail Price: $16.00
ISBN No. 978-981-11-8956-2

Panel – Literally Speaking: Where do we teach?

Tue, 22 Nov 2016
1 min read
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Literally Speaking logo.

Where do we teach?
How does the place in which we teach literary works influence what we teach?

Join me, Matilda Gabrielpillai and Erin Woodford on this panel, as we share our experience of both institutional and non-institutional environments for teaching literature, and debate the possibilities and limitations that such contexts provide.

The session will be moderated by Philip Holden.

Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2016
Time: 7.30pm to 9pm
Venue: The Select Centre (Blk 231 Bain Street, #04-01 Bras Basah Complex, Singapore 180231)
Price: Pay as you wish at the door (suggested contribution $10)

*It’s shoes off at the space, so please dress comfortably!

Register at this link.
Join the Facebook event here.

Adventures in teaching Boom by Jean Tay (Part II)

Sun, 22 Dec 2013
2 min read
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Yikes! Very overdue but I’m going to post this regardless because I’ve been meaning to put it up.

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How does Tay create an atmosphere of melancholy in this passage? Explain your answer with close reference to the passage.

So when we last left off, I was busy making the horses thirsty.

One of the ways in which I did so was to allow them to devise their own exam questions – in a structured manner, of course.

Without going into detail, I crafted the lesson with the objectives of making the students:

  1. Revise the question requirements for the O-Level exams; and
  2. Think about the issues in the particular passage, and thereafter the text.

While carrying out the lesson activity, this happened:

Student A: (reading out what he had written) “How does Tay create an atmosphere of me-lan-cho-lee –”

Student B: (from the other end of the classroom) “Eh, what melancholee – you think what, this one Indian food ah?”

Student C: “Ya lah, later you go to Lew Lian there the Indian stall you tell them, ‘Uncle, I want two kosong and the curry you gimme melancholee one’ and then you see what happen after that.”

Temporarily could not take it because was laughing so hard, so had to tell the students to give me a moment to finish laughing before we carried on with the lesson.