Kaohsiung City Xiaogang Senior High School—My Bookcase
My Bookshelf is a required course for the revision of Xiaogang Senior High School. It focuses on the development of reading ability. The course goal is to "make better proposals for your life and study through reading." During the course, students constantly practice transforming their reading into information that can be read by others, and conclude the course through curation.
The course began in the 2018 academic year, with teachers from various disciplines discussing why students need to learn to read. What forms of reading can be found? If teachers in every discipline were required to be able to teach, how would the course structure and teaching materials be determined? Although interpretations of the course subsequently varied due to differing imaginations and experience, in the 2019 academic year, teachers Hong Huilin, Fang Ziwen, and Chen Yuanshuo jointly implemented "My Bookcase - Curated Edition" and exhibited their findings. This, in turn, sparked curious questions from other teachers, and some joined in sharing their findings after the collaborative preparation process, leading to the formation of a collaborative course preparation community consisting of three high school sophomores in the 2014 academic year.
The course lasts one academic year, with two credits per semester. The first semester focuses on developing reading styles and identifying personal interests. Students understand the author's concerns through reading local texts, expand their five senses through reading and recording, focus on themes through recording and sharing, and interpret "objects" to create treasure maps. Next, students explore the connection between facts and perspectives through reading people, breaking the shackles of subjective feelings and practicing factual argumentation to develop the ability to read objectively. Finally, students culminate in the Hong Kong High School Storyteller. Through the Soul Supermarket game and life sketching, students identify the abilities they want to cultivate and form a reading theme. Then, through core questioning exercises, they gather reading materials that can solve problems and compile them into a Hong Kong High School Storyteller briefing.
The next semester's course focuses on information design and curation, and involves creating your own bookcase, transforming your concerns into reading content that can impact others. The teacher introduces the concept of curation through demonstrations and, by dissecting MUJI and IKEA's commercial displays, helps students understand how brands present their "lifestyle proposals" to consumers. Next, through reading professional books and engaging in information design, students will translate their curatorial inspiration and methods into shareable messages through story cards, reflecting on how to present their own curatorial themes. Finally, drawing on the storytellers at HKU last semester, students will deepen their reading and flexibly apply their knowledge to create their own themed bookcases in the form of shoeboxes, displaying various reading materials such as text, audio and video QR codes, object displays, interactive mechanisms, and other diverse expressions to showcase their reading results.
Due to the limited space of the shoebox, students were able to create various possibilities. The entire curatorial theme was to start from their own concerns and find reading materials through asking questions. After reading, they were able to transform and find "better proposals" through design thinking, thereby interacting with the public and finding an attitude that can take responsibility for their own lives and studies.
If "Self-Directed Learning" teaches students to identify topics of interest, develop learning plans, and execute them, then "My Bookshelf" emphasizes the role of reading in learning and the "From Me to Us" process, allowing them to develop their own imaginative proposals for learning, connect with others, and unleash the power of reading. This course integrates the skills students have learned across various subjects to demonstrate their integrated reading and curatorial abilities. It also fosters self-discovery and exploration of areas of interest, enabling students to experience and continuously apply these skills in their future learning journeys after the course.
