Book Week at the British International School of Kuala Lumpur

Benjamin Franklin said, "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” As I stood in the theatre at the start of the Bristish International School of Kuala Lumpur (BSKL) Book Week and spoke to the assembled students, I contemplated what reading really means to us.

None of us are born with the innate ability to read. Unlike our natural ability to speak, hear or see, reading has to be learned. As children, we are deliberately taught how to decode language during our early years, developing and growing the cognitive part of our brain. The second fastest growth period after infancy is during the teenage years. So why are we less concerned with feeding the mind and body as carefully as we are during infancy?  These are not surprisingly the years where reading tends to tail off and dangerously so. I wanted to impress upon these young people that reading is essential for all subjects, not just English, and that to develop opinion, control material, and to develop vocabulary, they need to be reading regularly. Reading is not just the acquisition of knowledge, but exercise for the brain, the skill of reading is just as important as the knowledge acquired itself.

Teenage fiction has been, up until recent years, rather uninspiring.  The few decent, well written books tended to be in "The Classics" section and this was a leap too far for many students. I recall in my own teenage years, suffering from a lack of decent teenage literature. I tended to reread the old favourites – Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl – and depressingly now I still occasionally see students re-reading Jacqueline Wilson and JK Rowling.  Comfort reading, like comfort eating, is not good for you!  In recent years however, writers have specifically targeted the teenage market and now inspiring contemporary writers such as Horowitz, Gardner, Swindells and Gaiman fill our book shelves. We are almost overwhelmed as teachers and parents on how to advise young people what to read. This question of what to read provided the basis for many of the activities we organized during Book Week: encouraging students to understand how to read effectively and what material to choose.

Informative and fun activities were held throughout the week – a speed reading quiz, a dystopic novel race against time, a Bookworm chain of books – everything to make the students think about their own choice of reading, which genre they may next venture into and what authors they might appreciate.

All students in KS3 are currently reading a quality fiction book – success you may think but we have to keep the momentum going. One of the highlights of Book Week was the reading delivered during assembly by two students – Camille and Thea. Both girls belong to the BSKL Carnegie Reading Group, a group of students who have their own blog where students can post reviews and vote for their favourite fiction. You can find us on the Carnegie Shadowing Site. The great leaders of our world have also been great readers. In order to take on the challenge, our young people need to be well read too.

As well as providing students with inspiration, they also need aspiration. We were honoured to receive two writers who spoke about their own experiences and helped students develop their own ideas for writing. Iqbal Meenai, who is from a long line of acclaimed poets, inspired us with his love of writing poetry and he brought a poem written to mark the occasion. Students brought objects and photos as inspiration for their own poetry writing.

Later on in the week, award-winning writer, Rehman Rasheed, author of, A Malaysian Journey, spent the afternoon reading from his novel and sharing the wealth of his experience as a journalist for New Straits Times and senior writer with Asiaweek.  We were all moved by his purpose and determination to make change through literature. These are memories that our students will carry with them in their years ahead. To write is a responsibility as we are changing the lives of others.

Fittingly we ended our week with another burst of energy, the BSKL Book Scavenger Hunt. Students hunted for literary clues around the school campus, taxing teachers with tricky questions.  Everyone now knows the school motto – Docendo Discimus – through teaching we learn. Maybe our Headteacher, Mrs Brock, will let us change it to through reading we learn!

Book Week comes just once a year but I sincerely hope that the importance of reading lingers longer with students. My ambition is that they become life long readers.

“Every experience we live through and every emotion we face, someone somewhere has written about. If and when your thoughts and experiences are original, it is time to write a book.” This was my advice to students sat in the theatre that day. They are our future leaders, politicians, musicians, writers, whoever they aspire to be. Our students are the next generation who will change the world and reading is a fundamental part of their development.

By Janine Murphy, Head of English

For more information, visit www.britishschool.edu.my