When I think about what literature and literary learning is and means for my practice as a teacher and teacher librarian many things come to mind. Although looking back to the beginning of this session my thoughts and the ways I see and intend on using literature and literary learning have changed significantly. From the beginning I have believed that children’s literature and in particular the use of fiction gives a number of immersive ways to support the curriculum in a variety of topic and learning areas (Strouse, Nyhout, & Ganea, 2018). A quote that has resonated with me through the learning and that I shared in the module 1.1a discussion board (Winkless, 2020, November 23) is that of Dr Joy McGregor “Literature – story – is life: an individual’s response to personal experience” (McGregor, n.d.). This has stayed with me through the learning and while reading it has become even more evident that a person’s opinion on literature and it’s benefit for learning is highly dependant on opinion and interpretation of value of the text (Kostakis, 2018).

While we all interpret resources and literature differently and see the value of different resources in classroom environments, I also believe we must be very conscious of censorships. Since working on the censorship module, the thought that I may be quietly applying my own censorship to the resources I provide children in my library bothers me greatly. Even looking back to a blog post I wrote ‘Censorship in school libraries’ (Winkless, 2020, December 28) this is something I considered my be happening in my own practice. An area where I have taken away a lot and really considered when and why we should be censoring particular for of literature that I should be providing to student to really give them a well round exposure to quality literature that will further their learning (Kostakis, 2018).

One of the most valuable things I have learnt during this course is a well-rounded understanding of different genres and forms of fiction that we can expose our students to. From discussions during module 2.3c (Winkless, 2020, November 28) I had the opportunity to further research and think of engaging ways that I could be exposing my students to genres and forms such as steampunk and dystopian. Considering all the knew knowledge and understanding I have developed while reading and working through this course my biggest take away has been the extreme importance for libraries and teacher librarians to have an understanding of a wide range of genres and forms to expose students to (Akins, Tichenor, Heins, & Piechura, 2018), as well as giving students the opportunity to work with text styles that not only support them best academical but also for their own recreational reading. As I stated in my blog post ‘Children’s literature into the future’ (Winkless, 2020, November 23) providing students with access to print and digital reading material opens them up to wider range of reading and learning possibilities including the use of multiliteracies and visual literacies (Wolf, 2014).

 

 

 

References

Akins, M., Tichenor, M., Heins, E. & Piechura, K. (2018). Teachers’ knowledge of children’s literature: What genres do teachers read? Reading Improvement, 55(2), 63-66.

Kostakis, W. (2018). We need to talk abut this: Embracing challenging texts. Access, 32(1), 6-11.

McGregor, J. (n.d.). Definition from Children’s Literature. https://go.aws/2YUfrA1

Strouse, G., Nyhout, A., & Ganea, P. (2018). The Role of Book Features in Young Children’s Transfer of Information from Picture Books to Real-World Contexts. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(50), 1-14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00050

Wolf, S. (2014). Children’s literature on the digital move. Reading Teacher, 67(6), 413-417. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1002/trtr.1235