At the beginning of my ETL 402 journey, I will admit I had very little understanding of the difference between literacy learning and literary learning or the importance of selecting books to engage students in sustained enjoyable reading (Dunn, 2020a). This subject has allowed me to develop a very strong appreciation of the importance of literary learning across curriculum units to provide greater choices, to motivate students in their engagement with literacy and ultimately assisting students to learn ‘through’ literature. I noted it was important that educators are dealing with individuals who are reading in a vastly changed literature landscape and that the more ‘traditional’ reading of the past may not provide the same enjoyment and engagement with students of today (Dunn, 2020b).
I am now very excited to use the knowledge gained from assignment one to highlight the importance of various fiction collections within the library and how I can incorporated fiction into a variety of curriculum units. While assignment two has provided me with a greater understanding of the opportunities available to collaborate with classroom teachers and engage students with Literature Response Strategies within units of work. It is through our role as Teacher Librarians (TL) that we are able to provide relevant and engaging reading opportunities for students (Gibbons, 2020) as well as decreasing the anxiety of teachers of using technology with their classes; ultimately, through our role, we are able to bring new ideas about the use of technology and teaching strategies into the school (Dunn, 2020c).
I have already planned collaboratively with our HSIE faculty to implement the literary learning program, created for assignment two, with our Year 10 cohort when they are completing the depth study Rights and Freedoms 1945-present (ACARA, 2010) later this year. The students will be creating their own book bentos following the steps outlined in assignment two; this will involve collaboration between the HSIE faculty and myself. Collaboration will provide classroom teachers with a greater understanding of literary response strategies, use of historical fiction and non-fiction in the history classroom and the use of technology as a motivational and engagement strategy for students.
I am looking forward to spending more time developing further literary learning programs for our school and working collaboratively across curriculum areas to team teach units of work using a variety of literary response strategies. A large number of excellent examples literary response strategies have been highlighted in our discussion forums (Murphy, 2020; Templeton, 2020). It has been an exciting journey discovering new aspects of children’s and young adult’s literature which I had a limited understanding of; applying literature to new learning experiences for students to engage and motivate reading at our school and ultimately create the bibliophiles of the future.
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2010, Year 10 content descriptions. Retrieved from Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority website: https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/history/
Dunn, B (2020a, March 20). Childrens literature [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/bellid/2020/03/20/childrens-literature/
Dunn, B (2020b, March 6). The changing of the book [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/bellid/2020/03/06/the-changing-of-the-book/
Dunn, B (2020c, April 29). Re: 4.2 Reading from the screen [Online discussion comment]. Retrieved from Charles Sturt University website: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_44234_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_88815_1&forum_id=_181938_1&message_id=_2862910_1
Gibbons, S (2020, May 2). Re: 4.2 Reading from the screen [Online discussion comment]. Retrieved from Charles Sturt University website: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_44234_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_88815_1&forum_id=_181938_1&message_id=_2862910_1
Murphy, D (2020, May 14). 6.3 Literature Circles in History [Online discussion comment]. Retrieved from Charles Sturt University website: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_44234_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_88815_1&forum_id=_181940_1&message_id=_2937474_1
Templeton, T. (2020, May 10). Book Trailers – [Online discussion comment]. Retrieved from Charles Sturt University website: https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_44234_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_88815_1&forum_id=_181940_1&message_id=_2920970_1