Wow! Another subject almost done.
Again, I have not kept up with forum posts or blogging as much as I would like however, as outlined in my post 8 October 2019, this has partly been a conscious decision after a difficult year. I am proud that I have been able to complete (almost) 5 subjects despite what was happening and surprised myself with some very good results.
This subject is the first of my electives. When looking through the list of elective subjects to choose from, there was NO doubt that this would be one of them. In one of my first blog posts (2019, March 11) I outlined what drew me to the library position to start with, books. Throughout the course I have learned that there is SO much more to the role, particularly in terms of information literacy and inquiry learning but what drew me to this subject was a return to our roots, what I had believed the main role of the librarian to be.
And I have not been disappointed, I have thoroughly enjoyed completing this subject. I began my first day of study for ETL402 as I do all others, browsing around the interact 2 site, particularly the discussion forums. I came across a post from Speer (2019, Nov 22) that highlighted a quote that resonated with me,
“The ultimate purpose of literature is not to teach something, but to illuminate what it means to be human and make accessible the fundamental experiences of life – love, hope, loneliness, despair, fear belonging. Children read literature to experience life, and their experiences within story worlds challenge them to think in new ways about their lives and world” (Short, Lynch-Brown, & Tomlinson, 2017).
This is why I love to read, the ability to be transported anywhere at any time, for free, and all the lessons to be learned along that journey. To be able to give students this same opportunity and develop their love of reading is absolutely the reason I became a teacher librarian.
The focus of this subject on using literature across the curriculum and not reserving it only for English is something that excites me. As a classroom teacher I often would introduce lessons with a book and while not all, I do believe many primary school teachers do so, at least in the lower years. I can see that convincing high school teachers of the benefits may take some more time and energy but through this subject we have been given the tools to do so.
The digital literary resources were new to me and I still very much personally prefer a ‘real’ book. My interest is piqued though and I look forward to exploring it more in my next elective, Literature in digital environments.
While this subject has not challenged my thinking and practices as much as some of the other subjects in this course, it has provided the academic theory to support it and my resource bank has grown immensely.
References
Doherty, H. (2019, March 11). Assessment 1 Part B [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/learningtolibrary/2019/03/11/assessment-1-part-b/
Doherty, H. (2019, October 8). ETL504 Assessment item 2: Part B [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/learningtolibrary/2019/10/08/etl504-assessment-item-2-part-b/
Short, K. G., Lynch-Brown,C., & Tomlinson, C. (2017). Essentials of children’s literature (9th ed.). New York,NY: Pearson.
Speer, M. (2019, November 22). RE: Definition of children’s literature [Online forum comment]. Retrieved from https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&course_id=_38049_1&conf_id=_74552_1&forum_id=_177192_1&message_id=_2589167_1&nav=discussion_board_entry
