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ETL402 Assessment 2 Part B

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Reflection

Upon beginning ETL402 – see my post ETL402: Literature Across the Curriculum (Hahn, 2020, November 7), I identified that a significant skill I wanted to develop is matching of user with literature. I suspected that it involved a thorough and up-to-date knowledge of the literature landscape, collection, students, and curriculum. I hoped to expand my knowledge of each element and their interactions. And so I have.

In my post, ETL402 Module 1.1 (Hahn, 2020, November 14), I discussed the instructive nature of children’s literature: the religious focus may have shifted, but students are still learning from literature. Teacher librarians must ensure the collection is developed continually, offering a broad selection of current, quality literature in various formats, supporting the curriculum and specific needs of the school community. Resource promotion at point-of-need is important. In my post ETL402 Module 2.1 Professional Knowledge of Children’s Literature (Hahn, 2020, November 21), I discussed strategies for connecting teachers with literature. The creation of reading lists tagged with syllabus links (Cherrstrom and Boden, 2020) has been positive in conjunction with a reference interviews. Annotated bibliographies have been developed, however staff are reluctant to read them. Book talking at planning meetings proved very successful. This leads me to suspect, and Merga (2019) and Bishop (2011) confirm, collaborative magic lies in the relationships teacher librarians form with teachers.

Diversity is a goal for my school library. My module 2.3a forum post (Hahn, 2020, December 5) identified an indigenous literature focus, but it applies equally to other types of diversity. It is important for all students to see themselves reflected in the literature available to them (Crisp et al., 2016) and yet our collection does not adequately depict the lived experiences of our students. Reflecting through a censorship lens, I do not believe this was a deliberate act of exclusion, rather, a failure to pay specific attention to inclusion. I am less certain that this is true of subculture representations such as LGBTQ. Careful and deliberate selection of literature with prominent, diverse characters will be imperative.

Despite Pietschmann’s (2014) contention that primary students cannot comprehend intertextual links sufficiently to access transmedia content, it is through interaction with such content that they will develop these skills (Sukovic, 2014). It will therefore be necessary to augment the digital collection, an area currently almost non-existent in our fiction collection, a not unusual situation, according to O’Connell et al. (2015) but one that must be addressed. As my discussion post for module 5.2 (Hahn, 2020, December 28) suggests, an important notion I will take away is that the digital nature of a resource must give the reader/viewer something that cannot be accessed from the print version.

The teacher librarian is a leader of pedagogy as well as of literature and literacy. Collaboration with class teachers, promotion of resources from a literary learning perspective and provision of professional literature and development required to implement such learning is a vital part of what we do and contributes greatly to the impact the school library can have. The promotion of free reading and literary engagement is vital. My post, Expanding free reading ETL402 (Hahn, 2021, January 2), described two strategies I would like to implement during browsing sessions and discussion in the module 3.1 forum provided many others.

Part B Reference List

Allen & Unwin. (2009, June 25). Anita Heiss — Aboriginal writing: Literature as a political tool [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/0x_34uJww_E

 

Bishop, K. (2011). Connecting libraries with classrooms : The curricular roles of the media specialist. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

 

Cherrstrom, C. A., & Boden, C. J. (2020). Expanding role and potential of curation in education: A systematic review of the literature, The Reference Librarian, 61(2), 113-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763877.2020.1776191

 

Crisp, T., Knezek, S. M., Quinn, M., Bingham, G. E., Girardeau, K., & Starks, F. (2016). What’s on Our Bookshelves? The Diversity of Children’s Literature in Early Childhood Classroom Libraries. Journal of Children’s Literature, 42(2), 29–42.

 

Merga, M. (2019). Collaborating with teacher librarians to support adolescents’ literacy and literature learning. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 63 (1), 65-72 https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.958

 

O’Connell, J., Bales, J., & Mitchell, P. (2015). [R]Evolution in reading cultures: 2020 vision for school libraries. Australian Library Journal, 64(3), 194–208. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/00049670.2015.1048043

 

Pietschmann, D. Volkel, S. & Ohler.P. (2014). Limitations of transmedia storytelling for children: A cognitive development analysis. International Journal of Communication, 8, 2259-2281. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/2612/1205

 

Sukovic, S. (2014). iTell: Transliteracy and Digital Storytelling. Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 45(3), 205–229. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1080/00048623.2014.951114

ETL402 Module 2.1 Professional Knowledge of Children’s Literature

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The introduction to module 2 cites Cremin, Mottram, Bearne, & Goodwin (2008) who argue that teachers in the UK (and presumably Australia, too) rely on a fairly narrow selection of children’s authors and creators due to a lack of time for keeping up with publishing. Certainly, I would agree. Before I started this course and working in the school library, I had relied heavily on those authors I was familiar with, most of whom I had enjoyed myself as a child. Having worked now for two years in the school library, my knowledge of children’s literature has expanded somewhat, but I still believe I am barely scratching the surface of what is available. Currently we rely heavily on the Australian Standing Orders for collection expansion, along with student and staff (rare though this is) requests. I do not think this is good enough.

Two things happened this term in the school library that cemented my view on this. Firstly, the teachers of the OC classes, two ladies for whom I have enormous respect and personal connection with, asked our fully qualified TL to purchase for them a collection of books for their new classroom libraries for next year. The TL and I spent a good deal of time and energy seeking out the texts we would recommend. This was both a positive learning experience and a wake up call. On the one hand, we employed a number of strategies, which I will detail below, to search for appropriate literature and I was able to learn about and practice these strategies. On the other hand, meanwhile, it quickly became obvious that neither one of us really had a good grip on the state of the children’s literature playing field. My knowledge is very poor and needs expanding desperately. This need led me to sign up for this elective in the hope that I could move some way towards addressing the problem. That I would become more familiar with and develop stronger strategies for exploring, the latest offerings.

The second happening was that our Principal allocated the library an additional and unexpected $8000 to expand our collection of class novel sets. Christmas had come early to the school library and the TL and I were overjoyed and excited as the present collection is very little-used, out dated and generally dodgy. Some sets are falling apart from over use, but most of it has never been looked at. What, then, should we do? Should we spend some serious dough replacing the Roald Dahl collection that is falling apart, and use the remaining funds for new texts? Or should it be the other way around. The fact that the Dahls are so overused seems to indicate that the teachers are relying on him (as suggested earlier by Cremin, Mottram, Bearne, & Goodwin), that they know him and are perhaps time (and inclination) poor and choose not to expand their repertoire. What then to select… and how to select it?

Together we looked through a variety of selection aids: Goodreads, SCIS, NESA Suggested Texts, The PRC reading lists, CBCA shortlisters, favourite reviewers such as Barbara Braxton’s The Bottom Shelf, and various websites such as kids-bookreview.com. What became clear is that, in order for teachers to choose and use a text, they needed to be familiar with it and like it themselves. Having a huge selection of curriculum relevant texts in a dusty storeroom only hits half of the issue. Once good texts are selected, we need to get the teachers interested enough to read them. It is my hope that part of this subject will teach me some effective ways of doing this.