Literary learning: Part B – Reflective blog post

At the start of ETL402, I was not aware of the concept of ‘literary learning’.  I confess that the discussion in the Module 3 Forum (Aylett, 2015) about library collections, and the possibility of combining fiction and nonfiction resources to escape the old-fashioned dichotomy (Combes & Valli, 2007), made me feel very sceptical.  In the P-12 Library where I work, many of the students like to browse the shelves rather than searching the catalogue, and having separate sections for fiction and nonfiction helps to narrow the selection process for them, saving precious class time.

My doubt and scepticism began to dissolve, as my knowledge and understanding of literary learning began to expand, with the reminder from Wells (as cited in Lehman, 2007, p. 44) that ‘narrative’ or ‘story’ has been a primary way for humans to make sense of their experiences and to educate others since the beginning of time. Working in a Christian school library, my thoughts went straight to the parables that Jesus Christ used to teach his followers.  At about the same time, the digital resource that I found for assignment one, through its engaging renditions of the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories (Hannan, 2007), further reminded me of the didactic usefulness of story.  Then there was the delightfully convincing scientific report from Zak (as cited in Briggs, 2015) where magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the benefits of story over just factual information.  Ambruster’s (as cited in Coiro & Dobler, 2007) explanation of how the structure and purpose of informational text makes it harder to process than narrative made a lot of sense at this point. So, I was now happy with the concept of using fiction to teach in curriculum areas beyond English. 

The next insight came with the explanation that ‘literary nonfiction’ is a type of prose which uses fiction techniques to report on persons, places, and events in the real world, and which includes biographies, autobiographies, memoires, letters, diaries, and journals (Combes & Valli, 2007).  The various names assigned to this genre have also been very helpful as I have often wondered where items like ‘faction’ and ‘narrative non-fiction’ really belonged in the library collection.  Although I have used this genre in the past for children who prefer nonfiction reading for pleasure, I now have some valuable new knowledge to help me justify its use in capturing the interests of 21st century ‘info-kids’; and helping them to identify with the characters, to question, and vicariously delight in content areas (Carter & Abrahamson, as cited in Combes & Valli, 2007).  Knowing that literary nonfiction can legitimately be used as a bridge to unify the collection is really liberating for my collection development plans.  Hessler’s (Five Books, 2015) description of the rigorous research and writing process for literary nonfiction provided the final conviction for me that here is a valuable and versatile tool that I can promote to teachers to engage the interest of their students.

At this point, I am enthusiastically planning to create some literature resource kits, containing both fiction and literary nonfiction, to offer to key teachers as a sample of how to integrate children’s literature into curriculum-based ‘literary learning’ within their subject areas.

Reference list

Aylett, B. (2015, December 22), Physical Collection Arrangement [Msg 16]. Message posted to https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?action=list_messages&forum_id=_39916_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_6691_1&course_id=_6053_1&message_id=_466536_1#msg__466536_1Id

Hannan, D. (Producer). (2007). Dust Echoes [Animation]. Retrieved from ABC TV: http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/default.htm

Briggs, S. (2015, December 5). How storytelling can enhance any learning experience. Message posted to InformED: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/how-storytelling-can-enhance-any-learning-experience/

Coiro, J. & Dobler, E. (2007). Exploring the online reading comprehension strategies used by sixth-grade skilled readers to search for and locate information on the Internet.  Reading Research Quarterly, 42, 214-257.

Combes, B., & Valli, R. (2007). Fiction and the twenty-first century: A new paradigm? Cyberspace, d-world, e-learning. Giving schools and libraries the cutting edge, 2007 IASL Conference. Taipei, Taiwan.

Five Books. (2015). Peter Hessler on narrative nonfiction.  Retrieved from
http://fivebooks.com/interview/peter-hessler-on-narrative-nonfiction/

Lehman, B. A. (2007). Skills instruction and children's literature. In Children's literature and learning: Literacy study across the curriculum (pp. 43-56). New York: Teachers College Press.