Literacy & literature curriculum development and planning

Literacy, media, literature, & children's literature

It is important to know your beliefs (theories, assumptions ... ) about literacy, media, literature, and children's literature. This page includes curriculum information and tools to reflect and clarify beliefs, assumptions, goals, concepts, objectives, outcomes, and other guides to use to plan, assess, and evaluate literacy, media, language arts, and children's literature.

Information on this page focuses on literacy and literature. See information also for curriculum and curriculum tools.

A definition of curriculum in the broad term includes everything a child experiences as they grow to adulthood. Therefore, the more a person understands the experiences if the learners they meet, the greater the likelihood they can facilitate learning and achieve the goals and outcomes desired.

Definitions - Literature, literacy, children's literature, & media

Literacy and literature beliefs & assumptions

  1. We must continually account for learner’s dispositional (affective/ emotional) responses to literature and strive to make it positive for a variety of types of media, literature, and genre. Therefore, we must provide a variety of different types of literature and genres for which learners respond in a positive manner.
  2. Children’s literature is essential for the development of an educated citizenry. It must be included in the planned, enacted, and experienced curriculum from a very young age.
  3. Children’s literature has undergone significant changes over the years and we assume children’s literature is evolving with significant changes now and unimaginable changes in the not too distant future.
  4. There are many sources to help locate children's books, authors, activities, literature selection aids, and literature review sources.
  5. Research related to children's literature is helpful to teachers.
  6. Multiple forms of literature and media must be used to facilitate the achievement literacy.
  7. Instructional methodologies and strategies must include a variety of literature and media integrated with students' lives and local and global cultures.
  8. Literature must be studied in a manner that allows students to have significant intellectual and emotional transactions with a variety of literature and media in a manner that develops their self-efficacy and appreciation of literature.
  9. Learners must be introduced to a wide variety of artists, authors, composers, poets, producers, actors, actresses, musicians, playwrights, and illustrators along with their works to understand the human side of those who create children's literature.
  10. Learners understand and analyze children's literature and its literary elements by feeling free to respond to their experiences with literature and by being intellectually challenged and push to greater understanding.
  11. Assessments is necessary to learn what students know and where to to start with each of them to facilitate their understanding, use, and enjoyment of literature.
  12. Literacy is more than understanding and having skill in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and creating and interpreting graphic representations.
  13. Literacy is required for all media life including books, television, signs, radio, music, movies, and anything that students can think, imagine, feel, share, critically analyze, and evaluate.
  14. Today's learners are more prone to being literate in pop culture: TV, movies, music, videos, electronic games, and the use of electronic audio and video equipment and advertising than in textual material. Therefore, as teachers we can and must use the background students have in popular media to scaffold greater understanding of stories and elements across media and within different pieces of literature to facilitate their learning and guide them to greater literacy within in different media, particularly those dependent on text to tell a story.
  15. Since literacy is being able to communicate ideas and feelings in different media, talking in the classroom among classmates must be modeled and facilitated to not only increase learner's language skills, but to increase their ability to practice the processes of literature and media.
  16. All children learn. Maybe not at the same level or the same thing when the participate in the same activity. However, their responses to the same piece of literature is a natural form of differentiation that can be used to challenge students to greater personal understanding if we are willing to accept that not everyone has to learn the same thing.

 

Children’s literature and literacy beliefs
by Samantha Beutler

  1. Children’s literature is the expression of language, feelings, or emotions conveyed through words or artifacts with messages geared towards children.
  2. Literature evokes strong feelings on behalf of the sender and receiver, allowing people of all ages to imagine, create, and experience things that may otherwise have been unattainable or unimaginable.
  3. Literature comes in a variety of formats including (but not limited to) print, electronic, artistic artifacts, spoken words, music, dramatic productions, presentations, and other multimedia.
  4. Children’s literature is essential for the development of a citizenry that is well-read, well-informed, skilled, and knowledgeable.
  5. Quality children’s literature is a necessary agent in promoting a love of reading and fostering an attitude towards lifetime learning.
  6. Children’s literature has undergone significant changes and will continue to evolve with new technologies and educational demands.
  7. As literature evolves, educators must embrace change and make adaptations in existing curricula, instructional techniques, and educational philosophies.
  8. Educators must strive to integrate quality literature into all areas of the school’s curriculum, valuing student’s unique backgrounds and experiences, thus enabling students to connect with literature in meaningful ways.
  9. Research related to children’s literature is necessary to keep teachers informed of new trends in literature, literacy, and education.
  10. Instructional techniques to achieve success must include: a variety of modes of communication, integration with all aspects of the students' lives and learning, representations from a variety of genre, and local and global cultures.
  11. Students must learn to appreciate diverse forms of literature and must have experiences with different genres.
  12. Students must have experiences with multicultural literature to promote understanding, appreciation, and acceptance of diverse cultures.
  13. Students must learn to critically evaluate literature and other forms of media to understand and evaluate the implicit messages being generated by the message creator.
  14. It is important for students to understand the human side of artists, authors, composers, poets, producers, actors, actresses, musicians, playwrights, and illustrators of children's literature.  
  15. There are many print, electronic, and human sources available to help locate, review, and select quality children’s literature.
  16. Literature should be presented and studied in a manner that allows students to have positive intellectual and emotional responses to the work in order to develop self-efficacy and literature appreciation.
  17. Assessment helps us understand how students interpret, connect, use, and enjoy literature.
  18. Literacy is the ability to make sense of information verbally and nonverbally by interpreting messages and conveying meaning to those messages, whether those messages are written, spoken, sung, illustrated, or presented in any other medium.
  19. Literacy is more than just understanding and having skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening—it includes the abilities to relate to literature by imaging, creating, visualizing, and responding to literary messages.
  20. Literary messages are interpreted individually based upon the unique experiences of the receiver.

References

Piazza, C. L. (1999). Multiple forms of literacy: Teaching literacy and the arts. Columbus, OH: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Sweetland, R. (2005). Belief statements or assumptions for literature.

Literacy Principled Procedures for
Educators and Curriculum Decision Makers 

Principled procedures for a classroom are descriptions of what teachers and students will do in the classroom. They are based on beliefs and ethical considerations for the manner in which teachers and students interact with each other and everything in the classroom.

  1. Strive to establish a literary community where children participate in the ongoing literary life of the classroom/school where they come to value literary works and begin to support one another in developing attitudes and strategies required as lifelong learners, and where we as teachers model and demonstrate the kinds of literary activities that sustain literary communities.
  2. Encourage each child's independent journey toward appreciation of literary works by providing activities that are satisfying, supportive, and enriching for each child to learn strategies to be successful in understanding all varieties of literary works.
  3. Group and regroup children for different literary events so that their needs and interests can be meet in a variety of teaching/learning situations, enabling them to move forward in their development gaining confidence and competence and eventually desiring to share their experiences and creations with one another.
  4. Immerse children in a world of literary works through meaningful activities-listening, viewing, discussing, exploring, analyzing, experimenting, reading, rereading, and creating, where students reflect on different literary works in a literary community.
  5. Use children's knowledge and interests to encourage them to create a variety of literary works, including writings, videos, art, dance, creative movement, drama, theater, music, television programs, radio programs, and Internet materials.
  6. Connect different literary works to each other so that the process of literary development is strengthened, and children can recognize that the processes of communication in different literary works has similarities, differences, and can be used separately or together to create a strong message.
  7. Deepen and extend the children's personal responses to literary works by encouraging them to make life connections in order to build critical thinking and appreciate understanding, as well as extend their knowledge of how different literary pieces work within and across cultures
  8. Teachers need to organize and manage comprehensive literacy programs, including literacy events across the curriculum, with opportunities for literacy development as individuals, as part of a small group, and as part of the community as a whole.
  9. Schools need curriculum teams of teachers to design and implement literary programs that support each child's development over the years. Programs that support teachers to monitor, track, assess, and reflect upon the children's literary progress in order to develop teaching and learning strategies that will help the child grow. Teams that create and share literary works and conduct classroom inquires, in order to modify, extend, and revise methods of assisting learners.
  10. Communicate and co-operate with parents throughout the school year about their children's literacy development, accepting their concerns, sharing with them significant observations and data, and valuing their support at home and at school in building lifelong learner.

 

Literature program goals

A quality literature program has students who:

  1. Enjoy literary transactions by: reading; listening to music, poetry, drama, and other media, viewing drama, visual arts, and other media. Actively seek involvement in literary transactions.
  2. Comprehend, analyze, criticize, and evaluate what they view, hear, read at the literal, interpretive, and emotional level.
  3. Appreciate different genre.
  4. Recognize and classify different genre
  5. Develop an awareness and critical understanding of different genre.
  6. Understand and interpret story elements.
  7. Develop an awareness and critical understanding of story elements.
  8. Relate literature to real life.
  9. Create literature.
  10. Desire to integrate literature into all aspects of their culture.
  11. Promote an appreciation and enjoyment of quality literature.
  12. Develop a life long love of reading, listening, and viewing quality literature.
  13. Choose enriching literary experiences to enhance self-awareness and understanding of the world.
  14. Develop a realization that literature fosters humanistic awareness and attitudes.
  15. Develop an awareness and critical understanding of elements of good literature.
  16. Develop a belief in students' own creative skills.
  17. Communicate an appreciation of literature to others.
  18. Develop empathetic awareness for all aspects of literature.
  19. Integrate values clarification as a result of their transactions with literature.
  20. Develop a connection with the global community through literature.
  21. Develop critical thinking.
  22. Appreciate and empathize the diversity of cultures through global perspectives.
  23. Develop creativity and imagination to interpret a variety of literature from multiple perspectives.
  24. Use literature to expand and enhance knowledge in all curricular areas.

Literature instructional goals / outcomes by Grade Level

Possible Kindergarten and 1st Grade Literature Goals/Outcomes

The teacher will:

  1. communicate an appreciation of literature.
  2. promote a lifelong enjoyment of literature.
  3. provide many opportunities for students to enjoy books.
  4. make reading literature aloud a top priority and read from a variety of authors and illustrators.
  5. provide many opportunities for students to self select literature.
  6. have quality literature available in the classroom.
  7. provide plenty of library time.
  8. introduce different genre (most likely through picture books).
  9. introduce story elements - character, setting, plot, point of view, tone, style.
  10. introduce strategies to focus attention and improve comprehension of literature.
  11. encourage students to tell and interpret stories.

Learners will:

  1. develop their own opinions.
  2. interpret a story or characterization through role playing or other activities.
  3. develop literature skills by identifying main characters, developing empathy with characters, telling plot sequence, describing setting, and determining elements of tone and style.
  4. improve their listening skills.
  5. improve their attention span.
  6. develop positive self-images about reading good literature.

Possible 2nd and 3rd Grade Literature Goals/Outcomes

The teacher will:

  1. promote a lifelong enjoyment of literature.
  2. read literature aloud an average of 20 minutes every day.
  3. silent read for an average of 15-20 minutes a day.
  4. provide many opportunities for students to self select different types of literature.
  5. provide experiences to make students aware of the availability of literature in different real world locations.
  6. provide enriching literary experiences.
  7. use trade books (fiction and nonfiction) with thematic units, displays, speakers.
  8. introduce a variety of authors, illustrators.
  9. introduce students to different genre.
  10. provide opportunities for students to respond to literature in a variety of ways in a risk free flexible environment (book talks, murals, mobiles, puppets, play).
  11. communicate an appreciation of literature.
  12. provide a risk free environment for students to communicate their emotional reactions to literature (book talk, literature logs, author chair, dialog literature journals, tape records).

Learners will:

  1. develop a critical understanding of elements of good literature.
  2. develop a critical understanding story elements -character traits, setting, plot, theme, point of view, tone, and style.
  3. communicate aspects of literature in retellings, webs, maps, connecting story elements to themes and main ideas of story and genre.
  4. develop an awareness of different genre.
  5. become aware of different styles of writing for different authors.
  6. become aware of diversity in life in literature.
  7. compare and contrast poets and poetry.
  8. develop a stance that literature fosters humanistic awareness and attitude.
  9. believe they have creative abilities and skills.
  10. communicate an appreciation of literature.

Possible 4th and 5th Grade Literature Goals/Outcomes

The teacher will:

  1. promote a lifelong enjoyment of literature.
  2. provide time on a daily basis for reading literature aloud. (20 to 30 minutes each day).
  3. provide time for drop everything and read (DEAR) (15 minutes each day).
  4. provide many opportunities for students to self select different types of literature.
  5. provide time for creative writing and production of literature in different media.
  6. allow time for sharing of literature.
  7. provide experiences to make students aware of the availability of literature in different real world locations.
  8. provide enriching literary experiences.
  9. use trade books (fiction and nonfiction) with thematic units, displays, speakers.
  10. introduce a variety of authors, illustrators.
  11. introduce student to different genre.
  12. provide opportunities for students to respond to literature in a variety of ways in a risk free flexible environment (book talks, murals, mobiles, puppets, play).
  13. communicate an appreciation of literature.
  14. provide a risk free environment for students to communicate their emotional reactions to literature (book talk, literature logs, author chair, dialog literature journals, tape records).

Learners will:

  1. select books of choice.
  2. acquire a source for literature (regularly visit the school or class library or purchases ...)
  3. identify with characters in a book by listing ways they are like the character or different
  4. relate to a character's situation by explaining how they would react.
  5. compare animal similarities to people (characterization)
  6. identify any story's origins (place it in geographic place)
  7. choose books of different genre to read
  8. choose books with different elements of literature
  9. participate in activities where s/he can identify the elements of literature
  10. relate their creative skills to different characters' skills
  11. share reading ideas with others.
  12. share their opinions and reactions about specific books read.

Possible 6th - 8th Grade Literature Goals/Outcomes

The teacher will:

  1. promote a lifelong enjoyment of literature.
  2. read aloud literature to the students approximately 20 minutes a day.
  3. provide opportunities for students to enjoy their literature preferences.
  4. provide silent sustained reading (SSR) time for about 15-20 minutes a day.
  5. integrate multicultural literature throughout the curriculum.
  6. incorporate genre and elements of good literature into the reading and literature curriculum.
  7. encourage students to express their opinions about literature in a risk free environment.
  8. provide opportunities for students to express creative skills in a risk free environment.
  9. provide opportunities for students to share personal reactions to literature.
  10. provide time for creative writing and production of literature in different media.
  11. provide many opportunities for students to self select different types of literature
  12. provide experiences to make students aware of the availability of literature in different real world locations.
  13. provide enriching literary experiences.
  14. use trade books (fiction and nonfiction) with thematic units, displays, speakers.
  15. introduce a variety of authors, illustrators.
  16. provide opportunities for students to respond to literature in a variety of ways in a risk free flexible environment (book talks, murals, mobiles, puppets, play).
  17. communicate an appreciation of literature.
  18. provide a risk free environment for students to communicate their emotional reactions to literature (book talk, literature logs, author chair, dialog literature journals, tape records).

Learners will:

  1. acquire a source for literature (regularly visit the school or class library or purchases ...).
  2. identify and critically evaluate story elements - character, setting, plot, theme, point of view, tone, and style.
  3. identify and critically evaluate different genres and media quality attributes.
  4. describe multiple ways a person might react to different character's situations.
  5. identify story's origins (place it in geographic place).
  6. choose books of different genre to read.
  7. recognize authors and illustrators works and describe the similarities and differences.
  8. relate their creative skills to different genre, story elements and quality literature.
  9. share literary ideas with others.
  10. share their opinions and reactions about specific literature they read, view, and listen to.
  11. identify stories in different media - text, visual, graphic, video, song, dance.

Sample Literature Objectives, Concepts, and Outcomes

Objective - Concept pairs: notes about objectives and concepts

Objective - learners will read the story and answer literal comprehension questions from memory, or reread the text to find appropriate references about the story elements.
Concept - information used to tell a story has words that specifically describe objects, ideas, and events within the story that can be used to describe the story elements.

Objective - after reading the story learners will answer interpretive comprehension questions, from memory or rereading the text, by using reasoning skills to join literal references to make interpretive analysis about the characters actions.
Concept - sometimes information about characters feelings, actions, and reasoning are not described specifically within the story, but can be interpreted or inferred by reasoning about intentions or motivations by relating ideas, that are not specifically described in the text, like clues and hints to solve a problem.

Objective - learners will read the story and identify, from memory or rereading the text, the setting, main character, minor character, and plot.
Concept - all stories have a sequence of events that happen at a certain time and place that involves a person, animal, or object that have self-awareness.

Objective - learners will use their definition sheets, created in previous classes, to identify, from memory or rereading the text, the setting, main character, minor character, and plot after reading the story and share their answers and reasons for those answers with the class.
concept - all stories have a sequence of events that happen at a certain time and place that involves a person, animal, or object that have self-awareness.

Objective - learners will use the examples of similes, discussed and recorded in their journals, in class to identify three similes while reading chapter three, share their examples with the class, and reason why they selected each.
Concept - a simile is a comparison that uses like, as and occasionally than to describe something in a manner that communicates a deeper understanding with economy of words or beyond a physical or direct description.

 

Literature Outcomes

Character chart

Identify characters and describe them as good/bad, powerful/weak, content/worried, brave/cowardly, harmless/dangerous, confident/self-conscious, adventurous and support their choices with examples from the text.

Plot - Chain of events

Identify the plot as a chain of events. Describe how the first event caused or led to the second and how the second led to the third and so forth until whatever event caused the climax and then resolution. Describe all events as examples from the text.

Story map

Identify - setting, characters, plot elements (beginning of story, conflict/problem, action/events, climax, resolution) and map the relationships and of setting, characters, and plot elements. Describe how the relationships helped or didn't help the enjoyment of the book.

Book character report card

Identify characters and describe them with the use of an analogy. Explain the analogy and support the choice of the analogy with examples from the text.

Character traits

Select characters in a story and describe each character's traits. Explain how each character's traits fit or don't fit with the story and how the author created and communicated them as realistic, plausible, and believable for this story. Do you believe the characters could actually exist? how did the author make you and others believe the characters were or could have been real live characters and what ideas in the text created and supported this idea.

Book rating sheet

Describe what combinations of setting, characters, plot elements (beginning of story, conflict/problem, action/events, climax, resolution), theme, point of view, style, tone, that help them enjoy the book and support their selections with specific examples from the text.

Quality literature

Create a list of what makes quality literature. Use the list to evaluate a book. Describe how information on the quality literature list was or wasn't included in the book and how it did or didn't contribute to the quality of the story, particularly what makes it outstanding for its particular genre and support the ideas with examples from the text.

Historical fiction accuracy

Identify historical events in a story and judge the events in the book as historically accurate, believable, realistic, plausible, ... based on evidence of what the author included in the text compared to other historical sources.

Instructional Guidelines for Reading, Viewing, & Listening

Children read/listen/watch literature for many reasons to dream, learn, laugh, enjoy the familiar, and explore the unknown. They are motivated for pleasure and engage the literature at their developmental level discovering ideas that match or challenge their present understandings and values. A balance between the familiar and unknown must create, sustain, or increase anticipation and expectations to motivate a reader/listener/viewer to continue their involvement.

There have been numerous studies done on students' interests with regards to their age. While a few of them suggest similar interests more suggest a wide diverse interest for most readers.

What this information suggests to me is; that the teacher's role to facilitate literacy is to first of all guide childrens' selection to different kinds of literature that matches their developmental level and abilities. Second, is to find a balance of support and challenge to sustain the child's motivation and cultivate literacy. By generously asking questions and cautiously providing suggestions students will construct literacy proportionally to their immersion in it. This will result in a class or discussion that invites students to share their opinions and different views about the story and support their thinking logically with evidence. Students need encouragement and others to model how to do this. The result being a serious discussion where students recognize each other as knowledgeable thinking people. Where disagreement is recognized as good and often times necessary to establish alternative perspectives and new ideas.

Guidelines for Questioning and Discussion to Achieve this

  1. Confront ambiguities and uncertainties.
  2. Heighten anticipation and expectation.
  3. Heighten awareness for problems to be solved, difficulty to be faced, gap in information to be filled.
  4. Build on existing information or skills.
  5. Raise concern about a problem.
  6. Stimulate curiosity and desire to know.
  7. Make the familiar strange or strange familiar by analogy.
  8. Beware of inhibiting actions.
  9. Look at the same material from several different psychological or sociological viewpoints.
  10. Ask provocative questions requiring the learner to examine information in different ways and in greater depth.
  11. Make predictions, even from very limited information.
  12. Provide only enough structure to give clues and direction.
  13. Encourage thinking beyond what is known.
  14. Provide warm-up (easy to difficult, familiar to unfamiliar, bodily involvement...).

Reading/Viewing/Listening Interactions

  1. Raise the awareness of problems and difficulties as the activity progresses.
  2. Encourage creative thinking about character's personality, characteristics, or predisposition.
  3. Encourage inquiry and search for possible problems and solutions.
  4. Encourage creative thinking.
  5. Require deliberate and systematic exploration of a variety of literary elements.
  6. Ask questions for students to question completeness of information when information is incomplete.
  7. Encourage comparing and contrasting a variety of elements even ones that seem or prove to be irrelevant.
  8. Explore and examine mysteries.
  9. Maintain open-endedness.
  10. Maintain story outcomes as not being completely predictable.
  11. Require students to make predictions from limited information.
  12. Encourage reading with imagination. Make it sound like the real thing happening. Develop the sounds, sights, smells...
  13. Facilitate the search for honest and real understanding.
  14. Encouraged the use of inquiry skills and have students or the teacher model the use if needed.
  15. Encourage deferring judgments until enough data has been produced to make a judgment.
  16. Heighten anticipation and use surprise.
  17. Encourage visualization.

Post Reading/Viewing/Listening Interactions

  1. Keep using ambiguities.
  2. Use awareness of problem, difficulty, gap in information.
  3. Beware and acknowledge pupils of their potentialities based on responses and encourage students to do the same for themselves.
  4. Raise concern about problems.
  5. Participate in a constructive response for the problem.
  6. Provide continuity with previously learned skills, information, ...
  7. Encourage constructive, rather than cynical, acceptance of limitations.
  8. Dig more deeply, go beyond the obvious.
  9. Make divergent thinking legitimate.
  10. Encourage elaborating upon what is read.
  11. Encourage elegant solutions.
  12. Create an empathetic metaphor to give new feeling or facilitate understanding of object, person, or state.
  13. Experiment.
  14. Make the familiar strange or strange familiar by analogy.
  15. Use fantasy to find solutions to realistic problems.
  16. Encourage projection into the futures.
  17. Go beyond the text.
  18. Think about the impossible.
  19. Make the irrelevant relevant.
  20. Examine how the knowledge from one field relates to another.
  21. Look at material from several different viewpoints.
  22. Encourage manipulation of ideas, objects, information.
  23. Encourage multiple hypotheses.
  24. Try to let one thing lead to another
  25. Examine paradoxes.
  26. Encourage pushing a fundamental law to its limit.
  27. Discuss possible causes and consequences.
  28. Ask provocative questions.
  29. Discover and test potentialities .
  30. Reorganize information.
  31. Returning to previously acquired skill and information to see new relationships.
  32. Encourage self-initiated learning.
  33. Practice inquiry.
  34. Facilitate synthesis of different and apparently irrelevant elements.
  35. Encourage systematic testing of hypotheses.
  36. Facilitate thinking beyond what is known.
  37. Provide for testing and revision of predictions.
  38. Encourage transformation and rearrangement of materials.

Process and Inquiry Skills Related to Literature

Illinois State Board of Education, 1989
Perceiving Responding Imaging Creating Communication Evaluating
see speak recall problem solving speak compare
hear move associate improvise listen contrast
touch feeling image characterize clarify imply
smell encode visualize role play question summarize
taste abstract fantasize negotiate perform conclude
observe generalize recapture synthesize encode affirm
concentrate participate transform rehearse decode reflect
decode empathize modify cooperate represent appraise
discriminate express elaborate interact narrate abstract
interpret answer hypothesize originate persuade categorize
feel describe intuit compromise empathize rate
name report   organize gesture  
recognition     narrate    

 

Learner responses to literature checklist

Interpretive yes no Comments
Performs with clarity and comprehensiveness      
Connects literary pieces to the world      
Seeks literary pieces at their level of understanding and above      
Relates literary pieces to their prior knowledge      
Names, uses, and understands parts of literary pieces      
Uses literary pieces to obtain information      
Interprets and evaluates literary pieces without bias      
Identifies a variety of literary pieces and their creators      
Attitude / Value
Values personal literary achievements      
Appreciates how literary pieces can add to their personal knowledge      
Reads, listens to, and/or views a variety of literary pieces      
Revisits literary pieces for clarity and/or pleasure      
Appreciates a variety of literary pieces and their creators      
Shares literary experiences with others.      
Appreciates diverse interpretations of literary pieces      
Creative
Creates literary pieces      
Uses literary techniques in their own creations      
Use a variety of strategies to create literary pieces      
Critiques their own literary pieces      

 

See also responses to literature

Library - Media Center: Literacy program

Created by Samantha Beutler

Kindergarten - 6th Grade Program: Rationale, outcomes, & goals

Literacy Program Rationale

The library-media center should be an integral part of the school’s instructional process, acting as a central hub to connect learning activities in the classroom to educational experiences in the library-media center. In addition to providing reading or viewing materials to supplement the curriculum, quality literature must be provided that meet the individual needs and interests of all patrons the center serves. The policies, practices, and beliefs of the library-media center must support, supplement, and enhance the educational experiences offered in the classroom, as well as provide positive literature experiences for children in order to facilitate a desire for lifelong learning. Teachers and library-media specialists must collaborate to provide unique, motivating, and engaging learning experiences for students that integrate quality literature across the disciplines. The outcomes displayed below communicate what students and teachers will get out of the educational experiences offered through a collaborative teaching environment. The goals that follow provide more detailed information to explain how teachers and library-media specialists can help students achieve the goals to meet the outcomes.

Kindergarten - 6th Grade Outcomes:

  1. Students will enjoy literary transactions by reading, listening, and responding to a variety of literary works, including books, electronic materials, musical compositions, poetry, dramatic works, and other types of media.
  2. Students will enjoy literary transactions by viewing, interpreting, and responding to dramatic works, visual arts, electronic images, and other media.
  3. Students will comprehend, analyze, criticize, and evaluate what they view, hear, read, interpret, and experience in order to discern quality literature examples.
  4. Students will recognize, classify, interpret, and appreciate different genre.
  5. Students will identify, understand, and interpret story elements.
  6. Students will relate their lives and personal experiences to literature.
  7. Students will appreciate classic and contemporary literary works, and communicate their appreciation of literature to others.
  8. Students will become lifelong learners that enjoy reading and appreciate diverse forms of literature.
  9. Students will create their own literature and positively respond to the work of peers.
  10. Students will develop confidence in their own creative abilities and skills.
  11. Teachers and library-media specialists will collaborate to integrate literature into all aspects of the school’s curriculum.
  12. Teachers and library-media specialists will provide enriching literary experiences to enhance students’ self-awareness and the understanding of the world around them.

Kindergarten - 3rd Grade Literacy Program Goals:

The teacher and library-media specialist will:

  • Make reading aloud a top priority by sharing a variety of literary works from authors and illustrators on a daily basis.
  • Introduce, promote, share, and provide quality literature examples from different genres to develop students’ awareness and enjoyment of diverse literary works.
  • Assist students as they compare and contrast literary components across genres and literature formats.
  • Make quality literature available in the library-media center and classroom.
  • Ensure students have information skills time in the library-media center, as well as free time to browse materials and self-select literature.
  • Serve as guides to help students analyze, interpret, and respond to literature in meaningful ways.
  • Provide learning opportunities and motivating activities to help students understand and interpret story elements including characterization, setting, plot, theme, style, and tone.
  • Provide enriching literary experiences by integrating quality literature into thematic teaching units throughout the year that span classroom activities, library-media center activities, and literature displays and presentations.
  • Provide opportunities for students to create their own literature as they interpret and respond to literature or personal experiences in a risk-free, flexible environment (activities may include book talks, writing and illustrating books, class murals, mobiles, puppets, play, etc.).

Students will:

Increase their listening skills and attention span through exposure to quality literature that is read aloud.

  • Develop positive self-images about reading good literature and self-select books of literary value that appeal to them.
  • Compare and contrast literary works, author and illustrator styles, and poets and poetry.
  • Develop an understanding of elements of good literature.
  • Demonstrate their ability to interpret a story or characterization through role playing, story maps, webs, illustrations, oral presentations, or other activities.
  • Develop their own opinions and share those opinions in a risk-free, positive environment through book talks, discussions, or other activities.
  • Communicate their emotional reactions to literature in a risk-free environment through activities such as book talks, author chairs, or by creating visual interpretations in response to literature.
  • Develop literature skills by identifying characters, developing empathy for characters, telling plot sequence, describing setting, and determining elements of tone and style.
  • Respond to literature in a risk-free, supportive environment that allows them to create their own literature in response to personal experiences.

4th - 6th Grade Literacy Program Goals:

(These goals are in addition to previously stated K-3 goals.)

  • The teacher and library-media specialist will:
  • Provide opportunities for students to critically analyze, interpret, and evaluate diverse forms of literature.
  • Use literature to expand and enhance knowledge in all curricular areas by implementing collaboratively planned teaching units.
  • Allow class time for book sharing and discussions.
  • Provide a minimum of 30 minutes per week in the library-media center for students to browse library-media materials and select books.
  • Integrate multicultural literature throughout the curriculum.
  • Incorporate different genre and elements of good literature into the reading and literature curriculum.
  • Provide learning activities to facilitate students’ understanding of literature elements.
  • Assist students as they identify, interpret, and connect story characters and experiences to personal experiences.
  • Encourage students to express their opinions about literature in an open, positive, risk-free environment.
  • Provide opportunities for students to express creative skills in a risk free environment.
  • Provide opportunities for students to share personal reactions to literature.
  • Provide opportunities for students to enjoy their literature preferences. 

Students will:

  • Develop creativity and imagination to interpret a variety of literature from multiple perspectives.
  • Develop critical thinking skills that are necessary to analyze and interpret messages generated from literary works.
  • Self-select books of choice that are of literary value and appealing to students’ interests or needs.
  • Self-select books of different genre to read.
  • Choose books with different elements of literature.
  • Identify with characters by listing ways they are alike or different to the characters.
  • Describe how they would react in a character's situation.
  • Compare animal similarities to people (characterization).
  • Identify any story's origins (place it in geographic place).
  • Participate in activities to identify the elements of literature.
  • Relate their creative skills to different characters' skills.
  • Share reading ideas, opinions, and reactions about specific books read with others.

 

Media education assessment from Australia

Source: Stratagies For Media Literacy (1991)

Australia has one of the longest track records for media education in the world, with media analysis as an integral component in the curriculum.

The Western Australian Ministry of Education released its first comprehensive report of media analysis skills for lower secondary schooling in 1991. The test was given in September 1991, of a random sample of 1425 year 10 students from a cross-section representing almost 8%. Students were given two tasks: 1) to analyze part of a television situation comedy; and 2) to analyze newspaper advertisements.

An example of the ten difficulty areas for the organizer "Language" in the Content strand are:

1. Identifies simple iconic symbols (e.g. no smoking signs).

2. Links simple arbitrary symbols to their meaning (e.g. ring and marriage).

3. Identifies symbolic significance of color, gesture, expression. Identifies symbolic use of music, SFX, voice style. Distinguishes one shot from the next in the sequence.

4. Selects appropriate images to establish a given mood. Identifies shot types (e.g. closeup, pan).

5. Recognizes the organization of symbols into codes. Links shot types to a purpose (e.g. establishing shot). Selects and organizes images and sound to match a given mood.

6. Identifies editing techniques for continuity. Identifies the emotive value of language, especially as it applies to race and gender. Identities the emotive effect of a given montage (e.g. advertising).

7. Identifies medium-specific conventions in continuity editing (e.g. eyeline matches).

8. Links some codes to cultural values. Recognizes the interdependence of visual and verbal codes in the construction of meaning (e.g. voice and appearance of newsreader credibility).

9. Recognizes the values operating in a given product (e.g. the values in a family sit-com).

10. Analyzes a complete media product in terms of the cultural values it reflects/projects (e.g. the patterns codes and conventions of a complete news program).

 

The Results

Most students performed at mid-range levels of difficulty (Levels 4 and 5) on the continuum for both tasks. Students demonstrated great skill in identification, i.e., elements such as character types, stereotypes, etc. Skills at Level 1-3 difficulty.

Performance dropped markedly when students were asked to use higher level skills for analysis of the relationship between shot type and purpose; program content and context; program and target audience; and genre.

Less than 10% of the students demonstrated media analysis skills higher than Level 6. These levels include issues relating to culture and meanings of text. A small number of the students were able to link the media codes to cultural values; to use the concepts of preferred meaning and cultural/subcultural readings. They were also able to provide examples of the social outcomes of stereotyping.

Quin and McMahon concluded - "most students have many of the basic skills of media analysis, but have not yet reached a stage where these can be used to effect. For students who have not develop the capacity to make the link between particular media texts and the broader cultural context, then even the lower skills have little value."

Analysis of Results

The report suggests two possible explanations for the weakness in establishing cultural context for media analysis.

  1. Is the expected outcomes may be too high and that fifteen-year-old students do not have the necessary life experiences to leap from identification of media components to a cultural analysis of mass media.
  2. Is current teaching methods do not equip students adequately to make the necessary connections. A combination of the two is speculated to be the most likely cause.

In addition, girls performed better than boys on every task.

Two possible explanations for the gender imbalance results were

  1. A literacy factor, girls generally tend to demonstrate superior performance in reading and writing; and
  2. The test itself may hold a gender bias. Some researchers, for example argue that females are more skilled in "reading people," that is in recognizing and interpreting such non-verbal signs as body language, dress gesture and facial expression.

It is also possible that the boys did not identify in any way with female characters in the media products. Research indicates that girls tend to identify with both male and female hero figures, but boys identify only with male heroes.

Quin and McMahon also argue that "Women are comparatively disadvantaged and receive less favorable representation in the media. It could be that females have more to gain from recognizing the cultural underpinnings in our media and more to gain in challenging them."

Students from English speaking backgrounds performed better on the tasks than those from non-English speaking backgrounds. This was especially true in the area of examining audience appeal of the programs. Quin and McMahon report, "Non-English speaking students...are not [culturally] well placed to identify mainstream groups and 'other' groups because they are reading from the outside. They do not have the familiar day-to-day perspective on the likes and dislikes of the mainstream group."

Surprisingly, simply watching television does not lead to better media analysis skills.

Students who view television less frequently performed better on the tasks than those who were frequent viewers and this trend was more pronounced with boys. This was statistically significant in the case of the boys who were required to analyze a situation comedy. Frequent users of television, particularly boys, performed at a lower level on the task than those who were infrequent television users. Quin and McMahon comment, "It is overly simplistic to assume that students who watch more television automatically know less...It may be that the key to the poor analyst/frequent user correlation has to do with other factors such as social circumstances and attitude to schooling." This wide social data was not part of the sample group.

In Summary

1) The large majority of students demonstrated a high level of ability in the fundamental skills of media analysis;

2) Girls are consistently more skilled in media analysis than boys;

3) Some groups, notably those students from non-English speaking backgrounds, have significantly lower levels of media analysis skills than the sample as a whole;

4) Students have an inadequate understanding of the social context and social impact of the media.

 

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