Week 2

Readings

Winch et al Chapter 24: The Literature Continuum and Deep Literacy
The reading provides a range of key ideas one of them being that literary texts broaden our ways of thinking, feeling and being in the world.

The chapter looks at:
-Deep Literacy
Winch et al (2010,p.503) says "How wide exposure to literature and its stories, in a variety of multimodal forms and genres can influence thinking, dreams, and behaviour."

- Literature and the power to shape worlds;
How literature was emerged from strong oral traditions and that it’s a major contributing factor not only in constructing the power, but in constructing what were to become stereotypical ideas about the ‘Orient’ and ‘natives’ and about power.

-Ideology 
This is now known as a system of thinking and now has three levels. These are: 
1. The actual message of the text. 
2. The unexamined beliefs implicit in the text. 
3 the beliefs and attitudes and ideas that seep into the text as part of the author’s world. 

-Literature as a Map
"Children's literature is a map of childhood, diverse and subjective." Children need to be 'exposed' to literature not just at their level but beyond it as well and this doesn't just mean have them read it but have the text read to them. 


Lecture 

The within Week Two began with the mention of John Marsden, an Australian author of the famous series novel Tomorrow, When the War Began as well as Home and Away. The literature is discussed in regards to the narrator, the setting and characters such as where and when were they introduced in the story, the lifestyle involved and how the author has structured the narrative.

After assessing both texts briefly, we look at what the books have to say, such as the themes across time and space, what the author wants the reader to think about? And think what would we do if we were put in the same situation? Whether that be the circumstance from Tomorrow, When the War Began or Home and Away. Would we act similar to the characters in the book? Or go about it in a completely different way?

By analysing the two texts, students are able to distinguish how narratives can be structured differently and how the author can send different messages across each story. These messages are important as they can ultimately shape our understanding of the world.

As a final note about the lecture, links were made to the weekly reading which was Chapter 24 in Winch et al. These links included Ideology, Context, Literature as a map and the integration across the curriculum.


Workshop 

Within the Week Two workshop, a discussion was carried out in our groups about what was said in the lecture. Following this, the discussion lead to the talk of narratives. What are they? What are their features? What does a narrative do?

Each group was to create a chart on the responses we gave to the questions regarding the weeks reading. As it turned out, we did have fairly similar answers, some more in depth than others.
My Place by Nadia Wheatley was read aloud to us and then the class was shown a clip on the smart-board regarding the same story. Each group was given two pages from the book and some questions to answer. Such questions included What can we learn about the lives of the family in 1858? and Are there connections with other places?