After reading both the Langer and Hassett/Curwood articles what stood out most to me was how literature is changing, and how we as teachers need to change our methods and the way we go about introducing and approaching literature in our classrooms. The Langer article focused more on the way students approach certain literature and how they use their background knowledge and reflect upon and relate different texts. The Hassett/Curwood article focused much more on the multimodal characteristics of texts which includes things such as font, color, graphics, etc.
This reminded me a great deal of TE 348. In that class we spent a lot of time analyzing different children's literature. We learned how important the color choices in books are as well as font and the meanings they carry. Frequently these aspects of children's books are just as important as, if not more important than, the words themselves. We also learned the importance of illustrations and subtle textual clues found in the pictures. Before taking that class I never considered how important every aspect of these books are. This was especially seen in books that had minimal words and mostly illustrations. It is important to show children that the illustrations can carry more meaning than the words in the story and it allows creativity from the reader.
Something else that I took away from that class and have experienced first hand with children is not underestimating children's ability to pick up on textual clues and notice subtleties. Even with very young children it can be amazing what they pick up on in books. Sometimes this includes things you as the teacher did not notice. This also goes along with the idea from the Hassett/Curwood article of "teachers as coconstructors of knowledge" which is very important to keep in mind when presenting and discussing literature. It is important to point out and discuss the illustrations and aspects of the book as you go along to facilitate a more meaningful discussion and reflection of the story.
Now that i'm reading your post more closely, i can see we hit on a lot of the same topics in our posts. We both mentioned that in 348 we had learned that we can't just assume that kids wont pick up on the subtleties. After taking that class, I've been trying not to hold ideologies on children. They really are smarter than we think. And each TE class has taught me that students in all grade levels are capable of book discussions; it's just about how you handle them for each grade level. Maybe this seemed like an impossible thing before I came to college because literature really is changing and when I was in elementary school, that is not how we approached a book. But i'm excited for this new way of teaching and learning because it seems a lot more exciting and involved.
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