Literature/Reading Text Presentations

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Samantha Asmussen
Literature/Reading Text Presentations
SUMMARY
Reading and Writing about Literature by Janet E. Gardner explains how to read and write about literature, hence the title. It “includes more help with close reading, more samples of student writing, new annotated literature, and overall more help with understanding the literary elements and the writing process.” I took that quote from the back of the book. Basically, step by step its about:
  1. An introduction to reading and writing about literature
  2. The role of good reading
  3. The writing process
  4. Common writing assignments
  5. Writing about stories, poems, plays, and research papers
  6. Literary criticism and literary theory 
  7. A list of literary terms 
WHY I CHOSE THIS TEXT
When I was looking online for certain texts, I came across this one on amazon and it had the “look inside” section, so I did just that. I looked at the ‘Contents’ and and found so many helpful subjects, so I decided that maybe it would be helpful. After getting the book, I found out that I was right. This book is filled with helpful tips on how to read different types of literature and write about literature. There are common mistakes that everyone uses when reading and writing that the text also touches on just to help the audience with examples. 
TEACHING IDEAS
There are numerous teaching ideas that I could use from this reading. One that I remember doing from high school that wasn’t specifically talked about in the book but made me think of from reading this was getting into two groups and arguing different sides of a piece of literature. Students would have to give specific examples from the reading to make their argument better. This would help them learn because they would have to look in depth into a piece of literature and then argue with their fellow classmates about it. Plus, what secondary student doesn’t love to argue. Another idea is to keep a daily journal. In these journals, the students would be asked to respond to a reading that we talked about in class. This is another assignment I am actually doing this quarter in one of my classes and I found it to be very beneficial to retain the knowledge from the book that I have read. The journals could range from the students favorite part of the section they read to how it made them feel, etc. The last teaching idea I think would be beneficial to implement in the classroom would be to act out the readings. Ok now hear me out. I knew so many kids in high school that hated doing this, but I also know that they ended up understanding the reading so much better after either acting out a poem or piece of work or watching their peers do this. It provides an interactive and safe environment that is not only fun but also physically shows what the reading was trying to portray. 




CHALLENGES
There are a few challenges that arose from this text as I was reading it. I think one main concern for students would be how wordy this book is. Yes, it is a lot of words with no pictures, but a closer read shows that a lot of this is just terms, definitions, and examples of how to read different types of texts (and write different types of texts). One other problem/challenge I feel may arise is that this book doesn’t focus on just one topic, it focuses on both reading and writing about literature. It does do that, but I found that it was actually very helpful to provide both in this particular text because a student has to be able to read a writing and write about a reading at a secondary level. 
LAST THOUGHTS

Some final thoughts about this book are that it is set up for a student specifically but it also has helped me a lot too. This is another one of those books that I think I will find myself looking back on for reference in my teaching career.

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