Week 10 - Literature lecture (Robyn Ewing) 'What makes a quality literary text' ?

                  Quality Children's Literature

Robyn Ewing's Lecture -

This week’s lecture we were fortunate enough to have Robyn Ewing to talk about ‘Quality children’s literature’ and their use in the classroom. From my perspective I know it that all teachers should and will at some point incorporate and make use of quality children’s literature. However, from year 1 of my course up until this lecture I noticed and took into account how important it is to ensure teachers use quality children’s literature in a classroom. From the collections of quality children’s literature books I have, this lecture enlarged my list by taking noting of other authors and books I would like to add for my collection. How exciting! Good children's literature has multiple layers of meaning and can be looked at from many different perspectives. It introduces students to new worlds, perspectives and contains themes and topics that children can relate to and understand but that also introduces them to new ideas (Winch, et. al., 2010). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From today’s lecture, I took into account that there is a direct integration between drama activities, quality children’s literature, and imaginative play (Ewing, 2013). I understand there are many meanings beyond the literature of the text where this notion leads to students underpinning the images and artworks of the book. For future teaching implications, I will delve into incorporating a range of quality children’s literature, from what I learnt I know it’s a beginning chapter for students to encounter perspective, imagination, meaning, creativity encouraging them to not only become effective readers  but also to stimulate their imagination.

 

References:

Ewing, R. (2013). Creative Arts in the lives of young children. Camberwell, VIC: ACER Press.

Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy : reading, writing and children's literature (4th ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University.

Week 8: Media Arts Lecture

 

What are the Media Arts ?

 

This week’s lecture was lead by Miranda Jefferson, which is a new aspect of creative arts in the NSW Australian Curriculum. Having said that, I was very excited and willing to delve into this component of the unit, as I have never had a chance to learn more about it.  Nowadays technology is rapidly growing and increasing through today’s world with many more expectations to come, so children have experienced and seen the range of technologies out there, which are linked closely with Media Arts. Walsh (2004) believes “Literacy practices of students outside school reveal engagement with mobile, gaming, and digital technologies with less interest in reading and writing print-based texts, particularly literature.” (p.14). I strongly believe this to be as it enhances a child’s learning through engaging them with the use of technology but also integrating other Key Learning Areas with Creative Arts and other curriculum areas. This helps to support student’s learning and engagement in making meaning with media arts as well as connecting ideas from other peers as collaborative team. Moreover, an assessment idea for teachers could be the use of film making, but it also allows teacher’s and future teacher’s like myself, to integrate film making with all of the creative arts strands by making connections to other KLA’S like: English through writing a script, drama; through role play. Film learning is an example of a sociocultural approach to learning because learning in this area relies heavily on the collaboration of learners who bring their own unique knowledge and backgrounds to the creative learning process. Film is a collaborative art form." (Anderson & Jefferson, 2009, p.12).

 

References:

Anderson, M., & Jefferson, M. (2009). Teaching the screen: Film education for generation next. Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Walsh, M (2004). Multimodal literacy: researching classroom practises: Primary English Association (e:lit). - New Literacy practises.

Week 6: Visual Arts Lecture "An Introduction to Puppetry"

Week 6: Introduction to Puppetry

What  a fantastic, inspiring lecture we had this week by a well known Puppeteer and primary teacher Kay Yasugi, who graduated from Sydney University specialising in Primary Education and puppets. Kay’s definition of puppetry is “the art of bringing inanimate objects to life", she demonstrated her insightful definition through her very own wonderful demonstrations of how to manipulate a puppet’s movement and bring the puppet’s trait and persona to life using a range of voices. One of my main highlights to Kay’s lecture was the significance of purpose when making considerations on any puppet. Kay introduced Rocky the Racoon (see below), Bina the Butterfly, a puppet she uses specifically for writing activities – this effective for when teaching children with English as second language as encourages students to write and achieve their skills and outcomes in writing. When Kate Introduced Rocky her purpose was so effective as she made his movements quite small and calm which engaged and grabbed the audience’s attention. The following pictures introduce a variety of puppets that Kay bought to life using such inspiring voice, character, and personality.

 Kay believes "puppets are important for students as it its engaging in getting people's attention- it’s good for multiple intelligences, good for visual learners, good for communication and good for shy students, puppets were students are behind the screen are good for students, it’s good for confident/ extroverted students and good for all ages and abilities"

This is Rocky the Racoon, whose purpose is to capture the student’s attention and calm them, bringing the whole classroom together.

The following  video shows Kay’s use of puppets, where she uses a range of voices to portray the personality and character of the puppet to the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5YUERRiTM&feature=youtu.be

Overall, Kay’s lecture has allowed me to reflect on ways I could utilise puppets in my own classroom, which lead to a idea of not only incorporating in my classroom but also using a variety of puppets which might be useful when teaching a multilingual classroom. The following video shows Kay Yusagi and Kate Roberts who teaches at the University of Sydney, a unit called teaching multilingual classrooms where she shares her ideas on how puppets can be used for a variety of purposes. This also allows for cross-curriculum ideas demonstrating the integration of the arts in the curriculum.

http://youtu.be/Xrh3ZtGdRBQ

Week 2 - Drama Lecture

 Week 2:

Drama Lecture - 15/3/13

In today’s lecture, we covered a range of topics, which included focusing on a critical moment in fairytales, historical and contemporary depictions of fairytale characters in print and film media, exploring narrative structure, character relationships and status on role. One experience I focused on was on ‘to make a good story we need’... this incorporated linear narrative (going forward), tension, characters, settings, coda, and story structure. This lead to my experience through critically reflecting on fairytales by focusing on what happens to the characters after the story. This highly links to Media Arts when looking at the seven parts to a story/film. Overall, from this experience the implications I take aboard for my future teaching is I would provide the structure of the story to the students as from what I learnt today it would empower the students to look upon the story. I would teach the students on how to communicate with the story, know how to construct and deconstruct a story, which leads to further discussion when making connections with the story and making meaning for an audience.

 

 

Week 1: Introductory Lecture

 

Discover a world of fairy tales...

Week 1:

Lecture 1 - 8/3/13

In today’s introductory lecture, we were introduced to the Fairytales and their significance in children’s lives. This entailed me and other peers to brainstorm a variety of Fairytales that we knew and ones that we were familiar with in our early years of life. We named fairytales like, the Princess and the Pea, Hanson and Gretel, Peter Pan, and many more. A great discussion arose on whether the story of the three little pigs was classified as a fairytale or not. This allowed me to think about my early years experiences up until today’s lecture, which shifted my perception to looking at how fairytales have been modified over time ‘before and after’ and how they are presented nowadays as oppose to the past.  Therefore, Victoria read the book ‘the true story of the three little pigs’ which lead to a great discussion on how fairytales were fractured over time and the changes that were made to the fairytale. As a result, 3 of my peers and myself grouped together and focused on a critical moment from the fairytale Cinderella, where we each took on a role of a character discussed the elements of drama (Space, Contrast, focus) and bringing the characters together to make it come alive.