As students circle around their teacher, ready to hear a story they may believe that they are getting out of work. What the students don’t realize is they are actually learning, just in an indirect way. This means going beyond the giant textbooks and moving into books students can connect with. Literature plays a dynamic role in the classroom from aiding learning in different subject areas, developing critical thinking skills and teaching moral lessons.
Before I started taking my principles of elementary math class I never would have thought about the fact teachers use literature to aid learning in math. In my class, we examined the use of children’s picture books as a resource for students to see math in real life situations. An example of this would be a teacher reading aloud the picture book Spunky Monkeys on Parade. Within the fun picture of monkeys in parades the students skip count along with their teacher. This shows students who once believed they could not skip count a new way to make skip counting possible and fun. Within literature it creates a safe place for students to learn a subject like math that can be daunting to a young student. As students get older and they are able to start reading chapter books, they are able to establish connections with the characters of the books they are reading. An example of a children’s chapter book that would be useful in the classroom for math would be, The Candy Corn Contest. In this book the student reads about Richard who is in a classroom where they are having an estimation contest of how many candy corns are in a jar. Everyone in his class would get one guess for every page of a book they read. The teacher could use literature to give an incentive for students to re...
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... from different cultures. If students did not have books they would only know about the people they have met and this would be a small world view.
Through all of our lives literature plays an important role, and the biggest time it can have an impact is when we are young learners. Teachers can bring to life stories and lessons that writing on a white board could have never taught them. There is no subject that a good book could not be paired with to help a student learn a topic. Teachers have book discussion and have questions about reading not to be evil but to develop those students’ critical thinking skills. The moral and life lessons literature teaches help students evolves with this ever-changing diverse world. Literature which has the most dynamic role in the classroom from subject to subject it develops critical thinking along with moral lessons.
Literature; it has compelled us, entertained us, educated us, and drove us to madness. It has served as life instruction, by using the characters as the lesson plan. It is sometimes blunt, sometimes ugly, and in Truman Capote’s case, is so gruesome that we do not dare forget it.
In literature, schools often teach students the morals of a book rather than actual knowledge that they should acquire in the classroom such as literary devices or sentence structure. In Francine Prose’s, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read,” she discusses how teaching students to only focus on the moral of a book instead of the many different literary elements it contains, effects their passion for reading. “A friend’s daughter’s English teacher informed a group of parents that the only reason to study Huckleberry Finn was to decide whether it was a racist text.” (94) This acknowledges that schools do not focus on important aspects of the books. The main point that Prose forms in her essay is that students are no longer required to read a piece of literature in depth, they only have to read to identify and learn the moral, when
Solomon, Andrew. “Reading at Risk: Lack of Interest in Literature is a Crisis.” Commentary – Columbia Daily Tribune. 8 Aug. 2004. 19 Sept. 2004. <http://www.showmenews.com/2004/Aug/20040808Comm007.asp>.
In the article, “Why Literature Matters” by Dana Gioia, Gioia argues that young Americans show a decreased interest in the arts—especially literature—and this severe decline will lead to considerable consequences. She believes that this drop in interest will lead to less historical and political awareness, which in turn will make the nation less informed, active, and independent-minded. Gioia convinces us of the importance of literature through her use of credibility, appeals to fear, and specific examples.
Adolescent literature will always be challenged, as long as there are children in this world. This may be a hot topic to touch debate about whether which books are appropriate to be used in the academic environment. Though, the purpose of these debatable senses is to provide the best and proper education for young adults to maturity. Developing the best literature for young adults requires team work and trials that will improve the value of a text decided among parents, students, and teachers. Again, the selection of these adolescent literatures is to promote maturation that would prepare your kids and my kids for the reality and future situations in their lives.
Throughout this course, I have discovered that literature is more than just words being brought together by an author to form an emotionally charged story. Literature provides an engaging outlet into an imaginary realm to its audience. As the reader is captivated by the story, poem or play, a, emotional connection is established.
“Why Literature Matters” written by Dana Gioia includes reasoning and evidence to persuade the audience to read more. Young Americans’ interest in literature has declined, and Gioia’s purpose is to portray the importance and effectiveness of literature; however, Gioia’s poor use of logic to link the decline in literature with negative results in society makes his article ineffective.
In her essay “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read,” Francine Prose asserts that teachers should not be using literary works to teach values. Prose believes that assigned reading should be more about the quality of the writing rather than the values. But, if a book is too complex, students often lose interest in reading. While Prose’s argument is extreme, she is correct in that teachers should not use literary works as an excuse to teach their values.
Why Literature Matters Dana Gioia has a concern that literary knowledge is declining. Throughout his entire argument he speaks about why people have stopped reading books and why this is a bad thing. Books have been in the worlds’ history since 2700-2500 B.C.E. with the The Epic of Gilgamesh being the first book ever written. Books are the way humans get all of their knowledge about the world. The fact that reading is declining indicates that our world is going to change, and not for the best.
Humans strive to improve and discover themselves, and, for the most part, people want an ideal society of peace and harmony. To have this ideal society, it should embrace love, freedom, and surround itself with empathetic and compassionate people. People have used many methods to regulate society such as religion, culture, and law to achieve an ideal society. Despite the many ways humans try to govern themselves, one if the most influential and greatest tools to reform humankind is literature. Although there are many direct methods to strengthen humanity, Literature brings readers much closer to their empathetic roots giving readers more empathy, critical thinking, and independence.
Often times this sort of phenomena will happen with an elementary teacher that grappled with mathematics when they were in school. These teachers had nightmares as children and the feelings may be lingering a bit. By employing literature, they are able to tap into their strengths of language arts and impart that skill into creative mathematics instruction. Literature has many benefits in the mathematics classroom. “There are often several tasks that can be launched from the story,” (Van de Walle, Karp, & Bay Williams, 2013, p. 39) which is a skill that is especially important as concepts start to compound. Mathematics problems do not exist in a vacuum and literature can play a major role in building the skills to combat multitask
...d allows future generations to go on clinging to the same stilted social values we fault now. Each author presents to us an image of the world and then displays the principles they hold dear by controlling their characters within it. It is by analyzing these images and principles that we will be fully able to understand the views present around us and thereby form a more educated one of our own. Ernst wrote, “…changes in children’s books often come long after they have been seen in reality” (76). We as teachers have a responsibility to dialogue these notions with our students so that they will have the insight to write about it in the future.
Ward (2005) explores writing and reading as the major literary mediums for learning mathematics, in order for students to be well equipped for things they may see in the real world. The most recent trends in education have teachers and curriculum writers stressed about finding new ways to tie in current events and real-world situations to the subjects being taught in the classroom. Wohlhuter & Quintero (2003) discuss how simply “listening” to mathematics in the classroom has no effect on success in student academics. It’s important to implement mathematical literacy at a very young age. A case study in the article by authors Wohlhuter & Quintero explores a program where mathematics and literacy were implemented together for children all the way through eight years of age. Preservice teachers entered a one week program where lessons were taught to them as if they were teaching the age group it was directed towards. When asked for a definition of mathematics, preservice teachers gave answers such as: something related to numbers, calculations, and estimations. However, no one emphasized how math is in fact extremely dependable on problem-solving, explanations, and logic. All these things have literacy already incorporated into them. According to Wohlhuter and Quintero (2003), the major takeaways from this program, when tested, were that “sorting blocks, dividing a candy bar equally, drawing pictures, or reading cereal boxes, young children are experienced mathematicians, readers, and writers when they enter kindergarten.” These skills are in fact what they need to succeed in the real-world. These strategies have shown to lead to higher success rates for students even after they graduate
Literature has many purposes, and opens doors to unique worlds. Through Literature, we discover ourselves and world time and again.
Literature has had a major impact on society, and, also our history. Literature has reformed and shaped civilizations, changed political systems, and has exposed injustices (3). Our literature has changed and developed as we have, keeping up with our society. “...literature is crucial for the advancement of society (3).” With literary works, we can convince others to view things a certain way, share our opinions, and more. Literature is greatly intertwined with our society and everyday lives, and they would not be the same without it. Literature plays an irreplaceable role in our