Week of October 12th: Nonfiction Literature

   This week in class we talked about nonfiction literature. That's also what Chapter 11 in our textbook was about as well. I learned that the purpose of nonfiction literature is to inform. It gives readers a chance to find the answers to questions that they may have, in addition to allowing them to gain experiences that helps build their personal knowledge. Even though nonfiction may appear to be boring, a lot of children actually enjoy reading it.
   My husband is one of those people that really enjoys reading nonfiction. In fact, I don't think that I've ever seen him read a book that was not nonfiction. He loves history and is always eager to learn more about it, so the books that I have caught him reading are often about important figures in our history, and a lot about the world wars. He is proof that there actually are people out there that enjoy reading nonfiction, and thus I realize that I need to have nonfiction books available in my classroom library.
   I also learned that there are broad categories of nonfiction writing. These categories include things such as factual nonfiction and interpretive nonfiction. Factual is more on the "straight fact" side of non-fiction, while interpretive allows the author to indulge the reader in a more of a journey with a little bit more of their interpretation involved.
   One aspect of nonfiction literature that we spent a good deal of class time focusing on this week was a genre of nonfiction called "fictionalized nonfiction." This is a genre that has the purpose to inform, but uses fictional elements throughout the book. It is, in fact, different from historical fiction. I can see how those two genres might be similar, but I think that fictionalized non-fiction would contain more extraordinary elements. In class, we had a debate involving the pros and cons of using fictionalized nonfiction in the classroom as teachers. Both sides had good points. A pro would be that it might interest children more than straight non-fiction would. A con would be that children could have a difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction.
   I decided to look a little bit further and see what books are classified as fictionalized nonfiction, so that I may have a better grasp of the genre. The books below are a few fictionalized nonfiction books that I discovered. They are from a goodreads list of fictionalized nonfiction books. I am not sure if this is truly what fictionalized nonfiction is supposed to be, but it's what I found!

Week of October 5th: Traditional Literature

   Our chapter reading and class this week revolved around Chapter 7, traditional literature. I learned that traditional literature is the stories and works of literature that have been passed down from generation to generation. I thought that it was very interesting to think about stories and works of literature that get passed down through hundreds of years. It's crazy to think that some of the stories we read now, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, which had it's earliest rendition appear in 1807. Traditional literature is very engaging because they contain intriguing plots.
   I learned that there are many different categories of traditional literature, such as folktales, animal tales, legends, ballads, epics, urban legends, derivative folktales and spoofs, and one that my group focused on in class, "pourquoi." Pourquoi is French for "why," and in traditional literature it classifies books that explain why something came about in the natural world.
   I also learned that there are specific elements in folktales called "reliable associations." These elements help identify a piece of literature as a folktale, and they include a castle, cottage, road, and forest. The castle usually indicates success, the cottage indicates simple, unpretentious people, the road indicates a transformation, and a forest usually implies mystery and danger in stories. Thinking about these reliable associations made me think of the different folk tales and stories that I am familiar with that contain these elements. For example, every Disney princess story and film tend to contain one, if not all, of these elements. Beauty and the Beast contains a castle as well as a forest. It was interesting to reflect back upon stories I know and identify the elements within them.
   Another thing I learned about traditional literature is that there are 3 basic characters in traditional literature stories: the hero, rival, and helper. Reflecting on this, I realize that that is true in almost every folk tale I know. We discussed motifs in traditional literature as well, which as recurring narrative elements that appear in multiple pieces of literature. One of the books my group read in class, titled With Love, Little Red Hen, had a motif in it in the form of a wolf character. Wolf villians appear in many folk tales, thus it is a motif.

   In class, my group also looked at two children's books that could be considered Pourquoi. They were titled The First Strawberries, and The Story of the Milky Way. They both dealt with the Cherokee tribe, and both explained how something came about in the natural world. The first one told the Cherokee tale of how strawberries came into existence. It was far-fetched, but a really interesting story. The second one told about how the Milky Way came about, and it too was outlandish, but a very creative story explaining one of our natural phenomenons. I really enjoyed reading these two books. I like how we work in groups to analyze children's books, it helps in achieving different perspectives and a broader understanding of children's literature.