EL 111

• Literature helps readers develop essential skills in connecting with the global environment and discover the world through stories, poetry, and plays
• Literature helps readers see the world differently, develop a better perspective, and offers a deeper perception of life
• Children's literature refers to the material written, published, and used for instruction, information, and entertainment of children and adolescents
• Janet Schulman: 'Books give children a foundation on a ladder of life'
• Good children's literature

  • Induces strong emotion, entertains, instructs, and inspires
  • Makes children or readers laugh, cry, and offers a sense of joy and satisfaction
  • Hooks readers with interesting and relatable stories
  • Uses engaging language with pleasing flow and natural rhythm
  • Helps children develop phonemic awareness and acquire new words
  • Is multicultural, informative, and draws attention to the story itself leading to questions and further discussion
  • Leads to deeper connection and retention when children can relate to the story
  • Captivates readers and encourages repeated reading
• Literature enables understanding of personal and human emotion, issues in society, history, and culture
• Children's literature

  • Varies from fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and other artistic genres
  • Covers different relevant topics of interest to children and adolescents
  • Has the same literary elements as adult literature but different features such as age and characteristics of characters, plot complexity, and emphasis on morals or didactic motive
• Good story

  • Grabs and sparks the readers' interest
  • Creates change in the readers' thinking
  • Makes readers feel what the characters feel, fear, and love
  • Changes the psyche of the readers and how they view things
• Constant reading to children helps develop the bond between children and parents and aids in listening and language acquisition
• Reading and exposure to literature help children in many aspects of life including pleasure, enjoyment, imagination improvement, cognitive development, attention span stretching, acquiring information, positive attitude development, book appreciation, love for reading, understanding literature, new hobbies and interests acquisition, empathy with others' feelings, cultural heritage understanding, creativity improvement, artistic tendencies stimulation, and aesthetic sense stimulation
• Literature allows readers to unlock the world of imagination, creativity, and inspiration
• Literature is a body of ideas that need to be explored
• Allen Say: 'A good story is an abstract experience, that when one ventures through and comes out of a maze he will feel a slight change'
• Reading stories helps children expand their imagination and provides emotional and educational benefits
• Reading stories and different written forms sharpens children's imagination, develops empathy and moral reasoning, exposes them to different cultural identities and societies, and allows them to gain artistic and literary preferences
• Classical Period spanned from 500 BC to 400 AD, characterized by stories of Hercules, Aesop's fables, Homer's "Iliad and Odyssey," Ovid's metamorphosis, and myths and epics of Greek and Roman origins
• Writing styles in literary works during the Classical Period

  • Include figurative languages such as metaphors, symbolism, hyperbole, simile, personification, irony, and juxtaposition
• Themes in literary works during the Classical Period

  • Explore human experiences
  • Depict human conditions and forces around them
• Medieval Period started from 478 AD and stretched to the beginning of the 14th century, influenced by religion and the Roman Catholic Church, popularizing biblical stories and heroic adventures
• Literary works during the Classical Period began with ancient oral storytelling, used to comfort, establish relationships, entertain, teach young ones, introduce religion, tradition, culture, and values
• Reading literature

  • Helps children develop empathy and moral reasoning
  • Helps children understand people as human beings
  • Allows children to wear someone else's shoes and walk someone else's path
  • Develops a sense of social justice
  • Provides information, wisdom, and sense of right and wrong
  • Helps children appreciate the universality of human emotions
  • Culturally literate and learn to respect diverse cultures
• During the Medieval Period, literature was characterized as religious, highly biblical or romantic, with embedded realism and fantasy, used for teaching morals to children
• Reading enhances students' academic progress by fostering language development and fluency, including phonetic and phonemic awareness, vocabulary command, structural control, and improvement of overall reading comprehension
• Reading

  • Develops imagination
  • Develops empathy and moral reasoning
  • Exposes to different cultural identity and society
  • Allows to gain artistic and literary preference
  • Provides vicarious experiences
  • Helps gain insights about people, society, and surroundings
  • Unlocks imaginative creative tendencies
• Literary development period of children and adolescent literature

  Started during the Classical Period, then Medieval period, the period of Enlightenment or Renaissance, the 18th century, the Victorian era, the 20th century up to the modern day
• Books were chained to libraries during the medieval period to avoid theft, and oral storytelling was used as a mode of entertainment due to the expensive nature of books
• Stories of the classical period are stimulating, fascinating, and important parts of literary and cultural heritage, transporting readers to the distant past and helping them connect with nature and cultural orientation of the past
• Literary works during the Classical Period

  • Characterized as subtle in thought
  • Use direct expressions
  • Adhere to form
  • Portray archetypal characters
  • Carry a moral message
  • Focused on showing truth and beauty
• Books became a major source of information leading to mass education in the 18th century
• The Renaissance period in Europe marked new ideas and reintroduction of Roman and Greek literature
• During the medieval period, books were chained to libraries to avoid theft
• Recording of literature during the middle-ages

  Started with monks' lesson books for young people during the old English period
• Oral tradition or oral storytelling was used as a mode of entertainment during the medieval period due to the expensive nature of books
• The printing press, discovered by Johannes Guttenberg, revolutionized book production and information spread during the Renaissance period
• Alfred the Great translated literature from Latin to Anglo-Saxon
• Children's literature in the 18th century emphasized moral teachings and intellectual development
• Heroic stories

  • King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Roland from France, Cid from Spain, Beowulf and Grendel
• William Caxton created the first printer and published various literary works
• Popular fairy tales from the 18th century

  • Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and His Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor, The Princess and the Pea
• Books produced during the Renaissance period

  • The Book Named the Governor, The Scholemaster, Book of Martyrs, Orbis Sensualism