| LITERATURE APPRECIATION |
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LITERATURE APPRECIATION PROGRAM
Teachers of PK-2 students and Sand Hills classes cooperatively plan with the Media Specialist to flexibly schedule weekly storytimes supporting classroom instruction by enhancing classroom themes and topics with the presentation of appropriate picture books. In grades PK-K, the focus of each storytime is primarily on encouraging learners’ appreciation of the narrative form—in other words, on enjoyment of the story itself. With older students, however, the Media Specialist will focus more on literature as art, expanding discussion to include more intensive elementary literary interpretation and critical analysis.
Storytimes are cooperatively planned based on classroom themes. At the end of each month, Ms. Summer attends grade-level or collaborative planning meetings or meets with individual teachers to learn what students will be studying in various classrooms during the next month. Books chosen for storytimes are intended to reinforce and enrich classroom instruction.
Between the first of the school year and the first of April, many of the books featured during storytimes will be selected titles from the Georgia Picture Storybook Award list compiled by the Language Education Department at the University of Georgia. Each year, twenty books are chosen as candidate books for the Georgia Picture Storybook Award Program. Children from Evans Elementary join children from participating schools across Georgia to choose the winner of the Award each year by voting for their favorite books among the nominees shared with them at storytimes.
Teachers of students in grades 3-5 are welcome to cooperatively schedule literature appreciation classes with the Media Specialist as well. Texts can include either short stories, poems, picture books, or children’s novels, and interpretive instruction will be focused primarily on exploring the story elements of plot, characterization, theme, conflict, and setting. |
