Pablo Cantu
LSSL 5360
October 1, 2016

Textbook Assignment #2

K What You Already Know About the Topic	W What you learned about the topic	L What you still need to learn about the Topic	S How do you plan to share what you learned?

Assignment #2 Read chapters on (a) Picture Books and (b) Traditional Literature

K What you already know about the topic?

(a) I am not sure I knew that much about picture books except that they mainly are used in pre-K or preschool books.  They are mainly used to help in the educational development to help children have a way of connecting a picture to a word.  For example, inner city parents would use the picture books to show their young children a picture of a horse, chicken or cow.  The same can be said for a rural parent would use the picture books to show their children an image of a subway or skyscraper.  Pictures books could also be used to help children get a better picture when reading a fairy tale as to what the characters would look like.  They would also show pictures describing terms that are foods, colors, animals and such.   Another preconceived notion I had, was that picture books only contained one syllable words.  An example would be “Dad fed the dog some green food”.  (b) What did I already know about Traditional Literature?  First of all, I am not sure I even knew what they were referencing with the term.  I had to look up the definition. According to Webster’s Dictionary, traditional literature is “a genre that deals specifically with stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.”  Knowing what the meaning was, I would say that traditional literature would deal with folk tales, myths and stories about legends.  These include stories about the Greek and Roman Gods, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Tarzan.  Other types of traditional literature would be stories that explained about creation in general or how certain things came to be.  My knowledge on this topic is limited and cannot wait to see a more detailed lesson regarding this topic.

W What you learned about the topic

(a)  I was wrong on what picture books are about! Picture books are more than just a tool to help younger children.  Picture books are written for all age groups; from pre-k to adulthood.  There are many subjects that are written in the style of picture books.  And the stories are not just written in one syllable words, but words that are complex and unique or they do not even have to any words at all.  An example of a wordless picture book would be the Flotsam, which tells the story of how a camera is passed around the world through the seas (much like a message in a bottle) and used by people (even sea life) from different places and time periods in this world.  Picture books tell stories that cover a wide array of topics.  Topics that are whimsical, silly, fun, and even serious in nature such as violence, sex or even death.  I kind of already knew the following from what I posted above, but was glad to know that picture books were the first dictionary of a visual vocabulary.  The universe was first introduced to pictures books hundreds of year ago, with the Curious George and Babar books becoming popular in the early part of the 20th century.  The popularity declined during the World Wars because of the rationing of paper; which limited the production of the books.  But the late 1950s and 1960s saw an emergence of these types of books mainly because the country was yearning for color in their lives.  I was quite surprised to learn that there were two forms of the British invasion in the United States in the 1960s.  The music invasion is one that well documented, but I was pleased to learn that the same can be said in regards to picture books that came back alive with their vibrant paints and colors.  And once again I learned something new when I became aware that picture books helped document the history of radical politics of our country and world.  I wonder how they would look like if they documented this insane political season.    I also learned that there is quite a bit of criteria in place to determine whether a picture book is first-rate.  One must examine several key points.  1) This includes what is the overall theme that is carried in this book.  Is something significant being told within the story?  2.) With the help of the illustration, can the story be better understood? Do the pictures actually help the story or are they just useless paintings.  3.) Is the book written and illustrated in a way that they do not insult their readers. In other words, does it seem that they are talking down to the age group that this book was written for?  If the book is meant for teenagers is it written using first-grade vocabulary or simple pictures that would appeal more to a five-year-old?  Some examples of this could be seen in some celebrity picture books.  Not all celebrities, because I feel that books that are written by Jamie Lee Curtis, such as Where do Balloons go or Is there really a Human Race are very well written and illustrated for their target audience.  4) One last thing that I learned about how to critique a Picture book is in regards to Mood and Tone.  Do the pictures enhance the tone and the mood of the book?  An example of how an illustration adds to the tone and mood of the book is The Spider and the Fly, the illustrations in this book help convey how menacing the spider is compared to the innocence of the fly.  I really did learn quite a bit considering my knowledge of picture books was very limited. (b)  I was right!  Yeah, I actually knew something about Traditional Literature.  Like I just said, I knew something, which means I did not know everything.  Beside the definition from the online dictionary, traditional literature is “stories that have their roots in the tales of long ago”.  This doesn’t mean that the story takes place in the past; just that the origin of the story was first introduced in the past.  For example; Snow White and the seven Dwarfs is a Grimm fairy tale.  If this story was retold with the time frame of the future and instead of female lead and male co-stars it was told using a man as the lead with the help of seven young ladies; the origin of the story is still from the Grimm fairy tale and thus would be considered a form of traditional literature.  The term “Once Upon a Time” is a giveaway that the story about to be told/read is more than likely a form of traditional literature. Even though there might be a change from the original story; the origin still lies with the story from the past.  An example of this could be the T.V. show “Once Upon a Time” which rewrites past fairy tales, legends, and myths with a modern twist.  One of the stories told two seasons ago was that of how Peter Pan ended up being the father of Rumpelstiltskin; or how Rumpelstiltskin was also the Beast in the Beauty and the Beast story.  These are modern takes on traditional literature stories.  One other lesson I learned was how to critique the quality of a traditional tale.  Factors that I need to consider include the 1) indefinite setting.  I was surprised how I had never paid attention as to how vague some of the stories that I have known for a lifetime have vague settings.  For example, Star Wars was a vague setting that is obvious, (once you know what to look for) with its opening of “in a galaxy far, far away.” Other items that I can use to critique traditional literature are 2) Archetypes and stereotypes, 3) Motifs, 4) Magic and 5) Repetitions. But I still need to learn more about these last 4 terms which I will discuss in the next section.

L What you still need to learn about the Topic

(a) There is still quite a bit that I need to learn about Picture books.  While I now am able to dissect a picture book to see if it is a higher literary quality.  I still need to learn how to critique the books in terms of their physical features.  Features such as the looking at the cover, the dust jacket, the title page, and end pages are some that I will be able to learn with some practice. These features are easy to examine because we are looking at how well it is illustrated and does it give us somewhat of an idea of what the book is going to be about.  When we take out the dust cover is the book illustrated or not; are the end pages of the book illustrated and help set the tone.  What I will need more practice is determining is whether the binding and pages are of good quality or are they made in a way that the book will easily fall apart.  This can also be said in regards to the text.  Is the font being used helping with the overall storyline or does it hinder it?  Are the illustrations done and placed in the book where the gutter does not eat it up and make it look weird.  There are a lot of new things I need to learn, but that is why we are always students.  (b). I still need to learn how to effectively critique traditional literature.  I have to learn how to determine if a character in a story is an archetype/stereotype or are they actually unique.  I really would not have thought that Dumbledore in Harry Potter books would be considered as an archetype, but after reading the definition that is used I can see where he is this type of character.  When thinking about Motifs, I can just hit my head (like the V-8 commercials) when I finally realize that they are very common in the literature.  At first, I was like there are no examples in the stories that I have recently read.  But I went back and read the stories again and I was able to find examples of this term.  From recurring patterns that include the use of transformations and magical numbers.  Glad to know that this old man can learn new things.  The last two criteria that I can use to critique traditional literature are magic and repetitions which once I re-read some stories I was able to point out these characteristics once I knew what I should be looking for.

S How do you plan to share what you learned

(a) This is the easiest part of this assignment; because when I was listening to the YouTube video, I was thinking how this can be used with the classes that I am currently teaching.  Type placement, pictures in gutters, end page designs and cover designs are subjects of lessons that I have for my yearbook students.  I normally use old yearbooks to teach these concepts, but now I will also be using picture books to explain the importance of this topics.  I think the students will be able to better understand what we are needing in a yearbook by using a picture book to help describe what we are wanting to achieve.  I can also use picture books in a lesson in regards to my Economics class.  I can have different types of picture books and have my kids examine them using the criteria that I learned to determine which one would have been more popular in terms of sales.  Students will also have to create a picture book to better explain certain Economic concepts, such as those in Animal Farm.  The ideas are endless in how I can use the pictures books; and with additional information that I still need to learn in regards to this subject, there is no limit to the possibilities.  (b)  This was hard.  How do I plan to share my new learned knowledge of traditional literature? I can use the characteristics used to critique traditional literature to help my journalism kids practice their critiquing techniques.  One part of the class, we analyze yearbook, newspaper and magazine articles written to see is it is well written.  They use a rubric when evaluating the articles.  But this is hard for students to do; they usually just say “it was good, “it was bad,” “the story was cute”, but they do not go into great detail.  I always wondered if they actually know what to look for.  I will be using these techniques and analyze several stories to analyze the quality of how it was written.  I will create a rubric using the terms that were listed and hopefully it will help them in being able to critique other forms of literature.