About the book
There's no better companion for Book Week than Lorraine McDonald's A Literature Companion for Teachers.
"Literature has always been used as reading material in Australian schools and teachers are the interpretive authorities on literary texts; the meaning of text is filtered through the way they talk about it."(p.3)
A Literature Companion for Teachers - 2nd edition provides teachers with the appropriate knowledge for this important role. It is both a revision and an update and remains true to its purpose: a key reference to enhance practicing and pre-service teachers’ knowledge about how literature may be responded to, examined, interpreted, analysed, evaluated and created. It presents literary writing as both an ‘art’ and a ‘craft’ and explores aspects of the ‘craft’ of writers’ ‘artistry’. Each chapter presents exemplars of quality literature, with many recent texts included in this edition. Each chapter offers models for teaching literary content, and attention to learning literacy is integrated via a range of teaching opportunities. These experiences emphasise co-operative book talk, close reading to seek evidence from the text and creative application of new learning to consolidate knowledge. Throughout the book there is a consistent focus on how language constructs meanings in texts. This emphasis is now foregrounded as an explicit concept across the Key Ideas introduced in the curriculum.
About the author: Dr Lorraine McDonald is currently Honorary Fellow, School of Education, Australian Catholic University (ACU), Sydney. Lorraine, a former classroom teacher, has taught pre- and postgraduate teachers in Literacy Education, Linguistics, ESL and Literature for Children and Young Adults. She is a regular presenter at international conferences and currently is teaching at ACU and the University of New England, NSW. When not teaching or presenting engaging and innovative workshops and addresses for PETAA, Lorraine indulges in her other love — travelling.
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