International Speaker Series: 2
Information Literacy in Reading Fiction
Presented by Dr Mary Ann Harlan
This is the second in a series of four online professional learning events featuring international guest speakers exploring a range of topical issues relevant to teacher librarians and teachers in 2020.
Each session is being held on a Saturday morning from 9-11am, with each 2 hour session consisting of a one hour presentation with Q&A followed by one hour of practical workshop-style activities.
Each session is NESA accredited to assist our members in gaining their NESA accredited PL hours for this year. Completing this second session will provide you with a total of 2 hours of NESA accredited PL.
Each 2 hour session will take place in SLANSW's Zoom conference room.
Those who register for this event will receive an email within 24 hours before the event with details to access this online session.
A maximum of 100 places are available for each session, so get your registrations in ASAP.
If you wish to register for all 4 sessions to receive an extra members' discount,
please go the ISS Professional Learning Package on the Events page
on SLANSW's website to register for all 4 session as a package
(do not register for each individual event as you will not get the extra discount).
Description of session
Why do we read fiction? Do we read to learn about our selves? To learn about others? To learn about our world? To escape into another world?
Answers to these questions are all – yes. We engage in stories in all forms and through story we learn about ourselves, we learn about other’s experiences, we learn about worlds we both know and can only imagine. As readers these experiences seem obvious, for many of our students the answer is not so clear. Often reading fiction is seen as ‘school work’, and the power of story to provide us with information is not a connection that is clearly made.
This session will explore why this might be and how to challenge assumptions regarding information, how to engage with reading a story as a site of learning not of facts per se but of one’s self and our world. It will explore the embodied experience of reading, valuing emotional and affective actions as information.
Outcomes for attendees
After attending, participants will:
- Understand the different implications of the framing of information for students;
- Recognise how information is encountered and recognised while reading fiction;
- Have a developing understanding of an embodied reading experience; and
- Begin to develop a plan for sharing how to read fiction for information.
About Mary Ann
Dr Mary Ann Harlan is the Teacher Librarian Coordinator and an Assistant Professor at the School of Information at San Jose State University, California. She completed her PhD in 2012 in the San Jose State/QUT Gateway Program after completing research on the information practices of teens who create and share content online.
Since then she has been researching how fiction provides information to teens – including representations of girlhood in YA fiction, and the information practices of teens reading fiction. Prior to entering the PhD program, she was a middle and high school (ages 12-18) school librarian.
She has been an active presenter and writer around similar topics since 2000. Her most recent title is an examination of feminist Young Adult titles: The Girl-Positive Library: Inspiring Confidence, Creativity, and Curiosity in Young Women.
School Library Association of NSW through the Professional Teachers’ Council NSW is endorsed to provide the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Registered Professional Development for teachers accredited at Proficient, Highly Accomplished, and Lead levels.
Completing the Information Literacy in Reading Fiction on 25/07/2020 will contribute 2 hours online of NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) Registered PD addressing 2.5.2 and 6.2.2 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.