The past 12 months have been incredibly liberating in terms of my reading material. From Dec 2015 to Dec 2021, I read nothing but books I could recommend to my students. Since leaving the school library/classroom and moving into the world of academia, I decided to read only that which got me super excited. Don’t…
Category: Bookish Things
PhD Research Confirmed
I am so very pleased to announce that I have been officially confirmed as a PhD candidate in the School of Information and Communication Studies at Charles Sturt University. In this blog post, I will share my research project plans, questions, and hopes. Firstly, some logistical information. My research project is called: Factors affecting the…
Defining digital literature
I am currently the subject coordinator of ETL533 Literature in Digital Environments, an elective subject for the Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship), Master of Information Studies, and Graduate Certificate of Information Studies courses. We are exploring different aspects of digital literature and in our meeting last night, we started to consider the question of “what…
Aesthetic and Efferent Reading
During my reading for my PhD, I discovered a concept from the 1970s and 1980s that divides all reading into two categories: Aesthetic reading and efferent reading. This concept was put forth by Louise Rosenblatt (1904 – 2005) and has since been supported by the work of many researchers, including Beumer Johnson (2011), Krashen (2020),…
Reviews of Rainbow Reads
I’ve been reading a bit of LGBTQIA+ fiction lately and thought I’d do some quick reviews! Clearly I’ve been reading lots of MLM (man loves man) fiction and need to discover some other reads – suggestions welcome in the comments please! Young Adult Fiction Heartstopper is an oldy but a goody and is widely acknowledged…
Three power pieces for your reading advocacy playbook
There is a wealth of information out there on the motivation to read for pleasure, and a lot of it focussed on children and young people. I thought I’d write a quick blog with three great research power pieces that you can use to beef up your argument for including reading time in your school…
The magic of Harry Potter
As a teacher librarian I regularly come across the phrases “I hate reading” and “I’m not a reader” in my day-to-day work. I am never angered by these comments, nor am I surprised, but rather I like the challenge that this possesses. For many students it’s often about simply finding the right book, but more…
Diversity matters
For a long time I have been tossing up whether or not to write about the importance of reading diverse stories. I’m taking the leap because this is something that I am very passionate about and I think needs discussing. I will contain my focus for this post specifically on books and stories. Without getting…
Developing a reading habit
During my research for my thesis, I spent a lot of time reading about the importance of reading (how meta is that…) and I discovered some very interesting things. I thought I’d share some of the most interesting tidbits of information that I discovered here. I also shared a video on my YouTube channel with…
Click’d – Stone
We recently purchased “Click’d” by Tamara Ireland Stone for the iCentre at Mount Alvernia College, and it has sat in my #tbr (to be read) pile since then. I finally got around to reading it this past week and I really enjoyed it. Synopsis: Allie loves to code. She attended CodeGirls Summer Camp over the…
Adventures of the Lifting Librarian 