After reading about literary theory I learned tons of things that I never really realized. Overall I came out thinking about how great it is that so many different types of literature can be used to teach children. A lot of people are very traditional and think that it is best to just have children read stories or textbooks and learn from them. But with all of our technological advances children can do a lot more and typically like to be more involved and engaged in what they are doing/ learning about.
There are several different ways to learn about the same thing. For example we were given the example in our reading about Shakespeare and how his work was related and compared to other more modern pieces of work. When children were told about these other resources they typically learned a lot more because they found it interesting and something that they could relate to and understand better.
Literature is broken down into several different categories such as popular culture, feminism, biographical, historical and several others. Each of these categories was developed and used most frequently in the time period that was needed. For example the feminism category was mostly used during the time period when women were fighting for equal rights. Over the time it was used less and less, but it is still used as a method of writing today. By having all these different types of literature it helps the students engage and participate in a way that is beneficial to their learning.