About Literature Lines

A Timeline of Literature is only the beginning of a vital literature experience for your students. Providing the broadest possible structure for the study of literature, teachers will find this timeline and card material useful throughout the child’s elementary experience, both EI and EII.

Thirteen traditional forms and five genres occur on the timeline chronologically, as they developed within culture and history. But the presentation sequence is up to the teacher, student interest, and student need.

For example, many traditional forms, such as nursery rhymes and cumulative tales, lend themselves to work with early readers. Literary culture evolves from simple to complex, just as children do, and there’s a natural progression within these forms that matches the developmental stages of the growing child. Internal readiness will guide a child’s attraction to different forms at different times.