Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

African American English And Urban Literature: Creating Culturally Caring Classrooms, Erin E. Campbell, Joseph J. Nicol

#CritEdPol: Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies at Swarthmore College

Language and literacy are a means of delivering care through consideration of students’ home culture; however, a cultural mismatch between the predominantly white, female educator population and the diverse urban student population is reflected in language and literacy instruction. Urban curricula often fail to incorporate culturally relevant literature, in part due to a dearth of texts that reflect student experiences. Dialectal differences between African American English (AAE) and Mainstream American English (MAE) and a history of racism have attached a reformatory stigma to AAE and its speakers. The authors assert that language and literacy instruction that validates children’s lived ...

Probing The Promise Of Dual-Language Books, Lisa M. Domke

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Because dual-language books (DLBs) are written entirely in two languages, they have the potential to help readers develop multilingual literacy skills while acting as cultural and/or linguistic windows and mirrors. However, the ways in which publishers choose words when translating, format languages, and represent cultures have implications for readers in terms of identity, readability, and language learning. This content analysis of 69 U.S. Spanish–English dual-language picturebooks published from 2013–2016 investigated trends in DLBs’ cultural, linguistic, formatting, and readability factors. It also determined these trends’ relationships with publisher types, original publication language, and author and character ethnicity ...

Epic Adolescence: Contemporary Adolescence In Philip Pullman’S His Dark Materials, Chloe Felterman

Master's Theses

To find the truth of a societal construct or phenomena, it can help to look at the world of fiction and fantasy. Though this idea may seem ironic or counter-intuitive, one will find that fictional literature can reveal the working order of its respective society. Philip Pullman’s epic fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, uses and manipulates the traditional constructs of the genre to reflect and re-imagine the concepts of adolescence of the late-20^th and early-21^st centuries. Eleven-year-old protagonist Lyra Belacqua and subsequently her cohort, Will Perry, reveal the complications and difficulties modern American and British adolescents experience ...

The Audience Of Siblings, Genevieve Weaver

The Kabod

Literature has the unique ability to create an environment where one can address specific issues and hard questions in a comfortable way and at a relevant level. Children’s literature specifically plays a valuable role at a crucial time in the development of children and through this is privy to being used to explore the issues that most children deal with. In reference to the importance of children’s literature acting as a mirror for children, Sims Bishop stated that “literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection, we can see our own lives ...

Cultural And Narrative Shifts Of Nineteenth Century Children's Literature In Hawthorne's Wonder Book For Girls And Boys, Kristen Clark Brandt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Both folklorists and literary critics have been drawn to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s body of work because of his distinctive style and incorporation of folk motifs. Such motif-spotting presents no challenge in Hawthorne’s juvenile literature like his retellings from Greek mythology in Wonder Book for Girls and Boys; however, contemporary folklore redirects the focus of this scholarship to “how particular literary uses of folklore fit into a larger, more fundamental concept of what folklore is and how and what folklore communicates” (de Caro & Jordan 2015:15). Hawthorne’s work interacts with other forms of cultural expression in the nineteenth century ...

Book Review: Of Deeper Magic: The Theology Behind The Writings Of C.S. Lewis. By Donald T. Williams., Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

Deeper Magic: The Theology Behind the Writings of C.S. Lewis is both exciting and engaging in its exploration of Christian thought in general and Christian themes in particular, found in the fictional and nonfictional works of C.S. Lewis. This book would sit comfortably on the shelf with other first-rate Evangelical Christian interpretations of the works of individual Inklings, such as Ralph Wood’s The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth or the works of Matthew Dickerson including his Narnia and the Fields of Arbol: The Environmental Vision of C.S. Lewis. Like the authors ...

A Critical Inquiry Approach To Teaching Young Adult Literature, Steffany Comfort Maher

Dissertations

This dissertation presents a critical inquiry approach to teaching young adult literature in English language arts classrooms. Critical inquiry is derived from critical theory and critical pedagogy approaches, as well as pragmatic philosophies of inquiry. The author shows from convincing examples that a critical inquiry approach to teaching empowers students to ask meaningful questions about both what they are reading and the world they live in.

Chapter One: Methods of Teaching Young Adult Literature: Past, Present, and Future is an introduction to critical inquiry and the teaching of young adult literature. Chapter Two: Critical Inquiry in Teaching Young Adult Literature ...

Desire In The Bildungsroman: Construction And Pursuit Of An Ideal Self Through The Ideal Other, Ethan Watson

Honors Theses

The Bildungsroman, or “novel of education,” has remained popular since Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. I examine this novel, as well as Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, and Walter Moers’s Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures, focusing specifically on the relationships between the three male protagonists and the women that they encounter throughout their lives. Using the theories of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, literary critic René Girard, and feminist philosopher Judith Butler, I draw parallels between and contribute to the scholarly conversation of all three works (or in the case of Moers's recent fantasy, Rumo, begin the critical conversation). All three protagonists mirror the women that they encounter, creating visions of ideal selves that they strive to become. The characters’ progress and relationships, though different, all exemplify Lacan’s Mirror Stage theory, as well as the theories of desire in Girard and Butler; the latter two theories take Lacan’s ideas further and contribute to my comparison of characteristics in these three coming of age novels. I argue that, no matter the length of their journey or the final results of their relationships, successfully completing the Mirror Stage leads the protagonists to become their ideal selves

Treehouses: Civilizing The Wildness Of Men And Nature, Courtney Mckinney

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

In this paper, I explore how treehouses operate symbolically in tandem with culture. Through an analysis of British and American print culture, I argue that the treehouse building project became bound to boyhood at the turn of the twentieth century as the naturalist movement spread and youth organizations embraced treehouses as part of their vision for the development of boys. Parents and youth leaders intend for treehouse projects to build self-reliance, independence, imagination, and courage in their boys. Congruously, this activity associated with a child’s personal growth takes place in an actual growing organism. I analyze how treehouses juxtapose ...

The Unexpected Alliance, Chase Clark, Roman Penney, Olivia Matlock, Jacob Davis, Carter Kilpatrick

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

An Unexpected Alliance, which is set in the United States during WWII. The main character of our book is an adventurous seven-year-old girl named Betty whose father is fighting in the war. To help her father win the war, Betty sets off one day to go ‘scrapping’ for metal. Along the way, she meets an African American boy named Stanley who is also out ‘scrapping’ to help his brother who is away at war. Despite their societal differences, the unlikely duo combines their resources to not only find scrap metal to help their loved ones, they also develop a friendship ...

Sky's Limit, Cheyenne Pearson, Caleb Dockery, Kristen Elliot, Lucas Gallon, Houston Nichols

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

Sky’s Limit is about a 5-year-old biracial girl named Sky, growing up during the Civil Rights period. As she reaches the age of understanding, Sky begins to wonder why her mom cannot join her and her dad on their adventures. One day, her dad takes her to the ice cream shop and Sky realizes that no one else looks like her, nor do the other moms look like her mom. She eventually questions her dad about why her mom can never get ice cream with them. Her dad then reaches for her hand and begins to describe the racial ...

What Are Slaves?, Sarah Yarbrough, Sami Solberg

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

What Are Slaves? is about an eight-year-old, biracial boy named Danny who visits a historical antebellum era plantation with his mother. While observing the now present day museum, a picture of slave children working in a field catches Danny’s eye. Curious and having never learned about slaves, Danny inquires to his mother about what the children his age are doing. Danny’s mother gives him an explanation of what slaves are and how they ended up in their situation. Going from one photo exhibit to another, Danny asks his mother for reasons regarding the slaves’ appearance, workload, and education ...

This Is What America Looks Like, Hannah Ragan, Mae Stuart, Lauren Croteau, Tyler Clemons

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

This is What America Looks Like. The name, inspired by the protest chant currently used to support to reinstatement of DACA, is intended to signify an embrace of the diversity of modern day America. After Nicholas makes a snide remark telling Eleanor, a Guatemalan immigrant , to go back to her own country, Mrs. Baker 's 3rd grade class is tasked with exploring their families' immigration history and journey to America. The story centers around a group of four students: Nicholas, a descendant of Eastern European immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island over a century ago; Grace, who came from Chinese ...

Mrs. Venus's Class Exploring Jim Crow, Kiana Reece, Sara Leach, Emily Duggan, Zoe Boals, Tucker Mcclendon

United States Race and Childhood Fiction

Mrs. Venus’s Class Exploring Jim Crow. This story revolves around a classroom on a different planet full of alien children who are learning about American history, specifically the Jim Crow era. The teacher and the students discuss the injustices and oppression experienced by African Americans and other non-white citizens. The next day, American student Jimmy Turner joins them, and he is faced with animosity by some of the alien children in the class. The alien teacher points to the similarities in the children’s prejudice against the human and the prejudice that was prominent during the Jim Crow era.

“The Childish, The Transformative, And The Queer”: Queer Interventions As Praxis In Children’S Cartoons, Heather Wright

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud considers “the simplified reality of the cartoon,” establishing a definition and theory for the medium (30). McCloud believes that cartoons possess “a special power” that is tied to their unique ability to “focus our attention on an idea” (31). Put simply, there is something about cartoons that allows for an easy exchange of concepts. Cartoons can teach. Using cartoons, a general term, to refer to both comics and animation, this thesis examines the transformative power of queer world building and intervention in recent children’s cartoons and how it functions, and can ...

Unfound, Samuel C. Kessler

Sierpinski’s Square

"Look on past the horizon and there; rest your eyes then. But alas, this place you cannot see, but you feel it from your core, tis what you seek, surely there; indeed, yes, that is where it rests; but "it" is not, and "where" is never near nor far, for you forget in onlook as you seek, the thing that lies beneath Your feet A dwelling place Of peace unfound."

Encouraging A "Kaleidoscope Of Views": Graphic Literature As A Tool For Informative Text Comprehension In The Secondary English Classroom, Chelsea Ellen Bergmann

Graduate Theses

Over the past decade, graphic literature has fueled the conversations of theory and criticism among scholars and educators alike. With the critical need to teach informative texts and college-ready skills in secondary schools, the debate arises on how these mediums can be further used to extend the capabilities of young readers in a 21st century global community. Thus far, the scholarship on graphic literature in the secondary English classroom proves to be helpful in certain areas, while revealing a gap in others. Missing wholly are discussions about targeted reading comprehension skills particularly related to informative texts and their writer’s ...

Connected Spirits: Adolescent Females And Animal Agents, Elizabeth A. Parrish

English Department Theses

The novels The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers and The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies create a unique opportunity to investigate human and animal relationships given the similarity of their time frames and main characters. Both novels feature adolescent females struggling to resolve their identities against the backdrop of WWII. Frankie Addams in The Member of the Wedding and Esther Evans in The Welsh Girl share the additional characteristics of deceased mothers, distant fathers, and contacts with animals. Because these books are bildungsromans, they permit a comparative analysis as separate experiments in feminine growth with attention to ...

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Exploring New Frontiers In Children's Literature, Matthew Vondersaar, Kylee Dodson, Byanka Ramos, Mariah Hightower

Collin College Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference

Panel Chair: Sean Ferrier-Watson, Collin College

Our panel will explore various issued related to children’s literature, but will specifically focus on the way old and new children’s literature are being adapted into cinematic and digital productions. We will also explore the way fairy tales are used to incorporate a wide array of social issues into child culture. The panelists have each prepared papers that explore the issues touching on new frontiers in children’s literature, ranging from classic fairy tales to contemporary comic books.