Digital Commons Network^™

Communication Of Mental Health Diversity To The Early Childhood Age Group: “The Adventures Of Anxious Anderson, Distracted Daniel, And Organized Olive”, Jessica Gower

Honors Projects

In this project, I aim to explore various aspects of communication, cognitive ability, and mental health diversity in early child development. The three research questions guiding this project are: What cognitive and language abilities do children in the early childhood stage of development have? What are the most effective strategies for communicating information about mental health disorders to children ages 4 to 7 through storytelling? And lastly, how do anxiety, attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) manifest, particularly in children? The storybook's purpose is to create a sense of empathy and understanding of mental health diversity in children …

Balancing On The Edges: The Phenomenological Children Of Children's Literature, Zoe Stone

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature and The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A Ruff Day On The Road: How Relocation Affects Children Pre-K Through Third Grade And How A Picture Book Can Help, Bryant Miller

Honors Projects

Moving their home from across town, a couple of states away, or overseas is something most will experience at least once in their lifetime. For all, moving is a big change, but for children, it can have lasting effects. Presumably, social skills, academic development, and family dynamics are all impacted when children move. But how and to what length are these factors influenced? This led to the original research question, how does relocation affect children and how can this transition during relocation be eased? After the first portion of the research was done to answer these questions, the research then …

Afterlife: Exploring And Accepting Ideas Through Children's Literature, Kiley Vandevelde

Honors Projects

This project is a written and illustrated book for children to assist with the grieving process by exploring different cultural representations of the afterlife. Death is an inescapable part of the human condition. Belief in an afterlife can help children retain a connection to the deceased and can be a useful tool for healing. While very young children (age four to five) inherently believe in existence after death, this decreases after the age of ten. This book targets children aged seven to ten and explains the benefit to believing in an afterlife. It explores different ideas surrounding the afterlife and …

Minor Subjects: Power And Inequity In Children's And Adolescent Literature, Wesley Jacques

Theses and Dissertations

In this project, I examine theoretical parameters of what has historically been considered American children’s and adolescent literature to further complicate its subject matter. The importance of reconsidering subjects is upheld here as key to challenging longstanding cultural and political inequities in the reading and teaching of literature broadly. Nonetheless, as this project contends, children’s and adolescent literature as a discipline is uniquely positioned to examine political power and challenge major power structures, not in spite of its presumed minor position in academic and literary discourse, but largely because of it. Thus, what follows is an inquiry into contemporary theories …

Infancias Imaginadas: Creciendo En España En El Siglo Xx Con Elena Fortún Y Miguel Delibes, Maria Del Carmen Toro Gonzalez-Green

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From the 1920s to the 1990s, a large number of works featuring children as main characters were produced and published in Spain. Children live in constant confrontation between what they are and what is expected of them: because of this, in a new literary paradigm, childhood became a symbol for the confrontations, tensions, and contradictions that characterize 20th century Spain. Also, the preponderant temporal dimension for these children characters is the present, which is a significant choice in a historical period in constant tension between letting go of the past and clinging to it. This project explores how different imagined …

Finding Nemo, Findng Dory, Finding Ourselves: How And Why We Teach Our Children To Think About Disability, Stacie Klinowski

English

My project, a critical thesis titled “Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Finding Ourselves: How and Why We Teach Our Children to Think About Disability,” investigates how representations of disability within children’s media transcend these texts and contribute to our society’s construction of disabled subjects. By first looking at historical traits of children’s literature in Grimm's Fairy Tales and The Trumpet of the Swan, I establish that the didactic function of this genre reproduces the values of the cultures in which they are written while it also attempts to instill social ideals that will guarantee 'progress.' Representations of disability in these texts …

A Steady Journey - Critical And Self-Analysis, Ashley Gonzalez

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Analysis of the composition of A Steady Journey, a young adult fantasy novel featuring a disabled protagonist by Ashley Gonzalez.

Girls’ Voices Of The Eighteenth Century: The Development Of A Genre For Young Female Readers, 1740-1800, Sarah Rangaratnam

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Just as they do today, adolescent girls functioned as a cultural force in the eighteenth century, and it was commercially viable for authors and publishers to attract and sustain the attention of these teenaged readers. Girls’ Voices of the Eighteenth Century: The Development of a Genre for Young Female Readers, 1740-1800, examines how four female authors leveraged elements of fairy tales, romances and gothic fiction, and developed dialogue and humour in their texts, to reflect the interests and literary awareness of their target audience of adolescent girls. My study begins with an investigation of the legacy of early French fairy …

King Arthur And The Historical Myth Of England : A Child’S Guide To Nationalism And Identity In The Victorian Era., Natalie Clare Smith

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Limitation, Subversion, And Agency: Gendered Spaces In The Works Of Margaret Mahy, Cynthia Voigt, And Dia Na Wynne Jones, Elizabeth Ann Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that adolescent literature featuring female protagonists often illustrates complicated relationships between gender and space. My contention is that because of their gender, these protagonists are uniquely constrained to the home, which creates a literary pattern that has serious ideological implications. While I argue that the dominant discourse of these novels implies that girls should adhere to specific cultural norms, some of these works, however, provide room for subversion and agency, including new ways of looking at patriarchal constructions. To demonstrate these issues at work, I use the novels of three female authors from three different …

Fish From Deep Water, Monica R. Burchfield

English Theses

These poems are lyrical narratives dealing primarily with the joys and sufferings of familial relationships in present and past generations, and how one is influenced and haunted by these interactions. There is a particular emphasis placed on the relationship between parent and child. Other poems deal with passion, both in the tangible and spiritual realms. The poems aim to use vivid figurative language to explore complex and sometimes distressing situations and emotions.

Determining Quality Through Audience, Genre, And The Rhetorical Canon: Imagining A Biography Of Eudora Welty For Children, Cindy Sheffield Michaels

English Theses

While numerous studies on academic writers composing for non-academic audiences exist, few if any studies address academic writers composing biographies for children. This self-reflective case study of a Eudora Welty biography for children provides insight into how an academic writer can effectively write in a specific genre (biography) for a specific audience (children) and into practical rhetorical choices such as choosing photographs and designing page layouts. The study also offers triangulated data regarding essential criteria of quality children’s literature as identified by experts in the field (editors, publishers, award committee members, scholars, and authors). The author’s findings include sixty-eight of …

Ailing Hearts, Go Home: Ethnographic Storytelling And The Levels Of Experience, Bryan D. Tilt

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

I visited Primary Children's Medical Center on a fresh snow morning near the beginning of last winter. The hospital was not where it had been in my childhood, a quiet neighborhood in "the avenues" section of Salt Lake City; several years ago the hospital moved to a new location farther east on the Wasatch Mountain foothills, near the University of Utah Medical Center. The old brick building now sits sedate and empty at the top of a shaded hill. My memory of the old hospital is as a bright and oppressive place, full of the stuff of life and death. …

Death In Children's Literature, Joyce Ann Kaufman

Honors Theses

Mr. Wordsworth posed an interesting question. What should a child know about death?

Often we try to protect children from death. Euphemisms are used regarding death. People and pets do not die, they "pass away," "go to sleep," or "go to live in heaven." When a death occurs in a family, the adults often say of a young child, "It doesn't seem to bother him. Maybe he doesn't realize what has happened." Other people may mention that "He has accepted it so well. Children adapt so easily."

Wrlting And Illustrating Childrens' Literature, Mark Richard Serdjenian

Senior Scholar Papers

Miss Murphy's fifth grade students at Pleasant Street School enjoyed working on science projects which dealt with their favorite animals. It was suggested that the students bring in live animals, but after checking with the principal’s office Miss Murphy explained that th.1s was against the rules. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. except that the teacher announced that she would not be in school the next day. After school, the students plotted to sneak in their pets the next day and trick the substitute teacher. Everything went smoothly, and each child told the class about his pet. The animals …