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Full-Text Articles in Education

Playing Through Tragedy: A Critical Approach To Welcoming Children’S Social Worlds And Play As Pedagogy, Cassie Brownell Apr 2021

Playing Through Tragedy: A Critical Approach To Welcoming Children’S Social Worlds And Play As Pedagogy, Cassie Brownell

Occasional Paper Series

Children’s play frequently reflects the ways they understand and cope with personal life experiences and those in the wider world. Drawing connections to many of the tenants of Jonathan Silin’s lifelong work, the author offers illustrative examples of why play and children's social worlds matter as well as why adults should pay attention to what children do and say in their play. Through personal stories, the author shows how integrating play(full) experiences into the daily life of a classroom can foster children's understanding of seemingly "difficult" or "adult" ideas and events that may be confusing, fear-inducing or represent significant loss. …


If I Knew Then What I Do Now: Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Capacity To Promote Expansive And Critical Conversations With Children’S Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley Nov 2020

If I Knew Then What I Do Now: Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Capacity To Promote Expansive And Critical Conversations With Children’S Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, I reflect on my practices as a teacher educator and respond to the following questions: How do I foster the capacity of pre-service teachers to use children’s literature to promote expansive and critical conversations in the classroom? How do pre-service teachers report their stances and sense of preparedness when reflecting on the course? To address these questions, I share two strategies I employed in my undergraduate course for elementary education majors: 1) emphasizing children's literature as windows and mirrors and 2) considering stakeholder responses. For each strategy, I include preservice teachers’ (PTs’) statements that reflect how the …


Shattering, Healing And Dreaming: Lessons From Middle-Grade Literacies And Lives, Carla España Nov 2020

Shattering, Healing And Dreaming: Lessons From Middle-Grade Literacies And Lives, Carla España

Occasional Paper Series

In the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to read the words of Renée Watson, Jewell Parker-Rhodes, Jacqueline Woodson and Nikki Grimes alongside seventh and eighth graders. Our conversations were grounded in the students’ lives and in stories and poems crafted by Black women. I had the responsibility and honor to select the texts, develop the curriculum and co-create a space with students. The authors’ words helped students process not only the authors’ craft but also how students navigated issues from microaggressions to tensions in friendships, from the oppression experienced at the intersections of their identities to the role …


Focus On Friendship Or Fights For Civil Rights? Teaching The Difficult History Of Japanese American Incarceration Through The Bracelet, Noreen N. Rodríguez Nov 2020

Focus On Friendship Or Fights For Civil Rights? Teaching The Difficult History Of Japanese American Incarceration Through The Bracelet, Noreen N. Rodríguez

Occasional Paper Series

Japanese American incarceration is one of few Asian American historical topics addressed in P-12 curriculum. A dearth of children’s literature is available about Japanese American incarceration, yet given young learners’ limited exposure to World War II historical narratives, simply reading a picturebook about the topic does not ensure that students and teachers will address the injustices involved in the event. This study contrasts the distinct pedagogical approaches taken up by two Texas elementary educators who read aloud Yoshiko Uchida’s The Bracelet, a picturebook that details a young Japanese American girl’s forced removal from her home.


We Are All Learning About Climate Change: Teaching With Picture Books To Engage Teachers And Students, Ysaaca D. Axelrod, Denise Ives, Rachel Weaver Nov 2020

We Are All Learning About Climate Change: Teaching With Picture Books To Engage Teachers And Students, Ysaaca D. Axelrod, Denise Ives, Rachel Weaver

Occasional Paper Series

The topic of climate change and climate justice is politically charged, doesn’t sit neatly within a single subject or content area, and raises concerns of not being ‘age appropriate’ for young children. In this paper we describe how teacher educators in an elementary education program support a student teacher who took up the topic of climate change and climate justice in her 1st grade teaching placement. She designed a unit around a picture book that focuses on the words and work of Greta Thunberg, and used a diverse set of texts to support students’ understanding of the complexity of climate …


Choosing Advocacy Apr 2019

Choosing Advocacy

Occasional Paper Series

Two articles comprise this publication. In "Beyond the Story-Book Ending: Literature for Young Children About Parental Estrangement and Loss," Megan Matt analyzes over 30 books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce, and foster care. She observes that this loss might appear as an event within the story or as a fear articulated by a young child. She states that, as an educator, she hopes that she can make the children realize that their own stories are "real" and legitimate, no matter what messages they might encounter or fail to encounter in the media. In "Walking the …


Toward A More Loving Framework For Literacy Education Apr 2019

Toward A More Loving Framework For Literacy Education

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.


Building Bridges Between Home And School For Latinx Families Of Preschool Children, Gigliana Melzi, Adina Schick, Lauren Scarola Jun 2018

Building Bridges Between Home And School For Latinx Families Of Preschool Children, Gigliana Melzi, Adina Schick, Lauren Scarola

Occasional Paper Series

All children, regardless of their backgrounds, enter the classroom environment with a set of cultural and communal resources known as funds of knowledge (González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992). Educators can support children’s learning and achievement by incorporating these funds of knowledge – which include, for example, cultural and familial values and traditions, family activities, and home language – into classroom learning experiences. All too often, however, educators fail to take advantage of these resources, and instead draw on mainstream values, traditions, and practices that have historically been embedded into classroom culture and protocol. Even …


Building Safe Community Spaces For Immigrant Families, One Library At A Time, Max Vazquez Dominguez, Denise Davila, Silvia Nogueron-Liu Jun 2018

Building Safe Community Spaces For Immigrant Families, One Library At A Time, Max Vazquez Dominguez, Denise Davila, Silvia Nogueron-Liu

Occasional Paper Series

In today’s political climate, supporting the needs of young children from Latinx immigrant families has become increasingly difficult at the community, institutional, state, and federal levels. This essay is about a group of Latinx families who participated in an innovative early literacy program at a county public library branch in the migration setting of the U.S. Southeast known as the New Latino Diaspora (Hamann, Wortham, Murillo, 2015). We describe the program and its role in building a safe and welcoming environment for Latinx students and their families. We include the voices of the librarian and parents who had never before …


Intersectionality And Possibility In The Lives Of Latina/O/X Children Of Immigrants: Imagining Pedagogies Beyond The Politics Of Hate, Ramon Antonio Martinez Jun 2018

Intersectionality And Possibility In The Lives Of Latina/O/X Children Of Immigrants: Imagining Pedagogies Beyond The Politics Of Hate, Ramon Antonio Martinez

Occasional Paper Series

I first met Alma1 when she was five years old and a kindergarten student in a multi-age Spanish-English dual language classroom in southern California. Alma is the child of immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Somewhat shy and soft spoken, she nonetheless had many friends and seemed eager to engage with her peers in class. In interviews with me over the first few years of a longitudinal study that I was conducting at her school, she spent a great deal of time sharing the details of her rich literate life. Among other things, Alma loved poetry. In addition …


Changing The Shape Of The Landscape: Sexual Diversity Frameworks And The Promise Of Queer Literacy Pedagogy In The Elementary Classroom, Cammie Kim Lin May 2017

Changing The Shape Of The Landscape: Sexual Diversity Frameworks And The Promise Of Queer Literacy Pedagogy In The Elementary Classroom, Cammie Kim Lin

Occasional Paper Series

Analyzing LGBTQ-inclusive children’s literature and teaching practices in the elementary classroom, the author outlines a vision for a queer literacy pedagogy. The article begins with a description of four different sexual diversity frameworks: homophobia/heterosexism, tolerance/visibility, social justice, and queer. It includes an exploration of children’s literature and teaching practices that exemplify each framework, making explicit the connections between theory and practice. It then expands on the theories, principles, and practices composing queer literacy pedagogy. The article will be of particular interest to teacher educators and elementary classroom teachers, though the frameworks are equally applicable to all levels and settings.


Learning A Tough Lesson: My Life As A Nyc Teaching Fellow, Allen Ellenzweig Feb 2017

Learning A Tough Lesson: My Life As A Nyc Teaching Fellow, Allen Ellenzweig

Occasional Paper Series

First person account of a new teacher who came through the New York City Teaching Fellows Program only to resign from teaching 8 weeks into the school year.