Interpreting young people's self-expression through characters and relationships in collaborative creative writing

White Water Writers is an intervention that offers school pupils the opportunity to collaboratively write a novel in a week. The current study uses thematic analysis to interpret the voices of young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities through the characters and relationships created in this fictional writing. The main themes derived from the data were: heroism and villainy, associated with characteristics such as responsibility and control; fictional powers, linking to personal agency; social relations, including positive relationships with peers and authority figures; and anthropomorphism, for exploring new emotions and interactions between humans and animals. This suggests that creative writing may be a useful lens through which to explore young people's views of their lived experiences.     

“Ah,I know why…”: children developing understandings through engaging with a picture book

This article describes part of a study that explored the responses of nine‐ and ten‐year‐old children during a picturebook read aloud in a small group setting in a New Zealand classroom. The read aloud was interactive, where the participants were encouraged to respond to the book and to each other throughout the session. The authors created a framework for analysing the responses, adapting the model of Lawrence Sipe (2008) with its five categories of literary understanding, by expanding on the analytical category to enable a finer analysis of the responses. This article discusses the children's depth of thinking and the understandings they developed as they engaged with the read aloud. It also describes how the adapted framework allowed a closer analysis of these understandings, including the way the elements of art used in the illustrations contributed to the children's ideas. The findings suggest ways picturebooks can be used to promote children's thinking and how teachers can guide discussion about a complex text. Implications for use of the framework in further research are discussed.     

“OUR SHARED VALUES” IN SINGAPORE: A CONFUCIAN PERSPECTIVE

In this essay Charlene Tan offers a philosophical analysis of the Singapore state's vision of shared citizenship by examining it from a Confucian perspective. The state's vision, known formally as “Our Shared Values,” consists of communitarian values that reflect the official ideology of multiculturalism. This initiative included a White Paper, entitled Shared Values, which presented pejorative assessments of the ideals of “individual rights” and “individual interests” as antithetical to national interests. Rejecting this characterization, Tan argues that a dominant Confucian perspective recognizes the correlative rights of all human beings that are premised on the inherent right to human dignity, worth, and equality. Furthermore, Confucianism posits that it is in everyone's interest to attain the Confucian ethical ideal of becoming a noble person in society through self‐cultivation. Tan concludes by highlighting two key implications for Singapore from a Confucian perspective on the Shared Values: first, schools in Singapore should place greater emphasis on individual moral development of their students, and second, more avenues should be provided for residents to contribute actively to the development of the vision of shared citizenship.     

Hanif Kureishi's My ear at his heart: ‘when a writer is born a family dies’

This article explores the ambiguities, ironies and ethical dilemmas of using real people in fiction and the relation between memoir and fiction. After looking at how this debate has surfaced as a theme in Hanif Kureishi's fictional works, the author examines his memoir, My ear at his heart: reading my father, and concludes that Kureishi's memoir provides an important perspective on his earlier work and constitutes a valuable addition to the literature of family life, identity and migration.     

《德西蕾的孩子》:宗教外衣下的种族政治

肖邦在《德西蕾的孩子》中借用圣经中上帝与撒旦冲突的神话原型人物形象,将美国南方白人与黑人分为宗教意义上的两大敌对阵营,传达出她宗教外衣下的褒奖白人、贬低黑人的种族主义立场,可以说该短篇小说是一部彻头彻尾的为奴隶制辩护的种族主义作品。     

White children's empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior toward White and Black children

Relations among White (non-Latinx) children's empathy-related responding, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes toward White and Black peers were examined. In 2017, 190 (54% boys) White 5- to 9-year-old children (M = 7.09 years, SD = 0.94) watched a series of videos that depicted social rejection of either a White or Black child. Empathy-related responses, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes were measured using multiple methods. Results showed that younger children showed less facial concern toward Black than White peers and greater increases with age in concern and prosocial behaviors (sharing a desirable prize) for Black, compared to White, targets. Children's facial anger increased with age for White but not Black targets. The findings can extend our understanding children's anti-racism development.     

“Everything Comes from Seeing Things”: Narrative and Illustrative Play in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Black and White</Emphasis>

In 1991, David Macaulay was awarded the Randolph Caldecott Medal for his picturebook, Black and White (1990). He believed the Caldecott committee’s choice communicated many messages to readers of all ages: “that it is essential to see, not merely to look; that words and pictures can support each other; that it isn’t necessary to think in a straight line to make sense; and finally that risk can be rewarded” (p. 419). This article focuses on how Macaulay uses play to engage readers—to arouse their curiosity, to make them think, and to incite them to ‘see things’ in Black and White. Excerpts from Grade 5 students’ written responses illustrate some of their responses to and interpretations of various kinds of narrative and illustrative play in Black and White.     

The “Batman Effect”: Improving Perseverance in Young Children

This study investigated the benefits of self‐distancing (i.e., taking an outsider's view of one's own situation) on young children's perseverance. Four‐ and 6‐year‐old children (N = 180) were asked to complete a repetitive task for 10 min while having the option to take breaks by playing an extremely attractive video game. Six‐year‐olds persevered longer than 4‐year‐olds. Nonetheless, across both ages, children who impersonated an exemplar other—in this case a character, such as Batman—spent the most time working, followed by children who took a third‐person perspective on the self, or finally, a first‐person perspective. Alternative explanations, implications, and future research directions are discussed.     

“Unless Someone Like You” Buys a Ticket to this Movie: Dual Audience and Aetonormativity in Picturebook to Film Adaptations

As critical study of adapted texts moves away from a focus on fidelity to explore questions of adaptive practice, picturebook to film adaptation offers unique opportunities to redirect discourse related to the value of adaptive changes. Because feature-length films made from children’s picturebooks require filmmakers to add substantial content, they open discussion of how adaptive changes engage key ideas related to children’s literature more broadly, including dual audience, didacticism, and aetonormativity. This essay explores how these concepts transform in picturebook to movie adaptation, drawing on two family films made from iconic picturebook source texts—Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax (1971) and Chris Van Allsburg’s Jumanji (1981)—to posit that added content foregrounds adult presence within the story and participation in viewership far more than in the films’ picturebook counterparts, positioning adults as learners while at the same time reinforcing adult/child hierarchies.     

Harry Potter and “the landscape of consciousness”: repeat home viewers’ understandings about character

Many children view favourite feature films repeatedly at home and develop understandings of them. This article discusses findings from a study which focused on the understandings that 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children showed about character in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. These findings are reported in terms of a framework appropriate for responses to character in literature or in film. The children's home‐based engagement with characters provides evidence for teachers who are planning to extend understandings about character in their classrooms. The article shows that children's interpretative and structural engagement can build significant understandings and informed appreciation which are similar to those that teachers aim for.     

Do Children See in Black and White? Children's and Adults' Categorizations of Multiracial Individuals

Categorizations of multiracial individuals provide insight into the development of racial concepts. Children's (4–13 years) and adults', both White (Study 1) and Black (Study 2; N = 387), categorizations of multiracial individuals were examined. White children (unlike Black children) more often categorized multiracial individuals as Black than as White in the absence of parentage information. White and Black adults (unlike children) more often categorized multiracial individuals as Black than as White, even when knowing the individuals' parentage. Children's rates of in‐group contact predicted their categorizations. These data suggest that a tendency to categorize multiracial individuals as Black relative to White emerges early in development and results from perceptual biases in White children but ideological motives in White and Black adults.     

Reducing Children's Implicit Racial Bias Through Exposure to Positive Out‐Group Exemplars

Studies with adults suggest that implicit preferences favoring White versus Black individuals can be reduced through exposure to positive Black exemplars. However, it remains unclear whether developmental differences exist in the capacity for these biases to be changed. This study included 369 children and examined whether their implicit racial bias would be reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars. Results showed that children's implicit pro‐White bias was reduced following exposure to positive Black exemplars, but only for older children (M_age = ~10 years). Younger children's (M_age = ~7 years) implicit bias was not affected by this intervention. These results suggest developmental differences in the malleability of implicit racial biases and point to possible age differences in intervention effectiveness.     

White children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black peers: The role of children's effortful control and parents' implicit racial attitudes

White children's effortful control (EC), parents' implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction were examined as predictors of children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black recipients. Data were collected from 171 White children (55% male, M_age = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) and their parent in 2017. Prosocial behavior toward White peers was predicted by children's higher EC. When predicting prosocial behavior toward Black peers and prosocial disparity (the difference between White and Black recipients), parents' implicit racial attitudes moderated the relation between children's EC and children's prosocial behavior. Specifically, children's EC was positively associated with prosocial behavior toward Black peers (and negatively related to inequity in prosocial behavior) only when parents exhibited less implicit racial bias.     

纪实是小说叙事的本质属性--中西小说叙事诗学论

本文认为纪实才是小说叙事的本质属性之一。文章吸取了新历史主义理论的精华,一方面解构了所谓的历史真实,传统的历史叙事都是文章所说的一切叙事皆是纪实的纪实范畴,把司马迁的史记与西方的历史都划入了纪实;一方面文章恢复了小说真实的本义,将普遍定论的小说就是虚构的伪命题,进行了重新阐释与建构,恢复了小说叙事的纪实的本质属性。换句话说,文章提出纪实是小说的本质属性的论点,就是对现代小说理论界存在的"扬虚构贬真实的隐行偏爱"之理念进行纠正。     

Pirates and poachers: Fan fiction and the conventions of reading and writing

This article explores what teachers and students can learn about contemporary story‐telling from a study of fan fiction – that is, stories created by readers and viewers out of the canonical material of previously published fictions. Drawing on the example of Pirates of the Caribbean, it investigates ways in which fan fiction writers develop codes and conventions to govern themselves. For example, online litmus tests establish when a writer is self‐indulgently writing ‘Mary Sue’ characters into a story; the self‐styled Protectors of the Plot Continuum patrol the fictional limits of an imagined world to make sure that canonical information is not violated by fan fiction writers. This article makes use of such examples to investigate how quality control in fan fiction is codified, and to explore what teachers can learn from such enterprises about contemporary writing, reading and viewing. It compares these possibilities with issues of online literacy outlined by Henry Jenkins under three headings: the participation gap, the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge.     

When Power is the Limit: The Image of the Professor in Selected Fiction

The professor has appeared as a fictional character since the middle ages, and several professorial images may be found in academic fiction. An analysis of fictional images reveals that authors most often depict professors who have no ambitions to gain power, whether economic, personal, political, or philosophical, as estimable characters; but authors condemn professor characters who attempt to exert power in order to gain money, relationships, position, or knowledge.     

The Experiences of Black Master's Counseling Students: A Phenomenological Inquiry

This phenomenological study investigated the experiences of 8 Black students enrolled in a master's‐level counseling program. Five themes central to participant experiences were identified: (a) isolation as a Black student, (b) tokenization as a Black student, (c) lack of inclusion of Black counselor perspectives within course work, (d) differences between support received by faculty of color and support received by White faculty, and (e) access to support from people of color and White peers. Implications for counselor educators and study limitations are discussed.     

虚构与叙述方式--兼谈历史编纂与叙事文学在叙述方式上的分野

作为叙事文学范畴的“虚构”,可进一步区分为题材意义上的虚构和叙述方式意义上的虚构。在“非虚构文学”(传记文学、报告文学、新新闻小说等)这一看似矛盾的概念中(因为自亚里士多德以来的本质论诗学中,判定叙事文学的文学性的根本性的标准无疑是虚构性),其“非虚构”当是就题材上说的,其“文学”(虚构性)则是就叙述方式上说的。由于它在叙述方式上,主要采用的是显示、场景叙述,故其虚构性是不可避免的。过去有关这类文体是否容许适当虚构或其虚构性的限度如何把握之类问题的讨论,由于未区分题材学上的虚构和叙述学上的虚构,致使其讨诊在文体理论的建设上收效甚微。