Empire and Children’s Literature: Changing Patterns of Cross-Cultural Perspective

Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Foreign Children,” Rudyard Kipling’s poem “We and They,” and Frances Temple’s youth novel The Beduins’ Gazelle are the texts submitted to detailed analysis in this article, which examines cross-cultural perspectives in relation to imperial and post-imperial social contexts. Stevenson is shown to portray the basic structure of an imperial cross-cultural perspective, which Kipling problematizes and calls into question. Analysis of Temple reveals her awareness of the problems and limitations that inhere in an imperial perspective and shows that her work presents innovative, contemporary approaches to the representation of cross-cultural perspectives.     

The Polysystem and the Translation of Children’ s Literature

Polysystem Theory was developed in 1970s by Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar,and was well known for its three circumstances.Children’ literature,as a special branch of literature,attracts more and more research nowadays.This paper explores the process of translation of Children’ s Literature in China under polysystem.     

Renaissance Science and Literature: Benedetti,Ovid and the Transformations of Phaeton’s Myth after Copernicus

This paper aims at showing the close ties between Renaissance literature and science as emerge from the use and the transformation, in a post-Copernican context, of the myth of Phaeton—according to Greek mythology: the boy who tried to conduct the chariot of the Sun and died in this attempt. G.B. Benedetti’s analysis and criticism of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book two, provides an insight into this literary and scientific issue. Astronomical poems and variations of Phaeton’s myth by other illustrious Renaissance men—including T. Brahe and King James of Scotland and England—are taken into account, as well.     

A Roof without Walls: Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Misdirection of American Education

Plato wrote that higher order thinking could not start until the student had mastered conventional wisdom. The American educational establishment has turned Plato on his head with the help of a dubious approach to teaching developed by one Benjamin Bloom. Bloom’s taxonomy was intended for higher education, but its misappropriation has resulted in a serious distortion of the purpose of the K–12 years. Michael Booker attributes the inability of American children to compete internationally to a great extent to our reliance on Bloom in expecting critical and advanced thinking from kids who have been trained to regard facts and substantive knowledge as unimportant.

Causes of the Disillusionment of Sister Carrie’s American Dream

Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie is the representative of studying the disillusionment of the American Dream.Since the publication of Sister Carrie,there have been many critics who commented on this work,and its main character Sister Carrie is a controversial person.Dreiser was criticized by critics and readers because he didn’t give any comment on her degener ation.This thesis tries to analyze the causes of this tragedy.In the end,the paper draws the conclusion:the American Dream looks beautiful,but to some extent it is not reliable,just like the foam of soap.It only gives people an illusion.So Carrie’s tragedy is in evitable.     

An Interpretation of Mary’s Tragedy from the Perspective of Interpersonal Ethics

The novel, The Grass is Singing, written by Doris Lessing, describes the tragic life of a white woman Mary living in South Africa. The article tries to explore the factors resulting in Mary’s tragedy from the perspective of interpersonal ethics so as to reveal the suppression and distortion of traditional ethics over men’s spirit and Lessing’s humanistic feelings.     

“Keeping Some Wildness Always Alive”: Posthumanism and the Animality of Children’s Literature and Play

This article explores posthumanism as a philosophy that emphasizes human relationships with the natural world by examining representations of animality, both in children’s literature (e.g. titles such as Where the Wild Things Are, Wild, Virginia Wolf, and No Fits, Nilson!) and in children’s play in order to better understand the significance of philosophy in children’s literature and lives. By fostering a feeling of “necessary wilderness,” or connection to nature (Almond, 2011, p. 110), and by practicing a sense of being in nature, “keeping some wildness always alive” (Lerman, 2012, p. 311) through literary engagement and animal play, the authors suggest that children and adults can maintain an interconnectedness with the natural world, even when they cannot be in it themselves. Through a mixed methods approach that combines educational theory, ecocriticism, and qualitative research, we discuss links between children’s stories and bodies, identifying how becoming animals through narrative engagement and play reflects posthumanist theory in practice, and encourages a child’s embodied knowledge of nature. The authors also speak to the ways that embodied education approaches that encourage animal play and “expressive literary engagement” [Sipe, 2002, pp. 476–483]) can support a shifting and necessary worldview informed by posthumanism, suggesting that philosophical change is necessary if humanity aims to survive the ecological and technological changes to come.     

Strangers and Orphans: Knowledge and mutuality in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Abstract

Paulo Freire consistently upheld humanization and mutuality as educational ideals. This article argues that conceptualizations of knowledge and how knowledge is sought and produced play a role in fostering humanization and mutuality in educational contexts. Drawing on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, this article focuses on the two central characters who ‘ardently’ pursue knowledge at all costs. It will be argued that the text suggests two possible outcomes from the pursuit of knowledge. One is mutuality; the other is social disconnectedness.     

Families’ Selection of Children’s Literature Books

This study examined families’ choices of children’s literature books for joint story reading. Teachers, parents, and their children from five kindergarten classrooms participated in the study. Over a 4 months period, family members joined other parents twice a week to learn and practice story reading techniques. They selected children’s literature books that were of interest to both of them and their children and were developmentally appropriate. Family members were interviewed and responded to a questionnaire before the intervention. The results provided insight in relation to the parents’ perceptions about literacy, reading with families, and story reading. All members of the families read to their children frequently or daily and engaged the children in conversations about the books read. The books chosen to be read to the children were categorized by genre, with modern fiction being the most popular genre.     

American and Greek Children’s Visual Images of Scientists

This study explores American and Greek primary pupils’ visual images of scientists by means of two nonverbal data collection tasks to identify possible convergences and divergences. Specifically, it aims to investigate whether their images of scientists vary according to the data collection instrument used and to gender. To this end, 91 third-grade American (N = 46) and Greek (N = 45) pupils were examined. Data collection was conducted through a drawing task based on Chambers (1983) ‘Draw-A-Scientist-Test’ (DAST) and a picture selection task during which the children selected between 14 pairs of illustrations those that were most probable to represent scientists. Analysis focused on stereotype indicators related with scientists’ appearance and work setting. Results showed that the two groups’ performance varied significantly across the tasks used to explore their stereotypic perceptions, although the overall stereotypy was not differentiated according to participants’ ethnic group. Moreover, boys were found to use more stereotypic indicators than girls, while the picture selection task elicited more stereotypic responses than the drawing task. In general, data collected by the two instruments revealed convergences and divergences concerning the stereotypic indicators preferred. Similarities and differences between national groups point to the influence of a globalized popular culture on the one hand and of the different sociocultural contexts underlying science curricula and their implementation on the other. Implications for science education are discussed.     

Children’s Literature and Education: A Memoir of Dr. Lawrence Sipe

A personal reflection about Dr. Sipe as a teacher and a mentor.     

Motor Impairment in Children’s Literature: Asking the Children

How do schoolchildren respond when they encounter a wheelchair user in a fictional text? This article describes a doctoral project where groups of children were presented with excerpts from books by Hilary McKay and Jacqueline Wilson in which wheelchair users play a significant role. The pupils were asked to discuss issues arising from these readings. The views pupils expressed were relevant, imaginative and positive. Only on two rare occasions did the pupils respond in ways that could be categorised as prejudicial towards disabled people. The article describes the methodology adopted for the study, directly quotes from and explores the views of the pupils. The teaching of children about disability and disabled people currently in the English curriculum for Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is alleged to be inadequate; a weakness which could be addressed in the manner described, using literature for sensitive educational debate. This study is unusual in that the research subjects include a group of children who are motor impaired. The Doctor of Education who conducted the research for her thesis and authored this article is also herself a fulltime wheelchair user.     

Pupils’ Learning,Identity and Social Context: the case of Mary∗

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an analysis of social factors which influence the sense of identity and approach to learning of young children. The analysis is set in the context of a critique of national education policies which fail to appreciate the importance of the engagement of learners in learning processes. However, it focuses at a more detailed level on the social dynamics between children and parents, siblings, peers and teachers and the ways in which these evolve over time and influence identity. A model of key factors and processes is presented which draws on both symbolic interactionism and social constructivism and its use is illustrated through a detailed case study of the learning of one child over a three‐year period.

     

Fictions, Nation-building and Ideologies of Belonging in Children’s Literature: An Analysis of Tunzi the Faithful Shadow

This article demonstrates, through Michael Gascoigne’s Tunzi the Faithful Shadow (1988), that literature for children is sometimes employed by the government into the service of propagating dominant state ideologies in Zimbabwean schools. Such texts disseminate issues of inclusion and exclusion that characterise all nation building projects. I argue, through a reading of Tunzi the Faithful Shadow, that texts for children studied in Zimbabwean schools have been shaped by a distinctly Zimbabwean socio-historical context which includes, but is not limited to, the formation of a new national sensibility after the liberation war and the political unrest in the emerging nation.     

“Don’t Sell Me the Enemy’s Literature”: A Self-Study of Teaching Literature in Politically Fraught Contexts

This article describes a self-study pursuant to a clash between a lecturer and a student concerning the teaching of literature in a politically fraught context. The learning group is composed of Arab and Jewish teachers at a college in northern Israel. The work read by the group expresses a Palestinian perspective. The incident, discussed with reference to the concepts of ethical reading and in-between space, is explained against the background of the lecturer’s professional views and the complexity of teaching literature in a polarized and conflicted society. Analysis of the incident, accompanied by a look at the professional literature, reveals the lecturer’s blind spots as well as the complexity of the situation in which she was acting. Details of the case and the process of its interpretation may serve to enrich the perspectives of literature teacher educators who believe in ethical reading and in constructing an in-between space in their lessons, providing them with insights regarding teaching in contexts fraught with cultural tensions.     

Geiogamah’s 49 and Reconstruction of American Native Cultural Identity

Cultural identity in Geiogamah’s play 49 represented a common concern of contemporary American Indian writers.Geiogamah highlighted the renewal and reconstruction of tribe tradition and cultural identity for native Indians.He stressed the imperative of maintaining ethnic tradition in identity quest by way of cultural rejuvenation,and ritual experience.The play dem onstrated that the way for the Indians in the modernization is to protect national culture,return to the tribe tradition and face the social reality.     

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: Challenging the Mythology of Home in Children’s Literature

The myth of home is what distinguishes children??s literature from adult novels (Wolf 1990). Nodelman and Reimer (The Pleasures of Children??s Literature, 2003) write that while ??the home/away/home pattern is the most common story line in children??s literature, adult fiction that deals with young people who leave home usually ends with the child choosing to stay away?? (pp. 197?C198). In a critical content analysis of recent award-winning middle reader novels from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, a new pattern was observed. This pattern, called a postmodern metaplot, begins with the child being abandoned, rather than the child leaving the home. The child??s journey is to construct a home within a postmodern milieu complete with competing truths and failed adults. Ultimately, the child??s postmodern journey ends with very modern ideal of the child leading the adults to a hopeful ending, a home. The article explores the changing roles of childhood and adulthood in children??s literature and questions if the mythology of home can be undone.