by Barbara Thompson Book, Indiana University Southeast
Previously, we looked at the 2014 Caldecott Winner Locomotive by Brian Floca. Then winter exacted its continued revenge in the Northeast and I became a victim of a door locked against the cold, a door jam and cement. Meaning, I fell and dislocated my finger, broke ribs and more. So this week we play catch up.
I promised the answer to who are Flora and Ulysses? Continue reading
by Barbara Thompson Book, Indiana University Southeast
January and February are award months in the United States. We (at least my husband and I) sit before our television and watch to see which members of the various media groups are honored by their colleagues. We debate, discuss, feel old and even yell at the screen as the announcements are made. Although literature for children does not draw a national television audience, it certainly was present on social media and the web. While my phone was not cooperating Continue reading
by Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico
Land of Enchantment! — official nickname of the state I live in: New Mexico. I recall being urged to acquire some kind of “Green Chile literacy” about the culture and history of New Mexico before even packing for Albuquerque. (Green Chile sauce was selected as the best “iconic” American food in 2013). So this week, my focus is on the unheard voices of significance in local literature that helps readers experience and even question cultural omissions and the consequent cultural marginality that results. More importantly, how do we assess how that marginalization in local literature affects readers who identify themselves in books about “my/our place.” Continue reading
by Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico
Last week I attended the Literacy Research Association conference. I came home empowered and inspired to reflect on, “what now?” Conference presentations titles that I perused and thought about attending all focused in some way on “voice.” For example, providing conceptual tools for educators to sensitively engage with transnational parents in the United States, well meaning “global” teachers’ describing their classroom’s journey in global literature, a biography writer describing the vulnerability experienced while writing about a historically great man in Taiwan (Chiang Kai-Shek), exploring teacher candidates’ resistance to understanding textual code-switching in books dealing with immigration issues, etc. As a result, my own, new personal goal can best be described as “reading to listen.” Continue reading
by Prisca Martens, Towson University
This month we’ve been looking closely at how the art and written text in picturebooks work together to convey meaning and exploring how to help children experience the full richness in picturebooks by reading both. This week we’ll examine how Jenna Loomis read My Name Is Sangoel, written by Karen Lynn Williams (2009) and Khandra Mohammed and illustrated by Catherine Stock, with her first graders.
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by Prisca Martens, Towson University
This month in WOW Currents we’re exploring how to help children read the art and written texts in picturebooks, Picturebooks are “a unique art object, a combination of image and idea that allows the reader to come away with more than the sum of the parts” (Kiefer, 1995, p. 6). In our work we’re helping children read the art and think like artists to support them in experiencing the full richness and meanings in picturebooks (Martens, 2012). This week we’ll explore how Laura Fuhrman helped her first graders read and experience the art and written text in Sebastian’s Roller Skates, Continue reading
by Prisca Martens, Towson University
Picturebooks are “text, illustrations, total design; …As an art form [they hinge] on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning of the page” (Bader, 1976, p. 1). This week we continue our exploration of helping children read the art and written texts in picturebooks by seeing how Michelle Doyle shares the richness in Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, written by Monica Brown (2011) and illustrated by Sara Palacios, with her first graders. In the story, Marisol, as others see her, is a mismatch of things that don’t make sense. Continue reading
by Prisca Martens, Towson University
For the past several years I’ve been in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms exploring how helping children learn and experience the concepts and language of art that artists use to create illustrations in picturebooks relate to the children’s own reading, writing, and art. My co-researchers are Ray Martens and a number of classroom teachers who graciously invite us into their classrooms to learn and explore with them and their students. We are working together on this because of our mutual passion for picturebooks and our understanding that for children to experience the full richness the books offer, they need to read the art as well as the written text. Continue reading
by Michelle Grace-Williams & Julia López-Robertson, with Genitha Jackson, Tirisha Robinson, Janese Utley, University of South Carolina
I, too, sing America/I am the darker brother/They send me to eat in the kitchen/When company comes/But I laugh, /And eat well /And grow strong/Tomorrow…/They’ll see how beautiful I am/And be ashamed—I, too, am America.
Langston Hughes
The poem above, I Too, Am America, is an example of a culturally relevant poem that could be used by teachers as a vehicle to engage [all] students in discussions about social injustices and issues that may be relevant to them and their lives. Culturally relevant poetry may also be used as a critique to systems of oppression that are present in our society-in this case, specifically race and language. Continue reading
