The CLA Student Committee: Fostering an Inclusive Community

By Emmaline Ellis, Alex Lampp Berglund, and Meghan Valerio, on behalf of the CLA Student Committee

The CLA Student Committee is a small group of student members of CLA that work together to boost the recruitment of students to CLA, promote and participate in CLA programming, organize events specifically for students involved in CLA (including but not limited to the student social at NCTE and virtual check-ins throughout the year), facilitate the annual CLA Student Conference Grants, and plan and host a yearly webinar on a variety of topics related to children’s and young adult literature. In particular, the webinar is an exciting opportunity that allows student members to build community and learn with and from other scholars within the field. While planning the webinar, the Student Committee must consider the needs of all student members of CLA and select a topic that meets those diverse needs. This year, we were honored to develop a webinar that we felt responded to the current educational climate and the vital roles that children’s and young adult literature can and does play in our classrooms across a multitude of contexts.

Members of the CLA Student Committee:

• Alex Lampp Berglund (Chair)
• Kristin Bauck
• Julie Carbaugh
• Emmaline Ellis
• Jennifer Pulliam
• Meghan Valerio

All of us (Emmaline, Alex, and Meghan) are members of the Children’s Literature Assembly Student Committee, and we each bring a variety of experiences as classroom teachers, reading specialists, and teacher educators. In our different contexts, we have witnessed the ways literacy curriculum and praxis have privileged certain voices, while both intentionally and unintentionally silencing and, at times, even harming others. These experiences, coupled with continued historically heated debates on racism, gender equality, immigrant acceptance, (dis)ability rights, and LGBTQ+ activism, led us to plan our second annual CLA Student Committee webinar, entitled “Inclusivity in Curriculum and Pedagogy.” The goal of this webinar was to provide a space for literacy scholars to share their inclusive research and pedagogy and for participants to unpack their own experiences with inclusivity in educational spaces. In this post, we highlight many of the resources and pedagogical practices shared by the panelists, Dr. Desireé Cueto, Dr. Sara Sterner, Dr. Megan Van Deventer, and Dr. Kelly Wissman, that we hope you can implement in your own teaching. CLA Members can access a video recording of the webinar within the members-only portion of the CLA website.

As a former upper elementary educator, Dr. Sara Sterner discussed the various curriculum commitments that she makes in the teacher education courses she leads at Humboldt State University. These decisions include selecting balanced course texts that are both affordable and include research-based practices that educators can immediately use in their classrooms. Further, she maintains a critical focus in her pedagogy. For example, she continually models and supports disruptive readings of texts and elevates and honors silenced and erased perspectives wherever and whenever possible. Her work with children’s literature is also woven throughout her courses, as she promotes the practice of “Classroom Book-a-Day.” This activity includes the purposeful selection and sharing of a children’s book during each class to instill reading joy and foster connections with students. Dr. Sterner revealed that the feedback from students on “Classroom Book-a-Day” has been overwhelmingly positive, as students not only added titles to their future and current classroom libraries but also learned the importance of inclusivity when selecting and using children’s literature in their lessons.

“...There are just times that it is the collective beauty of a shared story. I'm not asking you to analyze or ask questions about texts, but you just get to be with the words and be with the characters and be with illustrations. The way that that builds reading joy is central to my inclusive practice in the ways that I fold my students into our learning community.”

-Dr. Sara Sterner

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“I really underscore the affirming power of books, and how they provide language for young readers to witness and express their complex lives and experiences and emotions--how reading a book can provide reassurance. It can provide a new socio-emotional skill set. It can provide solace. So instead of having all of the words that a young reader would need to communicate their innermost feelings, if you have the right book, then a reader gets to say ‘This book is like my life,’ which can start a healing and joyful process.”

-Dr. Megan Van Deventer

Dr. Megan Van Deventer, an Assistant Professor of English Education at Weber State University, centered her presentation around the theoretical and pedagogical framework of the cognitive-affective model of conceptual change (Gregoire, 2003). Within this model, teachers must feel both capable and motivated, and Dr. Van Deventer works to ensure that these goals are met throughout her preservice teacher education courses. The inclusive pedagogical moves that Dr. Sterner practices and promotes include creating a class of readers by developing her students’ (and her own) reading identities, demonstrating a meta-awareness of orchestrating a class of readers through explicit and intentional instruction, and having students create a Children’s Literature Resource File. Children’s Literature Resource Files are created by each student and feature a curated list of 30 children’s books alongside critical reviews of each text. Returning to the other integral component of the cognitive-affective model of conceptual change, Dr. Van Deventer shared the inclusive practices she uses to increase capacity which include developing critical analysis skills, modeling vulnerable readings and conversations, curating supplemental readings, and having students self-evaluate their Children’s Literature Resource Files. The self evaluation element of the Children’s Literature Resources Files prompts students to reflect on their own pedagogical commitments and aspirations and think critically about the ways they can grow as inclusive educators.

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​​Dr. Kelly Wissman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literacy Teaching and Learning at the State University of New York at Albany, where she teaches graduate level courses in children's literature for pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and doctoral students. Dr. Wissman’s research focuses on incorporating culturally sustaining pedagogies in reading intervention settings, a topic that stems from her concern that curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment are not attuned to the cultural and linguistic resources of diverse learners. During the webinar, Dr. Wissman shared findings and insight from her two-year inquiry project titled, “Names, Journeys, and Dreams,” in which she collaborated with a reading interventionist who incorporated culturally sustaining practices into her intervention setting. One of these practices was the inclusion of interactive read alouds of culturally and linguistically diverse picturebooks. Although this practice was accompanied with challenges (limited time, limited resources, etc.), Dr. Wissman believes that the inclusion of picturebooks that were culturally and linguistically relevant to the students allowed them to be more connected to their reading intervention instruction.

“...To integrate culturally sustaining picturebooks more fully into reading intervention may require we move away from a monolingual gaze for defining what literacy is, what kinds of texts we choose, what we mean by reading achievement and how we assess it, and what interventions can sustain students’ connections to their communities and pride in their languages.”

-Dr. Kelly Wissman

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“I never begin with morality. I never begin with ‘this is how you should believe.’ We’re already in a world that's polarized and difficult so it always starts with [the students’] own questions and tensions. I try to create spaces for them to make connections and so I use children's books as a way to get them to read and make some connection to the text and I think that stories are the most beautiful and natural way to do that because stories create empathy.”

-Dr. Desireé Cueto

A former elementary teacher, school counselor, and Director of Multicultural Curriculum in the Tucson Unified School District, Dr. Desireé Cueto is currently an Associate Professor of Literacy and the Director of the Pacific Northwest Children’s Literature Clearinghouse at Western Washington University. Her areas of research include: critical content analysis of children’s and young adult literature, transformative literacy pedagogies and collaborative action research, and engaging diverse learners. During the CLA-SC webinar, Dr. Cueto highlighted three new trends from her content analysis of African-American children’s and young adult literature: reality, refusal, and reclamation. She spoke to the importance of books that portray African-American children as resilient, rather than “downtrodden” or as “perpetual victims,” portrayals that she grew accustomed to as a child herself. Dr. Cueto believes inclusive children’s books encourage connections to human stories that create empathy, and encouraged the other panelists and attendees to continue their use of such literature in their syllabi particularly now, during a time when curriculum has been “highly politicized.”

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Resources for Fostering Inclusivity

Inspired by the transformative work of the presenters, we have compiled a list of resources that were shared by the panelists that have helped us form our own understandings of inclusivity and foster community in our own inclusive educational spaces in a variety of ways. These resources include educational course texts, children’s and young adult literature titles, authors, podcasts, and online tools and sites.

RESOURCE FOLDER

Course texts

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• The CAFE Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literacy Assessment and Instruction (2019) by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser
• The Write Thing (2018) by Kwame Alexander

ELEMENTARY/CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

• I Am Not a Number (2016) by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer
• The Undefeated (2019) by Kwame Alexander
• My Papi Has a Motorcycle (2019) by Isabel Quintero
• The Day You Begin  (2018) by Jacqueline Woodson
• All Because You Matter (2020) by Tami Charles
• When Aidan Became a Brother (2019) by Kyle Lukoff
• Eyes that Kiss at the Corners (2021) by Joanna Ho
• We Are Water Protectors (2020) by Carole Lindstrom
• Our Favorite Day of the Year (2020) by A.E. Ali
• I Am Every Good Thing (2020) by Derrick Barnes & Gordon C. James
• Alma and How She Got Her Name (2018) by Juana Martinez-Neal
• Hair Love (2019) by Matthew A. Cherry
• The Journey (2016) by Francesca Sanna
• They She He Me: Free to Be! (2017) by Maya Christina Gonzalez and Matthew SG 
• Crown: Ode to the Fresh Cut (2017) by Derrick Barnes
• This Day in June (2014) by Gayle E. Pitman
• Your Name is a Song (2020) by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow
• Carter Reads the Newspaper (2019) by Deborah Hopkinson 
• Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre (2021) by Carole Boston Weatherford 
• The Teachers March! How Selma's Teachers Changed History (2020) by Sandra Neil Wallace & Rich Wallace
• The Proudest Blue (2019) by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow 

​middle school/young adult literature

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• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States For Young People (2019) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• Ghost Boys  (2018) by Jewell Parker Rhodes
• New Kid (2019) by Jerry Craft
• The Season of Styx Malone (2018) by Kekla Magoon
• Harbor Me (2018) by Jacqueline Woodson
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (2020) by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness (2018) by Anastasia Higginbotham
• Tristan Strong Series (2019; 2020) & The Last Gate of the Emperor Series (2021) by Kwame Mbalia
• King and the Dragonflies (2020) by Kacen Callender

Authors

• Contemporary Realistic Fiction:
  
  • Jewell Parker Rhodes 
    
  • Lisa Moore Ramee
    
  • Jerry Craft
    
  • Jacqueline Woodson
    
  • Derrick Barnes
    
  • Gordon C. James
    
  • Kekla Magoon 
• Nonfiction/Informational:
  
  • Jason Reynolds
    
  • Ibram X. Kendi
    
  • Anastasia Higgenbotham
    
  • Kwame Alexander
    
  • Kadir Nelson.
• Historical Fiction and Biography:
  
  • Carole Boston Weatherford
    
  • Tonya Bolden
• Fantasy:
  
  • Kwame Mbalia

podcasts

• ​​Teaching While White 
• Book Love Foundation 
• Heinemann

online resources

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• A Tool for Selecting Diverse Texts by Learning for Justice 
• Reading Against the Grain by Learning for Justice
• Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books by Louise Derman-Sparks
• A Guide to Thinking Critically about Books for your Classroom Library and Curriculum by Jess Lifshitz (@Jess5th)
• School Library Journal & School Library Journal Blogs 
• Lee and Low’s 2019 Diversity Baseline Results 
• 1619 Curriculum Project 
• Zinn Education Project 
• Classroom Book A Day from Jillian Heise (inspired by Donalyn Miller)

Emmaline Ellis is a PhD Student in the Literacy and Learners program at Temple University. She is a member of CLA’s Student Committee. 

Alex Lampp Berglund is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia. She is chair of CLA’s Student Committee.

Meghan Valerio is a PhD Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction with a Literacy Emphasis at Kent State University. Meghan’s research interests include investigating literacy from a critical literacy perspective, centering students and curricula to understand reading as a transactional process, and exploring pre- and in-service teacher perspectives in order to enhance literacy instructional practices and experiences. She is a CLA Student Committee member. ​