Category: Social Justice

A Lesson from Faith Ringgold about the Radical Power of the Picturebook

4/19/2022

By Jessica Whitelaw

Last week I was able to visit the long-awaited Faith Ringgold exhibit, American People, at the New Museum in New York. Many know Ringgold from her book Tar Beach, but this retrospective - her first - features Ringgold as artist/organizer/educator and showcases paintings, murals, political posters, sculptures, and story quilts that span the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, critical feminism, and reach into the landscape of contemporary Black artists working today. After years of a relationship with the book version of Tar Beach, it was moving to stand in front of the original story quilt that the book is based on, this intimate everyday object upon which she wrote, painted, and stitched, to push the boundaries of white western art traditions and explore themes of gender, race, class, history, and social transformation.

Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, 1988
Acrylic paint, canvas, printed fabric, ink, and thread
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Gift, Mr. and Mrs. Gus and Judith Leiber, 1988

But from an educator perspective, this important exhibit left out something important about the arts, access, and critical literacy. It didn’t pay much attention to the radical act of making this story quilt, and all of the ideas that it explores, available to young people in the form of another everyday object, the picturebook. In the book version of Tar Beach, narrator Cassie Louise Lightfoot, “only eight years old and in the third grade,” invites readers into an experience and conversation that the story quilt was asking museum audiences to consider. Cassie’s is a story of resistance and self-definition and an invitation through art and words, to encounter issues of class, race, place, history, and the future through what Ringgold has called a “fantastical sensibility.” Cassie’s story offers a word/picture narrative marked by sharp observation and critique but also beauty and humanization.

I left the exhibit thinking about how Tar Beach provides an object lesson in how the arts can support critical literacy. With its imprint on the social and cultural imagination of so many, Tar Beach reminds us that we can look to the humble picturebook to find sources of radical power. In these everyday objects that can traverse home, school, and everyday life, we can seek out art and words to explore issues of cultural significance, often with an eye toward joy and justice at the same time.

So how can we harness the power and possibility of the arts that can be found in picturebooks? How can we invite and encourage deep critical literacy and inquiry?

Below is a protocol adapted from the steps of art criticism that can be used to support students in developing picturebook practices that engage critical literacy and inquiry. It can be used with Tar Beach, whose content is both accessible and complex enough to use with both younger and older readers. But it offers a flexible participation structure that teachers can use with any picturebook that has rich visual/verbal content. Like most protocols, it works best as a flexible tool not a prescriptive device.

Picturebook Read Aloud Protocol

Adapted from the steps of art criticism, this protocol provides a framework for sharing picturebooks that aims to cultivate a critical practice. It guides the reader through a process of looking closely to notice what they might otherwise overlook and to use what they know about words and pictures to analyze and make sense of what they see. The stages offer a helpful way to support students of any age through a process and unfolding of critical engagement that relies upon attention to specific details in the work to guide thoughtful engagement and response. The protocol is intended as a facilitation guide for teachers. Wording should be adjusted for the audience/age of the reader.

LOOK CLOSELY

Take inventory. Examine the cover of the book, the dust jacket and the endpapers. Look closely at the typography, the pictures, the words. Describe what you see and notice in detailed, descriptive language.

ANALYZE

Use what you know about picturebooks and design to analyze the words and the pictures. Look at the colors, the lines, shapes, textures. Try to determine the media the artist used to make the pictures. Examine the style of the language the writer used. Look for patterns, repetition, rhyme. Draw attention to the picturebook as a unique form of the book that relies on the synergy of the words and the pictures by asking how the words and pictures work together: What do the words tell you that the pictures do not? What do the pictures tell you that the words do not? What happens in between the openings?

QUESTION

Use questions together to probe and deepen. Stop and ask questions about pages that are visually and/or verbally rich or complex. What sense do you make of this page? How do you know that? Why do you think the author or illustrator chose to do it the way they did? What questions does the page raise for you, make you wonder about?

CRITIQUE

What do you think the author/illustrator is trying to do or say or show in this book? Who do we see in this book? Who is the audience for this book? Who do you think should read it? Whose voice/voices do we hear? Who do we not hear from? What ideas do you have about the topic/topics in the book? What do you think the storyteller in this book believes or thinks or wants us to know? What questions do you have about what the storyteller is saying and showing? What genre/category does the book belong to? What other work has this author and/or illustrator created and how is it similar to or different from this book?

RESPOND

After having looked closely at the book, what does this text mean to you? What does the story make you wonder about? How could this story mean different things? To you? To different readers?

Additional Teaching Resources for Tar Beach

Watch Faith Ringgold read Tar Beach

Create a paper story quilt

Listen to Faith Ringgold’s favorite songs

Explore a Faith Ringgold Text Set:

We Came to America
Cassie’s Word Quilt
The Invisible Princess
Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky
Harlem Renaissance Party
If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks
Henry Ossawa Tanner: His Boyhood Dreams Come True

For Older Readers: Watch the Ted Talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw on intersectionality

Examine how Tar Beach explores identity and power at several intersections. Examine other artworks of Faith Ringgold such as her For the Women’s House mural at the Brooklyn Museum or her America series of paintings on the artist’s website

Read Ringgold’s feminist artist’s statement from her memoir, We Flew Over the Bridge. Look for themes that connect across and examine how the different art forms allow the themes to be explored differently. Read other excerpts from We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold, and examine how ideas from her life take shape in Tar Beach. Consider the different forms of visual and verbal storytelling that she employs in her work and how ideas are conveyed through different modalities in each.

Jessica Whitelaw is faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania in the Graduate School of Education and a member of CLA.

Exploring the Vulnerable Heart of Verse Novels with Children

3/22/2022

By Ted Kesler

I have just completed my position as chairperson of the NCTE Poetry and Verse Novels for Children Committee. Our list of notable poetry and verse novels that were published in 2021 as well as other information about the award can be found on the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children page.

In the post Exploring Notable Poetry Books for Advocacy with Children published on 3/15/2022, I presented three notable poetry piturebooks from this list that promote advocacy and offered lesson plan ideas to do with children. In this second post, I discuss three notable verse novels that promote resourcefulness and the strength of family bonds in the face of overwhelming adversity. All three verse novels featured– Samira Surfs (Ruhksanna Guidroz), The Lost Language (Claudia Mills), and Red, White, and Whole (Rajani LaRocca) – feature 12 year-old girl protagonists. Therefore, I recommend these books for grades 5 through 7 readers.

First, it is important to establish what constitutes notable verse novels for children. Our committee’s definition is:

A narrative told predominantly in poetic forms, with strong poetic elements.
The poetry forms and elements are integral to the telling of the story.
Excellence in writing and emotional impact. We ask: does the poetry "create images, express feelings, and stir emotions" (Cullinan, Liang, and Galda, 2016)?

We look for purposeful and aesthetic uses of such poetic elements as metaphor and other figurative language, pattern, imagery, and evocative word choice. Verse novels often use free verse, but might also include other poetic forms, such as rhyming couplets, enjambment, concrete poems, personification, and rhythms that represent the voice of strong characters.

The verse novels I present in this blog post certainly meet these criteria to heighten each protagonist’s encounter with adversity. An example is from Samira Surfs. Samira, her older brother, Khaled, and their parents are now living as unwanted refugees in Bangladesh, after escaping religious persecution in Burma (now called Myanmar).

“Escape”

I covered my ears from the pa-pa-pa
and the screaming.
Who did they shoot?
I’m too scared to open my eyes.
Soldiers torched homes
our mosques
our market.
Smoke curled around our throats,
squeezing.

So we fled with neighbors
into the blackness of night,
terror biting down hard.
I glanced behind
to see if it was all true.
“Samira, keep your eyes ahead,” Baba called out.

This excerpt expresses the power of poetry to convey this harrowing experience. Guidroz uses onomatopoeia, personification, strong imagery and word choice, metaphor, line breaks and stanzas to "create images, express feelings, and stir emotions.”

This book invites so many analytic and creative responses that will heighten students’ intentions for social justice. Here are some suggestions:

The teacher might photocopy each poem across the novel that describe the family’s escape from Burma. Reading across these poems, students then might bullet information they learned about Samira’s family’s life in Burma. This would create lively discussion. The teacher might then photocopy the first excerpt of the Author’s Note that explains this refugee crisis (page 404 to top of page 405). Students might then revise and elaborate their thinking.
The teacher might photocopy some poems that describe conditions that Samira and her family face as unwanted refugees in Bangladesh and do similar comparative work with the excerpt of the Author’s Note that describes these conditions (middle of page 405 to middle of page 406).
Similarly, the teacher might photocopy poems that describe Khaled, Samir and her friends learning to surf. Students might synthesize what they learned about surfing across these poems. They then might research the real-life empowerment of girls who learned to surf at Cox’s Bazar (the setting of this novel) using an online site such as The Surfer Girls of Cox’s Bazar.

In The Lost Language, Bumble and her best friend Lizard, in an effort to gain the attention and respect of Bumble’s mom – a linguistics professor who studies vanishing languages – try to “save” a vanishing language. Teachers might share Know & Think Tube's video Linguistic Diversity, which provides an overview of linguistic diversity and why it matters. Students might then visit the Endangered Languages Project website that Mills provides in the “Author’s Note” to investigate and report on a vanishing language. The language they study could perhaps be from a country where their families come from or from here in the United States. Students can share information about the language and present reasons why it is vanishing. Finally, the class might watch Karen Leung's TEDx video Embracing Multilingualism and Eradicating Linguistic Bias in which she talks about linguistic diversity and language biases. Students can discuss ideas for practicing linguistic accommodation and acceptance.

In Red, White, and Whole, Reha contends with being the only Hindu girl with brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair, from India in her private middle school in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid-1980s. As teachers read-aloud this book, students might keep a “Parking Lot” of new learning about Indian culture, as so many poems are rich with descriptions of their foods and dress and celebrations. These notes would support rich discussion. Students then might use some of these poems as mentor texts to write their own poem that is steeped in one of their own cultural practices for a class book celebrating diversity.

All three verse novels also contend with issues of trauma. I pointed out the issues in Samira Surfs. In The Lost Language (spoiler alert), Bumble and her father contend with her mother’s mental breakdown. In Red, White, and Whole (spoiler alert), Reha and her father contend with her mother’s leukemia. Here is one excerpt:

Under hospital lights,
a bag of fluid drip drip drips
through a plastic tube into Amma’s arm.
One evening when Daddy and I visit,
a nurse comes in behind us,
and what she hangs on the metal pole near the bed
is not a bag of fluid,
but a bag of blood.
I see it and
the world turns gray
with specks of light floating in the corners.
Reha! Amma cries.
The next thing I know,
I am lying on the floor of Amma’s hospital room
Daddy holding an ice pack to my neck,
the nurse bending my legs.
Are you all right, kanna? Amma asks.
Even though
she’s the one who’s sick.

Under hospital lights,
the world is upside down.
The world of medicine,
the one I’ve always wanted to join,
is scary.
And I begin to question
whether I really want to be a part of it.

Here I turn to The Vulnerable Heart of Literacy (Dutro, 2019) for guidance. After reading this and other poems in the novel that focus on Amma’s illness, teachers might open invitations for students to share and write their own entries of times that they faced fear of illness or injury or hospitalization for themselves or loved ones that would open the vulnerable heart of literacy in the class community. These kinds of invitations are also possible for poems that describe the traumatic situations in Samira Surfs and The Lost Language. By making our classrooms sites of testimony and critical witness, we create “literacies of connection, of love, and of respect for the knowledge that comes from pain, from struggle, and toward the power of bringing that knowledge to learning” (p. 113).

Ted Kesler, Ed.D. is an Associate Professor at Queens College, CUNY and has been a CLA Member since 2010. He served as chairperson of the NCTE Poetry and Verse Novels for Children Committee from 2019 to 2021.
www.tedsclassroom.com | @tedsclassroom | www.facebook.com/tedsclassroom)

On Challenging Book Challenges

2/15/2022

by Rachel Skrlac Lo & Donna Sabis-Burns on behalf of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee

Challenges to books and reading lists are proliferating. In recent conversations with students, educators, and school board members, folks have shared that book challenges are taking up valuable time, distracting from and interfering with learning, and creating new tensions in the classroom and in the boardroom. Students are denied access to texts while challenged books undergo reviews, and they often have no say over districts’ decisions. Teachers are asked to modify carefully constructed curriculum or face discipline. Administrators are drawing on policies that were not designed for this onslaught of challenges.

According to the American Library Association, in 2021 George/Melissa (Gino) and Stamped (Reynolds & Kendi) were the two most challenged books. Jason Reynolds decries these challenges for denying children access to books. These books are in good company. Gender Queer (Kobabe), Maus (Spiegelman), New Kid (Craft), Fry Bread (Maillard) are a few titles on a quickly growing list. These challenges represent the carefully organized efforts of several groups, such as Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education, groups that purport to work for “the restoration of a healthy, non-political education for our kids”. Their goal is to incite moral panic and culture wars, framed as protecting innocent children from harm. This notion of harm is narrowly defined, namely to protect white heteronormative conservative families from having to acknowledge a broader world.

Critics of these book challenges include storytellers, educators and librarians, teacher educators and other scholars, and students. Books provide access to new worlds and perspectives. They may challenge our beliefs or affirm them. They may disgust us, enrapture us, and all the places in between. A good library and curriculum has books that do all of these things. In schools, books are used to help us navigate the world and build our ability to think critically about who we all are. Book challenges deny all students the rights to access new worlds and develop these skills to critically interrogate their world.

Institutional Resources to Reject Book Challenges

This right to access diverse literature and other texts is protected through professional organizations’ mission statements, codes of conduct, and other institutional practices. For example, the National Education Association (NEA) is an example of an institution that can support teachers and school districts responding to these challenges. The NEA, which has 3.2 million members across the nation, believes “every student in America, regardless of family income or place of residence, deserves a quality education” (website), which they support through their mission and actions. Because they are a large and far-reaching organization, their resources act as a standard-bearer, and thus can be used to guide districts' response to book challenges.

The NEA’s Code of Ethics, briefly

The NEA’s code of ethics is guided by two principles, the first of which is a commitment to the student. It has eight conditions, including that educators have an ethical duty to not:
1. “restrain the student from independent action in the pursuit of learning”,
2. “unreasonably deny the student’s access to varying points of view”, nor
3. “deliberately suppress or distort subject matter”.

Additionally, educators must make an effort to:
4. “protect students from harmful conditions”,
5. “not intentionally expose the student to embarrassment or disparagement”, and
6. ensure all students have access to programs, benefits, and advantages regardless of “race, color, creed, sex, national origin, marital status, political or religious beliefs, family, social or cultural background or sexual orientation.”

The two remaining conditions are that educators:
7. do not seek private advantage from relationships with students, and
8. will respect students' privacy.

Using the Code of Ethics to Respond to Challenges

Principle 1 lays out a daunting task for educators: how do we honor the humanity and dignity of all students when some of our beliefs are contradictory? Book challenges highlight this paradox.

The adults behind the book challenges argue their children are harmed through the content of these books, and this harm can be manifested as feelings of discomfort, shame and embarrassment, or in exposure to ideas that may lead to “deviance”. According to Principle 1, then, these parents are claiming that being exposed to these books is a harmful condition (condition 4) that results in these children feeling embarrassed and disparaged whether due to sexual content of texts, such as in challenges to George/Melissa, or discovering the longstanding persistent impact of white supremacy, such as in Stamped (condition 5).

Yet, if schools were to succumb to these challenges, the result would be changes to curriculum and school resources that would unfairly deny benefits (condition 6) to students who identify differently from the mostly white, mostly straight, mostly Christian, mostly politically conservative, mostly American parents who are leading these challenges. Moreover, by shifting school curriculum and materials based on this loud but small group, schools would further violate the code of ethics by restraining independent action (condition 1), such as access to a diverse and representative library collection. Students would be denied access to multiple points of view (condition 2) by restricting the scope of content and voices. This suppression would distort subject matter (condition 3) and would impede student progress (condition 6). Removing books based on outcry of a small but politically-motivated group violates most of the conditions of commitment to the student in the NEA’s code of ethics.

Additionally, because educators must respect students’ privacy (condition 8), educators are guided by an ethical duty to protect students' identities because students warrant this protection of their full humanity. As such, educators must not be compelled to reveal which students need access to these books. We must trust educators when they say there are children who need these books.

So, which students need access to these books?

All students do.

As CLA’s Position Statement on the Importance of Critical Selection and Teaching of Diverse Children’s Literature underscores:

Children come to see themselves and their experiences represented in the stories they read and these stories can also provide insight into ways of living and knowing that depart from their own. This point alone makes access to diverse literature an ethical and moral imperative so that all students’ lives and languages are represented, especially those communities whose lives and language have been historically underrepresented in school settings (p. 2).

Resisting book challenges, then, is not about supporting or denying an ideological position. It’s affirming our commitment to serve all students. By drawing on a code of ethics, or other institutional materials, educators can respond to these challenges with the support of their profession and an understanding that their desire to serve all students is morally and ethically just.

Rachel Skrlac Lo, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Villanova University. She is a Board Member (2020-2022) with the Children's Literature Assembly and Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee.

Donna Sabis-Burns, Ph.D., an enrolled citizen of the Upper Mohawk-Turtle Clan, is a Group Leader in the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education* in Washington, D.C. She is a Board Member (2020-2022) with the Children's Literature Assembly and Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee.

*The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, or enterprise mentioned herein is intended or should be inferred.

2021 CLA Master Class: “Reading Queerness at the Intersections: Using LGBTQ-Inclusive Literature to Move toward Equity, Justice, and Antiracist Teaching”

10/12/2021

By S. Adam Crawley, Craig A. Young, and Lisa Patrick on behalf of the CLA Master Class Committee

Starting in 1994, the Children's Literature Assembly (CLA) has sponsored a Master Class at the annual NCTE Convention. This session provides K-12 teachers and teacher educators, as well as other members of the organization, the opportunity to gain insight about the use of diverse children's literature through interactions with leading scholars, authors, and illustrators in the field.

The 28th annual Master Class is titled “Reading Queerness at the Intersections: Using LGBTQ-Inclusive Literature to Move Toward Equity, Justice, and Antiracist Teaching.” This year’s session will take place on Saturday, November 20th from 5:15-6:30 p.m. (Eastern) in the virtual platform of NCTE’s annual meeting (1).

The 2021 Master Class will include a presentation, panel, and discussion with the following esteemed teacher-educators, authors, and illustrators of children’s literature:

2021 CLA Master Class Contributors

Dr. Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth (Professor, Western Michigan University) and Dr. Caitlin Ryan (Associate Professor, University of North Carolina - Wilmington) are the co-authors of Reading the Rainbow: LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the Elementary Classroom (Teachers College Press and GLSEN, 2018) for which they were awarded the Literacy Research Association’s Edward B. Fry Book Award. In addition, Ryan was the recipient of the 2020 CLA Research Award - on behalf of Hermann-Wilmarth and their fellow collaborators - for the project “Reading the K-8 Rainbow: A Virtual, LGBTQ-Inclusive Children’s Literature Book Club for Elementary and Middle School Teachers.” Hermann-Wilmarth and Ryan co-edited a special issue of Theory Into Practice focused on LGBTQ-inclusive teaching and their scholarship is published in Language Arts, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, and Journal of Literacy Research among other journals and edited books.

Kyle Lukoff is a former elementary school librarian and the author of picturebooks and middle grade chapter books. Lukoff’s titles - among others - include the Max and Friends series (Reycraft Books, 2019) and When Aidan Became a Brother (Lee & Low, 2019), winner of the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Published this year, Lukoff’s Too Bright to See (Penguin Young Readers, 2021) is on the 2021 shortlist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Earlier this year, Lukoff’s picturebook Call Me Max (Reycraft Books, 2019) gained national attention in response to various school districts’ support or censorship of its use in elementary schools.

Leah Johnson earned an MFA in fiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College and is a professor of creative writing and composition. Her debut young adult novel You Should See Me in a Crown (Scholastic, 2020) received a Stonewall Honor by the American Library Association and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Johnson’s new and forthcoming publications include her sophomore YA Rise to the Sun (Scholastic, 2021); a short story in the YA edited anthology Serendipity: Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed (Feiwel & Friends, 2022); and middle grade series Ellie Engle Saves Herself (Disney-Hyperion, 2023). In addition to these books and honors, Johnson has published essays and cultural criticism in various outlets including Teen Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Cosmopolitan. Recently, USA Today named Johnson in the list of “50 Must-Read Black YA Authors”

Book cover: You Should See Me in a Crown

Maya Gonzalez is an artist, author, educator, and activist. She has written and/or illustrated more than thirty books for youth including picturebooks, poetry anthologies, and more. Sample titles include Cuando Amamos Cantamos: When We Love Someone We Sing to Them (written by Ernesto Javier Martínez, Reflection Press, 2018), Call Me Tree: Llamame Arbol (Lee & Low, 2014), and The Gender Wheel: A Story About Bodies and Gender for Everybody (Reflection Press, 2018). Gonzalez is the co-founder of Reflection Press; co-creator of School of the Free Mind, an online learning environment; and recipient of numerous accolades including a Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor for My Colors, My World: Mis Colores, Mi Mundo (Children’s Book Press, 2007) and Tomas Rivera Book Award for My Very Own Room: Mi Propio Cuartito (written by Amada Irma Perez, Children’s Book Press, 2000).

Book cover: When We Love Someone We Sing to Them

Dr. Laura Jiménez will be the discussant for the 2021 Master Class. Jiménez is a Lecturer of children’s and YA literature courses and Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development at Boston University. In addition to her scholarship in The Reading Teacher, Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Lesbian Studies, and Teaching and Teacher Education among other outlets, Jiménez is a founding advisory board member of the open-access journal Research on Diversity in Youth Literature and the author of the blog “Booktoss” in which she writes critical response to children’s and young adult literature. This year, Jiménez was awarded the Divergent Award for Excellence in Literacy Advocacy given by the Initiative for Literacy in a Digital Age.

The 2021 Master Class

The 2021 Master Class will focus on how children's literature can provide vital depictions of – and be used to facilitate important conversations about - intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991), specifically where race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or gender expression and identity meet and further marginalize. In this session, we bring together scholars, authors, and illustrators of books for young readers whose knowledge, experiences, and published works provide avenues for considering literature’s nuanced portrayal of individuals’ myriad identities. Moreover, both in viewing the presentation and participating in the synchronous dialogue, attendees will have the opportunity to engage in and reflect on conversations that allow them to create paths toward equity, justice, and antiracist teaching in their professional lives.

Participating in the 2021 Master Class will help attendees gauge their knowledge of and comfort with using LGBTQ-inclusive literature in classrooms. Additionally, attendees will learn about the affordances of children's literature that presents stories showing the intersections of diverse identities, especially the voices of individuals whose race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity or expression has been – and continues to be – used to censor or erase them. The Master Class speakers and co-chairs hope attendees leave the session with a reaffirmed and deeper understanding 1) of the need for inclusive representations of marginalized communities and 2) that any move toward equity, justice, and antiracist teaching requires being more inclusive of - and attentive to - intersectional identities.

References:
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299.

(1) The 2021 Master Class is designated by NCTE to be a “pre-recorded/scheduled” format. The recording will be shown in the conference platform at the scheduled time. Following the recording, there will be opportunities for live discussion between presenters and attendees.

S. Adam Crawley (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. His current roles with CLA include serving as a Board Member (2021-2023) and Master Class Co-Chair (2020-2022). In addition, he is the secretary of NCTE’s Genders and Sexualities Equalities Alliance (GSEA).

Craig A. Young (he/him) is a Professor of Teaching & Learning at Bloomsburg University of PA. He is currently serving on the CLA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee, as well as co-chairing the 2021 CLA Master Class.

Lisa Patrick (she/her) is the Marie Clay Endowed Chair in Reading Recovery and Early Literacy at The Ohio State University. She is a CLA Board Member and Master Class Co-Chair.

FOR CLA MEMBERS

CLA Board of Directors Elections

It's time for CLA members to vote for three members of the CLA Board of Directors. Board terms are for three years, beginning January 1, 2022.

Candidate statements and a link to the election ballot can be found in our Election Page. To access the ballot and submit your vote, you will be prompted to log in to your CLA account. Voting begins on Tuesday, October 5th at 9 am EST.

Please submit your ballot by Friday October 22nd at 5 pm EST

The CLA Student Committee: Fostering an Inclusive Community

9/14/2021

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

“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.

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

“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.”

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

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

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

Book cover: An indigenous peoples' history of the united states

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

online resources

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.

A Bonnie Campbell Hill Literacy Leader Award Update (Part I)

4/20/2021

Planting Seeds for Professional Involvement with Bonnie Campbell Hill

BY KATHRYN WILL

2018 NCTE Annual Convention, Houston

Winning the 2018 Bonnie Campbell Hill National Literacy Leader Award for my clinical work with preservice teachers in our local schools allowed me to support the attendance of two university students, Emily and Allicia, at the 2018 NCTE conference in Houston. They were astounded by the warm welcome they received at the CLA breakfast that year, the sessions they attended, and of course the free books signed by authors. To say they were gobsmacked would be accurate. Upon our return from the conference, they shared their experience in a student gathering on campus with others where it was well received and created a buzz in the teacher education program for quite a time afterwards. They graduated in the Spring of 2019, accepting their first teaching positions in nearby schools. Because of the positive experience they had at the 2018 conference, they attended NCTE 2019 in Baltimore as seasoned conference attendees, focusing in on their current classroom needs and of course gathering books for their classroom libraries.

After starting a YA book club in the summer of 2019, we continued to meet together virtually throughout the pandemic--sometimes for our book club that grew out of the initial NCTE experience, and other times to navigate classroom or learner challenges. When we met a few weeks ago, I asked them about the initial experience of attending NCTE with me. Emily commented that the experience opened her eyes to the importance of making connections within the profession at a national level. Allicia added that she never would have considered going to something like NCTE if she had not gone with me. It made her dream bigger as a teacher and as a person. They both agreed they will attend again. I am so grateful that winning this award allowed me to plant and nurture the seeds of professional involvement for these teachers in the early stages of their careers. I hope there are opportunities for me to continue this in the future with other preservice teachers.

2019 NCTE Annual Convention, Baltimore

2020-2021 Zoom gatherings for book club and talks about teaching and learning

Catching Up with Quintin: A Bonnie Campbell Hill Literacy Leader Award Update

BY QUINTIN BOSTIC

Kathryn Will (left) & Quintin Bostic (right)

When he won the award in 2018, Quintin was preparing to teach his first course in elementary writing instruction for undergraduate preservice teachers. Although his time in the Ph.D. program is coming to an end, the doors to opportunities are just beginning to open. Shortly after receiving the Bonnie Campbell Hill Literacy Leader Award, Quintin began to implement his PLC series. The 3-day series supported teacher trainers and teachers in using various strategies to have critical conversations with students through picture books in their classrooms. The professional development program addressed topics like #BlackLivesMatter, LGBTQIA+ families, multilingualism, varying abilities, and more. Attendees of the professional development supported students from preschool to third grade in an inner-city school district in Atlanta, Georgia. A major highlight from the project was that because it was so well received, the project was further funded through a local agency for the continued support of teachers in the local area. Through the Bonnie Campbell Hill Literacy Leader Award, not only was Quintin able to implement the PLC series, but he was also able to attend the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Houston, Texas in 2018, attend the Children’s Literature Assembly’s breakfast, and attend the all-attendee event that featured author Sharon Draper. Because of the award, Quintin has gained a platform that has helped him to continue to advance in his academic career.

Quintin Bostic

Quintin is currently wrapping up his Ph.D. in Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University. His research focuses on how race, racism, and power are communicated through the text and visual imagery in children’s picturebooks. Additionally, in 2020, Quintin was named co-chair of the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) Anti-Racism Committee. The association – which provides professional development, advocacy, and support for school-university partnerships – first established the Anti-Racism Committee in response to racial violence in 2020. As co-chair, Bostic will work to foster a culture of equity and inclusion within the association, and in the communities it supports; create and implement anti-racist policies, practices, and systems; and recommend and implement tools and approaches for continued reflection and progress. “Our goal is to address racism by providing teachers and community partners with the necessary resources to do so,” Bostic said. “These resources vary, ranging from trainings to resources, that can help challenge and overcome racist ideologies that are embedded throughout society.” He also just started a new career with Teaching Lab, in which is serves as a Partnerships Manager.

Quintin is beyond thankful to Bonnie Campbell Hill, her family, the Children’s Literature Assembly, and everyone who makes this award possible. “There are so many people, like me, who would have never had the opportunity to have so many experiences without the support, love and care of people like the Bonnie Campbell Hill Award family. I am so appreciative, and I look forward to seeing what amazing things will come out of this award in the future.”

Kathryn Will is an Assistant Professor of Literacy at the University of Maine Farmington (@KWsLitCrew). She is passionate about sharing the power of children's literature with her students. She is one of the 2018 Bonnie Campbell Hill Award recipients, a member of the 2019 Notables Committee, and current chair of the Notables Committee.

Quintin Bostic is a Ph.D. Candidate at Georgia State University. He is also Partnerships Manager at Teaching Lab and co-Chair of the NAPDS Antiracism Committee. His personal website is https://drquintinbostic.com.

Editorial Note:
Check out our April 6 Post about the Bonnie Campbell Hill Literacy Leader award and look out for another award recipient update post next week. If you are interested in applying for this year's award, visit the Bonnie Campbell Hill Literacy Leader Award page for the application details.

Resources for Indigenous Representation in Children’s Literature

3/23/2021

BY DONNA SABIS-BURNS

We are obligated to educate our youth with a clear lens and to teach the richness of realistic, authentic, and contemporary literature for children and young adults. We need to promote books where Indigenous characters are up front and visible, not hidden or pushed aside. We want to highlight in a bold, distinguishable manner characters and stories that unveil and promote the beauty of diverse literature written/illustrated by and for Native Nations (also called Indigenous people and used interchangeably here when the specific Nation is not known), and all other marginalized groups.

The movements of #OwnVoices and #WeNeedDiverseBooks have elevated the bar by offering a deeper focus and expanded landscape for celebrating the intricacies that Native storytelling brings to the table. Much too often, books featuring Indigenous people are only pulled off the shelf in October (Columbus) and November (Thanksgiving/Native Heritage Month). Well, it is March/April and I am pleased to share with you some resources you may want to check out and bookmark this spring to break that cycle. This blog post features a few rich and informative web pages, the American Indian Literature Awards (AILA), a shout out to an award-winning #OwnVoices book, and other informative and fun resources that highlight the resilience, authenticity, and beauty in literature through a kaleidoscope of traditions representative of the vast diversity across Indian Country.

Native Cultural Links

Heartdrum

Heartdrum is a fun and informative resource offered through HarperCollins Publishers, which provides a range of genuine, innovative, and perhaps unforeseen stories by Indigenous creators for any age. Author-curated by the New York Times Best-Selling Author, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Heartdrum highlights contemporary, near histories and/or futuristic works, including realistic fiction and genre fiction.

What is impressive about this site is its refreshing approach to much-needed stories about Indigenous, contemporary young heroes and heroines. These heartfelt accounts are reflective of the many different Nations of a modern United States and Canada. This is a breath of fresh air because it does not perpetuate the notion that Indigenous peoples are not around anymore. Do not get me wrong, there is a definite need for authentic, truthful history stories of Native Nations, but it is truly wonderful to be able to share a good story about real time people in real time situations in a modern setting. This is a new resource that is just getting off the ground and it already has some exquisite stories to share with you.

Oyate

Oyate.org is a small but mighty Indigenous organization working to share the life and histories of Indigenous people with the utmost level of honesty and integrity. This is a resource that serves as a portal into the past and is reflective of today’s society where diverse, #ownvoices books are most necessary. Oyate, appropriately named after the Dakota word for “people,” believes that the world is a healthier place when there is a better understanding and respect for one another and when history is truthfully acknowledged. They aim to distribute literature and learning materials by Indigenous authors and illustrators, provide critical evaluation of books and curricula with Indigenous themes, and offer workshops “Teaching Respect for Native Peoples.” They also have a small resource center and reference library that can be very useful for any educator or parent (or youth for that matter). Since the pandemic, the store portion of the site is temporarily not working at full capacity, but there are many other fine choices for you to peruse and enjoy.

American Indians in Children’s Literature

We cannot mention websites about literature featuring Indigenous people without showcasing the American Indians in Literature (AICL) website. Established by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, and later joined by Dr. Jean Mendoza as co-editor, the AICL website provides a critical analysis of the presence of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books and so much more. This website is like walking into a bakery with so many wonderful choices it is hard to decide what to try first. It has been around for 15 years and is most certainly more than just a place to find a list of best books. You can discover Indigenous authors and illustrators in the Photo Gallery section, or maybe you’d rather learn tips for creating instructional materials featuring different Native nations. You can even research what books you should NOT be sharing out there. It is really a gem of a resource.

Book Award

AILA Youth Literature Award
Did you know there is an award specifically for literature featuring Indigenous people? Since 2006, the American Indian Library Association (AILA) biennially considers the finest writing and illustrations by Indigenous peoples of North America for the AILA Youth Literature Award. AILA identifies and honors works that “present Indigenous North American peoples in the fullness of their humanity.” Winners and Honor Books are selected in the categories: Best Picture Book, Best Middle Grade Book, and Best Young Adult Book. If you ever need a resource for choosing quality literature, make sure you visit the American Indian Youth Literature Award web page.

For those not familiar with this organization, AILA is an affiliate of the American Library Association and it is devoted to disseminating information about Indigenous cultures and languages to the library community and beyond.

Check out the video for the 2020 Award winners.

Did you know?

Caldecott Winner
Congratulations to illustrator Michaela Goade (Tlingit) for her 2021 Caldecott Award winning book, We are Water Protectors (2020), authored by Carole Lindstrom (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe). Goade is the very first Indigenous winner of this prestigious award. With Earth Day around the corner, this would be a fabulous book to share. There is even a We are Water Protectors Activity Kit!

Read Native 2021 Reading Challenge
The “American Indian Library Association invites you to participate in the inaugural reading challenge. With this challenge we support and recognize our Indigenous authors, scientists, legislators, storytellers, and creators throughout the year, not just during the national Native American Heritage month.” Here is a fun reading challenge to engage readers of all ages.

Final Words

Throughout the year, find and read books and publications by and about Native Americans; visit tribal websites; search peer reviewed scholarly journals; visit Native-owned bookstores; and check with Native librarians for the best sources for learning more about Native Nations and Indigenous people around the world.

Donna Sabis-Burns, Ph.D., an enrolled citizen of the Upper Mohawk-Turtle Clan, is a Group Leader in the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education* in Washington, D.C. She is a Board Member (2020-2022) with the Children's Literature Assembly, Co-Chair of the 2021 CLA Breakfast meeting (NCTE), and Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity Committee at CLA.

Opportunities for Close Reading and Advocacy with "William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad"

2/2/2021

BY AMINA CHAUDHRI AND MARY ANN CAPPIELLO, ON BEHALF OF THE BIOGRAPHY CLEARINGHOUSE

“William Still’s records,
and the stories he preserved,
reunited families
torn apart by slavery.

Because that’s what stories can do.
Protest injustice.
Sooth. Teach. Inspire. Connect.
Stories save lives.”
- Don Tate, from William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad

COVER OF William Still and His Freedom Stories

As 2021 begins, we want to acknowledge the continued need to show young people that Black Lives Matter. Part of that responsibility is shifting our curriculum away from a white-centered view of U.S. history and towards a more multifaceted exploration of all of the communities that have lived on this land from prehistory to today.

Don Tate’s picturebook biography William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad, this month’s featured text on The Biography Clearinghouse, is an important text to help make this change in elementary and middle school classrooms. William Still and his Freedom Stories is one of several recent publications that highlights the role of African Americans in the freedom struggle, countering the narrative that freedom from slavery depended on the actions of whites.

A precise, linear narrative takes readers through significant events that shaped William Still’s understanding of the world and his role in making it better for African Americans. Readers follow Still from childhood to adulthood, bearing witness to his desire to learn, the grueling labor he endured to earn a living, and eventually, the risks he took to secure freedom for enslaved people and his post-Civil War activism to fight segregation. This deeply-researched and powerfully-illustrated book has layers of curricular potential: as a read aloud, as a mentor text for literacy skill development, as a model of the genre of biography, as an important piece of history, and much more.

Operating within the Investigate, Explore, and Create Model of the Biography Clearinghouse, we designed teaching ideas geared toward literacy and content area learning as well as opportunities for socio-emotional learning and strengthening community connections using William Still and His Freedom Stories.

Featured here are two teaching ideas inspired by William Still and His Freedom Stories. The first engages students deeply with the text itself - its form and content, and the second extends learning beyond this picturebook to explore multiple sources for inquiry and research.

William Still and his Freedom Stories as a Mentor Text for Close Reading, Writing, and Research.

Don Tate, like William Still, understands the importance of word choice and organization of ideas in writing. William Still and his Freedom Stories can be used as a mentor text to teach these literacy concepts. The brevity of the picturebook lends itself well to repeated readings and analysis of the precise language Tate employs to convey his message. A writer’s message is effective if it evokes a response in the reader. The suggestions below invite students to reflect deeply on the text and their own responses in the process of making meaning.

From the Biography Clearinghouse

If you have 1-2 hours….	If you have 1-2 days…	If you have 1-2 weeks….
Teachers model the Double Entry Journal strategy for responding to text with a focus on text analysis/close reading using a selection of quotes from William Still and his Freedom Stories: “Learning to read would have to wait a few seasons.” “From that point forward, William recorded every detail about each freedom seeker who passed through his home or office.” “The laws were meant to shut down the Underground Railroad. But shut it down, they did not.” Students choose their own quote and explain why it is important.	William Still’s writing was a form of activism because it contributed to the work of changing people’s lives and resisting a brutal system. Compare and contrast this form of activism with the work done by other historical and contemporary figures in other biographies. A graphic organizer such as a T Chart can help students organize their observations. Next, following a discussion, students can identify the skills and talents these subjects brought to their work. Finally, they can extend their thinking by listing other ways people can use their skills (such as in art, music, sports etc.) in order to build awareness and create change. This list can lead to inquiry projects.	When students have understood the concept of turning points as life-altering experiences, and as literary devices that authors use to further their ideas, they can synthesize their learning within the context of studying biographies. One project could be to create a biography of someone in their community with specific requirements including elements found in William Still and his Freedom Stories. These include but are not limited to: childhood, youth, and adult phases of life; ideas and/or people who were influential; and 2-3 turning points that were particularly salient in the person’s life. If possible, the student could research the person’s context in order to understand the various factors that inform decisions and actions. The project can be taken through all the stages of the writing process and completed in pairs or groups. Final projects could be written, illustrated, recorded, dramatized or created in any way that suits the form and content.

Advocating for and Learning from 19th Century Black-Authored Texts

For far too long, too many students in the U.S. have been taught a white-centered modern history that avoids a close examination of imperialism and the legacy of Europe’s colonial reach. The brutal history of the global slave trade of the 17th - 19th centuries has been marginalized as have the many stories of Black agency, resistance, and liberation. As a consequence, young people - and many adults - have limited knowledge of that history. We need this to change. William Still and His Freedom Stories is one text that helps to make that change. In this teaching idea for middle school students, we leverage the conversations that this book can open with more in-depth research writings of 19th century activists such as William Still and 19th century Black journalists.

If you have 1-2 hours….	If you have 1-2 days…	If you have 1-2 weeks….
After reading William Still and His Freedom Stories, provide students with the opportunity to read pages from Journal C of the Underground Railroad. Support students as you examine the information, as this material is painful to read. What kinds of information did Still document to help reunite loved ones? What are some connections students are able to make across the journal? How were those fleeing slavery similar to one another? How were their circumstances different from one another?	After exploring Still’s own writing, have students consider his personal path to literacy. How might his writing voice and identity have been shaped by the texts that he read? In the narrative, Don Tate notes that Still read The Colored American. “An “anti-slavery newspaper,/it was owned and published by Black people.” Share this description of the newspaper with students. Next, have students spend some time reading through digital copies of The Colored American from The Center for Research Libraries. What do they notice about the information in the newspaper? Have students take notes on what they are learning about the lives of free and enslaved Blacks at the time of the newspaper’s publication.	The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has created a prototype of a digital database, the “Family Ties on the Underground Railroad” project, that connects information from Journal C with Still’s 1872 book The Underground Rail Road. You and your students can access the prototype with the codes available on the landing page. Provide students with time to explore the prototype and see the ways in which it uses information from the two texts and allows us to learn more about Black individuals and communities “geographically and chronologically.” Students can learn more about the process of putting the prototype together via the blog entries available on the right margin of the site. Next, you might partner with your local historical society to see what you can learn about Black history in your area from the texts and artifacts from the collection. How can your students raise awareness of that history? What new texts can they create in response to their learning? Allow students to make those choices and determine a way to share their texts with your local community. You could also inform students of the Pennsylvania Historical Society’s efforts to raise money to expand the digital “Family Ties on the Underground Railroad” project. Have students brainstorm ways to raise both awareness and funding for this important project and then carry them out, using their literacy skills as a force for good like William Still.

Amina Chaudhri is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Northeastern Illinois University. She is a reviewer for Booklist and a regular contributor to Book Links.

Mary Ann Cappiello teaches courses in children’s literature and literacy methods at Lesley University, blogs about teaching with children’s literature at The Classroom Bookshelf, a School Library Journal blog, and is a former chair of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction K-8.

Curating Inclusive Bookshelves and Curricula

12/1/2020

BY MEGAN VAN DEVENTER

As educators, we recognize the value in providing readers with reading experiences that act as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors (Bishop, 1990) to affirm readers’ identities, build empathy for others, and explore humanity. We understand the importance of curating bookshelves that offer a vast array of experiences that validate readers’ lives, feelings, and identities. At times, it can be challenging to select and teach books that do not ‘mirror’ our own lived experience, and it can feel vulnerable to step outside our own expertise. Fortunately, there are many of us committed to expanding our own readership and curating inclusive bookshelves and curricula that resonate with our students. This blog post champions and supports educators doing this vulnerable work to ensure all students are included and reflected and refracted on their bookshelves and in their curricula. This post shares books, tools, and resources to support educators building their expertise to ensure young readers have access to high quality, validating, and accurate children’s literature.

Tools and Resources for Curating an Inclusive Bookshelf and Curriculum

Educators committed to expanding our bookshelves beyond our own favorite reads must be intentional in selecting and teaching high quality children’s literature that is accurate, validating, and honest. There are several wonderful tools and resources to ensure our bookshelves are inclusive, relevant, and accessible for readers. The four tools and resources below support educators in curating inclusive bookshelves and reading curricula (and help us cull problematic books from our shelves as well).

Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children's Books	Louise Derman-Sparks's Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children's Books names and specifies the harmful biases we must avoid when curating inclusive, affirming classroom libraries and curricula. This tool supports educators’ analysis of books through a critical lens to ensure they are validating reading experiences that do not perpetuate stereotypes and misconceptions.
Reading Diversity: A Tool for Selecting Diverse Texts	Reading Diversity: A Tool for Selecting Diverse Texts by Teaching Tolerance provides a series of critical questions that help educators evaluate a book in considering its text complexity, diversity and representation, critical literacy, and the reader and task. This text selection tool empowers educators to determine the value of a book for readers in their classroom community.
#DisruptTexts	This resource articulates a pedagogical stance educators should adopt when evaluating texts by #DisruptTexts. Co-developed by Tricia Ebarvia (@triciaebarvia), Lorena Germán (@nenagerman), Dr. Kimberly N. Parker (@TchKimPossible), and Julia E. Torres (@juliaerin80), the #DisruptTexts movement is an online social media community via Twitter that analyzes the merit of canonical and contemporary literature in the classroom. The #DisruptTexts core principles are (1) interrogating our biases to understand how they inform our teaching practices; (2) centering the authentic voices and lived experiences of people of color; (3) applying a critical literacy lens to our teaching practices that is anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-bias; and (4) working in community with other educators, particularly Black, Indigenous, and educators of color. Working with others in community to disrupt our bookshelves is critical to ensure we are serving our readers best.
American Indians in Children's Literature	Dr. Debbie Reese’s blog American Indians in Children’s Literature catalogues inaccurate and stereotypical representations in children’s literature, focusing on Indigenous representation. Searching Dr. Reese’s blog for recommendations can help us cull our bookshelves to ensure high quality, accurate, and honest depictions of history and today.
Oyate	Oyate is a native organization that works towards honest and authentic representations of the lives and histories of native peoples. The Oyate site includes "critical evaluation of books and curricula with Indian themes," workshops and other resources.

Books for Curating Inclusive Bookshelves and Curricula

The tools and resources described above support educators in selecting and teaching high-quality, accurate, and honest children’s literature. Building our expertise through these tools and resources sustains our commitment to curating inclusive bookshelves. Here are four children’s literature books that support educators in holding space that honors young readers’ and teachers’ capacity to engage with complex and authentic picturebooks.

When Sadness is at Your Door written by Eva Eland (2019)

This picturebook describes how sadness can feel, and how the main character comforts sadness until it moves forward. While it can be tempting to avoid hard emotions, it is important for young readers to see hard emotions—like sadness—experienced so they can build the capacity to manage the range of emotions they will experience throughout their lifetime. This picturebook might initially feel vulnerable because it is not a joyful text, but Eland’s words of courage will support an educator in engaging these hard emotions in ways that validate young readers’ authentic experiences.

Book Cover: When Sadness is at Your Door

The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family written by Ibtihaj Muhammad with S.K. Ali and illustrated by Hatem Aly (2019)

This picturebook is a beautiful story of two sisters on the first day the older sister wears her hijab to school. This text is a vulnerable read because it explores the racism students experience in schools. While we may wish that racism does not exist in schools, we are better for explicitly discussing it with youth through an antiracist pedagogical lens, and this book is hopeful in its depiction of the joyful main characters celebrating their family and culture.

The Journey written by Francesca Sanna (2016)

This picturebook is a powerful story about a refugee family escaping a devastating war in their country and journeying toward a better future. This book approaches this harrowing reality in an intentional and age-conscious way that invites young readers and educators into conversation.

We Are Water Protectors written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade (2020)

This picturebook celebrates Indigenous Water Protectors and their efforts to protect Mother Earth. This picturebook may feel like a vulnerable read because it recounts modern conflicts in North America between Indigenous Peoples and oil companies. This lyrical text combined with incredible artwork prompts young readers and educators to reconcile our world today.

Bookshelves and curricula that honor young readers in helping them make sense of the world are a key aspect to orchestrating equitable and socially just classrooms. These books, tools, and resources support our work as educators in curating high-quality reading experiences that are inclusive, accurate, and honest.

References

Bishop, R.S. (1990). Windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and using books for the classroom, 6(3), 1-2.
Eland, E. (2019). When sadness is at your door. Random House.
Lindstrom, C. (2020). We are water protectors. Roaring Brook Press.
Muhammad, I., & Ali, S.K. (2019). The proudest blue: A story of hijab and family. Little, Brown and Company.
Sanna, F. (2016). The journey. Flying Eye Books.

Megan Van Deventer is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Weber State University and the current CLA Secretary.

20 Biographies for 2020

9/22/2020

BY MARY ANN CAPPIELLO on behalf of The Biography Clearinghouse

As we approach the final quarter of 2020, fires rage along the West Coast. Many regions of the United States face drought conditions. Gulf communities are inundated by Hurricane Sally while a string of storms line up in the Atlantic, waiting their turn. The impact of climate change is evident.

COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on our lives, our health. We bear witness to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minoritized groups, including Black and Latinx communities, Native Americans, and the elderly.

Across America, Black Lives Matter protests carry on, demanding that our nation invest in the essential work necessary to achieve a more perfect union through racial justice.

In 2020, we remember moments of historic change, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

The intensity of this moment can’t be denied. It’s demanding. It’s exhausting. Whether you are a teacher, librarian, or university faculty member, you are likely teaching in multiple new formats and modalities, facing daily logistical challenges. Caregivers also face new hurdles in supporting young people’s learning.

How do you meet the needs of students and the needs of this moment in history? How do you find hope in literature?

Perhaps one way is to turn to the people of the past and the present who are working on the edges of scientific knowledge. Or, to turn to the people of the past and the present who have acted as champions of social justice. Their life stories offer young people models of agency and action, blueprints for change.

To that end, The Biography Clearinghouse shares 20 biographies for 2020, a list of recent picturebook and collected biographies to connect with the challenges of the moment. This list is not comprehensive. It is simply a starting place. We hope these recently published biographies of diverse changemakers can become part of your curriculum or part of your read aloud calendar, in-person or over video conferencing software.

Biographies About Scientists

A Sporting Chance: How Ludwig Guttman Created the Paralympic Games (2020) by Lori Alexander, illustrated by Alan Drummond

Born Curious: 20 Girls Who Grew Up to be Awesome Scientists (2020) by Martha Freeman, illustrated by Katy Wu

Buzzing with Questions: The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner (2019) by Janice Harrington, illustrated by Theodore Taylor

Mario and the Hole in the Sky: How a Chemist Saved Our Planet (2019) by Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Teresa Martinez

Ocean Speaks: How Maria Tharp Revealed the Ocean’s Biggest Secret (2020) by Jess Keating, illustrated by Katie Hickey

Patricia’s Vision: The Doctor Who Saved Sight (2020) by Michelle Lord, illustrated by Alleana Charris.

Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom (2019) by Teresa Robeson, illustrated by Rebecca Huang

The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver (2020) by Gene Berretta, illustrated by Frank Morrison

Sharuko: El arqueólogo Peruano Julio C. Tello / Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello (2020) by Monica Brown; illus. by Elisa Chavarri; trans. into Spanish by Adriana Domínguez

The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just (2018) by Melina Mangal, illustrated by Luisa Uribe

Biographies About Champions for Change

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything (2020) by Annette Bay Pimental, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

Althea Gibson: The Story of Tennis’ Fleet-Footed Girl (2020) by Megan Reid, illustrated by Laura Freeman

Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote (2020) by Veronica Chambers and the staff of The New York Times, illustrated by Monica Ahanonu, Rachelle Baker, Kristen Buchholz, Alex Cabal, Noa Denmon, Ellen Duda, Shyama Golden, Johnalynn Holland, Hillary Kempenich, Nhung Lê , Ella Trujillo, and Steffi Walthall

I am Not a Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists from Past and Present (2020) by Cerrie Burnell, illustrated by Lauren Mark Baldo

Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box (2020) by Evette Dion

Lizzie Demands a Seat! Elizabeth Jennings Fights for Streetcar Rights (2020) by Beth Anderson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

She was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm (2020) by Katheryn Russell-Brown, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

Soldier for Equality: José de la Luz Sáenz and The Great War (2019) by Duncan Tonatiuh

Spotted Tail (2019) by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk and Pat Kinsella

The Teachers March: How Selma’s Teachers Changed History (2020) by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rick Wallace, illustrated by Charly Palmer

If you have any picture book or chapter-length biographies or collected biographies for young people that you would like to recommend, please email us at thebiographyclearinghouse@gmail.com. We’re also interested in hearing more about how you’re using life stories in the classroom this year.

Mary Ann Cappiello teaches courses in children’s literature and literacy methods at Lesley University, blogs about teaching with children’s literature at The Classroom Bookshelf, a School Library Journal blog, and is a former chair of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction K-8.

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