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The CLA Blog

Reflections from our CLA Early Career Award Recipients

4/23/2024

 

Submitted by Mary Napoli and Angela M. Wiseman, Co-chairs, Early Career Award Committee

In our rapidly evolving professional landscape, we continue to advance our collective body of research through the connections forged through CLA. It is this dynamic cycle of research combined with our networking opportunities that informs new directions and possibilities. With this in mind, we want to celebrate the contributions of our CLA Early Career Award Recipients from 2017 to the present. As you will read, they have continued to impact the field with their innovative and timely scholarship. In this blog post, we share their responses to open-ended questions that highlight their recent contributions to children’s literature and future projects on the horizon. They were also invited to reflect on how readers and educators will leverage their research in actionable and transformative ways. Finally, everyone was asked to share a photo of something that matters to them.

2023 CLA Early Career Award Recipient

JOSH COLEMAN

Assistant Professor of English Education 
Department of Teaching and Learning 
The University of Iowa
Twitter: @Josheducating 
Scholarly Website: https://uiowa.academia.edu/JamesJoshuaColeman 
Picture
Picture of myself apple picking with Dr. Saba Vlach, also a Children’s Literature expert.
My current project, entitled “Banned Childhoods,” chronicles how English Language Arts (ELA) teachers resist book-banning legislation in their local contexts—namely their classrooms, schools, and communities. This work has been funded graciously by the Children’s Literature Assembly (CLA) of NCTE, the National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation, and the University of Iowa. Based on this study, I have one forthcoming article intended to support educators teaching in restrictive legislative contexts to resist education policy that removes children’s literature from classrooms and libraries. Co-written with University of Iowa doctoral student Petra Lange, “A Two-Year Timeline to Anti-LGBTQ+ Book Bans in America’s Heartland” will be published this year in English Journal, and it provides actional strategies for recognizing impending book bans and resisting them through local activism. Responding to the immediate need, this article is grounded in practitioners’ lived experiences and strives for classrooms and libraries in which every young person can see themself represented in children’s literature.
 
On-going, data collection for the “Banned Childhoods” study will conclude in May of 2024, and I am currently preparing a book proposal that will expand upon the English Journal article. This book will support ELA teachers to combat draconian legislation targeting children’s literature featuring Black, Indigenous, and other children of Color as well as LGBTQ+ young people. My sincere hope is that this work will provide teachers with actionable strategies for challenging book bans and censorship in their local contexts. I am so grateful to the CLA for their support, and with it, I will champion intellectual freedom for teachers and students in every classroom and library across the United States.

2019 CLA Early Career Award Recipient

NOREEN NASEEM RODRIGUEZ

Assistant Professor of Elementary Education and Educational Justice
College of Education
Michigan State University
Instagram and X/Twitter: @NaseemRdz
Professional website: https://naseemrdz.com/
Picture
"Something that matters to me" is learning about local histories from community members and scholar friends. This photo is from November 2023, when I was able to take a tour of Harlem with Akemi Kochiyama, whose grandmother Yuri Kochiyama is a famous Asian American activist and friend of Malcolm X. In the background is the mural painted in their honor, around the corner from her former apartment.
I am thrilled to have been part of the team behind the "Research in children’s literature" in Fisher & Lapp's recently published The Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts. My work related to children's literature tends to highlight how teachers use specific texts or focuses on critical content analyses. This was a nice shift that allowed me to look more broadly at current research and it was an honor working alongside my dear mentor Angie Zapata as well as Monica Kleekamp and Thomas Crisp, who are all brilliant. Another recent publication I am really proud of is my new book Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms.  My favorite chapter is the one on identity and stereotypes which features a wide array of recommendations to support class discussions of Asian names, food, and stereotypes like the model minority and South Asians as terrorist threats. 
 
For my Asian American-focused work, I want readers to know that what Viet Thanh Nguyen called "narrative plenitude" is so important - reading multiple Asian American stories is vital to disrupting notions that Asian Americans are a monolith, especially within cultures. For my elementary social studies work, a clear action step is pairing picturebooks about historical events and figures with primary sources that add nuance and complexity to the textual narrative. I call this going "beyond the book" to ensure that young learners engage with meaningful and contextualized social studies content.
 
I have a big announcement coming soon about a longitudinal project that examines how efforts to mandate the teaching of Asian American histories and/or Asian American studies are being implemented. I am really excited to spend time with students and teachers in classrooms again! I am also working on a second edition of my book Social Studies for a Better World  and am beginning a book tour in support of Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms. The next few years will be busy, but I am thrilled to be able to do this work in ways that impact more teachers and students.


2017 CLA Early Career Award Recipient

ANGIE ZAPATA

Associate Professor of Language and Literacies Education
College of Education
University of Missouri
Scholarly website: https://education.missouri.edu/person/angie-zapata
Picture
This is a photo of the incredible early childhood teacher partners I have the honor of learning from as part of the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant of which I serve as PI for the early literacies strand. These are PK and K teachers who choose to work in some of the most demanding areas of our state. They show up every day alongside the beautiful children and their families to do the work. With every interaction we have, I am inspired and energized by their commitments and excellence in the classroom under the most extraordinary schooling conditions and political climate. It is not easy to be a teacher right now, but these teachers make it happen!
I’m so pleased to share that I have recently published a book entitled Deepening Student Engagement with Diverse Picturebooks: Powerful Classroom Practices for Elementary Teachers  as part of the Principled in Practice imprint of National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Drawing on a year-long multi-site collaborative research project with classroom teachers, I braid together theories of literature response, grammar of visual design, bi/multilingual and multimodal literacies to offer what I call a Critical Literature Response Framework as a pathway for sharing books with diverse racial, linguistic, and cultural representation. This framework is guided by the ethical work of integrating diverse children’s picturebooks in the classroom, a desire to cultivate a critical literature classroom landscape that resists stereotypical representations of racialized, linguistically diverse communities in literature, and a commitment to recentering critical and aesthetic engagement of picturebooks with diverse representation.

As a way to unpack the Critical Literature Response Framework, the book features practical literature approaches and guiding principles that can be tailored to their individual contexts with a focus on the classroom commitments, conditions, practices, and collaborations needed to deepen students’ engagements with picturebooks that offer diverse racial, linguistic, and broader cultural representation. I wrote this book to contribute well theorized examples of how to launch aesthetic and critical response in classrooms through literature explorations of diverse picturebook collections. I hope readers find the book to be a foundational part of their toolkit as they develop and rethink their literature beliefs and practices. For example, I hope readers will utilize the reflection invitations to ponder their critical social educator journey as curators of children’s literature or consider the ways visual thinking strategies can support children’s critical reading of illustrations, and so much more. The book offers multiple entry points for both the beginning and most experienced teacher to make their own.

It has been exciting to reflect and see how my research has evolved over time and how past learning has directed me to next steps in my research. As an early career children’s literature researcher over a decade ago, my research inquiries began with deep explorations of bi/multilingual children’s translingual picturebook making processes. Over time, my analytic gaze shifted towards the classroom conditions and pedagogies that produced racialized children and youth responses to diverse picturebooks and the emerging text and text making processes that resulted. I am partnering more and more with teachers as a model of professional learning and my analytic gaze homes in on the ways teachers develop their beliefs and practices when sharing children’s picturebooks that feature better representation. The arc of my research life thus far and my learning from those inquiries now lead me towards continued teacher/researcher collaborative inquiries with a close eye on the ways educators come to understand and enact a Critical Literature Framework in their classrooms. I look forward to sharing our Young Scholars Program  grant funded work from Foundation of Child Development as an example of this shift through an upcoming publication with Bank Street Occasional Paper  in May 2024 and more examples of our children’s picturebook learning together in the year to come. I believe as picturebooks with diverse representation slowly find their way into our classrooms and libraries, building coalitions of solidarity through teacher/researcher partnership will be essential to not only ensuring that these picturebooks are taught well and enjoyed by children, but also a necessary way to support and advocate with/for teachers during these challenging times in education.
Mary Napoli is the former co-chair of the 2023 Early Career Award Committee. She is an associate professor of education and reading at Penn State Harrisburg.

Angela Wiseman is a former CLA Board Member and co-chair of the 2023 Early Career Award Committee. She is an associate professor of literacy education at North Carolina State University.

Sharing Books We “Love” to Support On-Going Work During Troubling Times

2/13/2024

 

By Adam Crawley and Elizabeth Bemiss on behalf of the CLA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee

We are living and navigating in troubling times. Across the country, educators (e.g., K-12 teachers, librarians, teacher educators, etc.) experience censorship of and challenges to texts that center historically marginalized races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and other ways of being. In several states (e.g., Florida, Georgia, Utah), legislation explicitly restricts such representations and discussions in K-12+ schools. Simultaneously, cities across the country are supporting newcomers bussed from the U.S.-Mexico border, and schools and libraries specifically are trying to aid these families with daily needs (e.g., food, shelter) and other aspects (e.g., school transitions, providing books in Spanish). Meanwhile, unrest in Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine continue to weigh heavily on many of our minds and hearts; mass shootings in schools and other public settings remain prevalent; and the upcoming 2024 U.S. Presidential election causes increased tension across politically opposed ideologies. In the midst of all of this, we want to retain hope. We also know that reading and discussing children’s literature with youth can be vital for promoting social justice.

To support educators’ on-going work - and in the spirit of Valentine’s Day week - we asked 2023 and 2024 CLA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity (DEI) Committee members to share about books they “love” for their representation and ability to foster DEI work. While we recognize that no single book can address all of the world’s current complexities, we hope the recommendations in this list are helpful resources and provide a sense of solidarity for your own contexts.
Book cover: Bathe the Cat
Bathe the Cat
by Alice B. McGinty, illustrations by David Roberts (February 2022, Chronicle Books)

​I read this book as part of my sabbatical research that I completed (in part) at the Center for Research in the Humanities at the New York Public Library. I love the representation of diversity in race, gender, and sexual orientation in this wonderfully loving family, but it’s the cat who steals the show! Teachers can use this book to talk about doing chores and organizing for visitors.  Students will crack up about the shenanigans that can happen when directions get mixed up! Such a fun book! (contributor: Craig A. Young)

Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series 
by Traci Sorell, illustrations by Arigon Starr (April 2023, Kokila)

I first learned about this book at the 2023 CLA breakfast and read it immediately. The book is complex and gripping. The contrast between the tension in the media versus the camaraderie portrayed between the Native American athletes speaks volumes about the construction of Native Americans in the U.S. The childhoods of each of the players were fascinating. The artistry by Arigon Starr depicts art that is rooted to each of the athlete’s tribes. Apart from the compelling story, Sorell provides information about other Native baseball players until today, quotes, and an author’s note. (contributor: Laura Ascenzi-Moreno)
​
Book cover: Contenders
Book cover: Forget Me Not
Forget Me Not
by Ellie Terry (May 2018, Square Fish)

As a neurodivergent reader, I love middle grade stories that share the realities of our existence without relying on stereotypes or assumptions, especially when those stories are by neurodivergent creators. One great example is Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry, a dual-perspective novel - half in verse - about a young girl with Tourette’s syndrome (TS). (It’s important to note that the book’s author has TS, too.) It’s a story of friendship and hope and rejecting the idea that it’s better if you hide—your TS, your neurodivergence, who you are. Terry eloquently recognizes the difficulty, but also the brilliance, in finding your own voice and being your most authentic self. (contributor: Jennifer Slagus)
Book cover: Jo Jo Makoons
Book cover: Jo Jo Makoons Fancy Pants
Book cover: Jo Jo Makoons Snow Day
Jo Jo Makoons Series
by Dawn Quigley, illustrations by Tara Audibert (Heartdrum)

Native Americans have a great love of laughter. In this series, author Dawn Quigley (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe) introduces a spunky seven-year-old named Jo Jo Makoons who lives on an Ojibwe reservation. Jo Jo’s worldview is truly one-of-a-kind as she learns to be friendly, fancy, and imaginative. I love Jo Jo’s hilarious adventures, which are similar to a younger Amelia Bedelia experience. Readers will meet Jo Jo’s Ojibwe family and community (and her pet cat Mimi) as she moves through contemporary, everyday events. Illustrator Tara Audibert (Wolastoqiyik First Nation heritage) adds her comical, cartoon-style artwork to each story in the series. First and second-grade readers will make connections with Jo Jo’s realistic experiences, her feelings in those situations, and learn how she solves her problems. These books are upbeat and humorous, making them a very enjoyable read. (contributor: Andrea M. Page Hunkpapa Lakota)
Book cover: Our Skin
Our Skin: A First Conversation about Race 
by Megan Madison and Jessica Ralli, illustrations by Isabel Roxas (May 2021, Rise x Penguin Workshop)
​
Have you ever struggled with finding the language to talk about race and racism with young children? In Our Skin: A First Conversation about Race, authors Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli and Isabel Roxas provide a template for building children’s (and adults’) racial awareness and racial literacy in simple language. Madison and Ralli’s straightforward language introduces terms like skin color, race, racism, and injustice, while Roxas’s art showcases our commonalities and differences in physical attributes that children will likely recognize. Dismantling racism is a centuries-long process that will likely continue into our future. As difficult as it may be, it is necessary to keep the conversation going. As author and activist James Baldwin once said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” This book provides a pathway for parents, teachers, and librarians to face and dismantle racism by creating a brave space to have more courageous conversations with young readers. (contributor: Nadine Bryce)
The House that Lou Built 
by Mae Respicio (June 2018, Wendy Lamb Books)

Growing up as a first generation Filipina-American, I never saw myself or my lived experiences reflected in any book I read as a child. I am beyond thrilled that Filipinx and Filipinx-American writers and Filipinx-American characters are finally represented in children’s literature. While the work of Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly may be most known, I wanted to share the work of Mae Respicio as well. The House That Lou Built is one of Respicio’s novels that I would recommend for upper elementary and middle school readers. The protagonist, Lou, defies gender and cultural stereotypes to make her dream of building a tiny house come true, especially when she realizes what is at stake. A coming-of-age novel that is full of family, friendships, Filipino culture, and heart. (contributor: Grace Enriquez)
Book cover: The House That Lou Built
Book cover: The Year We Learned to Fly
The Year We Learned to Fly
by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrations by Rafael López (January 2022, Nancy Paulsen Books)

In The Year We Learned To Fly, young readers living in cities see the setting they call home represented in familiar ways.  Woodson draws our attention to nature with mentions of spring rain and the early darkness that accompanies autumn in her story of a brother and sister struggling with boredom. The fashionable Afrocentric grandmother encourages her granddaughter and grandson to use their imagination and helps them to see the world in new ways. The grandmother’s wisdom and sense of history becomes their own. I love the homage to Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly in the story, afterword, and in Lopez’s illustrations. There are beautiful ties to the African American literary tradition related to flying. The book lends to discussions about imagination and ancestry linked to enslavement. (contributor: Susan Browne)
This is Our House 
by Hyewon Yum (April 2023, Square Fish)

This Is Our House, written and illustrated by Hyewon Yum, shows one “normal” Korean American family’s growth in the United States. In the house in New York, babies grow, become adults, and get married. Seen from a granddaughter's viewpoints, this book showcases that Asians are also one of the fabric of the United States. This book also shows interracial marriage as a part of the story. The story and illustrations are peaceful on the surface, however, teachers and students can share their own diverse aspects of their own families, which should be considered as “normal” in the first place. (contributor: Eun Young Yeom) ​
Book cover: This is Our House
Book cover: We Still Belong
We Still Belong
by Christine Day (August 2023, Heartdrum)

I love how We Still Belong by Christine Day showcases the importance of Native heritage, the impact of stereotypes, the value of kindness, and the importance of community all while captivating young readers. Indigenous People’s Day is a central part of the story, and it can inspire readers to learn more about this day and its significance. This book is perfect for beginning discussions about exploring one's identity and what it really means to belong. The publisher created an Educator Guide that will help with discussions. (contributor: Kasey Short)
These poignant and powerful texts that are well loved by CLA DEI committee members illuminate many issues surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion. These texts speak to issues of race, gender, heritage, and sexual orientation, to name a few, and could be used in the classroom to evaluate the impact of stereotypes or assumptions, to face and dismantle racism, to highlight the value of kindness, or to provide a realistic portrayal of diversity for readers to see themselves and their lived experiences represented in texts.

As delineated in the CLA Bylaws, the DEI committee encompasses a steadfast commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity within CLA:
 
"The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee Chair and members shall help ensure CLA’s commitment to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. The committee shall help create and/or review CLA policies and position statements shared with CLA members and/or the greater public. The committee shall work with membership and nominating committees for recruitment as well as help distribute calls for CLA-related applications. Committee members shall also serve as resources for CLA Standing Committee Chairs when they are developing materials and programs." 
 
For more information about the DEI committee, please contact committee chairs Adam Crawley ([email protected]) or Elizabeth Bemiss ([email protected]).
Adam Crawley is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He serves as the 2023 and 2024 CLA DEI Committee chair.

Elizabeth Bemiss is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of West Florida. She is a CLA Board Member and chair of the 2023 and 2024 CLA DEI Committee.

Making Waves and Radiating Hope: Young Peoples’ Acts of Resistance in 2024 Award-Winners

1/27/2024

 

By Jennifer Slagus and Callie Hammond

There is something endlessly energizing about reading new things—whether it’s an anxiously-awaited release, a long-term tenant on your TBR-list, or the research of an emerging scholar (maybe we’re a little biased on that last one). Members of the CLA Student Committee are privileged to do just that: to read exciting books and write about all the exciting ways they can be used in classrooms to improve the lives and learning of our students. Much of our work as early career researchers highlights critical pieces of children’s literature that attend to the social, cultural, and political contexts of our real and literary worlds. We want to share a few recently published, award-winning books relevant to our doctoral research that highlight young peoples’ bravery and acts of resistance. All three are critical, impactful reads worth embedding in each of our classrooms in 2024.

Jennifer Slagus

I’m a huge fan of books by authors who share a lived reality with their characters. As a neurodivergent researcher, I strive to highlight middle grade novels that help to restory the perceptions of who neurodivergent people are (and who they’re allowed to be). There have been many fabulous authors in the past five years or so who have contributed books that do just that. But one author sticks out to me as an exceptional advocate for neurodivergent acceptance: Sally J. Pla. She’s an autistic middle grade author and the founder of A Novel Mind, a website that centers mental health and neurodiversity representation in children’s fiction. ANM has been a gold mine for my research. Not only does it feature a vibrant blog and a ton of educator resources, but it also has a database of over 1,150 children’s books featuring mental health and neurodiversity representation.
Cver of The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGuinn (2023)
Picture
Sally’s most recent novel, The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGuinn (2023) was just awarded the 2024 Schneider Family Book Award for its fantastic neurodivergent representation set against the realistic difficulties many disabled people face (like infantilization, abuse, and resulting trauma). Despite all of Maudie’s hardships—living with an abusive stepdad and narrowly escaping a ravaging California wildfire—she finds strength in her own voice and is able to admit she needs help. Just before the book published, Sally and I talked about Maudie on Episode 4 of my podcast In the MIDst: A Kid's Lit Podcast.  She explained the novel is “about blooming after your world’s kind of been scorched in a way. But it’s a healing novel, it talks about some really deep issues of emotional abuse . . . and moving on afterwards and healing and growing and finding your voice and learning that you can tell, and you can talk, and it’s okay” (31:25-31:46).

Maudie’s ability to find her voice and self-advocate—her acts of resistance against the way she is continually mistreated—make this a critical read. And the accompanying discussion guide, created by an Education PhD, features questions and activities to facilitate classroom discussions that can help young readers better understand Maudie’s experiences, and support them as they analyze the conflict, and consider how to better empathize with and care for their neurodivergent friends, family, and community members.

Callie Hammond

As a middle school teacher for ten years, I often utilized picturebooks to engage my students and to teach discrete skills, usually about grammar, and to illustrate writing techniques. These lessons had varying success—sometimes the 7th graders would be open to reading a picturebook, other times they rolled their eyes and refused to participate.

The most successful picturebooks that I ever brought into my classroom though had nothing to do with grammar or writing, they had to do with Anne Frank. I taught her diary to 6th graders who, unless they were readers themselves and had already discovered World War II fiction, had no knowledge of the Holocaust or how Jews were treated in the years preceding the war. My Anne Frank picturebook collection featured many books about Anne (there are a lot of them out there), but also books that explained significant parts of the war: the night of broken glass, Jewish resistance, children in concentration camps, children who also hid during the war, and many others.

Now, as a doctoral student in English education, I have come full circle to analyze the stories of Jewish female protagonists in YA novels about World War II, and representations of the Holocaust in picturebooks. Two of these picturebooks were published in 2023 and feature stories and information that our students need and can learn from. Both books were also just named Notable Books for a Global Society Award for 2024. As is fitting for a book about a traumatic historical event, both are nonfiction and have extensive back matter to explain the stories.
Cover of Hidden Hope: How a Toy and a Hero Saved Lives During the Holocaust
In Hidden Hope: How a Toy and a Hero Saved Lives During the Holocaust, a young girl named Jacqueline resists the Nazis by hiding fake papers in a wooden yellow duck toy for those who needed to escape France after the Nazi invasion. Her story reveals a twist though: she is a Jewish girl masquerading in the open as a Christian. Her act of resistance and sheer bravery are an incredible learning opportunity for students to understand different types of resistance during the war.

Cover of Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kinderstransport
Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kinderstransport is about the Kindertransport (or child transportation) of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia to Great Britain. This picturebook does not shy away from the overwhelming confusion and sadness of the children who are leaving their parents, and of the parents whose children are leaving. Reading this book with middle school and high school students will provide an emotional connection to the hardships of the war without focusing on atrocity pictures.


Utilizing both of these picturebooks in the classroom with older students can prep them for the heavier history or readings a teacher might soon introduce. They also provide picture evidence of hardships and bravery without being too macabre.
Jennifer Slagus is a doctoral candidate at Brock University in Ontario, Canada and Coordinator of Research & Instruction at the University of South Florida Libraries. Jennifer’s doctoral research focuses on representations of neurodivergence in twenty-first century middle grade fiction.

Callie Hammond is a doctoral student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Callie’s doctoral research focuses on accessing historical knowledge when teaching literature that involves the Holocaust and using critical content analysis to analyze and understand representations of the Holocaust in children’s picturebooks.

CLA Student Committee Members
  • Jennifer Slagus - Brock University (Chair)
  • Nadine Bravo - University of Southern Maine
  • Kristen Foos - Ohio State University
  • Callie Hammond - NC State University
  • Ling Hao - University of South Carolina
  • Carrie Ann Thomas - Ohio State University

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.
Picture
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? 
Book cover: Tar Beach
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. 
Samira Surfs by Ruhksanna Guidroz
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:
​
  1. 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.
  2. 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).
  3. 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. 
The Lost Language by Claudia Mills
​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. 
Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca
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

Cover of
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.

Cover of Stamped
Cover of New Kid

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.
Book cover: Reading the Rainbow

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.
Book cover: When Aiden Became a Brother
Book cover: Too Bright to See

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
Book cover: Rise to the Sun

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: They, She, He: Easy as ABC
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.
CLA Master Class Flier
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
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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.
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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
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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
Book Cover: The CAFE book
Book cover: The write thing
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 
Book cover: Carter reads the newspaper
Book cover: I am not a number
Book cover: My papi has a motorcycle
Book cover: The day you begin
Book cover: The proudest blue
Book cover: The teachers march
Book cover: The undefeated
Book cover: Unspeakable
​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
Book cover: Ghost boys
Book cover: King and the dragonflies
Book cover: New kid
Book cover: Tristan Strong
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
​
  • 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

Author and two students2018 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.

Author and two students
2019 NCTE Annual Convention, Baltimore
Author and two students
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

PictureKathryn 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.

PictureQuintin 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 logo
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   

AICL logo
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 Medal
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?

Book Cover: We Are Water Protectors
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.
Read Native Logo
Read Native for Kids

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.
*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.
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