thesis statement for children's literature

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12.6: Literary Thesis Statements

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• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

The Literary Thesis Statement

Literary essays are argumentative or persuasive essays. Their purpose is primarily analysis, but analysis for the purposes of showing readers your interpretation of a literary text. So the thesis statement is a one to two sentence summary of your essay's main argument, or interpretation.

Just like in other argumentative essays, the thesis statement should be a kind of opinion based on observable fact about the literary work.

Thesis Statements Should Be

• This thesis takes a position. There are clearly those who could argue against this idea.
• Look at the text in bold. See the strong emphasis on how form (literary devices like symbolism and character) acts as a foundation for the interpretation (perceived danger of female sexuality).
• Through this specific yet concise sentence, readers can anticipate the text to be examined ( Huckleberry Finn) , the author (Mark Twain), the literary device that will be focused upon (river and shore scenes) and what these scenes will show (true expression of American ideals can be found in nature).

Thesis Statements Should NOT Be

• While we know what text and author will be the focus of the essay, we know nothing about what aspect of the essay the author will be focusing upon, nor is there an argument here.
• This may be well and true, but this thesis does not appear to be about a work of literature. This could be turned into a thesis statement if the writer is able to show how this is the theme of a literary work (like "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid) and root that interpretation in observable data from the story in the form of literary devices.
• Yes, this is true. But it is not debatable. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who could argue with this statement. Yawn, boring.
• This may very well be true. But the purpose of a literary critic is not to judge the quality of a literary work, but to make analyses and interpretations of the work based on observable structural aspects of that work.
• Again, this might be true, and might make an interesting essay topic, but unless it is rooted in textual analysis, it is not within the scope of a literary analysis essay. Be careful not to conflate author and speaker! Author, speaker, and narrator are all different entities! See: intentional fallacy.

Thesis Statement Formula

One way I find helpful to explain literary thesis statements is through a "formula":

Thesis statement = Observation + Analysis + Significance

• Observation: usually regarding the form or structure of the literature. This can be a pattern, like recurring literary devices. For example, "I noticed the poems of Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir all use symbols such as the lover's longing and Tavern of Ruin "
• Analysis: You could also call this an opinion. This explains what you think your observations show or mean. "I think these recurring symbols all represent the human soul's desire." This is where your debatable argument appears.
• Significance: this explains what the significance or relevance of the interpretation might be. Human soul's desire to do what? Why should readers care that they represent the human soul's desire? "I think these recurring symbols all show the human soul's desire to connect with God. " This is where your argument gets more specific.

Thesis statement: The works of ecstatic love poets Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir use symbols such as a lover’s longing and the Tavern of Ruin to illustrate the human soul’s desire to connect with God .

Thesis Examples

SAMPLE THESIS STATEMENTS

These sample thesis statements are provided as guides, not as required forms or prescriptions.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Literary Device Thesis Statement

The thesis may focus on an analysis of one of the elements of fiction, drama, poetry or nonfiction as expressed in the work: character, plot, structure, idea, theme, symbol, style, imagery, tone, etc.

In “A Worn Path,” Eudora Welty creates a fictional character in Phoenix Jackson whose determination, faith, and cunning illustrate the indomitable human spirit.

Note that the work, author, and character to be analyzed are identified in this thesis statement. The thesis relies on a strong verb (creates). It also identifies the element of fiction that the writer will explore (character) and the characteristics the writer will analyze and discuss (determination, faith, cunning).

The character of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet serves as a foil to young Juliet, delights us with her warmth and earthy wit, and helps realize the tragic catastrophe.

The Genre / Theory Thesis Statement

The thesis may focus on illustrating how a work reflects the particular genre’s forms, the characteristics of a philosophy of literature, or the ideas of a particular school of thought.

“The Third and Final Continent” exhibits characteristics recurrent in writings by immigrants: tradition, adaptation, and identity.

Note how the thesis statement classifies the form of the work (writings by immigrants) and identifies the characteristics of that form of writing (tradition, adaptation, and identity) that the essay will discuss.

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame reflects characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd in its minimalist stage setting, its seemingly meaningless dialogue, and its apocalyptic or nihilist vision.

A close look at many details in “The Story of an Hour” reveals how language, institutions, and expected demeanor suppress the natural desires and aspirations of women.

Generative Questions

One way to come up with a riveting thesis statement is to start with a generative question. The question should be open-ended and, hopefully, prompt some kind of debate.

• What is the effect of [choose a literary device that features prominently in the chosen text] in this work of literature?
• How does this work of literature conform or resist its genre, and to what effect?
• How does this work of literature portray the environment, and to what effect?
• How does this work of literature portray race, and to what effect?
• How does this work of literature portray gender, and to what effect?
• What historical context is this work of literature engaging with, and how might it function as a commentary on this context?

These are just a few common of the common kinds of questions literary scholars engage with. As you write, you will want to refine your question to be even more specific. Eventually, you can turn your generative question into a statement. This then becomes your thesis statement. For example,

• How do environment and race intersect in the character of Frankenstein's monster, and what can we deduce from this intersection?

Expert Examples

While nobody expects you to write professional-quality thesis statements in an undergraduate literature class, it can be helpful to examine some examples. As you view these examples, consider the structure of the thesis statement. You might also think about what questions the scholar wondered that led to this statement!

• "Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as 'the other world,' the antithesis of Europe and therefore civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality" (Achebe 3).
• "...I argue that the approach to time and causality in Boethius' sixth-century Consolation of Philosophy can support abolitionist objectives to dismantle modern American policing and carceral systems" (Chaganti 144).
• "I seek to expand our sense of the musico-poetic compositional practices available to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, focusing on the metapoetric dimensions of Much Ado About Nothing. In so doing, I work against the tendency to isolate writing as an independent or autonomous feature the work of early modern poets and dramatists who integrated bibliographic texts with other, complementary media" (Trudell 371).

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa" Research in African Literatures 9.1 , Indiana UP, 1978. 1-15.

Chaganti, Seeta. "Boethian Abolition" PMLA 137.1 Modern Language Association, January 2022. 144-154.

"Thesis Statements in Literary Analysis Papers" Author unknown. https://resources.finalsite.net/imag...handout__1.pdf

Trudell, Scott A. "Shakespeare's Notation: Writing Sound in Much Ado about Nothing " PMLA 135.2, Modern Language Association, March 2020. 370-377.

Contributors and Attributions

Thesis Examples. Authored by: University of Arlington Texas. License: CC BY-NC

Copyright © The Paper Experts Inc. All rights reserved.

ENG 350 Young Adult Literature Class Guide

• Writing a Thesis Statement
• Source Types
• Searching Google Search and Google Scholar
• Searching Discovery
• Search Terms
• Search Stategies
• Using Sources Effectively
• Citing with MLA Style
• ILL Request Form This link opens in a new window
• Research Guides

Contact Taylor

Introduction

Welcome! This page is designed to help you with your Young Adult Literature research paper. Use this page to learn more about:

• Brainstorming a thesis topic
• Identifying source types
• Searching Google and Google Scholar
• Using library databases to find secondary sources
• Using your sources effectively
• Citing your sources

If you have any questions about any aspect of your research assignment, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] .

Selecting a Topic

Coming up with a thesis statement for a critical literary paper can be difficult, but these strategies should help you in the process. Take some time to brainstorm and look back at readings from the course. Consider the topics that interested you during the class and explore those more fully.

Your assignment reads:

For the research essay, you will choose a controversial topic related to, or within YA literature (for example: book banning; sexuality; violence; gay/lesbian/queer content; birth control; teen suicide; teens and drugs) and discuss it in depth.

Start by selecting your topic of interest in YA literature and identify course texts that fall into those categories. You may also bring other titles in to argue your topic. If you're having focusing your topic, try some of the exercises below:

• Purdue OWL's Introduction to Prewriting This site will provide you with a list of questions to ask yourself while you flesh out your potential focus.
• Develop a Topic from University of Indiana Libraries

If you're still having trouble, think about looking into the subject terms for your course texts to see what topics are covered within them. For example, in the subject terms for  Monster  by Walter Dean Myers, you'll find such subject terms as "self-perception," "prisons—fiction," "African Americans—fiction," and more.

If you'd like to see the subject terms, select the image of the cover of the book you're interested in to get started:

The Graveyard Book

One of Us Is Lying

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Writing Your Thesis Statement

Once you know what you would like to discuss within the primary work, try to write your thesis down in one or two sentences. Thesis sentences should be clear, concise, and specific. The Bridgewater College Writing Center has this to say about thesis statements:

In general, academic writing requires a thesis statement. A thesis statement is often considered to be part of an argumentative text, any paper that takes a position on something, that is, a paper that makes a claim. One way to think about the thesis statement is that if you boiled your whole case down to a single statement, that statement would be your thesis. A thesis statement typically identifies your topic and embodies your attitude toward your topic. Most writing assignments will require you to take a position on a topic, and most college professors expect to find a clear statement of that position, almost always in your introductory paragraph. 

For more information on writing thesis statements, see the Bridgewater College Writing Center page on thesis statements .

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• Last Updated: Feb 22, 2024 10:25 AM
• URL: https://libguides.bridgewater.edu/eng350

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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7. Influence of the Digital Age on Children’s Literature and Its Use in the Classroom

This chapter focuses on historical, social, and political influences on children’s literature, including contemporary influences related to digital and technological advances. One key aspect of contemporary children’s literature is the inclusion of multiple modes, or ways of communicating. This chapter discusses how teachers can utilize multimodal children’s literature by inviting students to engage in arts-based responses that draw from visual and performing arts that are essential in teaching language arts skills and standards in elementary classrooms.

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, readers will be able to

• think critically about children’s literature, from the 17th century up to the digital age;
• analyze ways children’s books are culturally produced and how they influence readers;
• explain the importance of incorporating literature and literature responses that allow for multiple ways of understanding and communicating, including through audio (sound and music), gesture and space (drama and dance), and visual messages (visual art);
• discuss and plan arts-based responses to children’s literature.

Introduction

This chapter explores historical, social, and political influences on children’s literature, including recent trends related to digital and technological influences, such as incorporating multiple ways of communicating in response to multimedia messages prevalent in digital formats. Children’s literature offers insight into the cultural, social, and political history of the place and time at which it was written. The beliefs, norms, and values of the specific historical time and place it was written are reflected in the content of the writing, the style, and genre of the writing, and the audience or market for which the text was written. Placing children’s literature within these contexts allows readers to recognize and critique the cultural messages carried within children’s books and consider the potential effect of those messages on readers. While differences in the children’s literature from the past may be readily apparent, contemporary books also reflect cultural, social, and political worlds of today, making it equally important for educators to analyze the cultural messages contained within them as well.

After developing an understanding of contemporary children’s literature, this chapter focuses on how teachers can take full advantage of children’s books in the classroom. In particular, children’s literature incorporating multiple forms of communication, such as audio or movement, can create broader opportunities for students to respond. These texts lend themselves especially well to arts-based responses, which use visual art, music, drama, or dance activities to enhance understanding of texts. Giving students opportunities to read books that communicate in multiple ways, and then giving students opportunities to respond to those books using multiple ways of communicating, prepares them to communicate effectively in an ever-changing world.

History of Children’s Literature

There have been many changes related to the publishing of literature for children since the beginning of the 17th century when the only books published for children were school books to teach them the alphabet and spelling, as well as morals, manners, and religion. At that time, the content of school books was influenced by Puritan beliefs that children were inclined to evil and needed to be taught morals. However, during this time, cheaply published books called chapbooks containing popular stories and tales also began to be produced and sold. Since these books did not contain strictly moral stories, they were often criticized for departing from Puritan beliefs (Gangi, 2004). Puritanical thinking eventually gave way to the Enlightenment ideals characterized by the philosophy of John Locke, which marked a shift in the view of children to that of a “blank slate” that could be written upon. During this time, moral tales and fables were still published, but more light-hearted books featuring word play, riddles, rhymes, and games began to appear in children’s books as well. Children’s books also borrowed stories originally written for adults, such as Gulliver’s Travels , Ivanhoe , and Robinson Crusoe .

Before the 17th century, children were seen as small adults; however, during the Enlightenment and Romantic periods, childhood was viewed as a time of innocence that was distinct from adolescence (young adulthood) and adulthood (Avery & Kinnell, 1995). These changes in viewpoints created a new market for the writing and publishing of books specifically for children, who were seen as innocent and playful beings rather than mini-adults. During the 18th century, John Newbery, a writer of children’s books, greatly influenced children’s literature by starting the first publishing house dedicated to children’s stories. He published his own stories, as well as the works of other children’s book authors (Gangi, 2004). The idea of a publishing house just for children’s stories reflected a shift in how society thought of children. During the 19th century, greater numbers of books were written for children’s play and enjoyment, including the first picture book, which was written by Randolph Caldecott. 1

This early history of children’s literature illustrates how societal changes influenced writers and book publishers to create and produce books specifically for children. As a market for children’s literature had become firmly established in the 18th and 19th centuries, changes in children’s literature in the 20th century were related to the content of books. For example, the period between World War I and World War II showed a proliferation of books depicting idealism and a pioneering spirit, such as the showcasing of small town life in the Little House on the Prairie series published between 1932 and 1943 by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1971). However, stories from this time period still included some serious and realistic writing, such as the simplicity and down-to-earth style of Margaret Wise Brown’s work for young children, or the realities and hardships of life depicted in stories like Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (1945) that shared the struggles of a poor, working farm girl (Hunt, 1995). 2

The emergence of more realistic stories preceded the onset of a major shift toward realism that accompanied the social and political revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Between the 1930s and 1950s, writers became more willing to address topics related to societal issues and hardships, such as struggles associated with poverty; however, in the 1960s and 1970s, a flood of children’s books emerged centering on realism. Authors such as Beverly Clearly, Judy Blume and Paul Zindel wrote about growing up, death, obesity, and other issues, which marked a shift in the boundaries of what was acceptable, and arguably, even necessary for children to understand. These earlier authors paved the way for the writing of M. E. Kerr, Cynthia Voigt, and Robert Cormier, who wrote about homelessness, race, and sexuality. The realism of children’s literature in the 1960s and 1970s represented a radical shift at that time, similar to many of the other shifts throughout history related to historical, political, and societal influences.

Recent Trends in Children’s Literature

Recent decades have brought additional changes in the publishing of children’s literature. The market for children’s literature has been influenced by demand from parents, children with increased buying power, and a proliferation of serial writing to boost sales. In addition, there have been changes in the content of children’s books related to gender, diversity, and social class (Ching, 2005; Englehardt, 1991; Gangi, 2004; Hunt, 1995; Larrick, 1965; Taxel, 1997; Zipes, 2001). While each of these areas is a worthwhile topic of study on its own, this chapter does not focus on them beyond recognizing their influence overall.

While the impact on children’s literature due to cultural influences has been apparent throughout the decades, current trends center mostly on digital and technological advances in our society. Technological advances have exerted huge effects on printing and publishing capabilities. Beyond printing capabilities, authors and illustrators are writing to maintain the attention of children accustomed to the fast-paced sensory input of digital resources, such as computer and video games, smartphones, and tablet apps. Publishing companies have attempted to produce print texts that mimic or resemble digital texts in wording, style, type of images, or format. Some print texts even borrow concepts about page design from digital texts.

Exposure to digital and technological resources and global access to information have changed the boundaries, topics, and perspectives represented in books for children (Dresang, 1999, 2003). These changes in print texts include the use of non-linear plots that are organized not by a typical beginning, middle, and end, but tell the story out of order and/or lead readers in multiple directions through the text (e.g., The End , by David LaRochelle, 2007). Another change is the use of more interactive formats that invite readers to act or speak back to the book (e.g., Press Here , by Herve Tullet, 2011). Changes also include shifts in the perspective from which stories are told, such as authors highlighting normally “unheard” voices by sharing perspectives of groups or individuals not previously represented in children’s literature or pushing boundaries by focusing on content or topics not previously represented.

As Anstey and Bull (2006) explained, contemporary books are products of changing times that require new understandings about text and are well suited for teaching and preparing students to be multiliterate individuals . Multiliterate individuals are socially responsible, informed citizens who are flexible and strategic as they engage in literacy practices with a variety of text types in a diverse world (Anstey & Bull, 2006). Some of the new understandings required by contemporary books include recognizing that texts represent messages through a variety of ways of communicating. Readers must not only understand written language but must also learn to understand visual language and other signs and symbols.

Technological resources have changed the way information is communicated, and teachers must prepare students to understand information from all types of texts, including digital texts. While this can be facilitated using digital technology, some schools, classrooms, or homes have limited access to technology. Fortunately, many flexible literacy skills can be developed through the use of print books that have the characteristics described above, such as mimicking digital texts in style and formatting, changing organizational patterns, exploring interactive formats, and representing messages in a variety of ways. The availability of print books that can teach students necessary digital skills may narrow a gap that could be perpetuated by the disparity between environments rich with technology and those that are lacking in technology.

Changes in contemporary children’s books are not only related to digital and technological influences but also the influence of a cultural movement of the late 20th century known as postmodernism . A useful working definition of postmodernism by Wertheim (n.d.) presented below helps to highlight important cultural shifts during this period, including the importance of one’s own personal reality in interpreting the world.

Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. (para. 1)

Postmodernism has resulted in changes in all areas of the arts, including architecture, visual art, literature, and music. Children’s literature scholars have highlighted important characteristics of children’s books connected to postmodernism (Anstey & Bull, 2006; Pantaleo, 2004; Serafini, 2005). One of the most notable connections is when the illustrations in a picture book tell a completely different story than the words or show a different perspective or viewpoint. Postmodern influences are also seen in terms of how stories are told, including the portrayal of multiple versions of a story within the same book, telling the story through multiple narrators and perspectives, telling stories within stories, or blending genres, such as mixing fiction and nonfiction elements, or mixing science fiction and history. Authors also may refer to another text within a story or rely on the reader’s understanding of another specific text for full comprehension. The visibility of the author and illustrator within the story is another common postmodern feature, such as when authors refer to themselves within a text, speak directly to readers, or when authors and illustrators share the processes used to create the book within the text itself (Anstey & Bull, 2006; Pantaleo, 2004; Serafini, 2005).

Noting the changes in children’s literature related to digital and postmodern influences, teachers are tasked with determining how and when texts should be used in today’s classrooms. In recent studies, when teachers used texts with postmodern characteristics, it was discovered that the students developed their ability to interpret visual images, their digital literacy skills, and their ability to think critically (Pantaleo, 2004). Each of these skills is important to prepare students for future encounters with both print and digital texts. Students may be interested in digital texts and other varieties of text types, but they may not have a full range of abilities to interpret all the messages contained in these texts. By including contemporary books in the curriculum, teachers can better prepare students for a wide range of experiences in the world.

Multimodal Texts in Children’s Literature

It is easy to envision a classroom that relies on the use of a print textbook and resources that primarily use printed words and visual images to represent meaning. However, print resources are changing in ways that are reflective of the multiple ways, or modes, that are used to communicate within digital contexts. Recall from Chapter 1 that modes of communication encompass all forms of expression, including “Visual Meanings (images, page layouts, screen formats); Audio Meanings (music, sound effects); Gestural Meanings (body language, sensuality); Spatial Meanings (the meanings of environmental spaces, architectural spaces); and Multimodal Meanings” (New London Group, 1996, p. 80). Though children’s literature, especially picture books, rely mainly on print and visual modes (i.e., words combined with pictures), there are growing numbers of children’s books that creatively incorporate audio, gestural, and spatial modes as well. Multimodal texts are capable of drawing on students’ strengths and preparing them for a multimodal society where individuals communicate through audio, gestural, visual, spatial, and print resources, as well as various combinations of these modes.

Each mode has its own capacity to communicate, or potential to make meaning, which is called an affordance (Kress & Jewitt, 2003; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). Basically, this means that each mode communicates the same idea in a different way than any other mode. For example, an individual may communicate a story about a cat by telling the story in words, moving around the room, using sounds, or acting out the story with no words or sounds. Each version might communicate a particular part of the story especially well, while another part may not be communicated as well using that mode. The idea that modes have different affordances, or potential to make meaning, suggests that some modes of communication are better suited for some tasks than others. When modes are integrated, their combination also contributes to an overall meaning that could not be achieved by the use of any one mode on its own. Even within a mode, the materials used or the format of the communicated message can contribute differently to the understanding of the message. For example, a written message carries different meaning if it is written in sand versus carved in stone (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001).

The meaning-making potential of a mode also depends on how a society or group of individuals values that particular mode or how that mode is used within that society in different situations and contexts (Kress & Jewitt, 2003). As individuals understand the potential usefulness of a mode of communication within the context of their culture, they can choose the modes that most appropriately express their message. Thinking back to the example of the cat story, not only does a particular mode communicate the story differently, the choice of a mode may be appropriate in some circumstances but not in others. For example, it would be more appropriate for a small child to act out the story while moving around the room and meowing than a college professor teaching an English class!

Discussions such as this related to how humans communicate and value various modes is grounded in a larger field known as social semiotics. Social semiotics essentially explains how humans make sense of the world and communicate with each other through all ways that are socially meaningful, such as by drawing, creating visuals, talking, making gestures, engaging in dance and movement, creating architecture, and singing and making music (Lemke, 1990). Additionally, as societies or cultural groups adapt over time, they place different value on various modes people use to make meaning. Schools are important in shaping the value placed on different modes in a society; their overemphasis on reading and written language systems marginalizes other valuable forms of expression and, likewise, students who have talents and abilities in these other forms (Eisner, 1991). Eisner explained that being able to understand messages communicated through multiple modes is central to three important educational aims, including increasing the variety and depth of meaning people make in their lives, developing cognitive potential, and providing educational equity in our schools.

When teachers and students begin to understand the potential of each mode, more options become available to understand and create meaning. Students make choices on a daily basis as far as the mode used to communicate, as well as the medium or format of a message. For example, students choose a medium when they decide to send an email or a text message, share a tweet, a picture, or a song, or create a video. The medium chosen often dictates the format of the message—a text might use shorthand or emoticons while an email would use full words. If they understand the potential of each of the modes, they can make choices to create and understand messages more fully. Authors and publishers of children’s literature are also aware of these choices, and the literature they produce is certainly influenced by the knowledge that students’ communication preferences are both flexible and dynamic.

Teachers can facilitate learning in the classroom that allows all of the above to be possible, such as students having knowledge of modes to make the best choices to express their messages, students with talents and abilities in areas beyond print and linguistic forms to have a valued mode to express themselves in the classroom, and students having the ability to fully understand the messages that are communicated through various modes and their combinations throughout society. An understanding of how modes work together in texts is thus necessary for those preparing to enter the teaching profession. Children’s book authors and illustrators are able to offer more multimodal experiences for readers that extend beyond the combination of print and visual modes to include audio, gestural, and spatial modes. As multimodal texts are viewed, readers make meaning by experiencing integrated and cohesive texts that draw on the potential of multiple modes of meaning. Teachers must therefore understand how modes work together within texts in order to prepare students to understand and make meaning with a wider variety of texts and communicate through a wider variety of modes.

Audio Mode in Children’s Literature Texts

Print and visual modes are obvious aspects of children’s literature texts and areas that teachers and students have traditionally spent time studying; however, children’s literature is beginning to utilize other modes of meaning, as well, such as audio, gesture, and spatial modes. In order to understand how these less “obvious” modes work in children’s literature texts, a closer look at the audio mode is presented as an example. The audio mode, which includes both sound and music, is present in many aspects of daily life, including use in film and television, as well as content accessed on iPods, tablets, smartphones, and at popular websites, such as YouTube. This proliferation of sound and music in daily life heightens the importance of teaching students how to use the audio mode to understand and communicate messages.

There are different ways in which picture books might invite the possibility of the reader to make meaning using the audio mode. For the purposes of this discussion, the audio mode is not referring to books that talk about music or sound, as these do not necessarily make meaning using the audio mode. Nor is it referring to audio books (e.g. a CD or audio file in which someone is reading the book out loud) which consist of spoken text or words that are primarily a linguistic meaning. Rather, this discussion focuses on the ways that books can represent meaning through the audio mode using visual and linguistic information, or using other symbolic representations that allow for the possibility of the reader to use the audio mode to make meaning and comprehend the message. For example, if, based on the information represented in a piece of text, a reader makes a sound or sings a song to make meaning of that information, the audio mode is being used to communicate. Kress (2000) explained that to determine which mode is being used to communicate a message, one can think about the sense that is used to make meaning of represented information. Figure 1 provides an example of how a linguistic (print) message, a visual message, and an audio message might appear in a children’s book.

Figure 1. Representation of how the linguistic, visual, and audio modes convey a similar idea in three distinct ways.

Children’s picture books represent audio meaning in different ways. The following examples show how particular authors have not only represented audio meanings but also how picture books can invite communication through multiple modes, even when seemingly only linguistic and visual modes are presented. This same approach can then be used when interpreting any piece of children’s literature to understand if readers are invited to make meaning though multiple modes of representation. One way authors may include audio meanings is by incorporating song lyrics into the story. The song lyrics can be read as a strictly print text; however, if the words are sung as the book is read, this is an example of an audio representation. Other texts incorporate sound words, also known as onomatopoeia (e.g., pow ), into texts, with their meaning dependent on the print text surrounding the sound word. In Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney (1994), the sounds Max hears and plays are represented through sound words within the text. For example, “Max responded by patting the bucket, Tap-tap-tap. Tippy-tip…tat-tat. He created the rhythm of the light rain falling against the front windows” (Pinkney, 1994). The sound words are integrated within the text and add a layer of meaning to the story that would not be present if these sound words were absent.

In other texts, sound words extend the meaning of the text beyond what the print text accomplishes on its own, such as in This Jazz Man by Karen Erhardt (2006) and What Charlie Heard by Mordicai Gerstein (2002). In What Charlie Heard, sound words are used as an integral aspect of the illustrations to show the myriad sounds that Charlie hears. In this story, sound words are written in different fonts and sizes as part of the illustrations showing the sound made by each object, animal, or person represented in the illustration. The sound words in this text become part of the illustration and represent the sounds themselves.

Other children’s picture books use the audio mode by including musical notation. For example, The Wolf Who Loved Music, by Christopher Gallaz and Marshall Arisman (2003), adds a staff (i.e., the set of five lines on which musical notes are printed) starting on the second page of the text as a light gray heading. On each successive page, additional musical symbols and then notes are added to this staff. The printed music, if decoded, plays the main theme to Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf . Using the musical text along with the printed text provides an additional way to make meaning, offering information which is not included in any other way in the print or visual information of the text.

Some texts use a more abstract notation rather than real musical notation. An example of abstract notation appears in Mysterious Thelonius by Chris Raschka (1997). This book represents the notes of a song through the placement of words on the page. On the book jacket, a color scale shows that each color represents a different note in the musical scale. Throughout the text, the words are written in different colors and heights related to that scale, thus effectively creating a melody through the placement of the words on the page.

Another way picture books can represent the audio mode is by including an external audio CD or a link to an audio file. In The Yellow Umbrella by Jae Soo Liu (2002), the music for this text was composed solely for the purpose of accompanying the illustrations. The music can be listened to in two different ways. There is a one-track short version that has about 20 to 30 seconds of music for each page. There is also a long version which provides 1 to 2 minutes of music for each page, each on a different track. Without the music, a reader might only pause for a moment on the page to consider the small amount of action they see. With the musical accompaniment, the mood and spirit of each page changes. In a wordless picture book, the reader typically uses their own words to form a story related to what is happening in the pictures. The music adds more meaning than the pictures can convey alone to help the reader construct this story. All of the above examples demonstrate some of the ways authors and publishers work together to communicate a wider range of messages, using not just print and visual modes but the audio mode as well.

Connecting Learning Standards to Arts-Based Responses to Literature

Children’s literature can be used by teachers as instructional materials to meet a variety of educational goals and objectives. Using children’s literature that includes multiple modes of communication offers more opportunities to invite students to respond using arts-based forms, such as visual art, drama, music, and dance. Students may be more encouraged to respond to literature if teachers use more familiar terms, such as music, art or drawing, acting or drama, and dance or movement rather than discussing modes, like gestural, spatial, or audio, as terms. Arts-based responses allow students to use all their senses as they make meaning. As an example, an arts-based response might be one in which students act out what they think might happen in a story, create a rhythmic pattern or tune to symbolize each character in a book, or move the same way as they believe characters felt or acted in given situations to help analyze a character’s emotions and motivations. Multimodal books are not required tools for arts-based responses in that teachers can encourage or create arts-based response activities for any book, but when a text already utilizes audio, gesture, movement, or space in creative ways, it can offer students a model and set the stage for engaging in arts-based responses.

An argument can be made that incorporating arts-based responses is especially important for students who excel in other modes of communicating besides reading and writing. Nevertheless, in many of my discussions of arts-based responses with teachers, it often is revealed that they believe arts-based responses are fun extension activities but they may be pushed to the periphery in light of the increasing pressure of standards and testing. Yet, incorporating arts-based responses can help teach skills necessitated by the standards. To help ensure that teaching and learning are directed toward a meaningful outcome, teachers have purposes for using any strategy, practice, or lesson they teach, including the practice of incorporating arts-based responses. Teachers’ purposes are aligned with their state’s standards for student learning, including the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects   ( CCSS ; National Governors Association & Council of Chief State School Officers [NGA & CCSSO], 2010), which have been adopted by most states across the United States.

I asked pre-service and practicing teachers about their purposes for having students respond to literature. Table 1 shows a list generated from their responses, including helping students comprehend or interpret a text, connect to characters or events, and consider new events or situations. The right column of Table 1 shows how these purposes aligned with standards, such as CCSS Reading Standards for Literature K-5, CCSS Speaking and Listening Standards and NYS P-12 Common Core Learning Standards (NYSED, 2011). 3   This alignment shows that asking students to respond to literature in the classroom can help teachers and students accomplish important learning goals.

Earlier in the chapter, purposes for asking students to respond to multimodal texts were established. These included giving students opportunities to make meaning of texts that draw on multiple modes of meaning and to understand the potential of each mode of communication in order to make choices that allow them to create and understand messages more fully. These two purposes align with the CCSS Reading Literature standard, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas regarding how illustrations, words, and, in later grades, multimedia elements in print, digital, and multimedia texts contribute to the overall effect of the text.

Siegel (2006) explained how translating information from one mode of communication into a different mode, called transmediation , generates new understandings of the information. Since each mode has a different potential to communicate, transmediation furthers students’ meaning making because it requires them to think about content in different ways and is a clear benefit of arts-based responses. In addition, when teachers generated their lists of the purposes for responding to literature, there were a small number they listed that did not match with the standards, including promoting creativity, allowing students to think out of the box and explore their own thinking, fostering empathy, and giving students a chance to be actively engaged and gain ownership of learning. These purposes for literature response were important to teachers with respect to maintaining a positive and productive learning environment. Arts-based responses offer rich opportunities to fulfill many purposes such as those included in Table 1, while enhancing understanding of literature and creating lifelong learners.

The design of arts-based responses goes beyond thinking of a final product such as a cute craft to send home, to instead, thinking about the activity as part of a process that will allow students to engage with the content and literature. Because arts-based responses to children’s literature are central to achieving teachers’ purposes and align with state standards, the final section of this chapter will feature well-designed arts-based activities that can help students transmediate between modes and think about making meaning in new ways.

Examples of Arts-Based Responses

The visual and performing arts responses to children’s literature featured in this section are offered as suggestions and to inspire new ideas. Each book and each class offer unique opportunities to create and innovate. As you consider the use of arts-based responses in your own classroom, envision each suggestion taking place with students and teachers exploring and experiencing the text and the activity together. Students are not professional actors, musicians, artists, or dancers, and yet they are fully capable of visual and performing arts responses. Likewise, teachers do not need to be professional artists or dancers either to effectively use arts-based responses with students. As pointed out by Berghoff (1998), these responses are not about teaching the disciplines of art or music in the language arts classroom but allowing learners to use their knowledge from these disciplines to learn in the language arts classroom. These ways of thinking and expression are familiar to young children, she explains. “From early childhood on, children make sense of the world through dramatic play, drawing, dancing, singing and other communicative forms” (p. 521). Teachers can foster an environment where these ways of thinking continue to be valued as students explore the world in ways that are familiar. Each example in the following section also includes a link to the standard(s) that the activity addresses as a reminder that offering arts-based responses accomplishes important curricular goals.

Music responses explore how all elements of music and audio, including individual sounds, pitch (high or low), dynamics (loud and soft), rhythm, and tempo (speed) communicate with listeners.

Sound translation

The text of This Jazz M a n by Karen Erhardt (2006) follows the familiar tune of “This Old Man,” but the verse on each page introduces a different jazz performer. As part of the verse, there is a string of sound words that helps readers hear the sound of the instrument performed by that jazz player. There is also an extended sound word phrase incorporated into the illustration. For this lesson, read through the book as a class read aloud. Then reread the book and invite students to sing along with the reading using the tune to “This Old Man.” Finally, use materials available in the classroom to translate the string of sound words back into sound (hands and feet, pencils, water bottles, books, etc.). Encourage students to be creative as they find materials to make the sound. Once a sound has been chosen for each song verse, reread and sing the song one more time. Instead of speaking the sound words, replace them with the chosen sound to translate the sound words to actual sounds (Robertson, 2008). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4-5.4

Hear your life

What Charlie Heard by Mordicai Gerstein (2002) is a picture book biography of the life of composer Charles Ives, who is known as a composer whose music was often misunderstood or regarded as difficult to listen to (recall that this book was discussed previously in reference to audio modes). Charles Ives heard all the sounds in his life as music, and his compositions are meant to portray this, however dissonant or cacophonous (i.e., disagreeable; not harmonious) his compositions ended up being. For example, one of his more famous pieces is a representation of two different marching bands playing two different pieces in different keys, marching from opposite directions, crossing in front of the listener, and then moving away. In this picture book biography, sound words are used as part of the illustrations in different colors and fonts next to the object, person, or animal from which the sound originates. The pages are full of sounds and colors, showing the sounds that permeated Charles Ives’ life. First, share the book with students, guiding them as they interpret the messages communicated through multiple modes. Then, invite students to write and illustrate a scene from their life using the same style. Figure 2 shows how a class of students represented sounds in an illustration drawn from a personal memoir writing piece they were working on. In this classroom, when the teacher then asked students to go back and revise their memoir, the exploration into the sound and visual representation of their story allowed them to add much more robust sensory detail into their revisions (Robertson, 2008).  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7 -5.7 ; CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.3 -5.3

Figure 2. Student example of the illustration style in What Charlie Heard by Mordicai Gerstein.

Drama responses allow students to explore how elements such as body language, posture, gesture, voice, and inflection contribute to expressing and understanding meaning.

Color and e motions

The following activity allows students to explore the relationship between color and emotions and involves two children’s literature books: My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss (1996), and The Way I Feel by Janan Cain (2000). Both of these books relate emotions and moods to different colors. Start the lesson by reading each of the books in a large group format. For the remainder of the lesson, ask students to work within small groups. Provide each group with plenty of different colored pieces of paper. To start, ask one person in the group to act out an emotion for the other members, charade style. Other members of the group will then choose a piece of paper in a color they think represents the acted-out emotion. The group members will then share the emotion they believed was being acted out, as well as why they chose that particular color to represent it, and the actor can share if the group members guessed the emotion they were portraying. Repeat the steps in this activity so that each person in the group has an opportunity to act out an emotion or mood. Younger children still exploring ways to name their emotions can use this activity to further develop their understanding of emotions. Older children working on incorporating more descriptive words and explaining and portraying emotions in their writing can use this activity to add further dimensions to how they and others think about emotions and moods. This activity can be especially enlightening, since students may realize that though they think they are showing one emotion, others may perceive it differently. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7 -5.7

Sound and action s tory

The following activity invites students to think about the attributes of specific characters in a text. The idea was adapted from a suggestion by Gelineau (2012) to create “original sound stories” by determining sounds to match well-defined characters (p. 67). The following activity extends that idea by asking students to create a sound as well as an action for each character in a book. While this activity could be applied to many different texts, The boy who cried ninja by Alex Latimer (2011) is offered as a suggestion to learn how the process works. The book has a wide variety of diverse characters, including a Mom, Dad, Grampa, ninja, astronaut, giant squid, pirate, crocodile and monkey. First, read the book, The boy who cried ninja, aloud. Then, break the class into small groups and have the students decide on a sound and an accompanying action for each character. Each group will then practice reading through the book: every time a character is mentioned (or shown in a picture) they perform the action and make the sound for that character. After each group practices, they will perform their action and sound stories for the class while the teacher reads the story aloud. The process of selecting a sound and action that matches a character will deepen discussion of the characters, and performing the story for the class will extend that discussion to the larger group. For older students, this is a good book to introduce this activity, but then the process can be applied to books where the characters have more development. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.7

Dance and movement

Dance and movement responses explore how both dance or body movement can express messages and communicate with others.

Walk l ike a/ an …

Every time students need to move around the room, make the most of these transitions by turning them into a response activity focusing on dance and movement. For example, as students move to get in line or to shift activities in the room, connect to a character in a class read-aloud by asking students to move as if they are feeling one or more of the emotions that character had experienced. This will help students identify with and understand the actions of the characters. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3 -5.3

Find your style (dance and music response)

Often in children’s literature, common themes or storylines are repeated. Start this lesson by creating a story map (WETA Public Broadcasting, 2015)—a graphic organizer that outlines the elements of story, such as setting, characters, plots and events, problems and solutions—for the following three stories: 1) The Twelve Dancing Princesses, a classic fairy tale with many adaptations (though the illustrations in Marianna Mayer’s [1989] and Ruth Sanderson’s [1990] versions are particularly beautiful), 2) The Barn Dance by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault (1986), and 3) Brothers of the Knight by Debbie Allen (2001). Each book follows a similar story line but has its own style, tone, and setting. Ask students to explore the illustrations, the language use, and the design of the books as they compare and contrast the three stories. Add a further dimension to the stories by pairing them with musical samples representing the three styles displayed in the books (a classical piece, such as Bach’s “Minuet in G”; an American folk song, such as “Turkey in the Straw”; and a current, popular, hip hop selection.) With music selected, let students dance to the styles in the books. Discuss or find examples of costumes, props, or musical instruments to explore the elements of tone, style and setting in each story. The decision making process as students choose the music, instruments, or dance moves that connect with the different styles represented in the books actively engages students in the process of transmediation, described earlier as a process of translating information from one mode to another and thus creating new understandings. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3 -5.3 ; CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7 -5.7

Visual arts responses explore how color, lines, shapes, drawing, painting, and all other elements of art communicate messages to the viewer.

Make a matc h

Illustrators are artists, and their work is based on traditions and styles in art. Share illustrations from a children’s picture book and compare them to a matching art style. For example, pair the illustrations in Marianna Mayer’s (1989) Twelve Dancing Princesses with Jean-Honore’ Fragonard’s The Swing (students may also be very excited to recognize this particular painting from Disney’s Frozen ). Compare Picasso’s cubism artwork with the illustrations in D. B. Johnson’s (2002) Henry Builds a Cabin or the work of children’s book author David Wiesner with surrealism works of Salvador Dali or Vladimir Kush. Extend the activity by asking students go on an “art hunt” and make matches between picture book illustrations and pieces of artwork. For a challenge, ask students to create their own illustrations. Though some of the styles may seem detailed and difficult for children to replicate, they may still choose one of the harder styles to explore the process. Or suggest they work with an easier style, such as naïve artwork, characterized by a childlike nature and represented in picture books such as The Bookshop Dog by Cynthia Rylant (1996) or Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback (1999). Students can create illustrations to go with a story they are writing or related to an event in their life. After matching art and illustrations or illustrating using a certain style, have a discussion with students about why a style might be used with a certain book. Did the style help tell the story or set the mood? When they used the style themselves, how did it affect the overall message they were communicating? CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.7

Pinhole v iew

Illustrators are becoming much more innovative in the creation of wordless picture books. The wordless picture book Flashlight by Lizi Boyd (2014) offers many opportunities for discovery. The illustrations show the character exiting a tent in the woods at night. Most of the page is black with grey line drawings to show the dim background. The character is holding a flashlight and there is a bright spot of the illustration on each page in the path of the flashlight. Small holes are cut out of each page giving a glimpse of what is to come or perhaps something missed on the page before, further drawing visual attention to details in the book. Since exploring dark spaces may not be conducive to a classroom or school environment, teachers can extend the reading of this book by using the idea of the cut outs. Have students view the classroom, other areas in the school, or outdoor areas of the school grounds through a hole cut in a piece of paper. Have them sketch the new things to which this pinhole view of the world drew their attention. What do they see differently with different shaped holes? Do they see things they did not notice without the pinhole view? This artistic response helps students understand the effect and theme of the book and also helps give them a different perspective on their environment. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.5 -5.5

This chapter began by establishing the historical, social, and political influences on children’s literature beginning in the 17th century and leading to contemporary influences, including digital and technological advances, postmodernism, and the prevalence of multiple modes of communicating. The discussion then turned to how teachers can utilize multimodal texts in classrooms to teach the skills outlined in state standards and aligned with teachers’ purposes. Arts-based responses using traditional and multimodal texts were described as a way for teachers to support all students to fulfill purposes for responding to literature, including those that may not have direct correlations to the standards but are still necessary for establishing a positive classroom learning environment . Examples of drama, music, dance and movement, and visual arts response activities were presented to specifically show how contemporary literature, including multimodal literature, can be used in classroom settings. Teachers are encouraged to explore multimodal children’s literature and design meaningful arts-based response activities that will enhance the learning of every child in their classroom.

Questions and Activities

• Find a book (maybe one you read as a child) that represents the time or place in history in which it was written. Find a contemporary book which represents the current time and place in history. Imagine you are looking at either book as an outsider to that time and place. What social, cultural, or political messages, either purposeful or inadvertent, are reflected in that piece of literature?
• Browse the children’s books at the local library and critically analyze the messages to find books that represent a new perspective or voice that is not usually heard, such as a story told from the perspective of a character from a diverse population or a unique representation of gender roles. What social, cultural, or political messages are reflected in that piece of literature?
• With a partner or in a small group, communicate something about a particular topic using only gestures or movement, then using only sounds (not words), then only pictures, and then only words. Then try to communicate using a combination of these modes. Ask your audience to share their interpretations of each message.
• Make a list of ways you communicate daily using different modes when you experience events such as hearing a siren, seeing traffic lights, seeing a friend, communicating with someone, and listening to Pandora. Based on this list, what are other modes that could be used to communicate in these events? Which seem most effective for you? Do you think that others would use all the same modes? Explain your thinking to others.
• As proposed by this chapter, consider the variety of ways that authors may invite multimodal interpretations and locate a children’s book that communicates using audio, gesture, or space in addition to print and visual modes. How might you use these books with students who have difficulty communicating through reading and writing?
• Select texts and create arts-based response activities in each area (drama, music, dance, and visual art) designed to enhance understanding of the texts. Share your idea with two other classmates and determine the state standards that connect to the arts-based response activities each person designed.

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New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard  Educational Review, 66 , 60–92. Retrieved from  http://vassarliteracy.pbworks.com/f/Pedagogy+of+Multiliteracies_New+London+Group.pdf

New York State Department of Education (2011). New York State P-12 Common c ore learning s tandards for English l an guage arts and literacy . Retrieved from  http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/common_core_standards/pdfdocs/p12_common_core_learning_standards_ela.pdf

Pantaleo, S. (2004). The long, long way: Young children explore the fabula and syuzhet of  Shortcut . Childr en’s Literature in Education, 35 , 1-19. doi: 10.1023/B:CLID.0000018897.74948.2a

Robertson, J. M. (2008) Fourth- and fifth-grade classroom case study of response to multimodal representations in children’s picture books. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.

Serafini, F. (2005). Voices in the park, voices in the classroom: Readers responding to postmodern picture books. Reading Research and Instruction, 44 (3), 47-64. doi: 10.1080/19388070509558431

Siegel, M. (2006). Rereading the signs: Multimodal transformations in the field of literacy education. Language Arts, 84 , 65-77.

Taxel, J. (1997). Multicultural literature and politics of reaction. Teacher’s College Record, 98 , 417-448.

Wertheim, M. (n.d.). Faith and reason : Postmodernism . Retrieved from  http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html

WETA Public Broadcasting (2015). Story maps. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/

Zipes, J. (2001). Sticks and stones: The troublesome success of children’s literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. New York, NY: Routledge.

Children’s Literature References

Allen, D. (2001). Brothers of the k night . New York, NY: Puffin.

Boyd, L. (2014). Flashlight . San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, LLC.

Brown, M. W. (2006). Goodnight m oon . New York, NY: HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Brown, M. W. (2006). Runaway bunny . New York, NY: HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Brown, M.W. (1993). The little i sland . New York, NY: Dragonfly Books.

Cain, J. (2000). The way I f eel . Seattle, WA: Parenting Press.

Dr. Seuss (1996). My many colored d ays . New York, NY: Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Erhardt, K. (2006). This jazz man . New York, NY: Harcourt, Inc.

Gallaz, C., & Arisman, M. (2003). The wolf who loved music . Mankato, MN: Creative Editions.

Gerstein, M. (2002). What Charlie heard . New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Johnson, D. B. (2002). Henry b uilds a c abin . New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Latimer, A. (2011). The boy who cried ninja . New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

LaRochelle, D. (2007). The end . New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.

Lenski, L. (1945). Strawberry g irl . New York, NY: Dell Publishing Co, Inc.

Liu, J. (2002). Yellow umbrella . La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller Book Publishers.

Martin, B., Jr., & Archambault, J. (1986). Barn d ance . New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

Mayer, M. (1989). Twelve dancing p rincesses . New York, NY: HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Pinkney, B. (1994). Max found two sticks . New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.

Raschka, C. (1997). Mysterious Thelonious. New York, NY: Orchard Books.

Rylant, C. (1996) . The bookshop d og . New York, NY: The Blue Sky Press.

Sanderson, R. (1990). Twelve d a ncing p rincesses . New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Taback, S. (1999). Joseph had a little overcoat . New York, NY: Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers.

Tullet, H. (2011). Press here. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Wilder, L. I. (1971). Little house on the p rairie . New York, NY: HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Photo Credit

• Figure 1 Dog photo by Mike Baird, Dog Mackenzie in Carrizo Plain Wildflowers-1, CCBY 2.0 https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4054/4472751860_935be7f465_b.jpg

1: John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott are recognized for their contributions to children’s literature through the Newbery Medal and Caldecott Medal, which are awarded to the most distinguished authors and illustrators in American children’s literature. Return

2: Margaret Wise Brown is most known for writing Goodnight Moon (2006) and has also written over one hundred books for children, including The Runaway Bunny (2006) and The Little Island (1993). These books artfully share big ideas, such as testing a mother’s unconditional love or discovering how all things on earth are connected. Return

3: NYS standards are used as an example of how an adaptation of the CCSS can show particular attention to responding to literature. NYS did adopt the CCSS but added the fifth area to the Reading Standards of “Responding to Literature.” Return

• Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice. Authored by : Kristen A. Munger, Ed.. Provided by : Open SUNY Textbooks. Located at : http://textbooks.opensuny.org/steps-to-success/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Thesis Statements for a Literature Assignment

A thesis prepares the reader for what you are about to say. As such, your paper needs to be interesting in order for your thesis to be interesting. Your thesis needs to be interesting because it needs to capture a reader's attention. If a reader looks at your thesis and says "so what?", your thesis has failed to do its job, and chances are your paper has as well. Thus, make your thesis provocative and open to reasonable disagreement, but then write persuasively enough to sway those who might be disagree.

Keep in mind the following when formulating a thesis:

• A Thesis Should Not State the Obvious
• Use Literary Terms in Thesis With Care
• A Thesis Should be Balanced
• A Thesis Can be a Blueprint

Avoid the Obvious

Bland: Dorothy Parker's "Résumé" uses images of suicide to make her point about living.

This is bland because it's obvious and incontestable. A reader looks at it and says, "so what?"

However, consider this alternative:

Dorothy Parker's "Résumé" doesn't celebrate life, but rather scorns those who would fake or attempt suicide just to get attention.

The first thesis merely describes something about the poem; the second tells the reader what the writer thinks the poem is about--it offers a reading or interpretation. The paper would need to support that reading and would very likely examine the way Parker uses images of suicide to make the point the writer claims.

Use Literary Terms in Thesis Only to Make Larger Points

Poems and novels generally use rhyme, meter, imagery, simile, metaphor, stanzas, characters, themes, settings and so on. While these terms are important for you to use in your analysis and your arguments, that they exist in the work you are writing about should not be the main point of your thesis. Unless the poet or novelist uses these elements in some unexpected way to shape the work's meaning, it's generally a good idea not to draw attention to the use of literary devices in thesis statements because an intelligent reader expects a poem or novel to use literary of these elements. Therefore, a thesis that only says a work uses literary devices isn't a good thesis because all it is doing is stating the obvious, leading the reader to say, "so what?"

However, you can use literary terms in a thesis if the purpose is to explain how the terms contribute to the work's meaning or understanding. Here's an example of thesis statement that does call attention to literary devices because they are central to the paper's argument. Literary terms are placed in italics.

Don Marquis introduced Archy and Mehitabel in his Sun Dial column by combining the conventions of free verse poetry with newspaper prose so intimately that in "the coming of Archy," the entire column represents a complete poem and not a free verse poem preceded by a prose introduction .

Note the difference between this thesis and the first bland thesis on the Parker poem. This thesis does more than say certain literary devices exist in the poem; it argues that they exist in a specific relationship to one another and makes a fairly startling claim, one that many would disagree with and one that the writer will need to persuade her readers on.

Keep Your Thesis Balanced

Keep the thesis balanced. If it's too general, it becomes vague; if it's too specific, it cannot be developed. If it's merely descriptive (like the bland example above), it gives the reader no compelling reason to go on. The thesis should be dramatic, have some tension in it, and should need to be proved (another reason for avoiding the obvious).

Too general: Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote many poems with love as the theme. Too specific: Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink" in <insert date> after <insert event from her life>. Too descriptive: Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink" is a sonnet with two parts; the first six lines propose a view of love and the next eight complicate that view. With tension and which will need proving: Despite her avowal on the importance of love, and despite her belief that she would not sell her love, the speaker in Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink" remains unconvinced and bitter, as if she is trying to trick herself into believing that love really does matter for more than the one night she is in some lover's arms.

Your Thesis Can Be A Blueprint

A thesis can be used as roadmap or blueprint for your paper:

In "Résumé," Dorothy Parker subverts the idea of what a résumé is--accomplishments and experiences--with an ironic tone, silly images of suicide, and witty rhymes to point out the banality of life for those who remain too disengaged from it.

Note that while this thesis refers to particular poetic devices, it does so in a way that gets beyond merely saying there are poetic devices in the poem and then merely describing them. It makes a claim as to how and why the poet uses tone, imagery and rhyme.

Readers would expect you to argue that Parker subverts the idea of the résumé to critique bored (and boring) people; they would expect your argument to do so by analyzing her use of tone, imagery and rhyme in that order.

Carbone, Nick. (1997). Thesis Statements for a Literature Assignment. Writing@CSU . Colorado State University. https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=51

Children's Literature

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Online Dissertation Resources

Dissertations, useful links to online dissertations and theses, university of roehampton theses & masters dissertations, using a thesis held in the roehampton repository in your own work, academic writing style guides.

• Postgraduates & Researchers This link opens in a new window
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We have a range of online resources to help plan, write and finish your dissertation. Although this is aimed primarily at 3rd Year Undergraduates and Postgraduate Taught students, it contains information that can be useful to Postgraduate Research Students.

• Sage Research Methods (Library Database) Provides a range of useful tools including a Project Planner, which breaks down each stage of your research from defining your topic, reviewing the literature to summarising and writing up.
• Literature Reviews Checklist - Handout
• Components of a Dissertation (document) A useful guide to the central components of a dissertation. By the end you should be able to: --Understand the core elements that should be in your dissertation --Understand the structure and progression of a strong dissertation
• Dissertation Workshop - Handouts Includes a planning template and outline
• Dissertation Workshop Slides
• Writing Your Dissertation Guide - Handout

Other Resources

• Reading Strategies (PDF document) An interactive document on reading at university.
• How To Write A Literature Review Video - Queen's University Belfast 10 minute video
• Start to Finish Dissertations Online Webinar from Manchester
• A to Z of Literature Reviews - University of Manchester 20 minute tutorial
• Appendices A short example of how to use and cite appendices in your dissertations, essays or projects

Check out these recordings to help you through your Dissertation writing process, from start to finish. 

• Starting Your Dissertation (Video) 46 minutes This webinar recording will help you with the early stages of planning, researching and writing your dissertation. By the end you should be able to: --Understand the challenges and opportunities of writing a dissertation --Move towards refining your subject and title --Know what steps to take to progress with your dissertation
• Writing Your Dissertation (Video) 52 minutes This webinar recording will help guide you through the middle stages of writing your dissertation. By the end you should be able to: --Identify the key parts of a high quality dissertation --Understand how to structure your dissertation effectively --Know how to increase the fluency and strength of your argument across an extended piece of writing 
• Finishing Your Dissertation (Video) 59 minutes This webinar recording aims to guide you through the final stages of writing your dissertation. By the end you should be able to: --Identify key features that should be included in your dissertation --Know how to ensure your dissertation has a strong and cohesive structure --Proofread your work.
• Using Word to Format Long Documents (Video) 1 hour and 22 minutes A video tutorial on how to format long documents such as Essays and Dissertations using Word. By the end you should be able to: --Create a Table of Contents --Know how to insert page numbers --Be familiar with how to use the various auto-formatting and styles functions to manage longer documents

A selection of external sources that would be of particular use to 3rd Year Undergraduate students and Postgraduate students. 

Please note that the Library does not hold Undergraduate or Masters Dissertations. For information on print and online doctoral theses please see below information on University of Roehampton Thesis Collection

National thesis service provided by the British Library which aims to maximise the visibility and availability of the UK's doctoral theses. NOTE: EthOS is currently unavailable due to ongoing issues following a serious cyber security incident at the BL (January 2024). 

EBSCO Open Dissertations is an online thesis and dissertation database with access to over 800,000 electronic theses and dissertations worldwide.

• DART-Europe E-theses Portal Free access to nearly 800,000 open access research theses from 615 universities in 28 European countries.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 5,153,410 theses and dissertations.

The university holds a selection of theses and master dissertations awarded by the University of Roehampton.

2013 onwards, Digital Theses

Roehampton Research Explorer - Student Theses

Theses subject to an embargo are not accessible digitally or in hard copy until the embargo period elapses. Embargoes may be applied to protect the rights of the author whilst they explore opportunities for publication, or where sensitive information is held within the thesis.

Please note  that there is a short delay in recently submitted theses appearing on our repository. If you cannot find the thesis you are looking for, please  contact the Research Office .

2004-2013, Print Theses & Masters Dissertations

The University holds a print Theses Collection (including some Masters dissertations) on the 2 nd Floor of the Library. The holdings are not complete as the criteria for inclusion was set by academic departments, and threshold varied between department. Not all student work would be made available to view. The selected works were intended to provide examples of work for students. Some examples were kept in-house, used for teaching purposes, and not available within the library.  Library print holdings were usually kept for up to 10 years and reviewed for relevance.

To search for print theses and masters dissertations use UR Library Search to search for a title or topic and filter by Format > Book > Theses, Dissertation.

1985-2004, Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE)

Dissertations and theses published between 1985-2004 were awarded by the University of Surrey. The holdings are not complete as the criteria for inclusion was set by academic departments, and threshold varied between department. Not all student work would be made available to view. The selected works were intended to provide examples of work for students.

To search for digitised copies of RHIE theses go to the University of Surrey’s Open Research repository .

You may re-use material from a thesis in the same way you would any other source, i.e. by providing a full citation to the thesis in question, and by not re-using material in a way that may breach the rights of the author.

If you feel your own copyright has been affected by content held in the University of Roehampton repository, please refer to our take down policy and contact us immediately.

• Government Guidance on exceptions to copyright Details of the exceptions to copyright that allow limited use of copyright works without the permission of the copyright owner.
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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Schools ; Children's Literature'

Create a spot-on reference in apa, mla, chicago, harvard, and other styles.

Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Schools ; Children's Literature.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

Bainbridge, Judith. "Storybook schools : representations of schools and schooling in British children's fiction 1820-1880." Thesis, University of Roehampton, 2015. https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/studentthesis/storybook-schools(dd59298f-a634-4e4e-9d3f-7071a3364ee1).html.

Rahman, Shireena Basree bt Abdul. "The Implementation of the Contemporary Children's Literature Program in Malaysian Primary Schools." Thesis, University of Reading, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.485821.

Manno, Annette Christine. "Teaching about conflict and values through children's literature." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1999. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1526.

Al-Nokhada, Mohamed A. H. "Children's literature, their books and reading interests : a study in primary schools in Bahrain." Thesis, Durham University, 1999. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4862/.

Raby, Shauna Rae. "Children's Literature in the Elementary Schools: Which Books Are Being Chosen for Literacy Instruction?" Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2006. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd1496.pdf.

Bandré, Patricia Ellen. "The status of the selection and use of children's literature in K-6 rural Ohio public school classrooms." Connect to resource, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1121782590.

Klein, Gillian. "The development of multicultural and antiracist books for use in schools 1973-1993." Thesis, Birmingham City University, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.363175.

McCreery, Elaine. "Promoting children's spiritual development in education : a review of the literature and an exploration of teachers' attitudes." Thesis, Roehampton University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.326828.

Yarmolovich, Daryl. "Bias in children's literature : a descriptive and analytical case study of two schools at different socio-economic levels /." Staten Island, N.Y. : [s.n.], 2005. http://library.wagner.edu/theses/education/2005/thesis_edu_2005_yarmo_bias.pdf.

Staas, Gretchen L. (Gretchen Lee). "The Effects of Visits by Authors of Children's Books in Selected Elementary Schools." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1987. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc331813/.

Humphrey, Judith Ann. "Liberating images : a feminist analysis of the girls' school-story." [n.p.], 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/.

Briggs, Connie Craft. "The Use of Nonfiction/Informational Trade Books in an Elementary Classroom." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1994. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc277870/.

Krenn, Elisabeth. "School-based interventions supporting refugees and asylum seeking children in mainstream schools : A systematic literature review." Thesis, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Högskolan i Jönköping, HLK, CHILD, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-35783.

Englund, Micaela. "The power of literature : A literature review on the incorporation of children’s literature in the lower-elementary English as a Second- Language classroom." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Pedagogiskt arbete, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-20876.

Baier, Stacey. "A critical review of literature understanding bullying behaviors in children /." Online version, 2007. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2008/2008baiers.pdf.

Crawford, Rachel Elizabeth. "Bonza schooldays : an annotated bio-bibliography of Australian school stories /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2005. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe19374.pdf.

Jennessen, Vanja. "A Story of English Language Learning – How Can Children’s Literature be Used in Teaching Vocabulary to Young English Language Learners? : - A Literature Review." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Pedagogiskt arbete, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-19870.

Wilkinson, Sheena Maria. "Girls' school and college friendships in twentieth-century British fiction." Thesis, Durham University, 1998. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4779/.

Cecire, Maria Sachiko. "The Oxford School of children's fantasy literature : medieval afterlives and the production of culture." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:782b7491-c1fd-473f-9118-6890156013fc.

Koster, Joan Bouza. "Bookmarking racism challenging white privilege through children's literature and participatory research in a suburban shcool /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2005.

Oldby, Jennifer, and Elin Rushworth. "Is Early L2 Reading of Children’s Literature a Good Idea? : How the attitudes to reading English children’s literature affect book access and teacher-library collaboration in two Swedish primary schools." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för lärande och samhälle (LS), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-41885.

Werlang, Sandra Danieli. "Alfabetização e letramento mediados pela literatura infantil, no 1º ano do ensino fundamental." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UCS, 2015. https://repositorio.ucs.br/handle/11338/1309.

Mook, Julia Denise. "Critical thinking: Integration into the middle school literature classroom." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2000. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1676.

Cocks, Neil Hayward. "Reading repetition and difference in the school story and its criticism." Thesis, University of Reading, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.368663.

Prillaman, Barbara. "Conversations to help make meaning ELLs and literature circles /." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file, 202 p, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1500060691&sid=33&Fmt=2&clientId=8331&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

Englund, Micaela. "English as a Second Language and Children’s literature : An empirical study on Swedish elementary school teachers’ methods and attitudes towards the use of children’s literature in the English classroom." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Pedagogiskt arbete, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-21348.

Bandre', Patricia E. "The status of the selection and use of children's literature in K-6 rural Ohio public school classrooms." The Ohio State University, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1121782590.

Rose, Katelyn. "Literature in the landscape: designing public parks to encourage outdoor exploration, activity and reading for elementary school-aged children." Kansas State University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/35428.

Fleener, Ann Whitney Robinson Carolyn Walton. "The effects of the Literature in the Garden curriculum on life skills of children." Auburn, Ala, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10415/1474.

Dickson, Joanna, and n/a. "The visual representation of the Maori in the School Journal 1907-95." University of Otago. Department of Anthropology, 1997. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20070531.122035.

Arico, Rebecca A. "Effect on student achievement and attitudes towards learning mathematics when integrating children's literature into a mathematics lesson." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2007. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/1017.

Ribeiro, Taisa Andrade de Souza Silva [UNESP]. "Papel e tela: um estudo sobre preferências das crianças, literatura infantil e narrativas televisivas." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/143942.

Dijkshoorn, Anna. "Inclusive Education for Refugees and Asylum Seeking Children : A Systematic Literature Review." Thesis, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Högskolan i Jönköping, HLK, CHILD, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-30510.

Behnke, Joseph. "School in the lives of immigrant students and their families a critical review of the literature /." Online pdf file accessible through the World Wide Web, 2009. http://archives.evergreen.edu/masterstheses/Accession89-10MIT/Behnke_JMITthesis2009.pdf.

Wang, Minzhi. "The impact of teacher-student classroom interactions in primary school environment on children's engagement in classroom : A systematic literature review." Thesis, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Högskolan i Jönköping, HLK, CHILD, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-35882.

Roberts, Tarryn Elizabeth. "School Psychologists’ Perceptions of Selecting Divorce-Themed Books for Elementary-Aged Children Experiencing Parental Divorce." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2019. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/8555.

Ventura, Fabiana Cristina [UNESP]. "Literatura infantil e juvenil na escola: encontros e encantos." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/144322.

Hill, Cecily Erin. "Formal Education: Early Children’s Genres, Gender, and the Realist Novel." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429278003.

Tezas, Nikolaos. "Community and School Based Mental Health Interventions for Refugee Children and Adolescents: A 2010-2020 Systematic Literature Review." Thesis, Jönköping University, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-48364.

Rehman, Nida Ammar. "Peer Victimization of Children and Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities : A Systematic Literature Review from 2000-2020." Thesis, Jönköping University, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-48338.

Wester, Louise. "Läraren i barnlitteratur. : Lärares undervisning och relation till elever i barnlitteratur i ett historiskt perspektiv." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för film och litteratur (IFL), 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-48965.

Papagrigoraki, Anna. "Peer mediated learning in inclusive education : A systematic literature review on the methods and their effects on children." Thesis, Högskolan i Jönköping, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-30347.

Pan, Peng. "School situation and social conditions of children with ASD in mainland China : A Systematic Literature Review from 2011-2017." Thesis, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Högskolan i Jönköping, HLK, CHILD, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-43190.

Kich, Morgana. "Mediação de leitura literária : o Programa Nacional Biblioteca da Escola (PNBE)." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UCS, 2011. https://repositorio.ucs.br/handle/11338/1019.

Correia, Carla Sofia Leal. "Relatório da prática de ensino supervisionada em educação pré-escolar: a pertinência da literatura infantil no processo de aprendizagem." Master's thesis, Universidade de Évora, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10174/13051.

Seibert, Michelle L. "Consultation in the School Psychology Literature: Has the Field Moved beyond the Three Traditional Models?" TopSCHOLAR®, 2010. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/145.

Smith, Kathryn Ruth. "Elementary School Teachers' Perceptions of Book in a Bag as a Social Skills Instruction Program." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7385.

Emmertz, Joanna, and Liridona Vllasa. "Reading aloud : A study about the use of reading children’s literature aloud as a pedagogical tool in a pre-school in Thailand." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för pedagogik, psykologi och idrottsvetenskap, PPI, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-13480.

Harlow, Mnisa Lyn. "The Efficacy of a Literature-Based Social Communication Intervention on Teacher Report of Sociability for Children with Language Impairment." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2016. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6450.

Peterson, Cammy G. "The Efficacy of a Literature-Based Social Communication Intervention on Teacher Report of Withdrawal for Children with Language Impairment." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2017. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6904.

Canadian Children’s Literature

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Theses & Dissertations

• EBSCO Open Dissertations This link opens in a new window OpenDissertations is an open-access database built to assist researchers in locating both historic and contemporary dissertations and theses.
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• Subject Databases Many of our subject databases (including ERIC, PsycInfo, Ageline, MLA, SocIndex, Historical Abstracts/America: History & Life, Child Development & Adolescent Studies, Gender Studies) provide indexing of select dissertations.
• Degree-granting institution Check the home institution for an online repository/archive.  More and more theses and dissertations are being made available in open access format.
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• Last Updated: Oct 2, 2023 4:14 PM
• Subjects: Atlantic Canada , Child & Youth Study , Education , English Literature
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