When mostly white, middle class, female undergraduate preservice students enter social studies, reading, and language arts methods courses, they usually have not yet been asked to think critically about the curriculum they will be responsible for teaching. One of the primary conduits for sending messages to students about themselves and the world…

One prevalent practice of multicultural education is enlisting multiple perspectives for teaching. Oftentimes, these perspectives enter classrooms via digital texts, simulations/scenarios, primary documents, and debates. Children's and young adult literature play a critical role in these comparisons. However, these multiple perspectives are…

Marilyn Nelson's book, "A Wreath for Emmett Till", (2005) was named a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book and given the 2006 Printz Honor Award. "A Wreath for Emmett Till" tells the story of a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched in 1955. Within 15 sonnets accompanied by illustrations by Philippe Lardy, Nelson…

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a former English teacher and school counselor, is an award-winning author, best known for her children's books about the Rosebud Sioux life and culture, which combines history and legend to create culturally rich and authentic Native American stories. In this article, the authors share their conversations with Virginia…

In the March/April issue of "The Horn Book Magazine," author and editor Marc Aronson wrote a lightening rod of an essay about nonfiction literature. In the article, he claimed that some "new" nonfiction is groundbreaking because it shows "new knowledge as it is taking shape" (2011, p. 57). He referred to authors of this new nonfiction as…

Young children notice and make use of illustrations in picture books as they read independently as evidenced by statements such as this one from Sarah's retelling of "The Wolf's Chicken Stew": "He couldn't catch him; so he did like this (child folds arms across chest) against the tree". Scholars in the field of children's literature have long…

The 2011 Children's Literature Assembly Workshop investigated cultural contexts and relevant issues in children's literature. Award-winning authors, illustrators, and an educator shared their thoughts about writing, illustrating, and teaching multiethnic literature. The panel included author Nikki Grimes, author and illustrator Eric Velasquez,…

"Poetic Voices: Writing, Reading, and Responding to Poetry" was the title of the 2011 Master Class in Children's Literature. Woven into this session were the insights of poets Joyce Sidman and Pat Mora who shared their creative processes and the voices that inspire their poetry. In addition, Barbara Kiefer provided advice regarding how to connect…

As a doctoral student at Wayne State University in Detroit, the author taught, along with a few other doctoral students, some of the undergraduate courses in children's literature. One year in the early 1970s, they graduate student-instructors were recruited as helpers at a book fair. Among the books to be displayed was a set of children's books,…

Ideological assumptions about childhood play into the production and selection of children's literature. Various ideologies proclaim that children should be happy and free from stories of evil, children's literature should help children encounter the joys in life, it should be filled with bright colors to keep children's attention, and it should…

Research that centers on literature discussion is growing, particularly within the context of elementary classrooms. Recently, researchers have explored an array of features of engaging and productive discussions, including the importance of the learning community within which discussions occur; the kinds of responses children offer as they talk…

Children's literature can broaden and enhance readers' views of themselves and others. When children's literature from abroad as well as from the United States is incorporated into the literacy practices of a first grade class, the potential exists to widen the children's perspectives of the world and build insights about others. Additionally…

In this article, the authors explain how nonfiction literature can demonstrate the nature of problem solving within disciplines such as math, science, and social studies. This literature illustrates what it means to puzzle over problems, to apply disciplinary thinking, and to develop creative solutions. The authors look closely at three examples…

If an entire village is needed to raise a child, and the successful launch of the Apollo XI required 400,000 men and women, then surely it stands to reason that a book that wins the 2009 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction also must have required a team of talented individuals, each contributing some direction and adding some…

This article is centrally focused on teaching biography to second grade children in new and intriguing ways. In this article, the authors discuss the use of a multimodal integrated visual art and literacy curriculum in student investigations, interpretations, and writing of biography. Section one describes the wider project of conceptualizing an…