Describes a Master Class held at the 2002 meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English focusing on the teaching of children's literature. Includes an opening speech that moved participants to confront issues surrounding the need for sharing books from all cultures, countries, and continents. Presents shared thoughts by three university…

Describes the author's interactions with prospective teachers' resistances to books in the "Harry Potter" series and how she dealt with these situations. Recognizes that her role as a teacher educator includes honoring her students' beliefs, upholding the integrity of the academic discipline of children's literature, and adhering to the…

Considers the resistance of preservice teachers to address sociopolitical dimensions within the context of children's literature. Presents an account of an incident, a description of the research that the author conducted, theoretical explanations, strategies which she has utilized for countering the resistance, and reasons why research such as…

Discusses the author's experiences in controversial and non-controversial children's and adult literature. Describes how he developed and shaped a line of books for teenagers that would explore many kinds of edges/borderlines - from family to world, self to others, native to immigrant, familiar to forbidden. (SG)

Illustrates how preservice teachers in a children's literature class grapple with issues of gender and gender equity through reflective journal writing and literature discussions in one semester of an undergraduate elementary education children's literature class. Describes preservice teachers' movement toward development in their awareness of…

Focuses on seven books (published in 2000 or 2001) which can help new and experienced teachers engage students in selecting quality literature, in thinking, questioning and dialoging in response to literature, and in exploring social justice through literature. (RS)

Describes part of a project of correspondence between a group of eighth graders and pre-service teachers in an attempt to prepare all students to work with diverse people and ideas. Hopes to enlarge the worlds of the students by putting them in contact with literature from diverse groups and joining them with diverse people from whom they could…

Discusses a master class (conducted at the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English) that focuses on supporting student responses to literature within the context of an undergraduate or graduate course in children's literature. Notes that at the conclusion of this successful session, participants generated numerous strategies…

Explores issues such as course organization, evaluation of student work, and major concerns of faculty and students about Children's Literature courses. Finds that the hypothesis that graduate and undergraduate children's literature survey courses would be significantly different was not supported. Reveals no indication that interest in children's…

Presents a tribute to Eileen Tway, one of the most admired and respected professors in the Department of Teacher Education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Notes that Eileen believed strongly in the power of literature to promote sensitivity to human relations. (SG)

Presents a literary answer to the question of how literary theory informs educational practice. Suggests how professors in education, English, foreign language and library sciences might learn to listen to one another and combine their scholarly experiences to better inform the literary practices in all classrooms. Explores the topic of literary…

Explores the relationship between literary theory and children's literature in teacher-education classrooms, positioning itself in the gap between books and children, texts and readers, and theory and practice in literature. Concludes by offering the author's experience as an example of the richness the use of literary theory brings to an…

Intends to provide a resource for beginning to learn about picture books. Contains a "start set" of terms often used to talk about picture books and a list of references to further readings that may assist teachers in developing their understanding of the language of picture books in more depth. (SC)

Argues that teachers should facilitate and promote the admission of children into the "literacy club," but notes that many teacher-education students are not yet active, passionate members of the literacy club. Describes using "reading clubs" in teacher-education courses to expose preservice teachers to the passion and joy of children's…

Chronicles significant changes in an elementary school teacher's perception of herself as a reader as revealed through her journal entries and contributions to class discussions while taking a graduate course in children's literature. Suggests that personal beliefs and habits of reading can influence how teachers teach children. (RS)