MLA panel on Children's Literature & the Common Core

The MLA Division of Children’s Literature will be sponsoring the session “Children’s Literature and the Common Core” on Thursday, January 9, 2014, from 3:30-4:45 p.m. in the Belmont Room (4th floor) of the Chicago Marriott Hotel during the 129th annual Modern Language Association Conference. This panel is open to the public.

The New York Times has called the controversial Common Core State Standards, “the most important educational reform in the country.” Defending the Common Core, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state school superintendents that he found it  “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core has come from “white suburban moms who—all of a sudden—their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”  

Using a roundtable format, five speakers will examine the effects of the English Language Arts Standards of the Common Core State Standards on the teaching of college courses in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.  The featured speakers for the session are Sarah Minslow, University of North Carolina, Charlotte; Kristin McIlhagga, Michigan State University; Michelle Holley Martin, University of South Carolina, Columbia; Joe Sutliff Sanders, Kansas State University; and Daniel D. Hade, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

While each speaker will present prepared remarks for 5-7 minutes, the session is intended to be an active dialogue and discussion between the speakers and the members of the audience.  Speakers will consider if the Common Core State Standards effectively prepares students for college-level academic work and literacy for the workplace. The political and social implications behind the stated education goals of the Common Core will be examined. 

Since the Common Core recommends that 70% of the texts used by the twelfth grade should be informational texts, how will this effect of the teaching of fiction, poetry, and drama?   Can the Common Core address issues of cultural diversity given the increasing gap between students of color and their predominately white K-12 teachers? 

The session has been selected as part of the conference’s Presidential Theme of “Vulnerable Times” and is chaired by Jan Susina, Illinois State University.

Common Core article in Inside Higher Ed

Just wanted to mention that I am quoted in a rather lengthy, somewhat comprehensive article on "The Common Core on campus" by Libby A. Nelson.  The article was published today on the website Inside Higher Ed, which is connected to The Chronicle of Higher Education.  

Nelson contacted me because I have proposed a special session for MLA 2013 about The Common Core and teaching children's and adolescent literature courses at the university levels.  While some academics have encountered and wrestled with the Common Core, many have not, and, I think, will be somewhat surprised how the creators of this document clearly ignored most university types in favor of business leaders thinking on what's important for school age children to learn.  What's worse, the Obama administration under Arne Duncan's leadership as Secretary of Education has forced states to adopt the Common Core in order to receive the relatively meager amount of money through Race to the Top federal competitions.

Still, as I point out in the article, I am adjusting my syllabi somewhat so that students in my courses are familiar with the texts that are 'recommended' in the Common Core documents.  This summer I'll be teaching Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 and am looking forward to that.  The texts in the Common Core are just suggested, but my feeling is that new teachers especially are going to follow the Common Core documents hook, link, and sinker because they feel they have no choice.

The Common Core certainly presents a conundrum for people who argued vehmently against E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s's ideas that he promoted in Cultural Literacy (1986).  Hirsch said in 2010 that the Common Core has the potential to revolutionize reading particularly as it de-emphasizes literature for a wider selection of texts. Hirsch presented his updated ideas in The Making of Americans: Democracy and our Schools (2010).

Whether academics like it or not, business people and government bureaucrats have decided that there is a canon of texts that all school children need to read and understand.  It's detailed in The Common Core.

On The Wizard of Oz, films new and old and the books

James Franco as The WizardIs James Franco right for the Wizard in Disney's new film Oz: The Great and Powerful -- that's a question Laura Kennedy asks when she interviews me in a podcast about The Wizard of Oz films and books.  Here's a link to the podcast on WGLT (our local NPR station), which aired Friday, March 8.  You can hear my answer as well as information about the film of the new Oz and my thoughts on political allegories in the original books.

I also chatted about The Wizard of Oz with Jim Fitzpatrick on WJBC, the Voice of McLean County, two weeks ago.  Jan Susina with The Wizard of Oz bok

The media interest reflects, I think, that there's a genuine excitement about a new film based on The Wizard of Oz books. So far, the film is getting mixed reviews -- see reviews by Richard Roeper in The Sun-Times (reviewing instead of Roger Ebert) or Mahnola Dargis in The New York Times.  Yet, as Laura Kennedy points out in the podcast, the original MGM film was also somewhat panned by the critics.  But it gained a following through its own technological twist, aired repeatedly at Easter time on TV networks, that Baum would have appreciated.  Those annual telecasts insured that the film was cemented in children's imaginations and subconsciousness.  So whatever the critics think, our family is still going to see the film and be captivated.

And, I'm looking forward to teaching The Wizard of Oz in my children's literature class this spring.

File under O-Z.

Dickens' quotation books

The students in the Dickens course this semester made very creative quotation books.  The assignment was to keep track of interesting quotations in the Dickens books we were reading.  At the end of the semester, they were to hand in the quotation book.  It had to have quotations from each book and to have illustrations as well.  Lots of cool ideas: from quotes in a box, handmade books, re-imagined Moleskins, computerized layouts.  A fun assignment for me to grade.  Here's a photo of some of the quotation book results

Fall 2012: Dickens novels course

The syllabi for ENG 329, Dickens novels course, is now available on my website, in .pdf format.  Click here.  This should be a great course.  It's timed to coincide with Dickens' 200th birthday and related celebrations.  Looking forward to a great semester.

For those in the course, be sure to read John Forester's Life of Charles Dickens, Book 1, chapter 2 (pages 11-19) about the author's early life.  Here's a link to that section in the book.