Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Children's Literature
- Creators: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Creators: Christensen, Christian B
Description
Being properly prepared is one of the keys to surviving an emergency or a disaster. In order to be prepared, people need appropriate education in preparedness, which includes elements of prevention, and planning. There is a definite need to better prepare our nation's citizens in order for them to safely respond in times of a disaster. It also seems likely that the earlier concepts and skills are learned, the easier those concepts and skills would be to remember and the more proficient one would become in implementing them. Therefore, it seems appropriate to teach emergency preparedness concepts and skills early on in the educational process. This means that significant efforts need to be directed toward learning, what impediments currently exist, what is helpful, and how preparedness concepts and skills can be taught to our children. A survey was distributed to third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers, asking them questions about emergency preparedness lessons in the classroom. Results indicated that the majority of teachers would be willing to teach emergency preparedness if the curriculum met current academic standards and they were given adequate resources to teach this subject. This study provides ideas, concepts and motivation for teachers to use in a cross-curricular approach to teaching emergency preparedness in the classroom. This is accomplished by presenting examples of newly developed curriculum/lesson plans that meet state academic standards, based on the current Community Emergency Response Team program and on children's fiction literature for the appropriate age group. A list of literature that could be used in this development is also provided in this study.
ContributorsChristensen, Christian B (Author) / Edwards, David (Thesis advisor) / Olson, Larry (Committee member) / Peterson, Danny (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Children's literature is a comparatively new concept that has changed as the view of children and childhood has changed. The idea that books written for children are more than just amusement and that these books instill values and pride in one's culture has been approached very differently in the United States and Russia. While there are universal morals and common themes in children's literature, there are just as many culturally-dependent ideals that make children's literature and its translation an enlightening way to study the culture of a people or nation and ease the tensions between emerging global and traditional national lessons in children's literature.
ContributorsZubiate, Rachel (Author) / Moldabekova, Saule (Thesis director) / Hoogenboom, Hilde (Committee member) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12
Description
The front cover of Uncle What-Is-It is Coming to Visit, a 1993 children’s book by Michael-Willhoite, features two white children frightened by the hairy arm and upturned wrist of an unseen adult. The arm is clad in a frilly pink and orange sleeve, and gaudy bracelets hang from the wrist. The plot hinges on the children’s uncertainty about an uncle they have yet to meet; they know he is gay but are unsure of what it means. Before their mother can explain, she is distracted by a kitchen mishap and the siblings turn to other neighborhood children for answers. They encounter a host of descriptions that terrify them: one neighbor describes gay people as “fags [and] queers [who] really want to be women.” He shows the children a newspaper clipping photo of “a large man dressed in a frilly dress [with] a turban piled high with fruit on his head,” an implicitly racialized caricature reminiscent of Latina style icon Carmen Miranda. Another neighbor describes gay people as “dressed up in black leather. Zippers and chains all over...Dark glasses [and] chaps” (Willhoite, 1993). After having nightmares of men with sinister expressions in tropical-themed drag and leather, the children are overjoyed to discover that their uncle seems “normal.” Relative to depictions of other gay people in the book, Uncle Brett is normal because he is nonthreatening—he is white with short, straight, brown hair; he wears a plain, blue, collared shirt and brown dress pants; he carries a brown briefcase; and he enjoys and excels at activities appropriate for his gender, like catch. Although the book seems to have an affirming message about accepting queer people, it sends a clear message about which queer people are to be feared by children and which are nonthreatening. Nonthreatening queers are those who seem most like people mainstream western society considers normal: people who conform to expected gender roles, who have a vested interest parenting, and who are white and middle-upper class. These nonthreatening queers are by far the most represented in queer-themed literature for children. Based on a survey of 68 children’s books with queer characters, this paper argues that the representation of queer identities in children’s literature upholds more than challenges heteronormativity. I will first address ways many of the books perpetuate gender normativity by problematizing young male characters’ gender-transgressing behavior, portraying queer adults with less threatening gender presentations, and upholding gender binarism; next, I will address how the majority of the books promote repro-narrativity by focusing on monogamous couples’ strong desires and concerted efforts to have/raise children; I will then address race and class and the way white and upper-middle class queer characters are overrepresented while non-white and lower-class queer characters are underrepresented or not represented at all.
ContributorsLester, Jasmine (Author) / Danielson, Marivel (Thesis director) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Kuo, Karen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
Created2012-12