The file below contains a course-by-course summary of the major concepts, theoretical stances, methods learned, and work produced during my PhD coursework at the University of South Florida 2010-2015:
research_coursework.102015.pdf | |
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Research: Summer 2015 to Summer 2016,
NARRATIVE & PRODUCT FILES
Course Work
Summer 2015: LAE6389 Practice Teaching Literature.
This course, taught by Dr. Laura Runge(-Gordon), is required of all GAs who plan to teach Literature courses in the English Department (College of Arts and Sciences).
I felt taking this course would (1) broaden my approach to teaching children's literature in face-to-face course settings to pre-service teachers, who typically have not had any college-level literature courses, (2) would help me deliver instruction in literature and methods of literary reading to students not majoring in education, and (3) would inform my scholarly writing about children's and Young Adult literature. I was grateful that Dr. Runge agreed to my enrolling.
The course broadened my thinking in a number of areas:
- Contemplative Pedagogy. We began each class session with a voluntary five-minute guided meditation as a means of "honoring the time and space of the present and of taking a pause together from the over-stimulation of the world." We considered whether the focus was to empty our thoughts or to gather our thoughts (notice how you are thinking and then let it go), as knowing how you think is key to learning.As I had just turned in the first draft of the Spiritual Research book chapter (see below), it was both exciting and affirming to see the connection to pedagogy. Dr. Runge referred us to a brief book by Mary Rose O'Reilly (1998) called Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice.
- Anthology of Children's Literature. One of our discussions considered using an anthology of a particular type of literature to give students wide exposure to the literature versus using a few individual books. I had never even thought of looking for an anthology of children's literature, but found the Norton Anthology of Children's Literature, a hefty volume co-edited by, among others, Jack Zipes and Lissa Paul. Zipes' work led to my dissertation interest and Lissa Paul is one of the two editors with whom I just worked on the article about abjection and high-stakes testing for the special issue of Children's Literature in Education (see below in Pending Publications).
- Wikipedia book. While I have created Wikipedia articles before, including one for another course, I had not considered using the book feature to create a course book. This could become the basis for collaborative writing assignments and for discussions of intertextuality. The page I worked on was one I had begun creating prior to this course and that ultimately became two pages to avoid conflict between a mother and daughter who had the same names: Mary Stewart Doubleday Cutting (mother, novelist writing domestic realism work) and Mary Stewart Cutting (daughter, suffragist).
- Multimodal/multimedia resources. The course novel was Persepolis, a graphic novel, and we worked in teams to present different online tools and resources we could use to teach the novel. My colleague and I presented geographic resources and the use of blogs. We also had to create an electronic portfolio on Canvas, which helped me further develop my teaching philosophy and similar statements.
- Syllabus for Survey course in Children's/YA Literature. Our main assignment was to create a syllabus for a survey course in literature. While a survey course must contain works in a variety of genre, it can have a particular focus. I chose to create a syllabus that could be used either as an LIT2000 Survey of Children's Literature course or as an LAE4414 Literature in Childhood Education course. The course, Subverting School in Children's and Young Adult Literature, also would work well at the graduate level and for people with interests in policy, education history, sociology, cultural studies, and more. The syllabus file below contains learning objectives, outcomes and assignments for both the LIT and the LAE courses.
anderson.lae2000_lae4414.062315.doc | |
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Book Chapters
Anderson, A.W. & Powell, R. L. (2016). The world is flat, Stanley: Globalization, ethnocentricity, and absurdity. In A. Wannamaker and J. M. Miskec (Eds.). The Early Reader in Children’s Literature and Culture. London, U.K.: Routledge.
Our chapter, "The World is Flat, Stanley: Gobalization, Ethnocentricity, and Absurdity," is the twelfth chapter in the book, the first chapter in Section 4: Global Contexts. |
Published in January 2016: Three years ago, Becky Powell and I began the Literary Theory course with Dr. Jenifer Schneider. At the same time, proposals were due (January 15) for the 2013 Children's Literature Association Conference, and I asked Becky if she would be interested in working with me to prepare something about globalization and Flat Stanley. I had in mind the title ("The World is Flat, Stanley") but not much else. I knew Becky had extensive classroom teaching reading experience, had worked with the Florida DOE, was a reading coach, and was very interested in learning more about theorizing children's literature.
As one of our course projects, we chose to examine the Flat Stanley books both in literary terms and in pedagogical terms. We presented the literary portion at the 2013 ChLA Conference, and we were invited to submit a proposal for what would become The Early Reader in Children's Literature and Culture. It was accepted, and then we began the months-long process of adapting our APA research-paper writing styles to the MLA literary-essay writing style and of deepening our thinking about the narrative implications of ethnocentrism and absurdity in children's literature. We are grateful to editors Annette Wannamaker and Jennifer Miskec for guiding us through multiple revisions.
Ours was a good collaboration, and we still have another paper waiting to be birthed about the ways in which we do or don't teach children about different types of humor.
From the Francis & Taylor Website: "This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers – books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and children’s literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions."
As one of our course projects, we chose to examine the Flat Stanley books both in literary terms and in pedagogical terms. We presented the literary portion at the 2013 ChLA Conference, and we were invited to submit a proposal for what would become The Early Reader in Children's Literature and Culture. It was accepted, and then we began the months-long process of adapting our APA research-paper writing styles to the MLA literary-essay writing style and of deepening our thinking about the narrative implications of ethnocentrism and absurdity in children's literature. We are grateful to editors Annette Wannamaker and Jennifer Miskec for guiding us through multiple revisions.
Ours was a good collaboration, and we still have another paper waiting to be birthed about the ways in which we do or don't teach children about different types of humor.
From the Francis & Taylor Website: "This is the first volume to consider the popular literary category of Early Readers – books written and designed for children who are just beginning to read independently. It argues that Early Readers deserve more scholarly attention and careful thought because they are, for many younger readers, their first opportunity to engage with a work of literature on their own, to feel a sense of mastery over a text, and to experience pleasure from the act of reading independently. Using interdisciplinary approaches that draw upon and synthesize research being done in education, child psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and children’s literature, the volume visits Early Readers from a variety of angles: as teaching tools; as cultural artifacts that shape cultural and individual subjectivity; as mass produced products sold to a niche market of parents, educators, and young children; and as aesthetic objects, works of literature and art with specific conventions."
Anderson, A.W. (2016). Whose idea is it anyway? Big ideas in Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and The cat in the hat. In J. J. Schneider (Ed.). The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children's Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge [E-book]. USF Scholar Commons: Retrieved from http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/childrens_lit_textbook/ (article within a book chapter)
Published March 2016: Dr. Jenifer Schneider developed the University of South Florida's first Open Access e-textbook, The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children's Literature: From Poets and Pop-Ups to Princesses and Porridge. Designed to be used in the capstone exit-writing Children's Literature course offered online to non-Education majors across campus, Schneider's (2016) interactive work includes chapters on why and how to read children's and YA literature, how to write children's and YA literature, and the broad range of media formats that comprise the field of children's and YA literature.
Dr. Scheider offered those of us who had taught the online children's literature course the opportunity to contribute to her work, and I submitted a short essay titled "Whose Idea is it Anyway? Big ideas in Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and The Cat in the Hat." In this work, I introduce undergraduate students to the ideas of intertextuality by exploring the book and film versions of Michael Chrichton's Jurassic Park and Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji and then hearkening back to Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat.
Dr. Schneider wrote her book in response to the University's Textbook Affordability Project. A video trailer for the book can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/136629099
Published March 2016: Dr. Jenifer Schneider developed the University of South Florida's first Open Access e-textbook, The Inside, Outside, and Upside Downs of Children's Literature: From Poets and Pop-Ups to Princesses and Porridge. Designed to be used in the capstone exit-writing Children's Literature course offered online to non-Education majors across campus, Schneider's (2016) interactive work includes chapters on why and how to read children's and YA literature, how to write children's and YA literature, and the broad range of media formats that comprise the field of children's and YA literature.
Dr. Scheider offered those of us who had taught the online children's literature course the opportunity to contribute to her work, and I submitted a short essay titled "Whose Idea is it Anyway? Big ideas in Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and The Cat in the Hat." In this work, I introduce undergraduate students to the ideas of intertextuality by exploring the book and film versions of Michael Chrichton's Jurassic Park and Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji and then hearkening back to Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat.
Dr. Schneider wrote her book in response to the University's Textbook Affordability Project. A video trailer for the book can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/136629099
Anderson, A.W. (2016). 'Out of the everywhere into here': Rhetoricity and transcendence as common ground for spiritual research. In J. Lin, R. L. Oxford, and T. E. Culhman (Eds.). Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm: Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching, and Being. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Published July 2016: I was intrigued by the number of panels at the April 2014 AERA on religious education, spirituality, and Confucian-Taoist perspectives. The latter was because the Confucian-Taoist SIG had held a pre-conference just prior to AERA and also had sponsored several paper and roundtable sessions. One of the sessions I attended was sponsored by the Spiritual Research SIG. They were issuing a call for papers on the topic of developing a new paradigm for conducting spiritual research, and the concept of pre-originary rhetoricity I had read about in the Contemporary Rhetorics course I had just finished seemed a perfect fit. However, the CFP had been issued sometime prior and completed chapters were due by May 25, 2014. I submitted a proposal on May 15 on the chance they would accept it. They did, and then I scrambled to pull the paper together. |
My chapter approaches spirituality as something all peoples have in common but which has become a source of division. I argue that the concept and language of rhetoricity -- the state of our whole being operating in a call-and-response mode -- and the concepts of transcendence can provide us with a common paradigm and language in which to conduct spiritual research. Over the next year, the manuscript underwent many revisions as I worked with editors of different faiths and from different disciplines to tease out and to articulate my thinking and to imagine what such a paradigm would look like. Some of these ideas began forming during the Philosophy of Inquiry course with Dr. Kofie Marfo and were expanded in the Linguistics course with Dr. Jim King. As I look at the list of references, however, I am struck by how so many of my other courses -- Advanced Graduate Seminar, Transdisciplinary Thinking, Spiritual Development and Children, Autoethnography -- are represented. Plus, I refer to George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind (origins), C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (open vs. closed systems), P. L. Travers' Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back (revealed knowledge and origins of language), and Madeline L'Engle's A Wind in the Door (rebellious mitochondria and volition), and even Sponge Bob Squarepants (objective reality).
Other Publications and Pending Publications
Anderson, A.W., Branscombe, M., & Nkrumah, T. (2015). Crossing blocked thresholds: Three stories of identity and participatory education. Journal of Language & Literacy Education (JoLLE), 11(2), 170-185. Retrieved from http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Anderson_Template-11-22.pdf
Anderson, A.W. (in preparation). Caught in a web of abjection: High-stakes testing in Miriam Cohen’s First Grade takes a test and Andrew Clements’ The report card. Manuscript accepted by Children’s Literature in Education.
Anderson, A.W. (in preparation). Caught in a web of abjection: High-stakes testing in Miriam Cohen’s First Grade takes a test and Andrew Clements’ The report card. Manuscript accepted by Children’s Literature in Education.
Conferences attended and Papers PResented
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Paper Presented at the 2016 Children's Literature Association Conference in: Anderson, A.W. (2016, June). My Little Pony: Elements of harmony: Friendship is magic: The official guidebook to the animated, animating, and ani-meta worlds of Equestria. Paper presented at the Children's Literature Association Conference, Columbus, OH.
The theme of the 2016 Children's Literature Association Conference, hosted by members from The Ohio State University, was Animation. Whether because of the theme or just because the study of children's and YA literature is attracting attention in other fields, the presenters came from various disciplines. In my session, for example, the other two presenters came from Colleges of Communication. One presenter spoke to the changes in television formatting and delivery over the life of My Little Pony; the other presenter focused on similar changes in Marvel Comics. |
What struck me about all three of our presentations was how, despite the identification of My Little Pony and Marvel characters with animated television, both/all series had developed intricate back stories for the characters and the lands -- world-building, as Figuieredo (2011) termed comics creators -- and both had produced print material, such as the book I studied, that both reinforced and extended the on-screen worlds.
In addition to attending many excellent panel discussions, I also was privileged to hear Molly Bang, Andrew Clements, and Gene Luan Yang speak about their work and to visit the Highlights magazine exhibit at the OSU library.
In addition to attending many excellent panel discussions, I also was privileged to hear Molly Bang, Andrew Clements, and Gene Luan Yang speak about their work and to visit the Highlights magazine exhibit at the OSU library.
FCAN Summit Attended: As part of my work with Eckerd College's Program for Experienced Learners, a colleague and I attended the Florida College Access Network summit held in Orlando in May 2016. FCAN is a statewide organization housed at USF Tamps that seeks to increase the percentage of adults with post-secondary certificates or degrees. Throughout Florida, people in business, K-12 and higher education, and non-profit organizations are forming regional coalitions to develop region-specific plans for creating pathways from elementary to middle to high school to post-secondary institutions. Although FCAN's emphasis is on the K-16 pipeline, the PEL program works at the other end to help stop-out students finish what they started or to begin college as non-traditional students, so we found much to consider in terms of how we promote our program as part of this effort.