Cultural Signification through Reader’s Theatre: An Analysis of African American Girls and Their Hair

Abstract

This article explored the role of hair in Sylviane Diouf's Bintou's Braids and focused on the impact of hair as a cultural signifier on girls and the curriculum. The article examined the ability of this children's text to address female beauty standards and suggests the use of literary techniques, such as reader's theatre, to recognize and critically explore diverse issues among children. The work specifically: (1) deconstructs messages about hair norms, with particular emphasis on black female hair in one children's text, and (2) transforms the selected text into a reader's theatre script for use in elementary classrooms, suggesting an array of literary construction and usage types in children's classroom communities to support increased literacy engagement. This article expands the body of inquiry on hair and its impact on the curriculum by examining the relationships between the cultural power of hair, literacy, performance and African American girls. The literature has established the unique responses of diverse girls to literary constructions, and several studies provide alternatives for deciphering the meaning of texts and utilizing the empowering aspect of girls through literacy. Likewise, this article qualitatively examined Diouf's Bintou's Braids for its use of various aspects of identity development such as affirmation, ritual and social responsibility. The reader's theatre adaptation, Little Bintou Loves Her Braids, begins to address the current inadequacy of literary offerings in the genre.

Towards a Better Understanding of Opportunities for Performance Training within the MLS Curriculum: Issues for Enhancing Education of Children’s Librarians

“…There is a wealth of information on the ways in which theatre elements such as storytelling, puppetry, and readers theatre inform and strengthen both early literacy for elementary schoolers and interest and engagement levels with reluctant readers in middle and high school (Arnold & Colburn, 2012;Bowler, Morris, Cheng, et al, 2012;Haven, 2007;Huang & Dolejs, 2007;Jeffries & Jeffries, 2013;Millin & Rinehart, 1999;Okikawa, 2012;Peck & Virkler, 2006;Poe, 2013;Rozansky & Aagesen, 2010, etc. ), but there is currently no research to quantify how much the education and training in those areas comes solely from professional praxis or is taught in advance.…”

“…Of particular value in literacy fields is the fact that the emphasis is placed on reading instead of props or costumes (Millin & Rinehart, 1999), and the National Center for Education Statistics (1996) praises readers' theatre for its role in developing fluency, intonation, pauses, syntax, and oral reading speed and accuracy. Jeffries and Jeffries (2013) acknowledge the fact that students' self-reliance is lifted as their reading skills become advanced, applauding readers' theatre as a positive vehicle doing relevant literacy work. Tyler and Chard (2011) recognize the appeal to children in the fact that the collaborative and cooperative peer-based format of engaging with text can be much more exciting than the isolated reading activity.…”

“…There are abundant documented cases of successfully incorporating readers' theatre into both school and public libraries, often to work with dysfluent students, reluctant readers, and generally less proficient readers in particular. Some notable studies include a combined readers' theatre/shadow puppetry program for second graders by Peck and Virkler (2006), an analysis of the effectiveness of readers' theatre on liter-acy absorption among African-American girls (Jeffries & Jeffries, 2013), a Millin and Rinehart study (1999) to investigate the effects of readers' theatre participation on the motivation and oral reading ability of second-grade Title I reading students, a readers theatre program for family members of lower socio-economic preschool children attending Head Start programs in a large, Midwestern urban city (Huang and Dolejs, 2007), and particular success of readers theatre on reluctant readers in junior high (Tyler & Chard, 2011). These combined studies report increased literacy skills including word recognition, rate of oral reading, sustained oral reading of the same text, increased motivation, and oral reading comprehension from engagement with readers theatre.…”