Food Chains, Frenemies, and Revenge Fantasies:   Relating Fiction to Life in a Girls’ Book Club

Taber, Nancy; Woloshyn, Vera; Lane, Laura

doi:10.26522/brocked.v22i1.305

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The findings of this book club study extend and confirm previous research (Twomey 2007, Polleck 2010, Taber et al 2012, demonstrating the value of structured discussion for initiating engagement in critical thinking and encouraging youth to begin to recognize and problematize sociocultural gendered issues. We acknowledge that these findings are limited to the experiences of the four girls described here and may not be reflective of the experiences of other girls in general or other girls with reading difficulties.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Consistent with the principles of creating nonjudgmental, nonregulated spaces that encourage critical gendered discussion (Twomey 2011, Taber et al 2012), we began The Hunger Games book club at our participants' request. All four girls were identified as struggling readers, demonstrating reading scores two to three years below grade level and listening comprehension scores at or slightly below grade level as determined by their performance on the Ekwall/Shanker Reading Inventory (5th Edition) (Shanker and Cockrum 2009) and as confirmed through academic and/or psychometric reports.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: girls' perception of violence and gender inThe Hunger Games

Taber

Woloshyn

Lane

2013

Journal of Youth Studies

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In this research study, we document the experiences of four girls with reading difficulties who participated in a book club designed to promote critical discussion of sociocultural gender issues. Throughout the reading of The Hunger Games, we were especially interested in how the girls might view characters and plotlines that presented and challenged various forms of masculinity and femininity with respect to their own positioning as girls who were struggling readers. The book club sessions were designed to examine representations in the novel in ways that connected to the participants' lives, helping them to become aware of gendered norms in order to critique them. We first explore the literature about the use of popular texts in education, present our sociological interpretive case study methodology, and then discuss the complex ways in which our participants' approached power, violence, and gender.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: girls' perception of violence and gender inThe Hunger Games

Taber

Woloshyn

Lane

2013

Journal of Youth Studies

Self Cite

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“…There are studies conducted on graphic novels, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid, with various focuses. They ranged from analyzing gendered themes in three graphic novels which was able to show the way those texts construct gender roles, and promoted heteronormative gender roles where boys and girls were portrayed as having traditional femininities and hegemonic masculinities (Taber and Woloshyn 2011), examining the experiences of four members of a book club which was intended to promote critical discussion on the topics of sociocultural gender through the use of Russell's graphic novel entitled Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-fabulous life (Taber et al 2012), discussing the types of reading the novels asked for and tried to show how they encourage innovative writing experiences (Rickard 2014), exploring the types of requests which were used by children at the age of eleven in peer and family contexts, and investigated the reason why they used those specific strategies (Nisa' and Ariyanti 2014), analyzing graphic novels' role in teaching English as a foreign language (Öz and Efecioğlu 2015), and discussing the linguistic formations of an adapted text into a graphic novel format through transitivity (Rajendra 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Battle of Domination between Adults and Children in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid

2024

JJMLL

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This research examines the issue of adults’ domination of children, and also children empowerment in Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2007). The study framework is developed using Nodelman’s orientalism in children’s literature (1992), Anshori’s children empowerment (2016), and Kurnia et al. (2021) power relations in children’s literature. The research data were in the form of multimodal data related to adults’ domination of children. Analysis is done with the basis of Halliday’s (1978) interpersonal metafunction, in particular the system of Attitude. Analysis of visual interactive meaning by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) is also employed. The research found out that while adults exercise domination over children by controlling, ignoring, oppressing, and threatening, children show refusal to adults’ domination and show empowerment through their bravery, knowledge and idea, unselfishness, and empathy. This research also highlights that these issues might not be apparent while being a pervasive issue in children’s literature. Therefore, more egalitarian children literary works are needed to make children literature a safe space for its readers and not a ground to exercise power and instill ideology by adults. Keywords: Domination, Children’s empowerment, Children’s literature, Graphic novel, Power relations

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Advancing from a Diary Cartoon Novel to Young Adult Fiction: Exploring Issues of Gender and Power with Girls with Reading Difficulties

Woloshyn¹,

Taber²,

Lane³

2012

teachlearn

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Learning disabilities are often referred to as invisible exceptionalities, with reading difficulties representing the most common form of learning disability. Girls with reading difficulties are often overshadowed by their male counterparts and as such overlooked for intervention programs. In this article, we detail our research conducting a book club intended to assist four preadolescent girls who struggle with reading to engage and critique text in context of societal issues related to gender and self-empowerment. We outline how we used recursive, higher-level question prompts and corresponding discussion-based activities to advance from reading a diary cartoon novel (Dork Diaries) to a more difficult young adult novel (The Hunger Games). Our findings present the girls’ responses to the texts and highlight the importance of holding ongoing structured conversations and engaging youth in a societal gendered critique. Learning disabilities are often referred to as invisible exceptionalities, with reading difficulties representing the most common form of learning disability. Girls with reading difficulties are often overshadowed by their male counterparts and as such overlooked for intervention programs. In this article, we detail our research conducting a book club intended to assist four preadolescent girls who struggle with reading to engage and critique text in context of societal issues related to gender and self-empowerment. We outline how we used recursive, higher-level question prompts and corresponding discussion-based activities to advance from reading a diary cartoon novel (Dork Diaries) to a more difficult young adult novel (The Hunger Games). Our findings present the girls’ responses to the texts and highlight the importance of holding ongoing structured conversations and engaging youth in a societal gendered critique.

show abstract

Food Chains, Frenemies, and Revenge Fantasies: Relating Fiction to Life in a Girls’ Book Club

Cited by 3 publications

References 30 publications

‘She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: girls' perception of violence and gender inThe Hunger Games

‘She's more like a guy’ and ‘he's more like a teddy bear’: girls' perception of violence and gender inThe Hunger Games

The Battle of Domination between Adults and Children in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Advancing from a Diary Cartoon Novel to Young Adult Fiction: Exploring Issues of Gender and Power with Girls with Reading Difficulties

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