Revamping Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in Classroom Practice: Negotiating Stereotypes, Literary Language, and Outdated Values

Abstract

In this contribution, we explore something rarely reported on in research on children’s literature: how an old children’s book is re-appropriated and altered in ongoing teaching practice. The material consists of the book used in instruction, a Swedish translation of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (Tant Mittiprick), and transcribed audio recordings collected throughout six weeks of teaching. Participants include a librarian, who conducted the lion’s share of the discussions based on the books, two teachers, and two groups of Grade 3 students. The analysis is conducted based on Langer’s theory of building literary envisionments and the concept of the “third space”. The findings show that the students’ initial reception of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, playfully articulated in the classroom discussions, is shaped by literary stereotypes of old women and connections to everyday experiences. This reception is partly acknowledged by the adults. Thus, this shows the potential of the meaning making process through join negotiation of the third space—connecting prior knowledge and experience to the book. However, the librarian’s evaluations of student responses reinforce a particular didactic reading of the character as someone firm and knowledgeable, playing down the whimsical and silly characteristics of the protagonist. In reading the book aloud, the librarian made significant alterations to the text. With respect to literary language, the librarian provided numerous paraphrases and elaborations which served to support the students in making meaning of the book. More drastic alterations of the text served to avoid reinforcing outdated values, for example antiquated gender roles and references to physical punishment. While the paraphrases of literary terms created opportunities for negotiating the third space and learning about literary language, the sanitised reading of the book with respect to values failed to capitalise on opportunities for contextualising the book and making intertextual connections.

Exploring children’s and adults’ joint appropriation of children’s books through the concept of playworld

“…Lindqvist's concept is used as the backbone of this paper exploring and promoting creative and child-led interactions with literary texts. In this endeavour, we build on a previous study (Malilang & Walldén, 2022) which identified untapped potentials in read-aloud discussions for further encouraging students' playful expressions and intertextual connections in openended dialogue. To provide empirical grounding, we use data from a different study (Walldén, 2022) in which the participant teacher to a greater extent leveraged such potential.…”

“…This framework, however, has been criticised as being overly focused on the individual reader (discussed in Degerman & Johansson, 2010). While influential elaborations on reader response theory, such as Langer's (1995Langer's ( /2017 stances on envisionment building and Tengberg's forms of reading (2011), have contributed to understanding potentials for literary understanding in classroom discussions, these approaches still focus on classifying responses (e.g., Economou, 2015;Malilang & Walldén, 2022;Nordberg, 2022;Wilinger, 2022).…”