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Descriptors:
Childrens Literature; Power Structure; Social Behavior; Behavior Standards; Discourse Analysis; Literary Criticism

Abstract:
This article takes as its starting point the concept of aetonormativity (the adult normativity germane to the discourse of children's literature), coined by Maria Nikolajeva (2010) in an attempt to unify the increasingly power-oriented theories of children's literature criticism within the past few decades. Acknowledging the usefulness of this concept, but wary of the fact that it could imply an easy transference of "adult" power theory to the study of children's literature, I argue that an aetonormativity-centred system of children's literature criticism crucially needs to reconceptualise the notion of "power" which lies at its heart. Any automatic connection between adult normativity and adult "power" would thus be questioned and critiqued. I propose a first conceptual split of "power" into "authority" and "might", and a consequent redistribution of these two concepts to the adult and child parties in the children's book. I then investigate the critical and metacritical implications, within the framework of an aetonormativity-centred criticism of children's literature, of an increased subtlety in the use and handling of the concept of power when referring to the complex medium of the children's text. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Applied Linguistics; Literary Criticism; Autobiographies; Empowerment; Foreign Countries; Criticism; Classroom Techniques; Teaching Methods; English (Second Language)

Abstract:
This article utilizes a reflexive ethnographic approach in the form of a "layered text" consisting of academic argument, literary criticism, biography, autobiography, and fiction. The dimension of academic argument involves "critical applied linguistics"; the dimension of literary criticism, Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Algren's "The Man with the Golden Arm," Blake's "The Tyger," and Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"; the dimension of biography, the African American activist Malcolm X; autobiography, an account of my elderly father's visit with me in my city of residence (Oaxaca); and fiction, the story of me in an urban classroom teaching a group of students that includes Malcolm X as well as the authors of and characters from "The Great Gatsby" and "The Man with the Golden Arm." This diverse "layered text" intends to "perform" its theme involving the "critical"-minded teacher in an English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom as one who regulates her/his personal "political" awareness in order to foster a "critical" classroom accessible to all students. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Immigrants; Literary Criticism; Realism; Discourse Analysis; English; Conferences (Gatherings); Story Telling; Personal Narratives; Poetry; English (Second Language); Photography; Visual Aids; Literacy; Writing Instruction; Writing (Composition); Middle School Students; Grade 7; Grade 8; Intermode Differences; Learning Modalities

Abstract:
This paper explores how students, as multimodal storytellers, can weave powerful narratives blending modes, genres, artefacts and literary conventions to represent the real and imagined in their lives. Part of a larger ethnographic case study of student writing in a middle years class for immigrant students learning English as an additional language, the research featured in this paper is framed by a theory of artefactual literacies, narrative theory--particularly the genre of magical realism--and cultural studies, specifically notions of representation and cultural identity. The theoretical emphases on the artefactual, structural and representational aspects of multimodal narratives informs a multilayered, fine-grained approach to analysing students' digital narrative poems using the tools of critical discourse analysis, literary analysis and a visual analytic framework developed for analysing student-produced digital photographs. This process is applied to a selected example, Gabriel's "My Name Is" narrative, a story that plays with elements of magical real-ism to explore the simultaneity of his experience as an immigrant youth. The illustrative example speaks to the power of the "fantastical" in literacy pedagogies that seek to take seriously students' cultural identities and their visions for new realities. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Social Justice; Awards; Adolescent Literature; Literary Criticism; Discourse Analysis; Novels; English Curriculum; Young Adults; Disabilities; Critical Theory; Self Concept; Personal Autonomy; Power Structure; English Instruction; Literary Devices

Abstract:
This literary analysis examines constructions of normalcy and disability within contemporary young adult literature, including "Jerk," "California" (Friesen, 2008), "Marcelo in the Real World" (Stork, 2009), and "Five Flavors of Dumb" (John, 2010). As recent winners of the Schneider Family Book Award from the American Library Association, these novels offer complex and realistic portrayals of characters with disabilities. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, this paper explores how identity, agency, and power shape the novels' plots and themes. The growing prevalence of characters with disabilities in young adult literature offers an opportunity for students to consider how disability is constructed in society and represented in literary works. By taking a critical approach to literary analysis, teachers can emphasize social justice within the English curriculum. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Elementary Education; Childrens Literature; Classrooms; School Libraries; Sexuality; Behavior Standards; Social Behavior; Books; Censorship; Intellectual Freedom; Library Role; Psychological Patterns; Sexual Identity; Social Theories; Content Analysis; Literary Criticism; Homosexuality

Abstract:
This essay explores what it might mean to read children's literature in elementary school classrooms through a queer lens. The authors argue that because queer theory has a history as a literary theory that destabilizes normative associations among gender, sexuality, bodies, and desire, it provides a set of analytical tools classroom communities can draw on to create alternative readings of a wide range of familiar texts. Such readings of books already on the shelves of elementary school libraries and classrooms can highlight experiences and subjectivities of nonnormative sexualities and gender identities in the hopes of making classrooms more inclusive. Specifically, we argue that four high-quality, award-winning children's books already included in many schools and classrooms--Sendak's (1963) "Where the Wild Things Are", Woodson's (2001) "The Other Side", DiCamillo's (2003) "Tale of Despereaux", and Patterson's (1977) "Bridge to Terabithia"--can be fruitful sites for opening up these more inclusive readings and conversations. The article offers possible queer readings of these texts as well as suggestions for how to encourage elementary-aged students to think about both books and the socially constructed norms of real life through a queered lens. By first queering on-the-shelf texts and then asking students to think about how that queering connects to larger social issues, elementary classrooms can become places where strict identity categories--categories that can marginalize queer students and families--are made visible, are questioned, are stretched, and can even fall apart. (Contains 4 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Discourse Communities; Case Studies; Computer Games; Video Games; Educational Games; Game Theory; Narration; Story Grammar; Discourse Analysis; Discourse Modes; Critical Reading; Literary Criticism; Computer System Design; Program Design

Abstract:
Digital games have matured substantially as a narrative medium in the last decade. However, there is still much work to be done to more fully understand the poetics of story-based-games. Game narrative remains an important issue with significant cultural, economic and scholarly implications. In this article, we undertake a critical analysis of the design of narrative within "Mass Effect 2": a game whose narrative is highly regarded in both scholarly and vernacular communities. We follow the classic humanities methodology of "close-reading": the detailed observation, deconstruction, and analysis of a text. Our close-reading employs a critical framework from our previous work to isolate and highlight the central narrative design parameters within digital games. This framework is grounded in the scholarly discourse around games and narrative, and has been tested and revised in the process of close-reading and analyzing contemporary games. The narrative design parameters we examine are character, storyworld, narrativized interface, emotion, and plot coherence. Our analysis uses these parameters to explicate a series of design decisions for the effective creation of narrative experience in "Mass Effect 2", and by extension, for game narratives in general. We also expand our previous methodology through a focused "edge-case" strategy for exploring the limits of character, action, and story in the game. Finally, we position our analysis of "Mass Effect 2" within contemporary discourses of "bounded agency", and explore how the game negotiates the tension between player-expression, and narrative inevitability to create opportunities for sophisticated narrative poetics including tragedy and sacrifice. (Contains 6 figures.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Native Speakers; English (Second Language); Literary Criticism; Foreign Countries; Comparative Analysis; Undergraduate Students; Mandarin Chinese; Native Language; Writing (Composition); Academic Discourse; Discourse Analysis; Language of Instruction; Translation; Second Language Learning; Computational Linguistics; Context Effect

Abstract:
This article presents a qualitative, comparative study of metadiscourse in the academic writing of two groups of undergraduate students working in two different disciplines. The groups of students were: 1) Native speakers of Mandarin studying in China through the medium of English; 2) Native speakers of Mandarin studying in the UK through the medium of English. For each group of students, we examined writing undertaken in two undergraduate disciplinary courses: Literary Criticism and Translation Studies. Our aim was to extend research into English writing by L1 Mandarin speakers, and to identify patterns of difference and similarity both between educational contexts and between disciplines. Results suggest that patterns of metadiscourse use in our corpus are associated with both disciplinary and contextual factors, but that contextual factors may have a stronger effect than disciplinary factors. For our data, local institutional culture seems to have a noticeable influence on student writers' use of metadiscourse. (Contains 4 tables.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Psychological Patterns; Novels; Physicians; Drug Therapy; Drug Use; Social Environment; Cultural Influences; Critical Theory; Literary Criticism; Feminism; Discourse Analysis; Content Analysis; Mental Disorders; Medical Services

Abstract:
Using contemporary literary sources, we explore the powerful ideological framework that normalises prescription dependency as part of everyday life, focusing upon the treatment of mood disorders. Through a literary critical methodology, we read novels by American hyperrealists such as Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace and Rick Moody as symptomatic of prescription culture. Though we argue that these writers brilliantly understand the dangers of mood medication, they do not escape its logic, rather, "writing it out" as they write against it. Indeed, we propose that their novels bear ironic similarities to medical texts such as the "British National Formulary", usually seen as a neutral handbook for physicians' guidance in prescribing. We explicate their method as that of deconstruction, which, in contrast to more obvious critiques of chemical treatment, such as therapy, neither analyses nor cures. Though this method underplays the possibility of pragmatic and political resistance exemplified by alternative formularies such as the long-established feminist health manual "Our Bodies, Ourselves", we argue that its very ambiguity uniquely exposes the complex determinisms associated with prescribed medication. We thus propose the value of drawing on deconstructive literature to better understand "health" interventions such as prescription drugs for the regulation of mood. Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Adolescent Literature; Novels; Social Class; Young Adults; Critical Literacy; Teaching Methods; Controversial Issues (Course Content); Gender Issues; Critical Theory; Discourse Analysis; Whites; Classroom Techniques; Didacticism; Literary Criticism; Social Characteristics; Social Differences; Social Status

Abstract:
In this article, the author argues that whiteness remains an overwhelmingly absent dimension in literacy teaching that addresses systems of power from a critical perspective. One way literacy teachers may bring this dimension more explicitly into the classroom is by facilitating critical conversations on whiteness with young adult literature. As whiteness is neither a fixed nor static category, the author analyzes whiteness as intersected with multiple identity markers such as social class and gender in two young adult novels that are popular with adolescents and taught in middle and high school classrooms. The author concludes with recommendations for literacy teachers on how to bring whiteness more explicitly into critical literacy teaching and learning. (Contains 1 table.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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Descriptors:
Literature; Theories; Literary Criticism; Reader Text Relationship; Imagination; Computer Simulation

Abstract:
We set out to investigate Miller's curious assertion--curious for a deconstructionist committed to a critique of the old metaphysics of presence--that literary works preexist their being written down. We find a basis for this sense of the preexistence of the literary work in Miller's insights about the performative dynamics of reading and writing. We thus examine Miller's intuition about the preexistence of the literary text in terms of language as a shifting structure that interpenetrates and always exceeds the writer's and the readers' minds, of the meta-awareness implicit in the dependence of the mimetic on self-referentiality, and of the relationship between the literary realm of the virtual and Derrida's idea of the "future anterior". As Miller's insights into the performative act of reading disclose, the literary work exists among all of its possibilities of negotiation, interpretation, conjuration, and understanding. The intuition of the literary work's preexistence thus relates to a sense of actuality as always a matter of interpretation and negotiation, rather than as simply a collection of facts. (Contains 7 notes.) Note:The following two links are not-applicable for text-based browsers or screen-reading software. Show Hide Full Abstract

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