NEWSLETTER
Society for the History of Children and Youth
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No. 13 |
Winter 2009 |
Pedagogy: Stephen Gennaro, Ed.
Reading Challenging Texts
As teachers and educators, some of our
greatest challenges are finding way to ensure students complete regular reading
assignments. This is further
complicated when asking students to engage with difficult texts. In an area of study as
interdisciplinary as Children’s Studies, students are often asked to read
outside of their own comfort zone and areas of expertise. With this in mind, I polled some of my
colleagues at York University’s Children’s Studies Program to see how they
dealt with engaging their students to complete difficult readings and what
alternative practices they used in engaging their students.
Many thanks to the members of the teaching
teams of Worlds of Childhood 1970 (a first year introductory course in Children’s
Studies at York University), Jeffrey Canton, Leslie Dadlani,
Neil Shyminsky, and Krys Verrall for their input- and to the students of 1970A and B
for their incredible contributions!
Helping Students Access Difficult Texts
Stephen Gennaro, York University
As an educator, I try to create a learning
environment that is based on constructivist principles of education, which
places the emphasis more on the student’s self exploration of knowledge than on
a Socratic method of teaching-to-student dialogue. Therefore, whether in a small tutorial classroom of 20
students, or a lecture hall of 100+ students, classes begin with small group
activities, before expanding to large group activities, and ending with a
summary lecture or discussion from the educator. However, in my class I always refer to these activities as team work and not group work. People are often hesitant about working in groups but
somehow feel more comfortable being part of a team! The activities themselves are always centered around a
popular form of media that students are asked to analyze based on their own
knowledge. The goal is always to
begin with having students explore what they already know about the subject,
before moving into a more critical and analytical approach to the subject that
is aided by the weeks’ readings of critical scholarly texts and popular media
texts. At first there is always
hesitation on the part of my students to participate in small group activities
and large group presentations, however, the grading scheme for these activities
and the emphasis participation for all students helps provide a fun, exciting,
and entertaining learning environment where students not only enjoy coming to
my class but also look forward to next week’s activities.
Below are examples of two different
activities that I use in class, which follow this method.
Another tool that I have used recently with
particularly “dense” and “theoretical” texts is too provide students with a
series of reading questions that help guide students through the reading. The answers to the questions are never
collected for grade- but instead help to ensure that students arrive at lectures
and tutorial on a common page. Below are examples of two different sets of reading questions, which
follow this method.
Pedagogy of
the Oppressed Reading Questions
Representation
and Reality Reading Questions
Grading Reading
In the ever continuing battle to get students
to read assigned course texts, members of the teaching team for The Worlds of
Childhood, the foundation course in the Children's Studies program that I have
been co-directing with Krys Verrall for the last four years at York University in Toronto, have developed a series
of what we call “Reading Documents.” For every reading that is assigned to
students on the syllabus as well as additional
in-lecture viewing of short films, photographs, reproductions of works of art
and special guest presentations, students are expected to fill in one of two
types of Reading Document, one for Primary texts and/or one for
Critical/Secondary texts. The focus of the Docs is developing basic critical
reading skills and gaining an understanding of the differences between a
primary and secondary text but also learning how to make connections between
different types of texts as well as overall course concepts.
Students receive a substantial grade for
filling in their Reading Docs, a hefty 20% reward for doing what they should be
doing anyway but we have noted, since this assignment has been implemented, an
increased understanding of course materials overall and, in particular, that
students who take the Reading Docs series have a greater ability to both
comprehend and make use of the difficult theoretical terms and concepts that
underpin the course's argument. The Docs are collected four times over the
course of the year, approximately once every six weeks, in order to ensure that
students are keeping up with their readings and the 20% grade is divided
between completion and content with a focus on making interconnections between
primary and second texts and course terms and concepts. Students are encouraged
to complete each document as they are doing their reading rather than filling
them out in four lumps and this is encouraged in part by incorporating questions
and discussions about the Reading Docs in the tutorials that are held as a part
of the course. The teaching team has certainly noted the benefits of the Docs
overall and if it gets our students reading then, hey, give 'em a grade!
Leslie Dadlani, Children's Studies
Program, York University, Toronto
The purpose of the seminars is to help
students establish how actual case studies of real children and childhood
issues underscore theoretical arguments from the course. Since representation in primary
literary texts is generally an adult construct, it is important to establish
authenticity in children’s studies by allowing the real voice of the child to
be heard. I encourage students to
access voice through research of a topical or archival case study of real
children by focusing on a concept from the course. How do issues surrounding power and children’s rights
manifest in the lives of real children? How does representation of real children underscore or refute critical
theory?
Methodology:
1.
Choose a topic/theme pertaining
to children and childhood from a broad range of ideas including (but not
limited to): power, children’s rights, childhood labour,
pop culture, children and war, hegemony, aboriginal issues, social variables,
nostalgia, gender and sexuality, abuse, multiculturalism, consumerism, health
and welfare, education, children and the law, and childhood spaces.
2.
Research a case study of a real
child/children using media articles (current or archival) that pertains to the
chosen concept. Students may NOT
access real children without first undergoing a vulnerable sector screening.
3.
Draw critical links to the theory
from the course. Be specific.
4.
Show how and why representation
in primary texts from the course (literary, pictorial, film) support or
undermine the experiences of actual children. Consider the “real versus the imagined child.”
5.
Establish two analytical
questions to pose to the class for tutorial discussion.
6.
Submit an outline to the TA that
points to the aforementioned criterion one week prior to the presentation date
for approval.
7.
Prepare to lead a seminar of
15-20 minutes. Seminars may
include video clips, power-point presentations or workshops.
8.
Submit a written copy of the
presentation to the TA upon completion of the seminar.
9.
If a course website such as Moodle is available, post the analytical questions for
follow-up class response and exam review.
Grading:
Presentation dates are drawn at random.
Seminars constitute 25% of the overall
tutorial participation mark.
Examples of Student Work (published with the
permission of the students):
Child
Poverty
[Ed. note: these examples are formatted as Powerpoint presentations]
“Pedagogy of the Super-hero”: Reading Paolo Freire through Super-heroes
Neil Shyminsky, Children's Studies
Program, York University, Toronto
In the summer of 2008, I was a tutorial
leader for an introductory Childhood Studies course in the Children’s Studies
program at York University. The content and presentation of course materials
was influenced significantly by the philosophies of Paolo Freire,
whose seminal text Pedagogy of the Oppressed was read by the class in
its entirety. Freire’s book,
in which the author uses Marxist and post-colonial political theory to craft
the foundations of a new “critical pedagogy”, constitutes a major challenge to any first-time academic reader, much less the mostly freshman students enrolled in
the course.
Given the opportunity to lecture immediately
after the series of lectures on Freire, I applied his
critiques of conventional education and cultural action to a particular type of
popular children’s texts: super-heroes such as Superman and Spider-man.
Characterizing the typical super-hero narrative as one that is, in Freire’s terms, anti-dialogic and does little to mobilize
or empower children, I concluded my lecture by asking the students what an
anti-oppressive super-hero in the Freirean mode might
look like.
While none of my students were strictly
required to submit their answer to this question – it was a “bonus”
exercise, due the same week as two much larger projects – nearly 90% did
so anyway. Students who found it difficult, in tutorial discussions, to grasp
or articulate the meaning of “dialogicity” or “conscientization” were nonetheless more than capable of
applying and embodying these ideas in their heroes. Rather than super-heroes,
students re-branded their characters as “super-activists” and “liberators”; in
lieu of super-strength and destructive heat-ray vision, these characters were
given superhuman empathy, the ability to communicate in every language, or the
ability compel others to speak the truth; instead of adult, white men, their
heroes were often children themselves whose marginalized and liminal identities challenged hegemonic notions of heroes,
villains, and victims. In an appropriately Freirian fashion, their ability to craft heroes, often based on the students’ own lived
experiences, exposed the limitations of a traditional classroom discussion of
the text.
Pedagogy of
the Superhero Activity
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