Blog Post #3

Reflection

This project has taught me so much and I've collected some amazing data. I learned just how prevalent emotional abuse is in these series, and it honestly shocked me how much it's mentioned. At around 454 mentions of abuse across all 10 books, I was truly shocked at how important of a topic this is. Because we had limited time this year to conduct our study and gather our data, there were a significant amount of things that I would love to look at more in depth. With this data, I would be able to do more of a qualitative analysis of how the mentions of this abuse has impacted readers and why it is important to be portrayed in books. Additionally, I would love to do more research on the importance of the methods in which the author writes the abuse and how it may change the reader's view of the subject.

Not only did I learn so much from the general content of my project, but my products also taught me a lot. In creating my final paper and presentation, I was able to gain a better understanding on my own topic. In much of the research process, you're simply collecting data and doing your analysis. However, my final products really allowed me sit down and reflect on my work and the impact it can have. It gave me a chance to look at my research from another perspective and explore different ways to frame it. This has really helped me with projects I have worked on since as I am better able to frame different data and gain new perspectives, ideally allowing my readers to do the same.

Some of the most important lessons I learned from this class are the skills I've taken away. While it is always important to gain knowledge, habits are itegral to most of your actions in your life. This class has really cracked down on me as a study and made me reflect on my habits. I developed significantly better time management skills from this class. As you have a heavy workload and need to collect data, it is very time consuming and requires a lot of work. However, you also are responsible for holding yourself accountable, making it that much more important to manage your time well. This will significantly benefit me in college as you are responsible for yourself and create your own academic and study schedule. In addition to time management, this class has impacted my perseverance. There were so many times where I faced challenges in my research collection, but your research is the most important thing and not something you can avoid. This class taught me how to push through and better navigate difficult situations, which will continue to benefit me as I face challenges in adulthood.

Acknowledgements

I have been incredibly fortunate to have an amazing support system throughout my research process! There are some people in particular that have helped shape this experience for me.

Mrs. Dobos and Mr. McBride - My teachers helped me so much throughout this whole process and made it such an amazing experience for all of us. They provided so many resources for us that helped us manage our projects in the best way possible, and they were always so clear and helpful. They held workshops for our presentations that helped us prepare, they had meetings with us during the research process to make sure that we were on track, and they were constantly providing us with tools that would help us become better researchers. They made this process so much easier than it might have been without their support.

My mom and dad - My parents were such a big support through my research. Not only did they provide good feedback and listen to me present, but they also provided such an emotional help. My mom would bring my dinner while I was studying in my room and my dad would get my out of my room to take breaks from studying. They helped me significantly in terms of my academics, as well as my mental health.

My sister and my best friend - Both of these people were so helpful throghout my entire process, always encouraging me and helping me in any way they could. They both listened to me present a crazy amount of times, and they were such a strong source of relief for me when my project got difficult.

Abstract

Since it's creation, literature has been one of the most impactful methods of education and development for young children. The amount of books targeted at young audiences is constantly increasing, especially as many books are adapted into movies and tv shows. As many of these are intended for younger audiences, readers are heavily impacted by the contents of the books they consume. Fiction books in particular have been shown to lead to emotional transportation, heavily impacting the understanding and empathy of young readers. Topics that are prevalent to the world today, like emotional abuse, have a significant lack of research despite the unfortunately increasing prevalence. The Percy Jackson books have continued to grow in popularity, with books consistently being released and a tv show being developed. I used a content analysis to determine the presence of emotional abuse in the 10 Percy Jackson books, annotating for 6 legally-recognized indicators of emotional abuse. I found that emotional abuse is a significant focus of these books, with 454 mentions across all 10 books, going to show the prevalence of emotional abuse in kids books. 

Links

Link to final paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DaIinPt2pouUrH8NlnheD2b9VomklQ91K6QA-Q05qWM/edit?usp=sharing 

Link to final presentation: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGinH4u-kY/CiHgLUy1ht7iXFAGl6hkUw/edit?utm_content=DAGinH4u-kY&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton