Getting Started…
Reader Response/ Personal
Why is children’s literature important to me?
How does children’s literature present an authentic representation of childhood? Does it?
What real-life people or events are you reminded of by characters or events in children’s stories?
In what ways do the characters in children’s literature represent universal experiences?
New Criticism/ Formalistic
How do various children’s literature texts fit into and help to define the genre?
What is the typical structure of a children’s story?
How do authors incorporate commonly-accepted literary conventions in their texts?
What happens when a children’s literature author breaks the expectations of genre, structure, and conventions in a text?
Theoretical Lenses
Critical Theory
How does children’s literature examine and establish limits on singular knowledge?
How does children’s literature help readers to interpret, understand, and define human life?
How is knowledge represented in children’s literature texts?
What symbols and representations contained within children’s literature texts form commonly-accepted knowledge in society?
How can children’s literature infuse the opportunity for readers’ self-reflection about their entrapment in systems of domination or dependence?
How does children’s literature call to readers to rise up toward individual autonomy and freedom from dominant ideologies?
Critical Race Theory
How do children’s literature authors reproduce racial power over time periods and eras?
In what ways do children’s literature texts describe the possibility of eliminating racial subjugation and achieving racial emancipation?
How can the children’s literature narratives of people of color illuminate and explore experiences of racial oppression?
What happens when children’s literature seeks to reduce the experience of categories of humans from general to specific?
How can children’s literature offer pathways for individuals to rise up together outside the black-white paradigm of race relations?
What children’s literature issues relate to the intersection of race with issues of gender, sexuality, class and other social structures?
Feminist Theory
What statements do children’s literature texts make about what it means to be masculine/ feminine?
Do children’s literature texts represent how has gender inequality has shaped social life?
What happens when children’s literature articulate a system of meaning absolutely distinct from gender parameters?
What social commentary do texts make about gender and sexual roles?
In what ways do children’s literature texts describe women's social roles and lived experiences through patriarchy?
In what ways are females silenced in children’s literature texts? What are the contexts in which female voices emerge?
How does the notion of the body (and not the mind) in children’s literature justify or liberate females from roles as property, objects, and/or commodities?
Gay/ Lesbian/ Queer Theory
How are sexual difference and gender difference and their interplay almost inextricable from each other in much children’s literature?
How is same sex orientation represented in children’s literature texts?
How are the boundaries around heterosexuality and homosexuality created, regulated, and contested within children’s literature?
How does some children’s literature eradicate the boundaries around heterosexuality and homosexuality?
How do gender and sexual difference interact in texts provide clues about the ways in which power operates in the culture producing children’s literature texts?
Marxist Theory
How does children’s literature represent life as determined by class relations rather than by a cluster of individual traits?
How does children’s literature define heroism as if through acquisition of material goods and wealth?
How do economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry emerge in children’s literature texts?
Do children’s literature texts offer ideas about how individuals can ignore social stratification?
Masculinity Theory
What cultural constructions of masculinity emerge in children’s literature?
How do dominant standards of masculinity affect an individual’s identity formation in children’s literature texts?
How does children’s literature describe hegemonic masculinity as necessary power in society?
In what ways are male behaviors described in children’s literature as the product of society and culture?
Do children’s literature texts include attributes of aggression and violence as necessary parts of being male?
In what ways do some children’s literature texts redefine masculinity in ways that offer males greater possibilities for defining the Self?
Post-Colonial Theory
How do children’s literature texts infuse voices of people who have been previously silenced by dominant ideologies into dialogue around social issues?
How do children’s literature texts describe a world that is a respectful mélange of multiple cultures and ways of being?
How do children’s literature texts account for and combat the residual effects of colonialism on cultures?
What might be the effect of exposing and deconstructing the racist, imperialist nature of societies?
How do children’s literature texts help to clear space for multiple voices around interpretation?
What new visions do children’s literature texts incorporate as critical discourses to illuminate issues emerging from colonial relations and their aftermath?
Postmodern Theory
How do classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial frame various children’s literature narratives?
How do some children’s literature authors break free from a binary system in which one is either good or bad, black or white, with us or or against us?
What happens when children’s literature views human reality as little more than pre-determined assignment to socially constructed categories?
What happens when children’s literature authors view realities to be plural and relative?
How do children’s literature texts describe the roles of human language, power relations, and motivations? Are they part of an either/ or binary, or do they describe a middle ground of compromise and sharing?
Do children’s literature authors describe our world as having one absolute truth?
What are the narratives like when children’s literature authors perceive the world in subjective ways?
What happens when children’s literature authors think of all people as gray, or having shades of good and bad within them?