Introduction

I titled my Portfolio "Feminist Fairytales" because as a preservice educator I find it very important for everyone to have proper representation in literature. One thing that has become extremely apparent to me during the pandemic and spending lots of time with my eight year old niece has been how important it is for young girls to have stories that represent girls as heroes and protagonists. So in part, this portfolio is in honor of her and the types of literature I hope she will be able to interact with in her life. I am planning on teaching middle and high school grades so I wanted to tweak my project even further to fit their specific needs. I know that throughout my career I will have students from all different backgrounds and cultures and I so urgently want all of my students to feel represented in books.

For these reasons, I have planned my portfolio to represent women as strong and powerful. I also want it to be full of very important stories, many of which are the foundation for a majority of the literature that is popular today. I think it is important for readers to be able to relate to the stories they are reading so I have tired to take out as much of the specific religious practices as I could, and instead replaced it with magic from the forest. I think that by doing this I am making some potentially hesitant readers more comfortable reacting with texts that they may not have previously interacted with.