I am a PhD candidate in the Reading/Writing/Literacy Program at Penn's
Graduate School of Education.
My broad areas of interest are children's literature (picturebooks
through young adult fiction) and children's responses to literature.
More specifically, I am interested in:
how young children make sense of the synergistic combinations
of words and illustrations in picturebooks
how classroom literature
discussions might be conducted so as to allow for the interchange and
development of ideas among students
how text characteristics influence
children's responses - in other words, why what children read
matters
how we can teach and research reading and writing in ways that recognize
and support the deep connections between literacy practices
Please visit the research
interests section of this site to read more about my research - past,
present, and planned for the future.
Working within a sociocultural framework
for literacy, I take seriously the identities and literacy practices of
my students (whether children, undergraduates, or graduate students),
endeavoring to learn from and with them to build upon our knowledge and
questions. Within the teaching
section, you can view the websites for children's literature courses I have taught at Penn in
the past and read more about my approach to teaching.
Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
I re-read this beautiful book a few days ago and was again fully immersed in the life and thoughts of Lonnie.
This book, written as a series of poems, reminds me of Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust in the way that
it captures the spirit of the narrator and captures harsh realities in spare lines. Have Kleenex handy - it's a safe
bet that you'll cry.
Enigma by Graeme Base
As a child, I was a big fan of Base's Animalia (I still have vivid memories
of the crimson cats on the C page) and The Eleventh Hour. This new book
includes passages written in a secret code that can be broken through close attention
to the illustrations. Inside the back cover is a device that unlocks the code - and that
can be re-locked so the next reader can discover the secret anew.
