Exploring Multiple Worldviews though Postcolonial Young Adult Literature

Postcolonial Young Adult Literature  Postcolonial YAL: Stories written by insiders to the culture about the experiences of young people coming of age during and after colonization.  Characteristics: The characters’ identities and the choices they can make are shaped and constrained by the social, cultural, political, and historical contexts of the countries where the stories take place. Genres: historical fiction, contemporary fiction, science fiction & fantasy, memoirs, graphic novels.

The Study A narrative inquiry of a book club with 12 preservice teachers reading and discussing postcolonial young adult literature. Participants: 12 pre-service teachers  9 undergraduate and 3 graduate students  1 African American woman  2 white males  9 white women, including 1 non-traditional student

Data Collection & Analysis Data collected in the fall of 2011:  Pre- and post-study questionnaires  Written responses to each reading  Audio-tapes and transcriptions of discussions  Field notes Data analysis:  Constant comparison method (Maykut & Morehouse)  Thematic analysis—constand comparison method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994)  Dialogic Analysis (Riessman, 2008)

Texts Selected Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams (2011, Zimbabwe/South Africa) Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman (2008, India)

Texts Selected Aya by Marguerite Abouet (2007, Côte d’Ivoire) Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy by Carlos Eire (2003, Cuba/U.S.)

Texts Selected The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003, Afghanistan/U.S.) White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000, Bangladeshi and Jamaican Immigrants in England )

Challenges Now that I am student teaching, I see many limitations that might prevent me from using any of these books in the classroom. I might be able to recommend independent reading to some students, but the existing administration and time restraints make it next to impossible for teachers to select their own material. In an ideal world, the book club method would be great for encouraging students to actually learn to like (or maybe even love) to read. Sadly, I don’t see that as a goal in our public schools. (BettY)

Visual Representations of Culture I usually like to envision the characters in my own mind, but in this case, I think it is effective to show readers the setting. I believe that including images of the housing, the clothing, and the markets were very important to give the full effect of Aya’s world to the reader. (Betty)

Teaching Post-colonial YAL I thought too, when I was reading it [the novel]…there’s no way you can separate her [Vidya’s] culture from this novel at all. So, I thought it would be interesting to, if you were doing … a historical fiction kind of unit, you could assign research papers. I feel like research papers are going to be a good tool for every one of the books we’re going to read. (Lauren)

Locating Culture (Mangat & Johnston, 2001) Do you think that the author is an “insider” or an “outsider to the culture described in the excerpt? What in the language of the excerpt makes you think so? Who do you think is the author’s intended audience? Is it children, young adults, or adults? Are they “insiders” or “outsiders” to the culture being described? What in the author’s language choices makes you think so?

Cultural Awareness Log (Their, 2013) CultureTextPage Description/ Detail / Quotation CategoryInference about the culture

Iceberg Concept of Culture (Their Adapted from Hall, 1976)

Identifying Oppression in YAL (Glasgow, 2001)

References Glasgow, J. (2001). Teaching social justice through young adult literature. English Journal,90(6), Mangat, J., & Johnston, I. (2000). Reading culture from ‘behind a glass jar’: Adolescent readers responding to African Fiction. The English Quarterly, 32(3), Their, M. (2013). Cultural awareness logs: A method for increasing international-mindedness among high school and middle school students. English Journal, 102(6),