Papers by Caitlin L. Ryan
Advances in Early Childhood and K-12 Education, 2019
In this chapter, the authors share the history of a video capture and annotation technology (VCAT... more In this chapter, the authors share the history of a video capture and annotation technology (VCAT) implementation and provide summaries of research findings to support its continued use and refinement. They also detail the multiple uses and particular objectives they aimed to meet with the technology across different content areas and even across multiple educator preparation programs, including a collaboration between a teacher education program and principal preparation program that was enabled by the technology.
Journal of language and literacy education, 2017
15 Abstract: In this paper, we explore the intersection of critical literacy pedagogy, queer peda... more 15 Abstract: In this paper, we explore the intersection of critical literacy pedagogy, queer pedagogy, and transgender topics by turning our attention to the learning that supported the writing of an acrostic poem about Title IX and transgender students. We examine how this writing, in turn, created additional content and context that spurred others’ learning. We examine this particular poem because of the ways it demonstrates how a 4 grade student drew on three overarching components of the classroom’s instructional context to support its production: the critical literacy pedagogy present in the class, exposure to transgender topics, and the importance of situating students as expert teachers for an authentic audience.
Language arts, 2017
Teachers think a lot about transitions- proceduralizing them, cutting them down, making them more... more Teachers think a lot about transitions- proceduralizing them, cutting them down, making them more efficient. Changing from one thing to another takes time and effort, and the time when students are between tasks or rooms or activities can sometimes feel chaotic. This is often the same kind of energy and upheaval reflected in the life transitions of upper elementary and middle grades students as they live between different contexts, developmental stages, and versions of themselves. Even within the larger journey from youth to adulthood, these 9- to 12-year-olds are classified as "tweens," indicating this transition period between childhood and adolescence. This sense of "betweenness" also characterizes the needs of tween readers. As Lesesne (2006) discusses, students at these ages are at a place "between children's books and young adult novels as reading fare; they are between dependence on parents and educators and self-direction in their lives and their...
Advances in Early Childhood and K-12 Education, 2019
In this chapter, the authors share the history of a video capture and annotation technology (VCAT... more In this chapter, the authors share the history of a video capture and annotation technology (VCAT) implementation and provide summaries of research findings to support its continued use and refinement. They also detail the multiple uses and particular objectives they aimed to meet with the technology across different content areas and even across multiple educator preparation programs, including a collaboration between a teacher education program and principal preparation program that was enabled by the technology.
Journal of language and literacy education, 2017
15 Abstract: In this paper, we explore the intersection of critical literacy pedagogy, queer peda... more 15 Abstract: In this paper, we explore the intersection of critical literacy pedagogy, queer pedagogy, and transgender topics by turning our attention to the learning that supported the writing of an acrostic poem about Title IX and transgender students. We examine how this writing, in turn, created additional content and context that spurred others’ learning. We examine this particular poem because of the ways it demonstrates how a 4 grade student drew on three overarching components of the classroom’s instructional context to support its production: the critical literacy pedagogy present in the class, exposure to transgender topics, and the importance of situating students as expert teachers for an authentic audience.
Language arts, 2017
Teachers think a lot about transitions- proceduralizing them, cutting them down, making them more... more Teachers think a lot about transitions- proceduralizing them, cutting them down, making them more efficient. Changing from one thing to another takes time and effort, and the time when students are between tasks or rooms or activities can sometimes feel chaotic. This is often the same kind of energy and upheaval reflected in the life transitions of upper elementary and middle grades students as they live between different contexts, developmental stages, and versions of themselves. Even within the larger journey from youth to adulthood, these 9- to 12-year-olds are classified as "tweens," indicating this transition period between childhood and adolescence. This sense of "betweenness" also characterizes the needs of tween readers. As Lesesne (2006) discusses, students at these ages are at a place "between children's books and young adult novels as reading fare; they are between dependence on parents and educators and self-direction in their lives and their...
In a recent dialogue in Time magazine, award-winning authors Matt de la Peña and Kate DiCamillo c... more In a recent dialogue in Time magazine, award-winning authors Matt de la Peña and Kate DiCamillo concluded that exploring challenging, dark, sad truths about the world is an important part of writing for young people. Yet, DiCamillo wondered, "How do [authors] tell the truth and make that truth bearable" when writing for children? In many ways, Oliver Jefferies's book, The Heart and the Bottle, reads as a response to that challenge. The book explores universal themes of love, loss, and healing through the story of a young girl who loses a cherished older loved one, presumably her grandfather. After this loss, "the girl thought the best thing was to put her heart in a safe place. Just for the time being. So she put it in a bottle and hung it around her neck" (Jeffers unpaged). The cost of such safety, of course, is the girl's separation from her own heart. Only after growing up and encountering another passionate, curious little girl does she realize the toll this arrangement has taken on her, but she doesn't know how to fix it. The new little girl, however, finds a way to get the heart out of the bottle and returns it to her, reawakening her interest in the world. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the book is the art. Thick pages display a vibrant mix of gouache, watercolor, collage, and digitally created images, many of which float as visually rendered thought and dialogue bubbles that give insight into the characters' minds and conversations. The repeated scribble detail used to indicate shadow adds depth, texture, and a fitting childlike energy to the visual story. The busy collage style of the book's cover reflects the rapidly flowing curiosity the little girl possessed at the beginning of the book. This stands
El objetivo del presente estudio es aprender y comprender mejor las necesidades y experiencias en... more El objetivo del presente estudio es aprender y comprender mejor las necesidades y experiencias en materia de educacion sexual de los alumnos con discapacidad visual. Dado que la investigacion en este campo es escasa, mediante una encuesta que incluia tanto preguntas abiertas como preguntas tipo Likert, se examinaron las respuestas de 30 adultos (de entre 18 y 30 anos de edad), en las que los sujetos reflejaron sus propias experiencias de educacion sexual. Para el analisis de los datos se emplearon metodologias cualitativas y cuantitativas. En general, los encuestados indicaron que vivir con discapacidad visual habia marcado sus experiencias en materia de educacion sexual, comentando que los programas educativos con frecuencia se limitaban a temas como los riesgos asociados con la conducta sexual o a dar informacion anatomica o biologica. Ademas, los enfoques educativos empleados normalmente carecian de materiales accesibles, salvo cuando se hacia un uso ocasional para la presentacio...
El objetivo del presente estudio es aprender y comprender mejor las necesidades y experiencias en... more El objetivo del presente estudio es aprender y comprender mejor las necesidades y experiencias en materia de educacion sexual de los alumnos con discapacidad visual. Dado que la investigacion en este campo es escasa, mediante una encuesta que incluia tanto preguntas abiertas como preguntas tipo Likert, se examinaron las respuestas de 30 adultos (de entre 18 y 30 anos de edad), en las que los sujetos reflejaron sus propias experiencias de educacion sexual. Para el analisis de los datos se emplearon metodologias cualitativas y cuantitativas. En general, los encuestados indicaron que vivir con discapacidad visual habia marcado sus experiencias en materia de educacion sexual, comentando que los programas educativos con frecuencia se limitaban a temas como los riesgos asociados con la conducta sexual o a dar informacion anatomica o biologica. Ademas, los enfoques educativos empleados normalmente carecian de materiales accesibles, salvo cuando se hacia un uso ocasional para la presentacio...
Theory Into Practice, 2018
One of the most common responses from preand in-service teachers related to addressing lesbian, g... more One of the most common responses from preand in-service teachers related to addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) topics in elementary school is a concern about parents' responses. This article explores these concerns by examining two elementary school teachers' interactions with parents in relation to their LGBTQ-inclusive teaching. This article provides a possible road map for other teachers who are nervous about parental responses to LGBTQ-inclusive teaching and interrupts notions that negative responses from parents are reason enough to avoid including these topics in elementary classrooms. F or the past decade, through our university teaching to preservice teachers at our large regional universities and through our professional development presentations to in-service teachers around the country, we have advocated for the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people and families in elementary schools. No matter whether our students and audience members agree or disagree with the wisdom of this recommendation or see the necessity for such inclusion, the single most common response we receive to such suggestions is, "What about the parents?" Their reaction, echoed in other research (Clark, 2010; Sieben & Wallowitz, 2009; Thein, Kavanagh, & Fink, 2013), indicates the significant gatekeeping mechanism teachers understand parents to play when it comes to approving or disapproving their curricular choices, especially related to
Sex Education, 2015
This paper explores notions of (hetero)sexuality circulating in elementary school classrooms thro... more This paper explores notions of (hetero)sexuality circulating in elementary school classrooms through an analysis of students’ own talk and interactions. Data collected during a multi-site ethnography in a diverse set of elementary schools demonstrate that while curricular silences and teachers contribute to heteronormative classroom environments, children also take up and perpetuate heteronormative ideals in their own interactions both through explicitly anti-gay talk and by silencing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ)-inclusive perspectives, thereby maintaining the heteronormativity of schools. Findings show (hetero)sexuality to be a constitutive part of classroom life, present even in the formal teaching/instructional time of elementary schools and even in the talk/activities of children themselves. Uninterrupted, these discourses intersect with the official curriculum and reify schools as places in which LGBTQ people/perspectives are not welcome or valued, creating social and academic effects for all students.
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 2014
ABSTRACT In this paper, we consider the limited chapter book options with lesbian, gay, bisexual,... more ABSTRACT In this paper, we consider the limited chapter book options with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) characters available for upper elementary readers. While these texts all include one or more LGBT character(s), the overall representations of LGBT people and issues highlight particular normative identities and silence others. We are concerned that these representations reify neoliberal ideas about sexuality's relationship to race and class, and encourage gay assimilation into normative but problematic, nonequitable institutions. Yet we also believe that an analysis of books focusing only on representations of LGBT characters’ identities limits the queer potential of texts. Therefore, in addition to looking at representations within these books, we also consider how a second look at these books through a queer lens can help disrupt normative representations of a range of identity categories. We undertake this dual analysis for several purposes: (1) to find and review LGBT-inclusive chapter books available for pre-YA (young adult) readers, (2) to analyze gaps in this corpus of literature so as to push back against normativizing frameworks, and (3) to show how bringing queer critique and analysis of such texts can be used to deconstruct and diversify representations of LGBT people and families until/in addition to the publication of additional and more diverse texts.
Journal of Literacy Research, 2013
This essay explores what it might mean to read children’s literature in elementary school classro... more This essay explores what it might mean to read children’s literature in elementary school classrooms through a queer lens. The authors argue that because queer theory has a history as a literary theory that destabilizes normative associations among gender, sexuality, bodies, and desire, it provides a set of analytical tools classroom communities can draw on to create alternative readings of a wide range of familiar texts. Such readings of books already on the shelves of elementary school libraries and classrooms can highlight experiences and subjectivities of nonnormative sexualities and gender identities in the hopes of making classrooms more inclusive. Specifically, we argue that four high-quality, award-winning children’s books already included in many schools and classrooms—Sendak’s (1963) Where the Wild Things Are, Woodson’s (2001) The Other Side, DiCamillo’s (2003) Tale of Despereaux, and Patterson’s (1977) Bridge to Terabithia—can be fruitful sites for opening up these more i...
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Papers by Caitlin L. Ryan
The authors show how expanding the English language arts curriculum to include representations of LGBTQ people and themes will benefit all students, allowing them to participate in a truly inclusive classroom. The text describes three different approaches that address the limitations, pressures, and possibilities that teachers in various contexts face around these topics. The authors make clear what LGBTQ-inclusive literacy teaching can look like in practice, including what teachers might say and how students might respond.
Reading the Rainbow is designed to be interactive, providing readers with opportunities to consider these new approaches with respect to their own classrooms and traditional literacy instruction.