Jonah Sanders

ENG-241-701

Professor Eleanor Welsh

3/20/24

Annotated Bibliography

Luecke, Julie C. “Using Literature to Make Expansive Genders Visible for Pre-Adolescent

Readers.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 54, no. 1, Mar. 2023, pp. 17–38.

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Luecke’s article develops an argument for literature as a primary tool in helping

students come to terms with and better understand their gender identity. Her background

as a Professor and Dean of Education provides a strong foundation of support for the

credibility of her research. The article is valuable in that it applies research directly onto

the catalog of books that are currently available for teachers to implement in their own

classroom libraries. She provides a critical look at the history of non-binary gender

representation in the American classroom, noting the troubling trend that much of the

literature revolving around gender identity is their “issue-driven” nature, leaving many of

the books typically considered to be representative of different genders wanting for better

representations of inclusive communities alongside representation of non-binary genders.

The article continues with an outline of a gender expansive literature study conducted by

Dean Luecke, providing useful critical framework questions to pose to a diverse body of
 students for assessing both their reaction to and what they learned from books with

depictions of non-binary genders.

Lester Murad, Nora. “Erasure of Palestinians in English--Language Children’s Books.” Young

Adult Library Services, vol. 20, no. 3/4, Spring/Summer2023 2023, pp. 37–44.

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Dr. Nora Lester Murad outlines the nature of stereotyping and the impact that the

literature students have access to plays in their outlook on diverse people groups. Her

article provides a sampling of her in-depth analysis of 56 English-language books

involving Palestine and uses this research to support her critical view of the way that

children’s literature depicts the Palestinian People. She and her team used the analytical

approach to establish a framework for analysis through the lens of settler colonialism and

Indigenous studies. The article notes that the most dangerous form and most common

form of erasure for Palestine is omission, and defines several more types of erasure like

dehumanization, distortion, and disinformation. This article is valuable in that it

contextualizes its arguments through an understanding of real-life struggles and contested

narratives, as well as serving as a guide to rarer types of erasure that the article notes are

difficult for many librarians to observe on their own. This information is invaluable for

assessment of classroom literature and helps to provide a strong argument for omission

from the classroom library being detrimental to the student body.

Price, Charis, et al. “Exploring Representations of Characters with Disabilities in Library

Books.” Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 44, no. 6, Nov. 2016, pp. 563–72.
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This article focuses on a different aspect of diversity, narrowing in on the way that

characters with disabilities are portrayed throughout the children’s literature in the

classroom. Price looks to analyze these representations based on their value to the critical

stage of development that is Early Childhood, and how they provide a benefit to the

young student’s understanding of the world around them. The article cites a rise in the

number of differently abled students in the general classroom as one of the primary

reasons that this movement towards a more diversified learning environment is so

important. The author conducted a research study on depictions of disabilities based on

the frequency at which stereotypes appear, as defined by the study. contrasting the

literature from today against studies done in 1999 and 2006 and noting an uplifting trend

in the expansion of personalities and depth of fictional characters with disabilities. The

article assesses its own limitations, noting that the survey was limited in geographical

scope and served as its own development team for the guidelines that the books were

assessed by. Price’s article ends with emphasis on utilization of this stereotype-

assessment framework as a valuable tool for educators looking to make their classrooms

a more welcoming place for students with disabilities.

Koss, Melanie D., and Kathleen A. Paciga. “Conducting a Diversity Audit: Who Is Represented

in Your Classroom Library?” Reading Teacher, vol. 76, no. 3, Nov. 2022, pp. 261–68.

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 “Conducting a Diversity Audit” builds a well-researched guide for teachers

looking to assess their classroom and school libraries for diverse perspectives. The article

utilizes research to exemplify the importance of students seeing themselves in the

literature they consume, noting increased self-esteem in underrepresented populations of

students in environments with diverse libraries. The article directly supports my thesis

with research showing that showing depictions of what students see in their everyday

lives in literature is beneficial towards development of substantive critical thinking skills.

The article then seeks to provide one possible means of enhancing diversity in classroom

literature by outlining a list of questions that the teacher can ask themselves and their

students to better determine whether who is represented in the books their students have

access to, and concludes with questions posed to help the teacher move towards their

ideal library.

Covintree, Kate. “Project READY Librarians: The Struggle Is Real and Worth It: Project

READY Offers Opportunities for Librarians across the Country to Rethink Issues of Equity and

Diversity.” Young Adult Library Services, vol. 19, no. 3, Spring 2021, pp. 13–18.

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Coventree writes on a previous failure of the Wheeler School in Rhode Island to

meet the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) goals for inclusivity and

diversity in fiction for 2019. The article follows her through the implementation of the

Project READY library curriculum in her schools. She speaks on the difficulty of

implementation of diversity curriculum amidst the COVID-19 reopening, and uses this as

a launching-off point for relating the inclusive goals of the READY program to our
current news cycle and social issues. Project READY serves as one possible

implementation of the goal of my thesis, as it is a free curriculum of 27 short modules

centered around ideas core to my thesis statement. Covintree’s article provides additional

insight on the program by revisiting the inclusive goals of the AASL through the lens

provided to her by the READY curriculum, and ends the article impassioned to expand

the efforts of the inclusivity movement out of fiction and into all sections of her school’s

library.