Literature as Mirror: Analyzing the Oral, Written, and Artistic Responses of Young Mexican -Origin Children to Mexican American -Themed Picture Storybooks

Data consisted of oral, written, and artistic responses to the oral readings in Spanish of four focal texts, as well as family interviews. Coding and analysis of students' responses revealed cultural connections across Sipe's (2000) five response categories: analytical, personal, transparent, performative, and intertextual. It was demonstrated that when children found some familiar cultural aspect in the focal books, and were provided a supportive group for sharing ideas, their responses in all modalities included high levels of aesthetic and critical thought as they used their cultural backgrounds and experiences to read/listen to the word (Freire & Macedo, 1993). Children's responses also pointed to several problematic textual areas: unknown vocabulary and sociohistorical concepts, unfamiliar settings, incongruence with protagonists' motivations/experiences, and unrealistic illustrations. Despite the distorted images perceived in some of the texts, the cultural specificity of content and illustrations created a sagittal dimension of space in which children could step into and out of story worlds, and rearrange literary elements from within to create images better reflective of their cultural realities.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Quiroa, Ruth Elizabeth

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rosalinda B. Barrera

• Education, Elementary

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3153405

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/79805