Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks
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The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
2017
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| Online Access: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500310695900109 |
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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu15003106959001092021-08-03T07:03:22Z Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks Neithardt, Leigh Anne, Neithardt American Literature Asian Literature British and Irish Literature Canadian Literature Early Childhood Education Education Language Arts Literature Special Education Teaching disabilities disability disability studies narrative theory rhetorical narrative theory narrative progression picturebooks picture books childrens literature Children with disabilities began to appear with increasing frequency as characters in children’s books following the United States Congress’s passage in 1975 of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the precursor to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Researchers have done important work over the past forty years by examining these books while thinking about the effects that this literature can have on its readers and their understanding of disability and disabled people, addressing elements including characters, plot, and representations of specific disabilities, pointing out problematic tropes and titles. In this dissertation, I built on this research and brought together concepts in rhetorical narrative theory, specifically narrative progression, and disability studies in order to offer an even more in-depth analysis of the designs and effects of this corpus of children’s books. By engaging in a close reading of 178 picturebooks featuring disabled characters from a rhetorical narrative theory approach, my research illuminated how the rhetorical choices that an author makes in both her text and illustrations have consequences for the way that disability is presented to her readers. Specifically, my dissertation undertook a two-step analysis of those rhetorical choices. The first step was to read the books on their own terms and the second was to assess those terms through the lens of disability studies. Each of my five chapters examined the use of one kind of narrative progression, centered around one or more disabled characters—and occasionally non-disabled characters— attending to how this progression situated its readers ethically and affectively. Each chapter also assessed the potential effects, positive and negative, on the reader’s understanding of disability, its contexts, and its consequences. I argued that readers need to be more cognizant of authorial purpose, because while many authors attempt to create narratives about disabled characters that conform to readers’ desires for endings to be upbeat and for characters to have their problems resolved, the lived experience of disability is more complex. I felt that it was also necessary to highlight work that individual authors and illustrators are doing well, and areas that need to be examined further. Applying a disability studies perspective to these narratives allowed for a close examination of five different types of narrative progressions that were experienced by a reader familiar with concepts of disability studies. These progressions differed in some ways from each other and from the progressions that authors were interested in their audiences experiencing. These analyses contributed to the two larger goals of the dissertation: (1) demonstrating the value of attending to authorial purposes and readerly dynamics; and (2) and providing a model for more nuanced discussions of the achievements and limitations of these books. 2017 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500310695900109 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500310695900109 restricted--full text unavailable until 2022-08-07 This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws. |
| collection |
NDLTD |
| language |
English |
| sources |
NDLTD |
| topic |
American Literature Asian Literature British and Irish Literature Canadian Literature Early Childhood Education Education Language Arts Literature Special Education Teaching disabilities disability disability studies narrative theory rhetorical narrative theory narrative progression picturebooks picture books childrens literature |
| spellingShingle |
American Literature Asian Literature British and Irish Literature Canadian Literature Early Childhood Education Education Language Arts Literature Special Education Teaching disabilities disability disability studies narrative theory rhetorical narrative theory narrative progression picturebooks picture books childrens literature Neithardt, Leigh Anne, Neithardt Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks |
| author |
Neithardt, Leigh Anne, Neithardt |
| author_facet |
Neithardt, Leigh Anne, Neithardt |
| author_sort |
Neithardt, Leigh Anne, Neithardt |
| title |
Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks |
| title_short |
Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks |
| title_full |
Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks |
| title_fullStr |
Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks |
| title_sort |
narrative progression and characters with disabilities in children’s picturebooks |
| publisher |
The Ohio State University / OhioLINK |
| publishDate |
2017 |
| url |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500310695900109 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
AT neithardtleighanneneithardt narrativeprogressionandcharacterswithdisabilitiesinchildrenspicturebooks |
| _version_ |
1719452772953227264 |