Introduction
Over the last 3 years or so, I've been gathering children's and young adult texts that include some level of technology interaction, typically involving computers and other digital technologies. My goals are two-fold: to examine how these texts present and situate technology as well as to explore ways to use these texts with pre-K to 12th grade readers.
This presentation has been an opportunity to begin sharing the information that I have been gathering on my bookshelves. My ultimate goal is to develop an ongoing source of information for K12 teachers who may use these texts in their classrooms as well as for college teachers who are exploring how students' literacy skills are shaped by children's literature before they reach the college classroom. Several basic questions frame my exploration:
- What technology resources are students likely to encounter in the texts that they read?
- What do these books teach students about technology? What messages do they communicate?
- What experiences with technology do students bring to these books?
- How does their prior knowledge affect their reading of these books?
- How can we tap this knowledge of technology in the composition and language arts classroom?
Working from these questions, I've gathered ideas that urge students to think more deeply about their own beliefs and to pay attention to
the ways that technology is described and used.
This presentation is broken into the following sections:
BooksStudent Explorations
- Close Readings
- Role of Games (working notes)
- Social Networks (working notes)
- Future Visions (working sentence)
Conclusions
Working Book List (PDF)
Some Preliminary Notes/Warnings
- Rather than a polished presentation, these pages share my current, working vision of these children's and young adult texts. The information is a simple and preliminary impression, one which will expand as I explore more of these texts more deeply. This presentation is just the beginning.
- Parts of this text were conceptualized in Michigan at CIWIC. Examples are limited in places to the texts that I have on hand in Houghton. Most notably, I have no picture books on hand to refer to for specific details. I'll expand the information when I have all my books available.
Additional notes and text are
Additional notes and text are forthcoming. I'll add comments as new pieces are published.
Slight updates to the bibliog
Slight updates to the bibliography.
Gaming section
Added some notes for the Role of Games section. Right now, the info is limited since several of the books are miles away.
social network & future
I added the briefest notes on these two sections. Well, if you can actually call a sentence notes. I am hearby giving up on this monster for a while.
Front page
Is it okay to promote it to the front page, then? I did it earlier, thinking its not being on the front page was an accident, but then I saw you were still adding to it so I unchecked "Promote to front page."
CultureCat
I'm sorry. I meant for it to
I'm sorry. I meant for it to be there all along. I just screwed up. Well more accurately, I noticed it wasn't there right away, but thought maybe you were doing the conference entries differently. I'm sorry. Please fix it for me.
other texts
In reading your materials, I was trying to think about my first introduction to computers, and I don't recall anything in books. Since I was born in 1958 and was in grade school during the 1960's that might be part of the reason why. I'm not sure how much is an actual not being exposed and how much is not remembering whether I was exposed to stories or readings involving computers or not. Are there any SRA readings dealing with computers?
My recollection of my earliest introduction to computers is "The Jetsons" cartoons, or maybe "Batman" or "Lost in Space." Maybe various comic books and/or magazines of the Batman, Mad types. I have to say I have no recollection of even hearing about Danny Dunn but may just hunt it down now to see what they were saying in the year of my birth.
I've seen some of the texts on your list (such as Magic Schoolbus), since I have a six-year old who is fairly good on the computer already and who also loves to be read to. It would be interesting to see if anything else turns up from the late '50s or early to mid '60s, or even the '70s and '80s. Just seeing how computers are portrayed would be interesting in itself.
Bradley
young adult book with computers
The computer was a common part of the original Star Trek series. While I don't remember if it included computers in it, in 1967 a young adult Star Trek novel was published, Mission to Horatius with a theme about technology. I still have a tattered first edition copy that I got when I was a kid, so I'll have to take a look at it and find out :)
A few more books
After reading comments, it occured to me that I have access to WorldCat through NCTE--it's an online search engine of library materials. A very slick tool that librarians use to find things. Duh, I thought. Look up computer juvenile fiction. I found these additional titles, but haven't looked at the books (obviously). They all seem to be on Amazon, in case you want to see a brief blurb, etc.
I didn't find anything older than Danny Dunn, but I may need to look for different search terms (ENIAC, mainframe, etc). The Alfvén book, for instance, is listed on some pages as mathematical fiction.
I still need to go through WorldCat for stuff since 1970 as well. It was the older books that I wanted to try to identify for now.
Jules Verne?
It's been a long time since I've read them, and I think they could fit into young adult, but does Jules Verne make any use of mention of computers in his works? 20,000 Leagues? Shot to the Moon?
Bradley
Click, Clack, MOO ...
Traci -- what a great project.
In Click, Clack, MOO, the cows have a few labor and material issues with the farmer, and use the typewriter in true, collective, social action. I won't ruin the ending for you, but here's a representative quote from Farmer Brown, mid-way through the collective action: "Cows that type. Hens on strike! Whoever heard of such a thing!"
I've used it in a literature & technology class for English Ed. majors -- a moment of creative and disruptive technology in action -- and have always wanted to use it in a YA Lit course.
Here's a PBS Kids resource site "specially designed for teachers of students who are deaf or hard of hearing": http://pbskids.org/lions/cornerstones/click/
Thanks for the great read.
Michael
yep. I love Cronin. Check out
yep. I love Cronin. Check out my Duck for President site.