Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
Show Summary Details
More options …

Multicultural Learning and Teaching

Editor-in-Chief: Obiakor, Festus / Algozzine, Robert

Managing Editor: Banks, Tachelle

Online
ISSN
2161-2412
See all formats and pricing
Online
Institutional Subscription
€ [D] 220.00 / US$ 296.00 / GBP 181.00*
Individual Subscription
€ [D] 49.00 / US$ 74.00 / GBP 40.00*
*Prices in US$ apply to orders placed in the Americas only. Prices in GBP apply to orders placed in Great Britain only. Prices in € represent the retail prices valid in Germany (unless otherwise indicated). Prices are subject to change without notice. Prices do not include postage and handling if applicable. RRP: Recommended Retail Price.
More options …

Cultural Signification through Reader’s Theatre: An Analysis of African American Girls and Their Hair

Rhonda Jeffries
  • Corresponding author
  • Department of Instruction and Teacher Education, Wardlaw College of Education, University of South Carolina, 820 S. Main Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
  • Email
  • Other articles by this author:
  • De Gruyter OnlineGoogle Scholar
 / Devair Jeffries
Published Online: 2013-06-18 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mlt-2012-0047

30,00 € / $42.00 / £23.00

Get Access to Full Text

Abstract

This article explored the role of hair in Sylviane Diouf’s Bintou’s Braids and focused on the impact of hair as a cultural signifier on girls and the curriculum. The article examined the ability of this children’s text to address female beauty standards and suggests the use of literary techniques, such as reader’s theatre, to recognize and critically explore diverse issues among children. The work specifically: (1) deconstructs messages about hair norms, with particular emphasis on black female hair in one children’s text, and (2) transforms the selected text into a reader’s theatre script for use in elementary classrooms, suggesting an array of literary construction and usage types in children’s classroom communities to support increased literacy engagement. This article expands the body of inquiry on hair and its impact on the curriculum by examining the relationships between the cultural power of hair, literacy, performance and African American girls. The literature has established the unique responses of diverse girls to literary constructions, and several studies provide alternatives for deciphering the meaning of texts and utilizing the empowering aspect of girls through literacy. Likewise, this article qualitatively examined Diouf’s Bintou’s Braids for its use of various aspects of identity development such as affirmation, ritual and social responsibility. The reader’s theatre adaptation, Little Bintou Loves Her Braids, begins to address the current inadequacy of literary offerings in the genre.

Keywords: literacy; African American girls; reader’s theatre

References

  • Avi. (2009). Have you heard the word? For a low-budget way to get kids wild about reading, try reader’s theater. School Library Journal, 55(12), 48–50.Google Scholar

  • Belgrave, F. Z., Chase-Vaughn, G., Gray, F., Addison, J. D., & Cherry, V. R. (2000). The effectiveness of a culture- and gender-specific intervention for increasing resiliency among African American preadolescent females. Journal of Black Psychology, 26(2), 133–147.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, western culture and the body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar

  • Brooks, W., Sekayi, D., Savage, L., Waller, E., & Picot, I. (2010). Narrative significations of contemporary black girlhood. Research in the Teaching of English, 45(1), 7–35.Google Scholar

  • Brown, A. F. (2011). Descendants of “ruth”: Black girls coping through the “black male crisis.” Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 43(5), 597–619.Google Scholar

  • Buddington, S. A. (2000). Barbie.com and racial identity. Paper presented at the Annual National Conference of the National Association of African American Studies and the National Association of Hispanic and Latino Studies, Houston, TX.Google Scholar

  • Clark, K. B., Clark, M. P., & Hartley, E. L. (1947). Racial identification and preference among negro children. In T. M. Newcomb (Eds.), Readings in social psychology (pp. 169–178). New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.Google Scholar

  • Cornwell, R. (2009). Don’t judge this book by its cover: “Liar” tells the story of an African-American girl. So why did Bloomsbury put a white face on the cover? The Independent [London] 11 August 2009, 1st ed., News sec: 2.Google Scholar

  • Cueva, M., Dignan, M., & Kuhnley, R. (2012). Reader’s theatre: A communication tool for colorectal. Journal of Cancer Education, 27, 281–286.Web of ScienceCrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Deblase, G. (2000). Missing stories, missing lives: Urban girls (re)constructing race and gender in the literacy classroom. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.Google Scholar

  • Denzin, N. (1995). The experiential text and the limits of visual understanding. Educational Theory, 45, 7–18.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Diouf, S. A. (2001). Bintou’s Braids. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle.Google Scholar

  • Enekwechi, A., & Moore, O. (1999). Children’s literature and the politics of hair in books for African American children. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 24(4), 195–200.Google Scholar

  • Fisher, M. T. (2009). Black literate lives: Historical and contemporary perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar

  • Gallagher, K. (2007). The theatre of urban: Youth and schooling in dangerous times. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto.Google Scholar

  • Gibson, S. (2010). Critical readings: African American girls and urban fiction. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 565–574.CrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Hall, H. R., & Brown-Thirston, A. (2011). Understanding teenage girls: Culture, identity, and schooling. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.Google Scholar

  • Hull, G., & Schultz, K. (2001). Literacy and learning out of school: A review of theory and research. Review of Educational Research, 71(4), 575–611.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Jones, E., & Cooper, R. M. (2005). Playing to get smart. New York, NY: Teachers College.Google Scholar

  • Larbalestier, J. (2009). Liar. New York, NY: Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s.Google Scholar

  • Leach, E. R. (1976). Culture and communication: The logic by which symbols are connected. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

  • Lester, N. A. (2000). Nappy edges and goldy locks: African-American daughters and the politics of hair. The Lion and the Unicorn, 24(2), 201–224.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Liu, J. (2000). The power of reader’s theater: From reading to writing. English Language Teaching Journal, 54, 354–361.Google Scholar

  • Mahiri, J. (2004). What they don’t learn in school: Literacy in the lives of urban youth. New York, NY: Peter Lang.Google Scholar

  • Marsh, J. (2000). “But I want to fly too!”: Girls and superhero play in the infant classroom. Gender and Education, 12, 209–220.Google Scholar

  • McKenna, J. (2000). Hollywood hair: Using metaphors to teach writing. English Quarterly, 32, 55–56.Google Scholar

  • Millin, S., & Rinehart, S. (1999). Some of the benefits of reader’s theater participation for second-grade title I students. Reading Research and Instruction, 39, 71–88.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Obeyesekere, G. (1984). Medusa’s hair: An essay on personal symbols and religious experience. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar

  • Poe, E. A. (2010). From children’s literature to reader’s theatre: Get kids excited and engaged with books by getting them onstage. American Libraries, 41(5), 28.Google Scholar

  • Quinn, T. (2005). Martin and Malcolm: Freedom then and freedom now: A hard-hitting, dramatic reader’s theatre piece that explores issues of stereotypes and prejudice against a backdrop of speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Plays, 64(4), 4.Google Scholar

  • Rampey, B. D., Dion, G. S., & Donahue, P. L. (2009). The nation’s report card: 2008 trends in academic progress. Report no. 479. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.Google Scholar

  • Reader’s Theatre Scripts. (2012). Retrieved from http://bms.westport.k12.ct.us/mccormick/rt/rtscriphome.htm

  • Reader’s Theatre Scripts and Plays. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm

  • Renold, E. (2000). “Coming out”: Gender, (hetero)sexuality and the Primary School. Gender and Education, 12, 309–326.Google Scholar

  • Satchell, M. (2005). Jump at the sun: A reader’s’ theatre play celebrating the legacy of Zora Neale Hurston, an award-winning writer, storyteller, and Black American Hero. Plays, 64(4), 36.Google Scholar

  • Schillinger, T. (2011). Blurring boundaries: Two groups of girls collaborate on a wiki. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(6), 403–413.CrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Sekayi, D. (1997). Positive self-concept and expressions of blackness among African American intellectual-activists: Implications for urban education. Urban Education, 32, 453–468.CrossrefGoogle Scholar

  • Simon, D. (2000). Hair: Public, political, extremely personal. New York, NY: St. Martin’s.Google Scholar

  • Spalding, E., & Ziff, J. (1997). Mirror, mirror on the wall: Portfolios and the reflections of young adolescent girls. Research in Middle Level Education Quarterly, 20, 57–75.Google Scholar

  • Sprague, M., & Keeling, K. (2000). A library for ophelia. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43, 640–647.Google Scholar

  • Temple, C. (1993). “What if ‘beauty’ had been ugly?” Reading against the grain of gender bias in children’s books. Language Arts, 70, 89–93.Google Scholar

  • Townsend, T. G., Jones, A., Neilands, T. B., & Jackson, T. R. (2010). I’m no jezebel; I am young, gifted, and black: Identity, sexuality, and black girls. Psychology of Women Quarterly 34(3), 273–285.CrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Tsou, W. (2011). The application of reader’s theater to FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools) reading and writing. Foreign Language Annals, 44(4), 727.CrossrefWeb of ScienceGoogle Scholar

  • Walker, C., & Foote, M. (2000). Emergent inquiry: Using children’s literature to ask hard questions about gender bias. Childhood Education, 76, 88–91.Google Scholar

  • Winn, M. T. (2010). “Betwixt and between”: Literacy, liminality, and the celling of black girls. Race, Ethnicity & Education, 13(4), 425–447.Web of ScienceGoogle Scholar

About the article

Published Online: 2013-06-18

Published in Print: 2014-09-01

Citation Information: Multicultural Learning and Teaching, Volume 9, Issue 2, Pages 203–218, ISSN (Online) 2161-2412, ISSN (Print) 2194-654X, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mlt-2012-0047.

Export Citation

©2014 by De Gruyter.Get Permission

Citing Articles

Here you can find all Crossref-listed publications in which this article is cited. If you would like to receive automatic email messages as soon as this article is cited in other publications, simply activate the “Citation Alert” on the top of this page.

[1]
Yuko Iwai
Kappa Delta Pi Record, 2015, Volume 51, Number 2, Page 81

Comments (0)

Please log in or register to comment.
Log in