Seminar programme 2022-23

Seminar 1: Children’s perspectives on becoming absorbed in stories

15:00-16:00 (GMT) Wednesday 23rd November 2022

Dr Anežka Kuzmičová, Department of Czech Language & Theory of Communication, Charles University, Prague.

What does story reading feel like in the upper primary years, when it is still a relatively new skill? What embodied sensations are involved in becoming absorbed, “lost in a book”? And how does reading compare in this respect to other story activities such as film watching, listening, art making, playing, or playing out? The intuitive answer is that these things vary from child to child and that it is important to respect such individual differences. In my talk I will present two studies in which my research team investigated these differences systematically via Q methodology, a special technique that combines quantitative and qualitative inquiry and that brings children’s authentic voices and experiences to the fore. Twenty-eight children of diverse backgrounds (age 9-12 years) participated in two card sorting activities combined with interviews exploring what it is like for them when their mind and body are attuned to a story. Each study helped us discern four distinct groups of children for whom different facets of story experience combine in similar ways, a finding of diverse implications for both literacy research and educational practice.

Seminar Presentation: Children's perspectives on becoming absorbed in stories

Seminar 2: 'Beyond the Secret Garden' a seminar with Darren Chetty

15:00-16:00 (GMT) Wednesday 24th May 2023

Darren Chetty, writer, teacher and lecturer at University College London.

In this presentation, Darren Chetty will argue that careful examination of the enduring popularity of France Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden can help us understand many aspects, positive and negative, of British children's literature. Childhood is presented as both a time of cultivation and proximity to nature and as something classed, raced and gendered so that entry into the garden of wonder remains conditional. How might this architecture of The Secret Garden shape contemporary children's literature?