Analyzing Representations of Individuals with Disabilities in Picture Books

Analyzing Representations of Individuals with Disabilities in Picture Books

• Critical literacy helps students challenge disability stereotypes in texts, media, and interactions.
• Children’s literature can initiate conversations about disability representation in classrooms.
• Some literature offers rich representations, while others perpetuate stereotypes.
• Example 1: Last Stop on Market Street:
  • CJ and his Nana ride the bus to volunteer at a soup kitchen.
  • CJ questions why a man can’t see.
  • Nana: "Some people watch the world with their ears."
  • The man: "Their noses, too."
  • This excerpt challenges deficit views of disabilities.
• Example 2: John’s Whistle:
  • John uses whistles to communicate instead of speech.
  • Problem: John didn’t speak as a child and can only whistle.
  • John loses Claire in the woods, shouts her name, and is “cured.”
  • This language implies disability (muteness) is a problem to be cured.
• The article provides tools for close reading lessons to examine disability representation in picture books.
• It draws on experiences as elementary educators and teacher educators.
• The work is difficult to enact, especially with varying reading abilities.
• Suggests a 2-day structure:
  • Interactive read-aloud.
  • Close reading lesson.
  • This is a scaffolded method for critical literacy conversations about disability.
• Reviews research on close reading and its potential for critical literacy.
• Explores how children discuss disability during read-alouds.
• Provides guidance for text selection and analysis.
• Presents three prompting guides (Tables 1–3) and a sample lesson plan based on My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay.

Close Reading

• Close reading became popular in elementary teaching in the early 2010s.
  • Due to the Common Core State Standards’ (CCSS) emphasis on students acquiring “the habits of reading independently and closely” (CCSS Initiative, 2020).
• Teacher guides students through multiple readings to examine specific aspects of the text across multiple instructional lessons (Brown & Kappas, 2012; Serravallo, 2018).
• Targeted questioning promotes critical thinking skills like synthesis, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation.
• Close reading serves as a scaffold for reading difficult texts.
• It encourages rereading as a transferable process.
• Waters (2014) found close reading helps students with diverse literacy profiles deepen their understanding of implicit messages (p. 20).
• Initial CCSS guidance emphasized focusing on “what lies within the four corners of the text” (Coleman & Pimentel, 2012).
  • Intended to encourage text-dependent questions.
  • Models persisting through difficult reading experiences.
  • Consequence: De-emphasizes the reader’s perspective, background, and biases (Ferguson, 2014).

Close Reading and Critical Literacy

• Practitioners and researchers have reshaped close reading to acknowledge that readers make meaning through:
  • Prior linguistic and text experiences.
  • Sociocultural context (Fisher & Frey, 2012; Serafini, 2013/2014).
• Lehman and Roberts (2013) advocate for a model of close reading that uses lenses of analysis.
• Miller (2013) explains:
  • Using lenses to focus readers’ examination on one element of text (characterization, word choice, text structure).
  • Students collect information and evaluate choices writers make.
  • Develop a deeper understanding of the text and its greater message.
• This definition acknowledges the reader’s positionality and the writer’s perspective.
• It opens space to examine intentional or unintentional messages, which is critical literacy.
• Critical literacy in school is a stance foregrounding justice and challenging unequal power dynamics (Freire, 2018).
• Principles of critical literacy:
  • Anything constructed through language is informed by perspectives and ideological beliefs.
  • Any text can be deconstructed to understand power and ideology (Jones, 2012).
• Critical literacy scholars argue reading disconnected from personal and social context is irresponsible.
  • Close reading should include “both what lies within and outside of the text” (Ferguson, 2014).
• Learning to read is more than understanding an author’s meaning.
  • Language in texts serves the author’s interests and omits others’ views.
  • Prior knowledge supports readers in understanding a text as imbued with power and positioning.
• Critical literacy is not just critical thinking (analyzing, evaluating, interpreting, questioning).
• Critical literacy uses those skills to read in opposition to texts, questioning power and ideology.
• Close reading provides a method to support critical literacy practices.
• Pause and Ponder Questions:
  • How are people with disabilities typically represented in children’s literature?
  • What representations of disabilities are currently in your classroom library?
  • How have students engaged or discussed these identities?
  • How might we support students in critically questioning the messages that texts send about disabilities?

Disability Representations in Children’s Literature

• Research explores how children discuss social issues during read-alouds (race, ethnicity, sexual orientation).
• Little empirical scholarship examines teaching children’s literature representing individuals with disabilities.
• Scholars and educators have outlined disability representation in children’s literature (Ayala, 1999; Pennell et al., 2018).
  • Individuals with disabilities are often absent or portrayed in negative and stereotypical ways.
• Suggested practices include:
  • Preparing questions about the story.
  • Explicitly teaching about a disability and related vocabulary.
  • Facilitating discussions about similarities between characters and students (Ostrosky, Mouzourou, Dorsey, Favazza, & Leboeuf, 2015; Prater, Dyches, & Johnstun, 2006).
• Increased exposure can lead to positive interactions and limit negative consequences of inclusion (Adomat, 2014; Cameron & Rutland, 2006).
• Representing people with disabilities in texts was not enough to shift student mindsets in some studies.
  • Students often conformed to school and societal expectations of anti-bullying (Wilkins, Howe, Seiloff, Rowan, & Lilly, 2016).
• Teachers must recognize socially acceptable responses and make space for problematic perspectives.
• True change requires open dialogue through questioning.
• Educators can use close reading with a critical literacy stance to unpack beliefs about individuals with disabilities.
• Disability scholars have used close reading to analyze disability narratives (Ashby & Causton-Theoharris, 2009), adult literature and media (Fraser, 2013), and children’s literature (Ghaida, 2016).
• Close reading gives readers tools to uncover explicit or implicit messages about disability in picture books.

Preparing for a Lesson

• Teachers should ensure students are familiar with the transferable process of close reading and lenses (plot, character, word choice).
• It is important to build students’ background knowledge about disability.
• Teachers will want to determine what students know about disability, who identifies or has family members who identify as having a disability, and what assumptions students may have about individuals with disabilities.
• Conversations might be a part of morning meetings or social emotional curriculum, or they could be a part of social studies instruction that might introduce some of the history of the disability rights movement.

Selecting the Text

• Previous scholarship encourages teachers to evaluate the representations of disabilities in children’s literature (Nasatir, & Horn, 2003; Ostrosky et al., 2015), seeking out positive examples to read in classrooms.
• We find it helpful to begin with explicitly positive and explicitly negative representations that students can more easily identify.
• Checklists such as the one developed by Nasatir and Horn (2003, p. 5) can help teachers determine what aspects of the representation to highlight and discuss.
• Building on the discussions of students’ own experiences with disability, teachers may introduce problematic representations of disabilities that are oversimplified or unrealistic.
• Students can practice their critical literacy skills by identifying how individuals with disabilities are often portrayed as villainous, foolish, helpless, or superpowered. Tables 1–3 offer questions to facilitate these discussions.
  Rather than avoiding negative representations, reading texts that include them enables students to challenge and critique stereotypes of disability, which they will inevitably encounter in other texts, media, and everyday interactions.
• For example, Stratton (2020) asked students to identify the negative representation of those with limb differences in a variety of pirate texts, and compare it to the representation of wheelchair rugby Paralympian Nick Springer. This lesson opened up students’ conceptions of what it means to move; students were able to identify new types of movement after engaging with Springer’s example.
• Once students have developed the skills to identify one‐dimensional representations, teachers can introduce texts that feature nuanced portraits of individuals with disabilities as whole, rounded individuals living their everyday lives.
• Titles that could be utilized for lessons include Rukhsana Khan’s
  King for a Day, Maria Gianferrari’s Hello Goodbye Dog, Holly Robinson Peete and Ryan Elizabeth Peete’s My
  Brother Charlie, Alan Rabinowitz’s A Boy and A Jaguar, and Donna Jo Napoli’s Hands and Hearts; these texts
  all include nuanced representations that can foster rich discussion.

Analyzing the Text

• After choosing a picture book that represents an individual with disabilities, we recommend reading the “Close Reading for Disability with a Critical Literacy Stance” charts (see Tables 1–3) to consider whether the disability representation lends itself to consideration through the lens of plot, character, or word choice.
• We have developed these charts throughout our work with elementary teachers. These charts, while not exhaustive, provide a starting place in considering the metanarratives to critique and the positive representations to celebrate.
• Once you have selected the text and the lens that you will use, you’ll want to re-read the book along- side the chart for your selected lens. Identify the questions that will yield productive conversations and important scenes that align with those ques- tions. To close read, you won’t revisit the entire text and you won’t utilize the entire chart; rather, you will identify a few short scenes and the questions that best fit those selections.
• In the lesson plan for My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay (see Tables 4–6), we selected the lens of plot to consider disability representation in scenes where the problem is introduced and solved. While there are ways that we could analyze both character and word choice in this text, that analysis would occur in separate lessons.
• Across time and texts, additional lenses for
  analysis can be added.

Lesson Planning for the Text

• We know that it is difficult to include ample time for nuanced discussion of disability in one lesson. This can sometimes lead teachers to oversimplify, focusing questions they ask on teasing or bullying rather than explicitly discussing disability.
• We recommend following an interactive read-aloud with a close reading lesson; revisiting a text through close reading serves as a way to make these critical text conversations accessible through incorporation of re-reading and purposeful questioning.
• By bringing close reading practices to a picture book, rather than a longer text, we leave space for students to engage with complex ideas.
• We designed a lesson plan template (Tables 4–6) that reminds us to plan for accessible, student-centered instruction. Our template is laid out in three col- umns: teacher actions, structures, and accessibility. By planning for structures and accessibility at each step in the lesson, we ensure that diverse learning needs are accounted for throughout.
• We also ensure that student voices are centered during instruction by consistently matching up teacher direct instruc- tion with structures for student interaction. This les- son plan is designed for 45–50 minutes of instruction in third grade.
• This lesson plan utilizes Table 1, the prompt- ing guide for plot. We have divided the lesson plan into three sections to consider what teaching occurs before, during, and after reading. Before reading, it is important to set the purpose for the lesson; this includes goals for both critical literacy and close reading. In addition, it is important to make connec- tions to students’ prior knowledge about disability and to remind students of the previous day’s interac- tive read-aloud.
• During the re-reading of the text, we use explicit think-alouds to demonstrate for students how the problem in the story represents Zulay’s disability. This occurs when the teacher models, “I notice that when Zulay says she wants to run the race, the class is, ‘silent as stones.’ I know that when something I say is met with silence, I feel uncomfortable. I bet that’s how Zulay is feeling.” We also provide oppor- tunities for students to try this work out with a part- ner, using questions from Table 1 at pre-selected stopping points. Studying both the illustrations and the text, students recognize moments when Zulay is doubted because of her disability, and when she is affirmed or treated equally.
• After taking notes and discussing the differ- ent elements of plot, the class notices a pattern. Students notice that the people around Zulay doubt her, and this impacts her own confidence. Similarly, students notice that Ms. Turner supports Zulay, and that helps her feel ready for the race. To guide stu- dents in developing their big idea about representa- tion, we use prompts drawn from Table 1; students might share, “The author could have had Maya and Chyng support Zulay. Instead, they doubt their friend,” or, “There seems to be more than one way disability is represented in this text: some of the kids think it’s a problem and Ms. Turner and Zulay don’t.” This discussion can lead students to a criti- cal idea like, “The way people react to a person with a disability can affect how they think about them- selves."

Conclusion

• While engaging in close reading with a critical literacy stance once is beneficial, the more comfort- able students become with reading this way, the more they will be able to apply it across different media and in everyday interactions.
• We recommend that educators try re-reading the same picture book over the course of several days, trying out different questions from Tables 1 to 3 each day. Educators can revisit this practice throughout a unit and a school year, ensuring that individuals with disabilities are thoroughly represented in their classrooms and classroom libraries.
• Teachers might create a dedi- cated bulletin board where students can post their noticings about disability representations in books, television, and films. Consistently engaging in close reading with a critical literacy stance will encourage students to challenge stereotypes about disability that they encounter in texts, media, and the world.

Take Action!

1. Take inventory of your classroom library. Note how people with disabilities are represented in the books you have and what additions would support critical conversations.
2. Read and discuss a children’s book that includes disability representation with your colleagues. Use Tables 1–3 to prompt discussion. Reflect on your questions and thinking.
3. Conduct a read-aloud of a children’s book that includes disability representation. Identify what your students react to, notice, and question. This data will help you plan your close read with a critical literacy stance.
4. Teach your students about close reading. Lehman and Roberts’s Falling in Love with Close Reading is a valuable instructional resource.
5. Teach a 2-day sequence: an interactive read- aloud of a children’s book that includes disability representation, followed by a close read with a critical literacy stance. Listen and learn from your students.