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Language Journal of Literary Education. 2025. No. 09
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- Encounters with Gianni Rodari(2025-12-31) Zipes, JackEncounters form the basis of our lives. We encounter the world at birth. It is traumatically significant, and we are at the mercy of our surroundings. We need protection, comfort, and nourishment. As we grow physically and mentally, we seek to know those forces acting on us. It is through a cognitive psychological process and physical interaction with other humans and objects that we begin to gain knowledge of the world around us and of our place in this world. The longer we live, the more we want to know, control, and enjoy our environment. Most important we want to narrate our lives instead of having our lives narrated for us. We dream of the perfect narration with a seamless thread that will bring our life histories to a happy end. But the narrative structure that we believe we can maintain is constantly challenged and broken up by encounters with people and incidents that bring other narratives which contradict, support, undermine, transform, mock, confirm, question, and celebrate our narratives or our very existence. We are constantly being encountered. Not a minute goes by when we do not have some sort of encounter with a thought, word, person, or event. Most of these encounters we learn to incorporate into the narrative we construe for ourselves, or these encounters are rationalized through the world orders whose codes are the basis of our cultural and social interactions. But there are many encounters that do not make sense, that jar us, provoke us, or ring a chord in us that we cannot completely understand. In my opinion, these mysterious and chance encounters are the ones that we must pursue because they involve risk taking. Life is banal if we simply follow the narrative that has been prescribe for us or that we have outlined for ourselves in keeping more or less with the conventions and codes of our society. It is too easy to rationalize the world according to expectations that we have come to accept. The unexpected enriches our lives and compels us to alter our narratives and expand our horizons. There is serendipity in mystery, light in darkness.
- Reading log and book talk: The EBT model to facilitate reading, reflection and discussion(2025-12-31) Edvardsson, Jenny; Höijer, Karin; Scazzocchio, Anna; Bryntorp, AnnaThis article explores how the Extended Book Talk (EBT) model can support reading, reflection, and discussion in higher education, with a particular focus on gender equality. Drawing on Chambers’ (1996) foundational approach and Edvardsson’s (2019) adaptations, the EBT model combines individual reading logs with a structured five-step discussion method. The study investigates two questions: What are the opportunities for using the EBT model to facilitate reading, reflection and discussion? And what opportunities and challenges arise when using the EBT model in higher education?The data consists of a short story, students’ reading logs, compiled discussion notes, questionnaire responses, and the teacher educators’ observations. Results show that the model fosters exploratory dialogue, encourages students to articulate their own interpretations and supports meaningful engagement with complex social issues. However, challenges include managing digital book talks, facilitating inclusive discussion in large groups, and selecting appropriate texts.The study concludes that the EBT model can be a valuable tool in teacher education for addressing norms, gender roles, and societal structures through fiction. Its structured yet flexible format supports both personal reflection and collaborative meaning-making in higher education contexts.
- We proudly present… Book trailer and lap books as methods for engaging with current children's literature at university(2025-12-31) Ritter, AlexandraChildren's literature is firmly anchored as an independent module in the German didactics degree programme for primary school teachers at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. Student teachers attend at least one seminar and one lecture that introduce them to the development of children's literature as well as different genres. As part of this particular seminar, student teachers deal with current children's literature. Based on the nominations for the German Children‘s Literature Award, book trailers and lap books are developed. The central question of the teaching research project is to what extent do product-orientated methods contribute to an in-depth examination of the literary object. Do they help to recognise special features in the literary work, to work out central statements and to process them in a new literary-aesthetic way? This article will introduce the concept of the module and the methods in more detail. Based on individual works by student teachers, the aim is to detect how the examination of the book takes place and what effect can be achieved with it. The study takes a qualitative approach and reconstructs individual cases while building on the work of literary evaluation using booktubes or blogs (Brendel-Perpina, 2019). Based on the results, considerations are made on the importance of engaging with children's literature for the professionalization of primary school student teachers during their studies and the transfer to school (cf. Winkler, 2019; Maiwald, 2016).
- What should and should not be. Teachers’ and student teachers’ beliefs about picturebook selection(2025-12-31) Ritter, Alexandra; Ritter, MichaelThe medium of the picturebook is a literary genre that has undergone a major transformation in terms of narratology, genre typology and media. Innovative and challenging picturebooks are used less to convey obvious educational lessons and messages (cf. Ommundsen et al. 2022). Rather, it is the multi-layered presentation of topics that invites readers to become active. Thus, the literary-aesthetic qualities of picturebooks make them a suitable subject for literary education. Nevertheless, the choice of picturebooks for children is essentially determined by adults as gatekeepers. At school, the teachers select literature for their lessons. But what orientations determine the selection of picturebooks by teachers and pre-service teachers? How are picturebooks received by teachers and students in teaching programmes (cf. Arizpe & Styles 2016)? How are selection decisions justified? What knowledge and beliefs underlie professional competence? As part of a qualitative study, primary school teachers and students in teaching programmes were tasked to read and assess picturebooks accompanied by interviews. These interviews were analysed in a reconstructive manner employing the documentary method (cf. Ritter & Ritter 2020a; 2020b; 2021). By analysing the justifications on several levels, structures of picturebook selection and justification are to be established. Here, we discover three different professional perspectives to handle picturebooks: using, experiencing and exploring them. These approaches are used by both, teaching students and teachers, to make didactic decisions. The perspectives are by no means permanently fixed for one person; they can also vary from picturebook to picturebook. Emotionally moving or irritating picturebooks in particular are worth taking a closer look at. Teaching students can consider for themselves, but also for the selection of picturebooks for the classroom, what appeals to them, what would they choose for the classroom and why.
- Reading through Booktrailers: A Multimodal Approach to Children's Literature in Higher Education(2025-12-31) Sideropoulou, MariaIn recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on experiential, student-centered approaches in higher education, particularly in the field of teacher training. Traditional methods focused on knowledge transmission are increasingly viewed as inadequate for cultivating the skills required of 21st-century educators. This paper explores the integration of booktrailers—a multimodal and creative form of digital storytelling—as an innovative pedagogical tool in higher education, specifically within literacy and children's literature courses for prospective teachers. Booktrailers offer an experiential learning model that enhances reading engagement, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and digital literacy.Drawing on case studies and international research, the study highlights the pedagogical value of booktrailers in preparing future educators to become effective reading mediators. These digital projects not only introduce students to quality children's literature but also foster a deeper, personal relationship with reading. They promote active learning and bridge the gap between analog and digital literacy practices. Empirical evidence from applications at Democritus University of Thrace demonstrates how the collaborative creation of booktrailers cultivates professional competencies such as educational autonomy, design thinking, and reflective practice.Furthermore, the structured implementation of booktrailer workshops allows students to engage in multimodal composition, peer feedback, and self-assessment, aligning with socio-constructivist learning theories. The final products, often disseminated beyond the classroom, serve both as post-reading reflections for students and as pre-reading stimuli for young children, thereby reinforcing reading promotion as a shared, meaningful experience. Ultimately, the cyclical process of the booktrailer—from the book to digital media and back to the book—redefines how literature is approached, positioning booktrailers as a powerful tool for literacy education in the digital age.
- Playing with narrative: Using narrative video games to make pre-service teachers engage with plots(2025-12-31) Pedersen, Are BøeVideogames can be understood as both multimodal texts (Ensslin 2014) and “ergodic literature” (Aarseth, 1997); a kind of literature which requires a non-trivial degree of participation for the plot to advance at all (Eskelinen 2012). Interactivity is associated with new ways of experiencing literature and heightened engagement (Gee, 2003; Burn, 2021), the latter of which is a key component of reading (Roe 2012). Within well-considered learning designs, video games offer an expanded textual repertoire to L1 teachers (Beck 2010). However, research suggests teachers are hesitant to employ videogames as teaching resources because it demands a certain level of “operational literacy” (Bourgonjon 2014); however, narrative videogames allow teachers to sidestep this issue. In this exploratory case study, I employ Peter Brooks’ (1992) literary concepts of plot, narrative desire and reader composites to describe how groups of pre-service teachers experience the plots of videogames Gone Home (Fullbright 2013) and Unpacking (Witch Beam 2021). Furthermore, I observe how different levels of operational literacy impact the process of playing the game and interpreting its plot. Key findings include that video game plots frequently cause engagement. Regardless of the game’s leaning towards narration or ludology (Aarseth, 2012) accommodations must be made due to the impact of operational literacy: High operational literacy may preclude narrative engagement as players focus on the mechanics of play. Low operational literacy may delay necessary progress towards experiencing the plot. A mix of different levels of operational literacy and reader composites within player groups is advisable to ensure both ludological and narrative engagement, as well as diverse interpretations.
- Προωθώντας την ψυχαγωγική και κριτική ανάγνωση παιδικής λογοτεχνίας στο Ελληνικό Πανεπιστήμιο. Μέθοδοι, εργαλεία και πρακτικές.(2025-12-31) Angelaki, RosyΠροκειμένου οι Έλληνες φοιτητές και οι Ελληνίδες φοιτήτριες και μελλοντικοί εκπαιδευτικοί προσχολικής αγωγής να καλλιεργήσουν μια δια βίου συνήθεια ανάγνωσης με στόχο την προσωπική τους ανάπτυξη και ευχαρίστηση και να κατορθώσουν να αποτελέσουν αργότερα αναγνωστικά πρότυπα για τα νήπιά τους, στο Τμήμα Επιστημών Προσχολικής Αγωγής και Εκπαίδευσης του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης ακολουθούνται πρακτικές που συνδυάζουν την ψυχαγωγική ανάγνωση παιδικών βιβλίων, με την εις βάθος εξερεύνηση του περιεχομένου τους και τον κριτικό στοχασμό αναφορικά με τα νοήματα των έργων. Απώτερος στόχος των πρακτικών, που βασίζονται κατά κύριο λόγο στην Παιδαγωγική της Ανάγνωσης για Ευχαρίστηση, είναι η βιωματική εμπλοκή των σπουδαστών και των σπουδαστριών με τη θεωρία και την κριτική της παιδικής λογοτεχνίας. Επιπλέον επιδιώκεται η κατανόηση της αξίας της και η εκτίμηση της διαδικασίας της ανάγνωσης, μέσα από τη συνειδητοποίηση πως πρόκειται ουσιαστικά για ανακαλυπτικό ταξίδι του Εαυτού και του κόσμου. Το άρθρο θα παρουσιάσει τις πρακτικές που ακολουθούνται στο Τμήμα τόσο στο πρώτο, όσο και σε μεγαλύτερα εξάμηνα σπουδών, προκειμένου οι εκπαιδευτικοί του μέλλοντος να γίνουν άτομα που διαβάζουν εθελοντικά και θα προωθούν τους εαυτούς τους στους μαθητές και τις μαθήτριές τους αβίαστα ως πρότυπα αναγνωστικής δραστηριότητας. Οι μεθοδευμένες δραστηριότητες αποσκοπούν στο να αναδείξουν την ανάγνωση ως εμπειρία που εμπλουτίζει τη ζωή και προωθεί τον σεβασμό του Εαυτού και των άλλων.
- Teachers and readers: Community, Agency and Joy(2025-12-31) Reads, Tamara; Murphy, Sally; Lamping, SallyThis paper presents reflections on making space for story through sharing, connection and joy. Writing from their positions as K-12 English teachers and teacher educators, the authors celebrate their experiences in expanding the definition of “story” to be more inclusive, recognising reading as a diverse activity encompassing myriad text types and experiences.Through examination of their individual ways as readers and teachers of reading, the authors demonstrate approaches to embracing diverse forms of reading while helping students to articulate and claim their own reading identities. Through recognition and respect, the authors show how they celebrate and sustain all kinds of reading, working towards developing lifelong learners who engage critically, creatively and empathetically with the world and stories of others.
- Improbable dialogues: A mediating approach to children’s literature, media, and theory(2025-12-31) Melo Arevalo, Angela Patricia; Andonaegui, Camila; Andrade Tolentino, JéssicaThis article examines Diálogos Improbables [Improbable Dialogues], a reading club focused on children’s literature, media and theory in Latin America. Hosted online in a free and open-access space, the club invited young scholars, teachers, reading mediators, and other practitioners to draw improbable connections between texts from different typologies, disciplines and epistemes. Its aim was to bridge academic and non-academic spheres through a participatory, affective and dialogic approach. This work explores how Diálogos Improbables fostered collective meaning-making through its three core principles: improbability, which embraces productive dissonance; horizontality, which redistributes authority through egalitarian conversations; and accessibility, which ensures multilingual, inclusive, and adaptable participation. It further reflects on how the interplay between these principles enabled a form of critical enjoyment, understood here as a mode of engagement in which both participants and mediators could navigate tensions between aesthetic pleasure and analytical thinking.Grounded in this initiative, the discussion draws on Latin American traditions of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), postcolonial frameworks (Visvanathan, 2009), transactional theory of reading (Rosenblatt, 1938/1995), and the concept of weird readings as an affective disruption to normative expectations (Véliz, 2023). This combined framework uncovers how the club’s approach rethinks dominant epistemologies and foregrounds reflexivity and praxis. A closer look at this experience exposes both the potential and challenges inherent in nurturing a collaborative space for knowledge exchange. Ultimately, the reflections drawn from Diálogos Improbables offer insights on more affective and critical engagements with children's media, both within and beyond academic contexts.
- Álbumes ilustrados en clave intertextual para la formación en mediación literaria(2025-12-31) Rivera Jurando, Paula; Santiago del Pino, Michel; Sánchez Rodríguez, SusanaEste trabajo aborda una de las claves en la formación inicial de mediadores literarios en los grados de Educación Infantil y Primaria, que es la propia competencia literaria del futuro mediador. En particular, el estudio aborda el sello intertextual de la obra literaria como elemento clave para la mediación, pues ahonda en la capacidad del lector de reconocer la relación de unas obras con otras y en cómo ese reconocimiento resulta placentero y divertido para quien lee. La identificación de estas relaciones intertextuales por parte de los mediadores y su experiencia de disfrute resulta clave para el crecimiento de su capacidad de recepción de la obra literaria, y, a través de su labor de mediación, lo será para ampliar la experiencia receptora de los primeros lectores. Se toma en consideración un corpus de álbumes ilustrados infantiles y se analizan las relaciones intertextuales que encierran, y que se clasifican en tres categorías: intertextualidad relativa a la tradición literaria clásica; relaciones intertextuales entre obras de autor, y, por último, otras relaciones intertextuales que, mediante la ruptura de expectativas en el lector, desembocan en el humor. Las conclusiones pretenden reafirmar la condición dialógica de la literatura infantil; apostar por títulos de calidad para su inclusión en un canon escolar de lecturas literarias para las primeras edades; y plantear que los procesos de mediación hacia los “déjà lu” son fundamentales en la formación literaria de mediadores que sepan movilizar las posibilidades que ofrecen las obras para la diversión compartida.
- Artistic Multiliteracies and Embodied Picturebooks in Teacher Literary Education. The EMLA methodological approach(2025-12-31) Portalés-Raga, Matilde; Bellver-Morant, SandraThe speed, uncertainty, and globalization of the current digital era has triggered a major shift in the traditional codes of teaching and learning the Literary Arts. In this regard, many scholars call for the urgent need to design new holistic and sustainable reading models aimed at preparing students to act ethically, creatively, and responsibly as future citizens. Aligned with the needs of the LifeComp (2020) European competence framework, and sponsored by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Formación Profesional y Deportes, this paper presents the findings of the first phase of a research project that emerged at the Universitat de València in the Department of Physical, Artistic and Musical Education Teaching in 2024. With the title ‘Embodied Multi-Liter-Artistic Education (EMLA) for 21st Century Teacher Literary Training. Embodied minds and multimodal narratives through picturebooks’, the study explores the interconnection between artful minds, moving bodies, and multimodal texts in contemporary reading practices through picturebooks. The research design unfolds through two procedures: (a) the design of a conceptual pedagogical framework –coined as EMLA– that blends emerging Arts-based Multiliteracies theories, the tenets of ‘4E’ cognition and Artful thinking dispositions by Project Zero (Harvard University), and (b) a participatory classroom-based intervention to apply EMLA in a Spanish school using the picturebook ‘Lines of Dreams’ by Sineiro and Domènech (2022), edited by Akiara Books. The early results of the investigation reveal an increase of the multiliteracies learning, and confirm the multidimensional benefits of EMLA as a new transdisciplinary framework for 21st century Creative Literature Education.
- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Joy: Leveraging Caucuses for Choice in Preservice Teaching(2025-12-31) Sanders, Joe SutliffFor more than twenty years, the critical conversation about literacy has been deeply concerned with the negative impact that teachers who are reluctant readers can have on students who are reluctant readers. The literature suggests that preservice classrooms could pose an impactful intervention, as university literature courses could help future teachers develop a love of reading that would translate into a love of reading in their own students. This study is a personal reflection of a change that I instituted in my course for preservice secondary school teachers, one designed to increase their joy in reading by institutionalizing opportunities for them to choose what they read. I found that the use of a caucus, a democratic mechanism for making a choice through a public exchange of ideas, put students in position to find books they would enjoy reading. As students became invested in their choices, they also reflected on what made a book appropriate for young readers and what would make it more likely to be enjoyable. Through the caucus, students selected the final two books that we read each semester. This article explains the process for the caucus and the changes that were necessary to my course. It also surveys some of the books that the students chose with some reflections on how those choices happily advanced learning objectives of the course despite the instructor’s reduced role in their selection. Finally, it concludes with observations about the limitations of this highly personal account of the experience as well as suggestions for how further research might produce more conclusive results.
- Small Acts, Big Lessons: Gratitude and Kindness in Higher Education through picturebooks(2025-12-31) Douka, Areti; Kikis, KonstantinosThis paper investigates how the concept of gratitude can be cultivated in young adults an especially first-year university students through engagement with picturebooks, focusing on Marta Bartol’s Small Acts of Kindness (2021). Adopting a theoretical perspective, the study integrates insights from picturebook studies, gratitude research in positive psychology, and reader-response and ethical literary criticism. The argument is that picturebooks—although often considered children’s literature—possess unique narrative and aesthetic features that can foster emotional literacy, empathy, and ethical awareness in adult learners. Drawing on the work of (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2013; Sipe, 1998, 2008), and more recent contributions from Iordanaki and Kalogirou (2020) on wordless picturebooks, the paper outlines how visual narratives engage readers in interpretive and emotional processes. These insights are connected to psychological theories of gratitude (Watkins, Emmons, & McCullough, 2004; Watkins, 2014), highlighting gratitude’s role in prosocial behavior and well-being, and to reader-response and ethical criticism (Rosenblatt, 1978; Nussbaum, 1997), which explain how literature evokes empathy and moral imagination. The case study of Small Acts of Kindness, a wordless narrative that depicts a ripple effect of kindness across a community, exemplifies these ideas in practice. Pedagogical implications are discussed, suggesting that integrating picturebooks into higher education curricula can enrich students’ intellectual, emotional, and ethical development. The paper concludes that picturebooks are powerful cultural artifacts capable of nurturing gratitude, empathy, and ethical sensibility in learners of all ages, thereby contributing to a more holistic and humanistic higher education.
- Teaching Children’s Literature and Reading for Fun at University(2025-12-31) Graell Martín, Mariona; Pujol Valls, MariaThe debate on reading and the formation of readers has gained relevance in the university context in recent years. The growing interest in understanding how to promote the pleasure of reading among future teachers and other literary mediators has become a shared challenge for research, teaching practice and educational policy. This issue of the Journal of Literary Education, born out of the 3rd Fostering Dialogue Conference - Teaching Children’s Literature and Reading for Pleasure in the University, invites reflection on how literary mediation can transform our relationship with books and how higher education institutions can help consolidate a living, pleasurable, critical and affective reading culture.
