Nah.

I'll preface by admitting I'm a WASP. And a male to boot. So I sit squarely in a sector of society that has done its fair share of throwing stones and probably has received far too few stones thrown in return. That said, I have some grievances with Ms. Christensen's article.

First, I believe she needs to carefully consider the audience whom she is claiming to represent. A good portion of the cartoons she considers in her article are not only outdated, they are virtual millennia apart from contemporary children watching cartoons -- even at the time of her work's publication. Popeye? Looney Tunes? For crying out loud. In between the time of these cartoons' original screenings and a contemporary audience have come six major U.S. wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and the onset of political correctness. Of course there are stereotypes in these cartoons. Of course they should be glaringly obvious to high school seniors and college students and hopefully even young children. But stereotypes weren't the exclusive domain of Popeye and Looney Tunes and Song of the South -- what about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's? How about my grandfather who called the Asians he fought in WW2 Japs until the day he died? Cartoons were reflections of a culture, good or bad, but to say that cartoons had an unusually negative influence or that these particular cartoons are still having a substantial influence on contemporary children is preposterous.

Using such cartoons in studies such as this one leads me to my second beef: that Ms. Christensen is baiting her audience. It is easy to pluck cartoons and scenes to support the notion of gender and race stereotypes -- and I am not saying they don't exist. But cartoon storytellers must at least be given the benefit of the doubt in that a character's entire story arc must be considered. Yanking the market scene from Aladdin shows a girl in need of rescue. But considering Jasmine's entire character, she is a more complex character than that brief moment allows. Each cartoon examined by Ms. Christensen is ripe for the picking. To validate her claims concerning the genre, I wish she would have chosen some cartoons/movies that were a little more difficult to decipher.

Ultimately, Ms. Christensen is creating students that are as one-dimensional as the cartoons she lampoons. As one of her proteges proclaims: "I will never be reduced to a carbon copy of some fictional being." This type of thinking is as cliche as any Disney princess -- in fact, it is the tagline of many Disney princesses of the past twenty years (e.g. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, etc). So much so in fact that Disney willingly divorced characters from their original contexts so they could embrace the same sensibilities as Ms. Christensen's student. Frankly, that's what concerns me more: we are so afraid of stereotypes that we are willing to redact and revise stories from their original culture and forms and ignore the historical truth that we do make generalizations about people. Disney is certainly not the first to do so and will not be the last.

Invisible

Reading "The Inner World of the Immigrant Child" was heartbreaking. Hearing stories of children rendered effectively invisible by their language barriers gave me a new appreciation for those in the school system who work both to cherish the languages and cultures from which these children emerge and also help them gain linguistic and social currency through English language acquisition. The article sparked an old question in me as well: how effective are we as educators at reading what is happening behind the calm face of a child?

I have heard it said over and over again: "children are so resilient." And that's true. Children are able to adapt much more readily than adults in many instances. But sometimes this seems to be a throwaway phrase, a justification for hardship we place upon children, a release from the hard work of understanding and assisting a child. I think about this when reading some of the voices of English-learning children. It would be easy to assume from their silence that they are processing, progressing, "making it" -- but I wonder what outlets, if any, we can provide for them to voice some of their anxiety, loneliness, confusion. How as a teacher do you provide a forum like that in your classroom?

The question goes beyond ELLs, of course. When I stand in a classroom, it is not hard to see many of these same emotions bubbling right under the surface of children who speak English, yet still lack the language necessary to share those emotions with others. Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson brush on this (specifically regarding boys) in their book Raising Cain. As writing teachers, we talk a lot about voice, and I wonder how to help students -- through writing or other forms of literacy -- put a voice to emotions that are almost by definition voiceless.

MGRP Reflection: Video Game Source Material

My MGRP considered the use of video game source material in children's writing.

This project led to a shift in my thinking concerning gaming and writing. I had grown tired of reading violent text generated by young gamers and was wary of its connotations – namely that in allowing such writing in the classroom, I was condoning its content to the writer and other students as well. The shift came as I realized the gap between game conventions in storytelling and traditional storytelling in conventions was not nearly as large as I imagined. Even when considering violent source material, many productive questions both about content and craft started to emerge. Ideas began to germinate of how such writers could be engaged and challenged.

Research regarding video games and literacy remains surprisingly scant, and this was a challenge in the project. It was hard to form a well-rounded approach to the issue and my paper often resorted to parroting a small cadre of particular authors. Those that have tackled the issue, however, present intriguing points and case studies. I am continuing to do research on the links between game and traditional storytelling conventions and look forward to adding to the discussion.

I believe it’s important to communicate to teachers (myself included) that video game source material does not need to be feared. It is not an entirely new animal. Students whose storytelling experience lies largely in this genre need not necessarily fall behind – there are ample opportunities for these developing readers and writers to connect their experience (even with violent games) to craft and concepts that will be communicable to a wider audience.