Potent Fictions: Children's Literacy and the Challenge of Popular Culture

by Hilton,Mary; Hilton,Mary

• ISBN13: 9780415135306
• ISBN10: 0415135303
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1996-04-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Based on close empirical work with children and a knowledge of cultural theory,Potent Fictionsdescribes and discusses the current market for children's popular culture, and the implications this has for classroom practice. It shows how children use many literacies and experiences to make sense of the world around them. Thus popular culture can take a place alongside more crafted literature as a vital resource of meaning. This book will help teachers to understand and engage with children's literacy practices outside school, while at the same developing more traditional school practices of reading and writing. By developing an integrated approach to different narratives, teachers will enable children to develop literacy in its widest and most empowering sense.

Table of Contents

List of contributors
Introduction: the children of this world	p. 1
Manufacturing make-believe: notes on the toy and media industry for children	p. 19
Reality in boxes: children's perception of television narratives	p. 47
'Did you know that there's no such thing as Never Land?': working with video narratives in the early years	p. 71
'But they're pink!' - 'Who cares!': popular culture in the primary years	p. 92
'I don't know where I am with myself': the later years of childhood - constructions of femininity	p. 129
'You see all blood come out': popular culture and how boys become men	p. 150
Epilogue	p. 185
Index	p. 192
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.