The Emergence of Fairy Tale Literacy: A Multiple Case Study on Promoting Critical Literacy of Children through a Juxtaposed Reading of Classic Fairy Tales and Their Contemporary Disruptive Variants

Abstract

Children nowadays perceive fairy tales from a number of sources; however, the strongest prior impressions toward this genre held by most youngsters are still built on the popular mass media-based adaptations such as the animated films or books of fairytale retellings by the Walt Disney Company. In order to make a change to such an undesirable situation, I suggest exposing them to a great variety of fairy tales as the one and only way to broaden their repertoire and to develop their critical thinking ability toward the genre. Classic versions of fairy tales have long been censored for their elements assumed inappropriate for children by adults such as violence and thus been discounted from the formal elementary curriculum. However, from the interviews I conducted for this study, children's responses disputed such a false adult assumption. To deprive children of the opportunity to read these older texts is actually to prevent an important way to increase their knowledge regarding the genre's origin. The fresh aspects of these earlier versions unfamiliar to youngsters who have already known roughly about the stories can stimulate their previous recognition and enhance their apprehension of fairy tales. Therefore, I strongly recommend that educators of children use traditional fairy tales as the first step to promote their critical literacy. Moreover, in the field of children's literature, there has been a common tendency to rewrite old fairy tales and bestow them with new possibilities in the past two decades. Many children's books are retellings of fairy tales using various strategies to overturn or disrupt the stereotypical impressions established through preexistent stories. Such a new kind of fairy tales functions as a "second chance" for children to question their prior perceptions toward the genre. By introducing them systematically with a juxtaposed reading of these contemporary disruptive variants with the classic versions, we can let children start to reflect and examine the stock knowledge they have held as truth about fairy tales so as to actualize the purpose of promoting critical literacy and further lead to the emergence of their fairy tale literacy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone [phone]. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]