Progressive Places and Power Geometries: Teachers' Pandemic Reflections on Public Space and Young Adult Literature

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Place and Meaning-Making in Educational Contexts

Abstract

In this paper we explore how practicing and preservice secondary school teachers across three university contexts worked with our methods of spatial literary analysis to deepen their engagement with contemporary YA literature and critically reimagine the spaces of their own lives. Building on our previous discussions of literacy practices and public engagement (e.g., Authors, 2020), we illustrate how spatial examinations of literature may enrich classroom dialogues related to issues of privilege, access, and exclusion as well as open new avenues of inquiry for literature education and research. During this global era of acute spatial inequity, we argue that spatial literary analysis enables students and teachers alike to take critical inventory of how people navigate and transform their everyday worlds.

Authors

• Caroline Hamilton-McKenna, The University of British Columbia

• Theresa Rogers, The University of British Columbia