Conservative Traits
(Preserve/Protect) |
vs |
Progressive Traits
(Change/Possibility) |
| impulse to preserve, to protect, defend, maintain, to keep things the way they are, to keep power in its place, to return to something that has been lost and regain it |
|
impulse to change the way things are, to open up possibilities, to explore new ground, to criticize, mock, expose, empower, to challenge, to push forward |
| text reaffirms common adult assumptions about childhood, and books written for children |
|
text challenges common adult assumptions about childhood, and books written for children |
| views childhood as a time of innocence to be protected and loved since it is so different from adulthood |
|
views childhood as a complicated time of life full of the complexities of being alive |
| fears threats to childhood innocence |
|
fears threats to childhood freedom |
| text sets out to maintain power (or return it) for those that already have it: adults, parents, authors, men, governments, etc. |
|
text sets out to empower those that lack power in the living world: children, readers, women, minorities, etc. by giving them more power |
| reader ends the book persuaded that the powerful should have the power |
|
reader ends the book wanting the powerless to have more power |
| text portrays typical reality in order to convince us that what is typical is right |
|
text encourages us to reexamine things we take to be normal |
| text comforts us, repeatedly gives us what we want |
|
text unsettles us, refuses to give us what we want |
| text is told in a typical way, to mirror reality - in watching it or reading it, we never have to question why it is the way it is |
|
text is told in experimental ways in order to: 1) explore new ways of telling stories, and 2) make us look at the world (and texts themselves) in new ways |
| raises awareness of threats to the world |
|
raises questions about the world itself |
| omniscient, typical narration, sounds like a strong adult is telling the story - talks parentally to the child - or child sounds like typical child |
|
text is playful, uses unusual techniques to give reader power - breaks the 4th wall, self-referential, meta-textual, etc. |
| text does not reflect on what it is doing - very straightforward with easy pat answers |
|
text asks deeply ambiguous questions, encourages you to think about its meaning, or how we make meaning |
| didacic - author has power |
|
ambiguous - reader has power |
| adult-centered |
|
child-centered |
| text limits agency |
|
text encourages agency |
| child realizes the wisdom of parents - authority of parents is never challenged |
|
child challenges adults, authority is questioned |
| monologic - single dominant voice tells the story |
|
dialogic - many voices wrestle for power |
| text is an ideological form of power - sets up roles for us to be interpellated into |
|
text exposes ideology, shows people having to examine what they believe, makes interpellation difficult |
| readerly - text is designed by an author for consumption by the reader; experiences emotions, meanings, and reactions are created by author - text encourages passivity |
|
writerly - a pre-formed text that needs the reader to create it - meaning has not been pre-designed by the author - text encourages activity |
| text is concerned with typical adult matters: rules, order, lessons, morals, reason, stereotypical views of childhood imagination |
|
text is carnivalesque - driven by the body, by mocking laughter, by role-playing - by the carnival spirit that upsets the world |
Important Note: This chart was begun by children's literature and culture scholar Dr. Christopher McGee and has been added to by Jennifer Miskec, another scholar of children's literature. I have reproduced it here merely for convenience. I accessed the original on January 21, 2005.
