ERIC Number: EJ1382786
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 28
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1047-6210
EISSN: EISSN-1470-1286
'Why Is Anne Frank Always so Durn Happy?' Happy Objects and Bad Encounters in Teacher Education
Spector, Karen; Murray, Elizabeth Anne
Teaching Education, v34 n1 p50-77 2023
This three-year, living inquiry into how preservice English Education students composed and analyzed visual-verbal journals (VVJs) in relation to Anne Frank's "Diary" is grounded in Ahmed's concepts of happy objects, bad encounters, and good encounters. After theorizing and complicating Ahmed's concepts, we explore the way that the "Diary" has been positioned in the social fields of U.S. popular culture and schools. Across the three years, we found that participants overwhelmingly produced Anne Frank as a happy object, in ways that valorized her and emphasized the saving power of individual moral conduct rather than the brutal sides of her life and death. Through communal analysis of the VVJs and pedagogical changes across the years, participants became less likely to produce solely optimistic compositions of Frank. We argue for teacher education courses that do not focus upon single responses to complex issues and histories; instead, we explain how the conjunction 'and' can multiply the complexity of our engagements with texts and unravel binaries that have long had a hold on teacher education.
Descriptors: Preservice Teachers, English Instruction, Language Arts, Adolescent Literature, Diaries, Popular Culture, Journal Writing, Student Reaction, Inquiry, Psychological Patterns, Trauma
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A