Why Chose To Use A Book-group Approach?

By Author: Adela
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We chose to use a book-group approach because it has been shown to provide a venue for introducing unfamiliar texts that would be integrated into the curriculum, while creating a comfortable space for teachers to share their thoughts, ask questions, and discuss important issues through responding to a text (Dunne and Goode). We hoped that this intimate setting would allow for meaningful conversation and honest dialogue that would enrich the participants' understanding of gender variant and transgender issues. It would also provide a safe venue to try out specific texts we might recommend to other educators. Stephen Russell advocates this approach to professional development as a way to "train school personnel [and] give them access to Cartier Replica information and resources" that might lead them into "supporting student clubs and including LGBT issues in the curriculum". Reading literature about gender variant and transgender youth is one way of reaching educators who might not have access or everyday experiences with certain situations and may assist teachers ...
... in "seeing themselves as agents of social and educational change".

Keeping in mind Jill Hermann-Wilmarth's advice that literature is the key to these conversations, and hoping the participating teachers might read these texts with their students, we chose to use young adult life-based literary narratives (LBLNs; Hermann-Wilmarth 347). These refer to literature that deals with characters' day-to-day experiences. They are designed "to engage students in the experience of the lives of 'others' . . . and to foster critical self-examination of who we are and how we live and relate to others" (Phillion and He 6). Pulling from the work of Maxine Greene and Martha Nuss-baum, Joan Phillion and Ming Fang He credit LBLNs with providing ways to help students relate to those who may be different from them.

We acknowledge that there are limitations to the model that we are proposing. Creating spaces for educators to engage with texts that are meant to represent complex identities, without having an expert or access to other perspectives on these experiences, can reify negative stereotypes and assumptions. Further, LBLNs encourage readers to imagine themselves in the roles of people whose situations may be drastically unlike their own. We agree with scholars who point out limitations of this empathy-focused approach (Eppert, Ethridge, and Bach). As Phillion and He note, even when empathy does develop, it might be the kind that reinforces stereotypes. Furthermore, they argue that if an experience is too far removed from the readers' experiences, there may be no point of entry into the text (8). Finally, we acknowledge that professional Tag Heuer Replica Watches development might not initiate immediate change in practice, nor should it necessarily. However, as Katherine Mason offers, a book group may facilitate an important first step, "simply reading the texts ourselves". The next step would be to discuss them critically. Although we did not encounter such limitations, we include these cautionary notes for those who are contemplating facilitating such a book group.