“When Can We Make Paper Cranes?”: Examining Pre-Service Teachers' Resistance to Critical Readings of Historical Fiction

Abstract

There has been much recent scholarship on the importance of engaging students of all ages in the critical readings of texts. This study explores a group of pre-service teachers' responses to a set of experiences designed to encourage them to respond critically to several picture book versions of the American-Japanese conflict in World War II, focusing particular attention on Sadako by Eleanor Coerr (1993). Although a presentation by a visiting scholar from Japan highlighted the “constructedness” of the Sadako myth and outlined the historical and cultural inaccuracies of Coerr's telling of the story, the pre-service teachers in the study chose to believe the truth of the story and based their choices about teaching this literature to children on their pre-existing assumptions. The study examines reasons the pre-service teachers may have responded as they did and challenges teacher educators to develop more effective methods to support pre-service teachers as they select literature and develop their own pedagogical strategies to promote thoughtful critical conversations.