u Ottawa l.'Univcrsiltf cnnndicnnc Canada's university FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES l==I FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES I.'Univorsittf eanadienne Canada's university Linda Radford TUTEURWLXTHfeSE7XuTHOR"OFTHESIS~ Ph.D. (Education) GRADE/DEGREE Faculty of Education IAWTIICOLIT'DIPW^EWT The Mirror Theatre of Reading: Explorations of the Teacher's Apprentice and Juvenile Historical Fiction TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Judith Robertson T)iRiCTFUR]DlR¥cf^^^ EXAMINATEURS (EXAMINATRICES) DE LA THESE / THESIS EXAMINERS Lorna McLean Paula Salvio Cynthia Morawski Timothy Stanley Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The Mirror Theatre of Reading: Explorations of the Teacher's Apprentice and Juvenile Historical Fiction Linda Radford Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education Faculty of Education University of Ottawa © Linda Radford, Ottawa, Canada, 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-50753-7 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-50753-7 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Prologue 1 Chapter One: Setting the Stage 4 The Genre of Pro vocation 8 The Cliff of Remembering: Reading, Narrative, Language and Desire 14 Chapter Two: Studying Risky Spaces 30 Interpretive Methodology 30 Research Design 34 Context and Procedure of Participant Selection 36 Messy Spaces in Research 41 Operationalizing and Interpreting the Reading Effect 42 Reading the Thesis 50 Chapter Three: Six Readers in Search of an Author 53 Chapter Four: The Ursula Syndrome 83 Chapter Five: The Alyce Affect 129 Chapter Six: The Last Act 184 Bibliography 205 Appendix A: Consent Form 219 Appendix B: Demographic Questionnaire 222 ii ABSTRACT This thesis is a cultural study of how pre-service teachers respond to representations of traumatic histories and how this work emerges as being intimately tied to their own self- identifications as teachers in training. In studying reading practices, I examine identity performances through the interpretation of literary response in relation to the making of the self as a teacher of adolescents. The thesis asks, first, how do teachers read juvenile historical fiction, and, second, why does reading reading like this matter to education? Incorporating mixed methods qualitative research including ethnography, psycho- stylistic analysis and genre analysis, this inquiry includes 12 students becoming teachers. Responses to their readings of two juvenile historical fictions, There Will Be Wolves (Karleen Bradford, 1992) and The Midwife's Apprentice (1995), are gathered through interviews, a focus group discussion, and methods and insights derived from psychoanalytic accounts of identity performances through reading practices. The participants' readings are understood to be of individuals attaching themselves to the identity of teacher and the collective identity of English/Language Arts teaching in Ontario, Canada. This study also inquires into my own identificatory processes as researcher, reader and teacher. Methodologically, I rely on tracing the significance of rhetorical frequencies that repeat through the individual and collective responses. These frequencies signal the affects that specific reading or response moments within the research dynamic are having on the reader and reveal movements of desire through language and experience. Factored into the analysis is a consideration of the specific modes of address of melodramatic form in juvenile historical fiction. What characterizes the literary formation is a fantasy dynamic of rescue, as the participants wish the world well through their teaching of literature. I argue that this iii impulse to rescue functions in the larger social logic of both aesthetic form and the emancipatory vision of education. This thesis points to how pedagogical dynamics and literary narratives have the capacity to evoke psychological struggle for beginning teachers. Through this study's investigation, I present the significance of creating the time and space in teacher education to engage analytically in this struggle with fiction written for adolescents that English teachers use to teach others to learn. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was written as part of my quest to explore new paths in teaching literature. For the generous funding that supported the work of this project, I wish to thank the University of Ottawa for their Excellence Scholarship and Admissions Scholarship in Humanities and Social Sciences, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Phi Delta Kappa Scholarship for Educational Research and the Truda Rosenberg Doctoral Scholarship for Educational Research on Discrimination. I would like to thank many individuals whose insight and support helped to nourish this project. First and foremost among them is my thesis advisor Judith Robertson. Her scholarly bravado inspired me to take heart and explore the play of fantasy and desire in reading and teaching. Without her incredible ability to help me conceptualize what it was I wanted to explore and her steadfast belief that I could, and, eventually would, write the story that this study demanded, this thesis would not have been written. I am forever grateful for her toil and devotion as a master teacher and mentor. Former professors Deborah Britzman and Alice Pitt were the first to ask me to read otherwise in their graduate seminars at York University, and, then, encouraged me to continue with my work of reading and thinking about learning and literature by seeking out Judith Robertson at the University of Ottawa. My thesis committee members Cynthia Morawski, Lorna McLean, and Timothy Stanley continuously encouraged me throughout this process. Their provocative questions around juvenile historical fiction and the significance of this genre to teacher education challenged me. Their reading of the thesis added intellectual rigour to the work. V I am also grateful to the external examiner of this thesis, Paula Salvio, whose scholarship on reading and reparation helped me to understand what I have experienced through the research and reading dynamic of this project. Further, her insights during the oral defence renewed me to consider going further in research and writing in the field of education. I especially want to thank Mary Eleanor Yack and others at the Ottawa Psychoanalytic Film and Analysis Program whose presentations inspired me in my work of reading for this thesis. To my friends Merry Atwood and Julie Harris I owe each a great debt. Merry was the first to encourage me to do the Ph.D. and then supported me in every step. Julie's keen interest in history and historical fiction led to many intense conversations. She also provided hours of technical support and editing (right to the end). Thanks also to her team at Contentworks. To my friends Caroline Connell, Lynn Eagle and Brian Bell, Anne and Gerry Honeywood, Margaret Friesen-Stowe, Brian Stowe, Judy King, Nectaria Karagiozis, Heather Grewar, Diane Culver, Anne Gilbert and Blaine Duffley and many neighbours on Sunnyside Avenue, I am grateful for the kind of encouragement that only good friends can give. Also, my brother David Lees must be thanked for insisting that I write the abstract of this thesis long before I believed I could. Thanks too to other members of my family for their encouragement. Finally this acknowledgement would not be complete without thanking my children and my partner for their incredible love, support and inspiration. To my daughter Caroline Lees Marie for her good humour and patience, especially while I used her experience to think about adolescent development, learning and the uses of reading. To my daughter vi Clare Noelle for her gracious spirit that I so often benefit from witnessing and receiving. To my son William Kristian Charles for his example of courage and for his persistence in asking me on a daily basis how many more pages were left to write. To my daughter Catherine Anne, the thesis baby and most unexpected part in the process, who brought the real, imaginary and symbolic to life for me while I wrote this thesis. And to my husband, Kevin, for becoming a reader and learning to read otherwise with me, which is truly a testament of love.