Implementing Constructive Controversy in a Hybrid Children's Literature Course

Introduction

In the Fall 2019 semester, the pre-service teachers in my (Danielle’s) class were having a conversation about banned and challenged children’s literature and children’s intellectual freedom, or the “right to read” (International Literacy Association, 2018a; National Council of Teachers of English, 2018). The discussion occurred within the context of a lesson on censorship in READ 3090: Children’s Literature and Language Arts, which is taught each fall to seniors in our university’s elementary/special education dual major program.

I had finished reading aloud from And Tango Makes Three (Richardson et al., 2005), a picture book about two male penguins raising a chick. The book has appeared on the American Library Association’s (2021) list of the top 10 most frequently challenged books multiple times since its publication. Its challengers have expressed concerns with the book’s inclusion of LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual) characters and questioned its suitability for children. After reading And Tango Makes Three to the class, the conversation among the students went like this:

“I don’t think I would use this book in my classroom. I would be afraid of what the kids would tell their parents and how I would explain that to them,” one visibly worried student said.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to deal with the parents. And this book wouldn’t fit in my curriculum, anyway,” another student added.

From across the room, a third student challenged their thinking: “But what about teaching your students that there are different kinds of families? We teach that in kindergarten.”

A lively and spontaneous discussion ensued as students contributed their various perspectives of sharing a challenged book like And Tango Makes Three in an elementary classroom. After reflecting on the lesson, I realized the controversy surrounding this book had genuinely captured the students’ interest and attention, and it occurred to me that I could use controversy in a productive way to engage them with critical social issues through children’s literature. As a social justice-oriented teacher educator, I have a responsibility for broadening my students’ perspectives and helping them better understand the realities that the children in their future classrooms may face. I have a responsibility to help them see literature as a vehicle for creating a more equitable and just world because literature can change hearts and minds. That discussion on a September afternoon encouraged me to revise the way I teach READ 3090, and in the Fall 2020 semester, I integrated constructive controversy in the course for the first time.

Constructive controversy is a cooperative approach for structuring class discussions about an issue or topic that has at least two competing sides (Johnson et al., 2000; Johnson & Johnson, 2009). When participating in a constructive controversy, students are asked to develop and support arguments for both sides of an issue or topic regardless of their personal opinions. Several reasons informed my decision to include constructive controversy in READ 3090. First, I wanted to model the use of a discussion approach that my students, who are pre-service elementary and special education teachers, could one day implement in their own classrooms. Second, I believed that integrating this method in my course would support my students in learning about contemporary issues in the children’s literature field, such as the recent attention given to the issue of racially biased portrayals in classic works of literature.