Did beatrix potter have children1/31/2024 Tittlemouse, and points of critical interest in these two narratives. To better explain the various possibilities Potter’s texts offer in the classroom, I am providing a brief background to Potter, a synopsis of Two Bad Mice and Mrs. Examples of questions are: What elements create authority in the texts that we have read? Who or what has agency? What role does gender play? What elements create identity? Beatrix Potter’s tales lend themselves well to these types of questions and also provide useful points of comparison with other texts from different authors that we have read in class. Even though the questions vary, students may only analyze a text once for their written papers, so invariably, several students will use Potter at least once for discussion. To raise the level of the discussion and to encourage students to be better prepared when they participate, I require students to write a short analysis paper of the topic at hand over a text of their choice. The general rule for discussion is that students can use any texts that we have read over the course of the semester to explore and respond to the discussion questions, but because Potter is accessible at many levels, I allow students to use their outside readings of Potter in class discussion. I provide students with a broad question for the week’s discussion or have students generate a question for the class. I tend to organize classroom discussion around concepts such as alienation, authority, agency, or societal anxieties to name a few. Since the plots of the books can be quickly summarized, students can understand each other’s contributions from a story that they may not have read. Consequently, students come to class discussion with some knowledge of Potter’s life and a familiarity with her works. While not required to, students frequently look up Potter’s background to see if details of her life will help them with their analysis of the text. This assignment introduces students to at least one more of Potter’s stories but usually several, as students skim through a few books before finding one suitable for analysis. Much of Potter’s work has become public domain, and students can access her books on Project Gutenberg or easily find hard copies at a library. Tittlemouse (1910) as assigned reading and then have the students complete a short assignment in which they find a different story of Potter’s and identify aspects of gender, class, agency, the individual/community, and the concept of the home. In my classes, I use two of Potter’s stories, The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904) and The Tale of Mrs. As adult readers, students understand the different levels of Potter’s stories and recognize that a young child may not grasp the violence or distinctions within the text. On closer examination of the stories, however, students find elements of the story strange and possibly perplexing. Whether students have read any of these stories or not, they find the books size and presentation of a story familiar to other picture books they remember from childhood or have seen in libraries and bookstores. Perhaps the most valuable trait for pedagogical purposes that Potter’s books offer lies in their quality of being both familiar and unfamiliar to students. Because of their small size, the books may have about fifty odd pages or so, but the stories can be read within a few minutes. All of her stories written during this period fall under the category of picture books and provide an additional opportunity of analyzing the pictorial narrative as well as the written. Likewise, Potter’s stories tread a delicate balance between animals sometimes behaving like animals and at other times acting like humans. Brock (a badger) have a vicious scuffle and another fox tries to eat Jemima Puddle-duck and her eggs. McGregor makes rabbit pie out of Peter Rabbit’s father and tries his best to do so with the Flopsy bunnies Mr. Potter’s universe, for instance, often contains violence: Mr. Although Potter’s tales have different plots, they share a similar paradigm with popular characters often appearing in other tales. Potter’s continued popularity from her time period to today also provokes thoughtful student responses.ĭuring 1901-1913, Potter wrote twenty animal fantasies, the first of which, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901 self published, 1902) gave her immediate success and an international audience. I have found that using Potter in my world literature classes opens up fruitful ways to explore culture, particularly in thinking of the economic, ethical and gender values that Potter presents to her intended child audience. Several of Beatrix Potter’s stories for children offer special opportunities for critical engagement with issues in class and gender and concepts like the individual and community. Hannah Swamidoss, Rowlett High School / Eastfield College
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