Ways to Use Children's' Literature
The Value of Children's Literature
to Teach Productive Conflict Resolution Skills
by Bill McGinley, Professor of Education, University
of Colorado
Literature is a part of our culture. It not only reflects our
cultural norms, values and beliefs but it can also help shape
them. Think for a moment about the stories in your life, whether
they have been read or told. The stories from your grandparents,
the children's stories you read over and over again. The stories
of characters you once related to and even emulated. Stories capture
and convey the stuff of life.
We can learn valuable lessons from what we read or what is read
to us as young children. Many educators and writers have written
about the powerful effects that stories can have on our lives.
Stories engage our sense of self as we explore a world full of
dilemmas, choices and journeys. Stories help us to construct our
own meaning about life as we watch how other characters react
in certain situations. As such, stories and literature should
be more than the simple format for teaching "knowledge about"
sentence structure, themes and historical information and have
the potential for teaching a "living through" experience
of life from a variety of perspectives.
"Reading literature is best described as an act of
discovery through which individuals participate in the lives
and experiences of others, explore possible selves and possible
worlds, and acquire insights that make their own lives more
meaningful and comprehensible. In this regard, literature is
unique in its ability to provide readers with a "lived
through" understanding of experience and not simply "knowledge
about" themselves and the social world."
Literature and stories enable students to move back and forth
between text and life.
How to Use Children’s Literature with Your
Child
Using children's literature to teach conflict resolution is very
natural because most literature has two or more individuals or
groups who have a problem or conflict that escalates before it
can reach resolution. The characters in the stories often have
strong emotions and identifiable needs, which students can relate
to at a personal level and begin to analyze the conflict so that
they can develop the skills to resolve it productively in their
own lives.
Possible Discussion Questions:
How would _____ act if they were (cut in front of in line;
pushed by someone else; left out of a game...)?
Help Them Analyze Conflict
Some important elements to consider both for the story
and its characters, and for the students to think about
as it might relate to them are:
- who's involved ("have you ever been involved in
such a situation?")
- what happened ("how did it happen to you?")
- why it started ("how did it start with you?")
- who else got involved ("was anyone else involved
with you?")
- the dramatic emotions involved (including sadness,
humor, surprise, etc.) ("how did you think ___ felt?")
- who needed what ("what would you need in that
situation?")
- developing creative tension ("did anything happen
that made you feel anxious?
- bringing out funny or unusual details ("did anything
funny or unusual happen when you were involved?")
- how it got resolved ("how do you think ___ might
resolve it? how would you resolve it?")
- what people learned ("what do you think ___ learned
from all this?" "what did you think is important
to learn from this situation?")
