I feel like I am now an expert on critical literacy. I’ve read countless books and articles in the last month on the subject, and have pages and pages of notes in my handy dandy notebook that will help me in my paper. The problem is, I am not 100% sure that I am looking at the right sources. I have a lot of the big name theorists in the field, but a lot of their work was written more than 3 years ago. I also have the added challenge of trying to find the people that write about critical literacy as it relates to tiny humans rather than the mid sized and full sized humans that feature predominately in the research. I’ve found one book that I can access completely online (thank-you Google Books!) and I am hoping that the author of that book will be able to point me in the right direction of some other work to check out.

I’m hoping that in the next few days I can find what I need since the next deadline with my supervisor is a write-up of the research already done in the field. I don’t want to turn in a vague paper on the research that had been done in the 70s, 80s, and even early 90s. While this isn’t my first time writing a major research paper or negotiating research databases, I always worry that I am missing something or someone. The added bonus here is that the university prefers the use of British theorists, while I am much more well versed in the American ones. Because of this, I feel like I am spending a lot of extra time researching the British theorists and their work before I even start reading the book or article to make sure that I am using something substantial. While I know the second reader on my paper will not think twice about the use of Americans in my paper, I am not sure how my first reader, or the external examiner will feel. All of these little caveats to consider have really made the research part of this project a lot more stressful than my last thesis. I would talk to my supervisor about it, but she seems to be ignoring the two emails I’ve sent her. I’m just glad that one of my besties in Scotland is in on the meetings and can fill me in on anything that I may be missing.

In the meantime, I will continue to scour the interwebs for anything that I think may help me in my pursuit of convincing the world that critical literacy is an important part of book selection for primary school children, and hope that people who are actual experts in the field may be able to point me in the right direction.

As an aside, today is the two year anniversary of my first thesis being published for all the world to see. I’m not as proud of that work as I would like to be, but sometimes I still search my name in the library catalog so that I can pretend that I am a badass.