Nicola on Fulbright in Arizona

One of the highlights of my Fulbright has been the people I’ve met, and the opportunities to present in a variety of settings. I recently attended the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia to present a workshop about bilingual picturebooks as part of the JoLLE (Journal of Language and Literacy Education) Winter conference.  I focused on Māori-English bilingual picturebooks and the participants engaged well. My host while there was Dr. Petros Panaou who took this photo in which I look like I’m talking to Captain Cook as I gave a short history of Aotearoa New Zealand  prior to looking at the picturebooks.   The next day I had the great pleasure of attending a plenary given by Dr. April Baker-Bell (Michigan State University) talking about her framework of an Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy. It was inspiring. On the Sunday I was leaving from Atlanta, and Petros and his family took me to do some sightseeing before I left. We visited the National Park dedica...

The highlight of last week, well there were two actually. I began my data collection for the research which my colleague Kathy Short and I are conducting, looking at dual language picturebooks with pre-service teachers. It was very exciting to get started and to see the students’ reactions to the picturebooks. The second was my trip out to the Tohono O’odham College  on Thursday. My colleagues Dr. Duffy Galda Diona Williams who work at the College had arranged the day for, and I am so grateful to them. It’s about an hour and a half drive out of Tucson to get to the college which is on tribal land. There are two campuses near a small settlement called Sells with some beautiful new buildings all named in the O’odham language. My first engagement was a workshop held in the library with staff and students, looking at New Zealand bilingual Māori-English picturebooks, and thinking about how the languages are laid out in them. The participants were very engaged with the range of bo...

Today the university is closed because it is Martin Luther King Day, marked in all states in America to celebrate the birthday of America’s most important civil rights campaigner. Dr. King’s birthday was actually on January 15 th 1929 but is celebrated each year on the third Monday of January. There are many picturebooks about the life and achievements of Martin Luther King Junior as well as related history and values. A blog I found introduces 18 books which the writer, Chernaie Gordon, recommends, including a recent picturebook entitled   I have a Dream   which uses the text of the speech delivered by Dr. King on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. It is illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and includes a cd recording of the speech. In anticipation of an upcoming national holiday in New Zealand, I have worked on a display in the Worlds of Words library to mark Waitangi Day on February 6 th . I have included the several re...

Do all universities have a particular coffee shop favoured by many staff and students to work and/or meet others? I know for me at Waikato, it is Kahurangi, affectionately known as Stacy’s after the excellent and personable Barrista   who leads the team there. Stacy listens to people’s joys and woes as he makes excellent coffee, all with a smile on his dial. I go there in the morning to sort through emails, meet colleagues there for regular meetings, and sometimes just go there to write outside the four walls of my office. My café of choice here in Tucson is Bentley’s just on the outskirts of the University of Arizona campus. Most mornings I head there to sort through my email and do a bit of writing, before heading to the Worlds of Words library. As I am living on my own here, the buzz of human conversation, and the brief but pleasant interactions with the staff is a very welcome start to the day. I see some professors there every morning, probably doing the same as me- e...

And here we are in a new year! It was good to have a break and briefly visit family and friends for Christmas, and now we are at the start of a fresh new year, still having beautiful sunny days here in Tucson, although it is rather cold at night. The Spring Semester starts for students next week, so it is still quiet at the university. I am spending my time preparing to begin data collection next week. My colleague, Kathy, and I are preparing to work with a group of 8-11 year old children and a group of pre-service teachers across a 6 week period using bilingual picturebooks. After many years of analysing language use within bilingual picturebooks, this is the next step- seeing what children and pre-service teachers learn about language from bilingual books. Meanwhile in the Worlds of Words Library, Kathy and Rebecca (director and manager of the library) are preparing a new exhibition of the work of two Caldecott Honor illustrators - Juana Martinez-Neal and Molly Idle....

It has actually been cold here in Arizona the last few days- beautiful blue skies and sunshine, but a cold wind coming from somewhere snowy, I think! I have been wearing layers and wondering if I have enough warm clothes to get me through! I am told these spots of cold come and go, so soon I will be wearing my cotton pants again! The pool at the Recreation Centre is still a beautiful warm temperature so it hasn’t stopped me swimming. As I mentioned in my last post, it is the time of year when students are handing in their final assignments and I have been lucky enough to hear their presentations, taking copious notes as I go! One doctoral class I have been auditing is taught by my colleague here at Arizona, Professor Kathy Short, and is called ‘ Critical Content Analysis of Text and Image’. Last week the   11 students gave short presentations of their final papers (or assignments) which I have learnt a great deal from. To give you a taste of their work, I’ll present three ...