Graduate Research Papers
Subtitle
Hey! That's how I feel!
Availability
Open Access Graduate Research Paper
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative content analysis is to examine quality literature focused on anxiety as a mental health concern for middle grade readers and to identify which books should be promoted widely for students and recommended to teachers to support an SEL approach to the curriculum. The analysis of 10 middle grade books (Appendix A) using a book analysis tool (Appendix B) based on previous research completed by Wickham (2018) and Monaghan (2016) and as consistent with CASEL 5 identified four definitive themes in all 10 books. The four themes discovered were:
1) Books Have a Wide Range of Cognitive and/or Somatic Symptoms that Make them Relatable to Readers
2) Books Show that Younger Characters More Commonly Have Parental Relationships and Older Books Include a Close Friend
3) Access to Professional Therapy to Cope with Anxiety Is Prevalent but not Didactic in All Books
4) Initial Realistic Portrayal of Anxiety Shows Forward Motion in Decision Making that Portray Hope for Better Days
The 10 texts are diverse in age and experiences of the protagonist. The characters within the books experienced various anxiety symptoms (both cognitive and somatic), prompted by a range of circumstances relating to the protagonist or someone close to them. Secondary characters acknowledged the protagonist’s anxiety in various ways and those characters had various impacts upon the protagonist’s anxiety, relationships, decision-making skills and forward motion of life. Given these insights and consistency with the CASEL 5, all 10 books could be recommended to teachers, by teacher librarians, for an SEL curriculum and as relatable texts for students. Table 1 summarizes SEL details in each book, and Table 2 shows the researcher’s book recommendations ranked in order of those that are most prevalent for each CASEL 5 component.
Year of Submission
2022
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Department
Division of School Library Studies
First Advisor
Karla Krueger, EdD
Object Description
1 PDF file (46 pages)
Copyright
©2022 Heather M. Wood
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Wood, Heather M., "Hey! That's how I feel! A qualitative content analysis of anxiety in middle grade literature" (2022). Graduate Research Papers. 2637.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/grp/2637
