Princesses Who

Commit Suicide:
Primary Children Writing Within
and Against Gender Stereotypes

Laurie MacGillivray This article analyzes 13 "published" stories written by

Ana Maritza Martinez young writers during 1 month in a multicultural,
UNIVERSITY OF mixed-age primary classroom. The first goal is to ex-
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA amine how primary children constructed gender in
their own stories. The second goal is to explore how
children, at times, wrote against the traditional gen-
dered positions. The data were gathered as part of a 3-
year longitudinal study on children's literacy experi-
ences across home and school environments. Primary
data sources utilized include {a) participant-observer
fieldnotes; (b) interviews with the classroom teacher,
parents, and children; and (c) children's writing. In
analyzing students' writing and how they reified or re-
defined gender expectations, we relied heavily on
Foucault's notion of power and how it is related to po-
sitioning. Although stereotypical images of dominant
males and passive females were numerous, there were
also disruptions of gender stereotypes. Implications in-
clude the need to help preservice and in-service teach-
ers increase their awareness of how our children take
up positions as gendered beings and also ways in which
they break out of those traditional frames.

JLR Journal of Literacy Research

Volume 30, Number 1, 1998, Pages 53-84
tmi\ MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

NCE UPON A TIME there were princesses everywhere. There were princesses in the cave,

O in houses and castles too. They were all married except one princess. Her name was
Amy. Then one day Amy started walking to the castle where all the princesses were
dressing for the ball. They [all] had tickets for the ball except Amy. She was left behind. She
was very embarrassed because her dress was so plain and ugly. Amy started crying and crying.
She was very, very sad. The princesses were havingfun at the ball. They danced and danced.
They were very sad and happy because they thought about how Amy always loved them and
helped them. When they came back home to the castle, they saw Amy with a knife stuck in her
head. She was dead [see Figure 1]. They all cried. They were all sad, so they killed themselves
too. Then the room was very sad and spooky. (Second grader Rachel's published book)

Rachel's book disturbs most readers. I assert that the primary concern is
not the initial insensitivity of the princesses. What is most disturbing is how
Rachel offers death as a solution to unanswered desire. At several points in the
story a man could have intervened - with a ticket to the ball, with a glass slipper,
or with a proposal of marriage. All the girls rushing to their friend's side was not
enough. They take on their friend's burden, cry, feel "sad," and then each follows
her act of despair.
This article examines 13 stories written during 1 month in a mixed-age pri-
mary classroom. The analysis was part of a larger 3-year qualitative study of
children's developing literacy practices in their classroom and in their homes.
The first goal of this article is to examine how primary children constructed gen-
der in their own stories. The second goal is to explore how children, at times,
wrote against the traditional gendered positions.
Rachel wrote a variation of a classic fairy tale often revisited by children.
She drew pictures of ball gowns and described interpersonal relationships. But
then she went a step further by showing the consequences of unfulfilled desire
(cf. Christian-Smith, 1993; Walkerdine, 1987). She drew a picture of a girl lying
on the floor with a knife in her head. She inverted the violence of fairy tales in on
itself by having the "innocent" girl commit suicide. The other princesses repeat
her act, powerfully symbolizing their collusion with her unfulfilled desires.
Rachel created a story line that was simultaneously within and against gender
expectations. Regardless of whether readers view the suicide as a powerful act of
refusing to live a "life of desire" (Christian-Smith, 1993) or an act of weakness,
Rachel created a story that girls are not expected to write.
When Rachel shared her story with her class, most of the girls said, "Ew."
Eisa put her hands over her ears and said, "I don't like to hear stories like this."
However, most of the boys clapped, smiled, and nodded approvingly. Across the
country, teachers are encouraging children to choose their own topics and to
share their writing with the class. Beyond developing as writers, these students
are creating a sense of self, honing and adjusting content based on the reactions
of their listeners (cf. Bakhtin, 1986; Davies, 1993; Dyson, 1993,1995; MacGillivray,
1994; Orellana, in press).
Unfortunately, pedagogical literature has largely ignored the issues sur-
rounding gender construction and deconstruction. Most "mainstream" work

54
 PRINCESSES WHO COMMIT SUICIDE PUM

discussing gender takes the position that the male-female division is simply
natural (e.g., Henkin, 1995). Based on this assumption, caring teachers must
work to be egalitarian; for example, calling on girls as often as boys during dis-
cussions and offering various role models to both sexes in the classroom library
become goals (Fox, 1993). The problem with this view is that it denies the role of
power and positioning in social interactions (Connell, 1987; Patterson, 1995). For
example, there is an assumption that if teachers call on girls they will feel as com-
fortable as boys in sharing their opinions. However, many students do not feel
free to participate in discussions or answer questions even when called on by the
teacher (Lewis, 1993).
As others have asserted (Dyson, 1993,1995; Orellana, in press), it is time for
teachers and researchers to increase our understanding of children's social

When they came back home to

the castle, they saw Amy with a
knife stuck in her head. She
was dead. They all cried. They
were all sad, so they killed
themselves too. Then the room
was very sad and spooky.

FIGURE i. Last Page of Rachel's Book

55
tmi\ MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

"work." This includes the way in the which children attempt to create meanings
about who they are and who they can be through interactions. Just as interac-
tional styles are gendered (marked as stereotypically male or female), so too are
writing topics. Gender positioning is integral to children's sense of self. I believe
that the content of children's writing has the potential to reveal situated "rules"
of gender (and ethnicity, age, and class) which influence children. Rules that they
often adhere to and at times resist. If we want to move away from rigid and limit-
ing sex stereotypes, then we must be aware of the social dynamics that surround
acceptance and resistance of gender positioning. For example, one day when
Rachel's teacher, Miss Chang, told the entire class they looked beautiful, a few of
the older boys objected. "Only girls are beautiful. We are handsome," they de-
clared. Their complaint reinforced a rigid gender division by asserting that
different adjectives are necessary when speaking to males and females. If teach-
ers, and adults, want to open up possibilities for children's futures, it is impor-
tant to become aware of moments when rigid and typically repressive dichoto-
mies are being reinforced.
Although the ways in which children develop as writers is more typically
the focus of literary journals, the content of children's writing is relevant to
pedagogy. Most recently, Dyson (1995) has used what children write as well as the
talk that surrounds their composing to illuminate the ways an African-Ameri-
can girl participated in discussions of "available roles, of the expected words in
the story worlds of her classroom" (p. 327).
Propp's (1968) landmark study of the morphology of folktales recognized
the potential of content analysis. He examined the functions of acts in relation-
ship to their significance in the folktale. In another seminal study, Applebee
(1978,1980) analyzed the oral stories of 2- to 5-year-old children (for analysis of
oral talk during share time, see Michaels, 1986). Rather than focusing on the
character's actions, he focused on the relationships between bits of information.
Applebee's (1980) work documented that "children ordinarily have afirmlyde-
veloped set of expectations about what a story'is'" (p. 141). There have also been
plot analyses of popular children's books (Abrahamson, 1980; Abrahamson &
Shannon, 1983), which sorted books into categories such as confrontation, epi-
sodic, and travel. These previous studies show the benefit of examining both
structure and content in oral stories as well as children's books written by adults.
Building on this research, we analyzed the content of primary children's compo-
sitions (for a related study, see Davies, 1993; Orellana, in press).
We assert that children's texts are windows into students' gender "play" -
their assumptions and explorations about who they are, who they can become,
and how they can fit into the world around them. As we move toward a broader
understanding of literacy as ways of making meaning (Gee, 1990; Luke, 1991), we
must look deeper at students' creations and beyond the surface-level features of
grammar and spelling. Students' texts capture the process of young literacy
learners attempts to make meaning of their world; they deserve examination.
The purpose of this article is to examine how primary children created
 PRINCESSES WHO COMMIT SUICIDE

gendered characters in their stories and the ways their writings either enforced
or resisted the gender rules of their classroom.

Theoretical Framework

Three key assumptions framed this study. The first was that literacy is about
making meaning. Literacy acts are situated in very specific contexts and help
shape meaning (Dyson, 1993; Gee, 1990,1991; Orellana, 1995). Individuals under-
stand texts and create texts based on both their prior experience and the way in
which they "read" the current situation. This assumption supports analysis of
characters and plots in the children's writing as a way to gain insight into their
world views and imaginings. Although "text" has taken on a larger definition,
which we support, this article focuses on the children's published books.
Second, we analyzed the data from a feminist position with a heightened
awareness of gender, of our own genderedness, and our experience of being fe-
male in a world where masculinity and power are closely linked (Davies, 1994;
MacGillivray, 1997). Our desire to analyze the way in which male- and female-
ness were constituted in the children's stories grew out of this perspective.
Davies' (1993) work with young children strongly influenced us. Describing
children's sense of gender, she wrote:

In learning to be coherent members of their worlds they were actively tak-

ing up their assigned gender as their own in ways not necessarily compat-
ible with the ways teachers and parents were telling them gender should be
done. They learned to make sense of the world and of themselves through
the bipolar categories of identifiably one and not the other, of being one
that is also opposite to the other, (p. xvii)

We wanted to examine the worlds created in the children's compositions and the
characters' genderedness. During the writing of the article, we wrestled with the
readers' (and our own) expectations of how participants are "described" and our
desire to move away from static categories such as gender, ethnicity, and class.
Related to our feminist position, we worked toward reciprocity with the
teacher of the class, Miss Chang, and the students in the class. The teacher was
friendly, flexible, and always welcomed us into her classroom. During the entire
first year, she met with one of us for lunch at least once a week to discuss the re-
search. Yet Miss Chang was not as interested in the research as we hoped. Al-
though she was willing to give her opinion and feedback when we asked, she did
not take her own fieldnotes and was not invested in participating in the analysis
or writing. Understandably, Miss Chang had her own interests, and the research
focus and design was ours. During the second year of the study, not discussed
here, we talked more freely and frequently about teaching, the research, and our
personal lives.

57
fmi] MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

The third assumption, that stemmed from Davies (1993,1994), was that
children and adults position themselves within a limited range that is always
shaped by who is around them, the context, and their personal histories (Davies,
1994; Walkerdine, 1987). A "position" is similar to a role, yet refutes the indepen-
dence of roles from the "real" person. In other words, the positions that a person
takes up are a facet of self (Davies & Harre, 1990). It is a term used by poststruc-
turalists to make "problematic the taken-for-granted concepts of the individual
as architect of their own subjectivity" (Davies, 1993). Speakers may not be aware
of positioning in their daily interactions. For example, Dressman (1995) docu-
mented how librarians directed readers to different areas of the library based on
class and gender. However, Walkerdine (1987) clarified that it is not just about
opportunity, say to read other book, because cultural practices produce forms of
thoughts and desires. There are many reasons beyond librarians' assumptions
that explain why boys tend to read more nonfiction than girls (Dressman, 1997).
Besides studying positioning as it occurs between people, there is a grow-
ing body of research examining positioning in relationship to texts. For ex-
ample, Christian-Smith (1993) found that teenagers saw themselves in the ro-
mance novels they read (cf. Cherland, 1994). Relating to composition, Ivanic
(1994) analyzed the way an adult student was positioned by the discourses used
when writing a paper. He asserted, "most writers are not conscious of this deli-
cate juggling act they are engaged in as they write nor of the way in which they
are being positioned by their discourse choices" (p. 8). However, little research
has explored the gendered positions in children's writing (cf. Dyson, 1995;
Orellana, in press).
The concept of positioning led us to consider how children were both
claiming and redefining gendered rules. We believe even within fairy tales there
are important connections to the situated gender rules within the children's
lives. Readers and writers interact with texts to explore possible worlds, and inte-
gral to those creations are the ways in which gender defines or binds behaviors.
During data collection and analysis, we did not look for a single cohesive
gendered "identity," but rather ways that children played with gender in their
writings.
Integral to the third assumption about positioning is a specific view of
power. Foucault (1977,1978) has articulated a view of power that closely inter-
twines with knowledge or what is commonly believed as fact. He does not view
power as a commodity with a limited quantity. Gore (1993) related his view to
the classroom, "Power is exercised or practiced, rather than possessed, and so
circulates, passing through every related force. Students, as well as teachers, exer-
cise power" (p. 52). Foucault (1978) proposed that power is not static and "is ex-
ercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of nonegalitarian and mobile
relations" (p. 94).
In analyzing students' writing and how they reified or redefined gender ex-
pectations, we relied on Foucault's notion of power and how it related to posi-
tioning. We expected students might play with gender roles in their stories, but

58
 P R I N C E S S E S W H O C O M M I T S U I C I D E

we did not see these acts as rigid statements defining males or females. And be-
cause we did not view power as a commodity, we did not see any positions as
usurping the teacher's power.

Context
The classroom was part of a small primary school (eight classrooms) which pri-
marily served an immigrant population. Located in a major West Coast city, it
was in a predominantly Latino/Latina area and adjacent to a Korean commu-
nity. The classroom was chosen based on teacher recommendations and class
visits. Two issues were a primary focus: a population of diverse inner-city chil-
dren and an environment that encouraged literacy interactions and discussion.
We chose Miss Chang's multigrade primary classroom, because she offered stu-
dents choices about reading and writing activities. The varied ages offered con-
trast into children's developing literacy concepts and made explicit talk about
how to go about academic tasks, which were abundant because of the natural
and encouraged tendency of the older children to help the younger ones.
The classroom was always lively, the children's excitement reflected in the
colorful walls displaying their work. During the entire year, Miss Chang focused
on respect and lead discussions of ways children could solve their own problems.
She was very patient and rarely raised her voice with the children. Miss Chang
expected the children to interact with print from the first day of school when she
held up their names to check attendance. Early in the year she read Leo Lioni's
Leo, The Late Bloomer (Kraus, 1987) and talked about each child "blooming" in
her or his own time (Laurie's fieldnotes, 29-Aug-94). Although the small school
had no library, her room had more than seven crates filled with books. Most
were fictional picture storybooks or simple, predictable texts. There was also
some nonfiction and beginning chapter books. Miss Chang loved Disney and al-
ways added books on the latest Disney movie, such as The Lion King and
Pocahontas to the classroom collection. Field trips included each new animated
Disney movie, and she read the stories to them before as well as teaching them
the songs from each soundtrack. Miss Chang often attended Saturday and sum-
mer workshops, which she found more informative than professional journals
or texts. She was also a mentor teacher for four new teachers in her school.
Miss Chang believed that children become literate through reading and
writing. During language arts time, the children typically worked in four (rela-
tively stable) groups, one meeting her with, another with the teacher's aid, one
doing some seat work such as handwriting, and the last group working in centers
that included activities such as reading, playing with clay, building with blocks.
Each day included reading familiar poems, singing songs, Miss Chang's reading
to the class, and writing and Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) time.
Students began writing in journals at the beginning of the year. They were

59
f\n\\ MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

always allowed to choose their own topics and talk while they wrote. Miss Chang
encouraged them share their writing with someone when they were done. Chil-
dren were assigned a day of the week and given the option of reading a piece to
the class on that day.
In March, 3 months from the end of school, Miss Chang made writing
folders for the first and second graders. (Miss Chang discussed the change using
grade labels with the children.) They were invited to write longer stories if they
wished (Laurie's fieldnotes, 3-Mar-95). She began working with children to
move their writing toward publication. The process involved no rigid format.
The children typically circled the words that appeared misspelled and made a
few minor word changes, then went over the text with her. Miss Chang some-
times pushed for revision for clarity when the story did not make sense to her,
but she accepted all books for publication. Finally, she or a parent volunteer
would type up the story. Once the student illustrated the typed pages, a lami-
nated cover formally "published" the book. Students typically read their new
books to the class. Published books remained in a special basket in the class-
room, and many were read daily by other students.
During the first half of the year, students had the opportunity to read their work
to the entire class during their assigned day of the week. After sharing, the stu-
dents would call for questions from three peers. During the last half of the year,
when these stories were written and published, Miss Chang encouraged them to
share on their own. Both whole-class and individual sharing continued
throughout the rest of the year. She explained the process during an interview
with Laurie (io-Jan-95):

I told them, "I want you to share your journal and if you're the person lis-
tening to this, I want you to listen carefully and then I want you to ask them
questions, like three questions about their journal. You can ask the ques-
tions orally or you can write them."... I think they have started getting it
because they've heard and they've shared enough journals through the year.

Naming Ourselves as Researchers

We changed and grew during this study. We talked about how who we were and
how we looked at the world were integral to the data we collected and the pat-
terns we noticed. Laurie is a middle-class, heterosexual, Anglo assistant profes-
sor. She was an elementary teacher in Texas before obtaining her doctorate. En-
glish is her first language although she is learning Spanish. She became a feminist
when she entered the academy (encouraged by interactions with male col-
leagues), and she continues to develop her awareness of how the world is defined
for all of us by our gender, culture, ethnicity, and social class. Also, Laurie
struggles regularly with desires to live beyond the dichotomous categories of

60
 PRINCESSES WHO COMMIT SUICIDE PJIM

male and female and her own learned notions that her body (presented in high
heels and hose) is the most important aspect of herself.
Ana is a Latina graduate student, wife, and mother of two. She found it
strange that although she is part of a low-socioeconomic-status household, she
is attending a prestigious university and was a researcher in a study in which she
could have been a participant. Ana recently became aus citizen. She immigrated
from El Salvador when she was 9 and completed her bachelor's degree during the
study. Currently, she is working on her masters and teaching certificate. For 6
years, she worked as a teaching assistant in bilingual elementary classrooms. Ana
reads and writes in English and Spanish. She continually struggles with the per-
ception of herself as a passive Latina and works as an advocate to change gender
expectations within her community.
We got to know each other during the study and became good friends. We
found ourselves juggling many roles such as teacher and student (Ana taught
Laurie in Spanish classes, and Laurie taught Ana in literacy courses), fellow re-
searchers, graduate student and professor, friends, Latina and Anglo, women,
and many more. This study was made all the better because of our complex and
enriching relationship.

Method
The analysis was part of a larger qualitative study focusing on the social dynam-
ics of literacy growth across home and school, in which we served as participant-
observers in a mixed-age primary classroom. Between the two of us, we were in
the class four times a week during the reading-language arts time for the 1994-
1995 academic year. A month into the study, we chose 13 students (including
three pairs of siblings) as case-study participants, based on parental willingness
to participate in the study and our desire for children differing in ethnicity, age,
and literacy ability. The number of home visits varied between 6 to 25 times be-
cause of family schedules and illnesses.
Weekly writing samples were collected from all the children during the
first month of school then continued throughout the year with the case-study
children. We still observed all the children during class time and collected occa-
sional writing samples. This study focuses on the 15 books published within the
first month of moving from journals to writing workshop. There were multiple
sources of data used for the analysis shared in this article including the children's
writing, student dialogue captured either through notes or audiotape, class
share sessions, teacher input, children's reactions, and home visits for the focus
students, but the analysis for this article attends primarily to the set of books
published during March of 1995. We chose this group of the children's texts to
analyze, because it was their first time to "publish" during the school year, which

61
tmii MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

meant there was a burst of writing and editing that occurred during a short pe-
riod of time.
The classroom and home observations offered the larger context for ana-
lyzing the students' writing. During home observations, we spent time with the
children in ways they initiated. If there were no books or writing materials in the
home, we would bring some with us, but each child could, and often did, choose
not to use them. For the books written by the case-study children, we include re-
lated background information. For all the children, we added classroom infor-
mation that seemed directly relevant. We were constantly paring down informa-
tion because of the article format, especially because the focus of the article is the
content of the children's stories.
Laurie analyzed the data for this article with frequent input from and dis-
cussions with Ana, the second author. Miss Chang also offered her feedback. Sev-
eral different sources influenced Laurie's text analysis, including the previous re-
search on structural analysis (e.g., Abrahamson, 1980; Applebee, 1978; Propp,
1968), the work of postmodern feminists (e.g., Christian-Smith, 1993; Davies, 1993;
Walkerdine, 1987), the reflective pieces by children's authors (e.g., Fox, 1993),
other work of literacy researchers (i.e., Dyson, 1995; Michaels, 1986), and discus-
sions with peers about the student's books (e.g., Julie Belnick, an art therapist
who attended to the illustrations). Laurie read through the books several times
looking for similarities and differences using the constant comparison method
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Shaped by her undergraduate training in English, she
started with plot summaries. She wanted to capture the gist of each story, so she
noted what happened, when, and how. Also, she wrote down the conflict and
resolution, if there was one.
During this process, Laurie became interested in the characters. She noted
that in many of the stories a single hero solved the problem. Then she began to
make a grid, at first just listing typical information such as title, date, author, and
plot synopsis. She continued to add categories as she became interested in differ-
ent aspects of the texts, such as main and secondary characters. Looking at the
grid, she realized that the male characters were almost always the heroes. This
point lead her to go back through and write down what kind of actions the writ-
ers' attributed to each character. After spending more time with the texts, she
also attended carefully to the illustrations, specifically the pictorial attributes of
the characters.
The final grid contained the following categories: (a) title, author, and date
published; (b) the name of each character, what page the character entered story,
and any other references to the character, such as "he" or "killer"; (c) actions at-
tributed to each character, for example, "lived happily ever after"; (d) a detailed
description of the illustrations; (e) a synopsis of plot; and (f) any particular
things to notice, like when a character's skin color changes. Then questions that
contrasted the literary features of the books were asked and examined, such as
"What are the genres?"
Seeing initial patterns led to wanting to see yet more categories. So a sec-

62
 PRINCESSES WHO COMMIT SUICIDE PJJIH

ond chart was created that recorded title, author, and date; genre; main charac-
ters; other characters; problem/solution and what character solved the problem;
and themes or messages. While creating both grids and then sharing them with
Ana and Miss Chang, Laurie was struck, as were the others, by the lack of female
heroes. The characters who acted in powerful ways were predominantly male.
The writers were reifying the connection between gender and power, and in a
few cases, ethnicity or socioeconomic level and power. The stories that por-
trayed females as not needing rescue were in the minority and, although not
consciously, these authors played with gender expectations.
Laurie looked at the u books that featured females as victims. She noticed
that in 5 of those stories, the main characters were heroes, and in the remaining
6, the main characters were victims. The characters in the remaining 2 stories
were not victims. The discussion of power and gender includes comparisons
within and across these three divisions. The issues of power and gender stereo-
types were also evident in some of the illustrations.
The drawings were analyzed, because we felt they served as yet another
way to access the way children play with issues of gender and power in their sto-
ries. As Weber and Mitchell (1995) asserted, "Drawings offer a different kind of
glimpse into human sense-making than written or spoken tests do, because they
can express that which is not easily put into words: the ineffable, the elusive, the
not-yet-thought-through, the subconscious" (p. 34). Adler (1982) extended this
point: "Drawings, as a projective technique, provide children with a good oppor-
tunity not only to reflect their personal feelings and their attitudes toward
people and situations, but also to express the group values that are prevalent
within their cultural environment" (p. 96). Although much could be written just
about the children's illustrations, we decided to mention only a few of the most
striking features of the illustrations. We focused the analysis on the role of gen-
der as an identifier in the drawings, on signs of ethnicity and social-class differen-
tiation, and lastly, on issues of power as represented through characters' features
and proximity.
At first, Laurie looked closely at all the books, making note of how gender
was marked in the illustrations. Across the stories, she documented what the
characters were wearing and their physical features. Then she compared within
text drawings to see how characters changed during the story, for example, how
patches on Amy's dress are only obvious during certain parts of The Lonely Prin-
cess. Lastly, she looked for connections and incongruencies between the print
and the drawings. In The Lonely Princess, Amy has patches on her dress on the
cover of the book and when she learns that she is not going to the ball. Laurie
suggested one interpretation might be that these were the times that it was im-
portant to define Amy as poor.
Besides dress, another key aspect we focused on was body size and absence
or presence of hands and feet. Although there are many ways to make sense of
how children draw bodies, one commonly accepted view is that an absence of
feet and hands or a decrease in body size might imply a feeling of immobility or

63
PH;j M ACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

helplessness (Buck, 1970; Rubin, 1984). In a few of the stories, we describe these
body changes to offer more depth to the analysis and explore possible meanings
in the story that are not part of the print. Examples of the children's illustrations in
this article are limited because of the poor quality of black and white copies of
crayon drawings.
In this article, we assert possible interpretations of the children's narra-
tives and drawings. We have attempt to share what these are based on, especially
by including most of the text from many of the books. All interpretations are
based on a set of assumptions (Burbules, 1986), and we strove to describe those
earlier in the article. We do not claim that the children were conscious of the
gender issues that we noticed in their books.
To reiterate, the focus of this article is the set of books published in March
1995. Yet we included classroom conversation and information about children's
home in the analyses and findings when available and particularly relevant.

Results and Conclusions

Of the 15 books produced, 2 do not have a narrative story line and were not in-
cluded in the analysis. In 9 of the 13 remaining books, a male solves the problem,
and if there is a female present, she is "saved" by the male. Rachel's story, The
Lonely Princess, only has female characters, but with heavy emphasis on the im-
portance of males. In the final 2 books, gender does not conform to the assump-
tion that males are heroes and females are victims. In each of these texts, gender
is integral to the story, because there are no characters who are not gendered. Al-
though we are not claiming gender was on the forefront of these young authors'
minds, we do assert that children's re-creations and creations of worlds explore
various ways of living and that gender is one defining feature of their characters.
The following sections describes the content of 12 of the student narratives
(the one remaining story was shared at the opening of the article; also see Table
1). The first books discussed are the "hero" books in which the problem solver is
the main character. The second set of texts focuses on females as main characters
who are in need of help. The final section describes two books that deal with gen-
der differently. We most thoroughly discuss exemplary and exceptional books in
each section with contrastive comments related to the other books. A brief de-
scription of the writers precedes an analysis of their work.

Hero Texts

In all five of these texts, the good and evil characters who cause change were all
male. In all but one of the books, there was no female mentioned. The absence of

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TABLE i. Summary of 13 Narratives
Title, author, grade Main characters Plot summary
The Lonely Princess Princesses, Amy Everyone is married except Amy. She doesn't have
by Rachel, tickets to the ball. She cries and is sad. Princesses are
2nd grade having fun at the ball; then thinking of her, they go
find her "with a knife stuck in her head." They are sad
"so they kill themselves too.... Then the room was
very sad and spooky."
Wolverine Wolverine, Wolverine meets three characters in a pattern and
by Diego, Dracula, hurts them.
kindergarten Frankenstein,
Mummy
The Adventures of Super Dragon, Super Dragon goes to save the day. The criminal says
Super Dragon Criminal "burn me." Super Dragon saves the city, burns the
by Juan, 1st grade criminal, and then goes into space
Power Man Power Man, Power Man checks "Super Power Man TV" and sees
by Ramon, "Victim" someone trying to kill himself. He goes and stops him
2nd grade and "saves the day."
The Mad Man Story Killer A man kills five kids. He is arrested when someone
by Mario, calls police and goes to jail "forever"
2nd grade
Super Cat Super Cat, Super Cat sees dog robbing bank, then he sees
by Saul, Dum Dum, captured cat. Super Cat gets gun, shoots Dum Dum,
2nd grade Pretty Cat and lives happily ever after.
The Rescue of Amy Amy, "Little Amy, girl on beach, starts to drown. She is saved by
and the Caterpillar Cute Girl boy on surfboard. Then the girl caterpillar starts to
by Lauren, Caterpillar," Boy, drown and is saved by boy caterpillar. "Amy and the
2nd grade Boy Caterpillar girl caterpillar were lucky to be alive."
The Troll and the Winky the baby Minky and Winky plant a bean and a stalk grows.
Bean Stalk girl; Minky the Winky refuses to go up but Minky does. He finds gold
by Helen, big brother; in the castle. A giant smells him. Minky runs, climbs
2nd grade Giant down stalk, cuts it, and lives happily ever after.
No Love Girl (sad), Girl Take off on Yo, Yes. Two females — one in love, one not
by Marisol, (in love), Male and sad about it. Male enters and says he will love the
1st grade sad one. Then she is happy.
The Zoo "I," Snake, Marisol (written 1st person) sees snake at zoo. She
by Marisol, Jessica, Mom, screams for help. Then Jessica, Mom, and Dad yell too.
1st grade Dad Snake eats all the people. Last page, Marisol smiling
waves, "Goodby."
The Story About a Woman, Family, A woman is introduced on the 1st page, then gets very
Very Sick Woman "He" sick and dies on next 2 pages. The last page reads as
by Rachel, follows: "Her family all cried. Only one who didn't cry
2nd grade he didn't like her so that night he chopped her."
The Space Trip Kera, Michael Kera and Michael go on a space trip past the moon
by Elsa, and all the other planets. There is a reason they do
1st grade not stay at each planet. They return home.
The Happy Witch Happy witch, There was a happy witch who was sad when she had
by Elsa, Other witches to "go." She sleeps, then plays in the morning and
1st grade goes back home.
t\m\ MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

female heroes as main characters in the books echoes the dearth of popular fe-
male superheroes in our culture. The few that do exist, such as Wonder Woman,
are known to many as much for their physical features as for their super abilities.
And in contrast to Superman or Aquaman, Wonder Woman's powers are in her
lasso rather than a physical feature. These writers referenced reified ideals of men
as powerful problem solvers.
Three of the five hero texts had only one character who is present
throughout the story. There is a problem that needs to be solved and the male
character, whether he be super human or beast, succeeds on his own with no one
else's help and no dilemmas. The other two books elaborated on this plot line
and are discussed in depth.
Conquering evil: A reoccurring plot. These three stories were written by
boys, one from each grade, kindergarten through second. They had the most
similar plot lines of all thirteen books. Each one introduced the main character,
the hero, on the first page. Then the hero confronts evil and prevails. These plots
reference the individualistic, high-pressured life of "successful" men that is often
portrayed in our mass media. The clear delineations of good and evil promise
clarity in life's confrontations.
Diego wrote his story in kindergarten. English is his first and only lan-
guage, although his mother and grandparents speak Spanish. His father is a
third-generation Mexican-American, and his mother is second generation.
Both parents consider themselves Latino activists. Diego is the youngest of three
children. He likes to play with his action figures at home and sometimes makes
up plays with his brother that they record on audiotape (Interview, 2-Aug-94).
Diego wrote Wolverine, which has a simple textual pattern. In the three-
page story, Wolverine fights a villain on each page. There is no introduction or
ending. The text follows, "Wolverine fought a Dracula and he beat him up [p. 1].
Wolverine fooled the big Frankenstein and then he started bleeding [p. 2]. Wol-
verine fights a mummy. Wolverine almost chopped off the mummy's head [p.
3]." The fights between Wolverine and each enemy are drawn on each page. Dot-
ted and solid lines show action, and the size of the monsters change to show per-
spective. Each character has weapons as well as lines on their foreheads suggest-
ing tension and concentration. All the characters are male; good and evil are
assumed. Although the illustrations are detailed, the text describes only actions.
Juan was a first grader when he wrote his book. His mother is from El Sal-
vador, and his father from Mexico. His parents are saving money to open their
own business. Spanish is his first language, which is the predominant language at
home (Interviews, 3-Aug-94, 26-Jun-95). He has a little sister. Juan is very
friendly, and his frequent questions reflect a broad curiosity. Miss Chang de-
scribed his energy level: "I get on his case because he fiddles with time, and it's an
hour and it's gone and he's still doing nothing.... With him, it's just like a physical
thing. You know, I think it's all there, it just has to come out" (Interview, io-Jan-95).
In the Adventures of Super Dragon, Juan followed more traditional con-
ventions than Diego by including a brief introduction and closing. The villain

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does not fight, instead he requests punishment: "The criminal said, 'Burn me.'"
Super Dragon offers to "save the day," naming the ramifications of his good deed,
and then "he went into space." He clearly does not live among those that he
"saves." Two of the four pages are covered in crayon, one with a cityscape behind
the hero and criminal, and the last with the blackness of space surrounding the
dragon. The dragon is large, with two legs that he stands on, two short arms, and
two wings on his back. Yet, the criminal is a stick figure with X's for eyes and a
mouth. The onlookers on one page are also stick figures, except they have short
lines for eyes over large smiles.
Diego's story echoed a constant theme throughout the year of appropriate
and inappropriate behavior. His criminal knows punishment is necessary, and a
hero is present to make everything okay. Also, by drawing the dragon differently
than the criminal and the crowd, he emphasized the importance and individual-
ity of the dragon.
Ramon was in second grade when he wrote Power Man. He had been in
Miss Chang's class for 2 years. His parents immigrated from the Philippines. Ta-
galog is Ramon's and his little sister's first language and the one they speak at
home. Ramon often raised issues about his culture and language in whole-class
and small-group discussions. He was friendly and enjoyed being around Mario,
one of the unofficial leaders of the class. Early in the year, Ramon was trying to
figure out Laurie's presence in the classroom. She wrote down the following in-
teraction: "One day Ramon asked, 'How do you spell, "at"?' I said, 'I'm just here
to watch.' He responded, 'I thought you were helping Miss Chang'" (i2-Sep-94).
Ramon was confident and shared what he was thinking.
Power Man, Ramon's text, is slightly more complex than the other prob-
lem-solution, all-male narratives. He borrowed liberally from current cartoon
figures and the lingo of superheroes. The illustrations also offer details about the
surroundings more than the stories described above. His "Super Power Man TV"
reveals a tragedy in the works on the first page. The next page describes his quick
response, "Power Man! Power Car, power up! Super Speed, power up! Power
Door, open up. Power Board, power up!" On the last page, he saves the "person
who wants to kill themselves." As those previously described, the hero acts alone.
Ramon drew Power Man on the cover of the book. He is facing forward
with a mask over his eyes, a spear in one uplifted hand, and a wide cape behind
him. A circle on his chest has the initials "P. M." and he has a belt that seems to
have weapons attached to it. A line curving up on one side suggests a wry smile.
Similar to the Bat Cave, the first page details a basement room with a couch and
television. Complex drawings continue to appear on each page with lines show-
ing movement and characters' sizes changing to reflect scale. The story reiterates
the image of man as individualist. Unlike the two previous tales, Power Man
must save the suicidal man from himself, reflecting a more complex view of
good and evil.
All three of the hero narratives focus on a single male hero solving a prob-
lem through physical intervention. The villain are also all male yet vary: The

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PJ H H MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

"bad guys" in Wolverine are classic monsters; Super Dragon must fight a crimi-
nal (literally, man as evil); and Power Man prevents a person from self-inflicted
harm. These stores are explorations of life challenges. They focus on actions to
describe characters. Emotions are not mentioned, and motives are tacit (i.e., a
criminal steals because he is a criminal). In all these tales, physical power allows
good forces to prevail in the end. Although the next story also ends with the
problem resolved, the villain is actually the main character.
Mario, a mature second grader, wrote The Mad Man, a story that inverted
the notion of heroes as the good guys. He is Latino and was one of the leaders of the
class. Laurie's fieldnotes from the beginning of the year capture his tendency to
share his opinions with the entire class:

Miss Chang was allowing one of the younger students to "read" a book to
the class by showing the pictures with no oral accompaniment, she said,
"You can picture read, that's still reading." The student stood in front of the
class and turned the pages of the book without saying a word. Miss Chang
looked attentively at each picture. Mario said aloud, "It's still boring."
(7-Sep-94)

Mario was good friends with Saul, another second grader. Saul spelled
words for Mario (e.g., Ana's fieldnotes, 25-JUI-94) and Mario helped Saul read
(e.g., Laurie's fieldnotes, 25-JUI-94). He began pushing the limits of "accepted"
talk of violence and sex as the academic year came to a close. In my observations,
I watched him talk of "chichis" (Spanish slang for breasts) with a group of boys
and make clay penises that he pushed out of a plastic tube. Miss Chang con-
firmed his increasing tendency to write blood-filled stories and talk about sexual
body parts with the other boys. Miss Chang was ambivalent about how to handle
Mario's fascination with blood, but she was less ambivalent about telling him to
keep the sex talk out of the classroom.
His story entitled The Mad Man focuses on a man who kills five children.
A policeman captures the man and put him in jail. In writing this, Mario pushed
the boundaries of Miss Chang's acceptance of gore. He drew a bloody picture
with the "killer" in the center holding a gun surrounded by five bodies. Mario's
ending might have been an attempt to stay just barely within Miss Chang's tacit
sense of acceptable narratives. These mixed messages of celebrating and then
chastising violence are a theme that echoes humans' fascination with the power-
ful and unruly as well as the context of living in Los Angeles.
When he shared the story of The Mad Man, Miss Chang shook her head
and said his name as she sighed. A handful of other boys in the class were vocal
about liking it. The Mad Man's and Mario's appeal might have been their ability
to act in ways that parents and teachers found unacceptable.
The fifth hero tale, Super Cat, includes both a bank robbery and a "pretty
cat." Saul, Mario's friend, wrote the book. During our home visits, Saul's mother
occasionally discussed her gendered expectations. Saul's mother also talked
about the family habits that fit into very traditional roles of husband working

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and wife taking care of the Saul and his younger sister, cooking the food, and
cleaning the house. She said their father helped the kids with their homework
when he got home, but even when she was taking a heavy load of classes at a
community college, she was still in charge of cooking and housework (Inter-
view, i-Aug-94).
Saul was reticent in both his peer interactions and literacy acts. He often
stayed close to Mario and followed his lead. Miss Chang talked with Saul and his
mother about the problem of being "a follower" and encouraged him to think more
for himself. His book Super Cat stars an independent hero who would have
made his mother proud. Yet, the female in the story is treated as merely an object,
a necessary trophy for the story's completion.
On the first page, Super Cat sees Dum Dum, a dog, stealing money from a
bank. In his "power car," he chases Dum Dum, who is on a skateboard. On the
third page, there is the top of a castle with the upper part of a cat in view. A head
appears with shoulders but no arms as if it was merely a bust of a feline rather
than a living cat. The text reads, "Power Cat saw a pretty cat. She was stolen by
Dum, so Super cat got his Super Gun to shoot Dum, and he did." The next and
last page concludes with two cats waving. The text explains, "Super Cat and the
girl cat lived happily ever after."
This story is more complex than those previously discussed. This time the
enemy is the one who is different, an "other." A dog is evil, but Super Cat does not
kill Dum for just stealing money. He only shoots him after he "stole" a "pretty
cat" (one of Super Cat's "own"). The nameless and temporarily armless female
appears to be Super Cat's prize at the end. She still has no name, but a happy fu-
ture is promised, and she reveals in a wave that she is now whole.
Commonalties. All the stories have a male focal character. Except for Mad
Man, they all have raw strength or special powers and use these when "neces-
sary" for the good of society. All the characters in the illustrations appear White,
except in Mario's book in which all his characters have light brown skin includ-
ing the killer and the policeman. (Because the paper is white, however, charac-
ters appear Anglo unless their skin is colored.) On the opening page of Mario's
book, dead bodies surround the murder, and his face is colored in more darkly.
The Mad Man is the only book that has characters of color.
A female appears in Super Cat, and she seems to be part of the prize for the
hero's good deeds. She has no actions attributed to her except that she is in-
cluded in the last sentence "they lived happily ever after." Like the other heroes,
Super Cat is actively engaged. He "went to stop him [Dum Dum, who was rob-
bing the bank]," directed his car to "Power up," and "got his Super Gun to shoot
Dum Dum, and he did." And like bad guys in the other stories, Dum Dum re-
sponded actively. He "was stealing money from the bank," "was using his skate-
board," and "put it on full speed." So both at a content level as well as in sentence
structure, the heroes (including the Mad Man) were the center piece of these sto-
ries. The bad guys were introduced after the hero and were not present at the
end. In Super Cat, the female appears on the second to last page, upping the ante

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enough for Super Cat to shoot Dum Dum and reinforcing the concept that rela-
tionships should occur between "like" characters, in this case cats. She was not
afforded a name or even all her body parts until she is with the hero, which could
imply that it takes a man to make a woman safe and whole.
Although this article focuses on gender and the content of the children's
writing, it seems relevant to note that even though the boys' writing products re-
veal only traditional gender positioning, we did observe times when the boys
acted in ways that countered these typical gender norms. Saul's passivity was
mentioned earlier. Yet, moments of taking up unexpected gendered actions were
rare and often seemed related to age. For example, 4-year-old Pablo, whom class-
mates called "cute," often held hands with older boys. Also, a few times when sit-
ting with one of his 5-year-old friends, they would trace each other's lips as their
teacher talked. No one commented on these behaviors. So although there were
moments when boys' actions disrupted male stereotypes, no one wrote about
them. The previously discussed stories seemed to be exploring ideals. We find it
striking that they are void of active women, lack resolutions that avoid physical
conflict, and that friends and community are absent. What individualistic and
lonely heroes!

Lead Characters Needing Help

In contrast to the main character as hero in the books above, the lead characters
in the next five books all need help. The heroes are still male, but the main char-
acters are female (and human except for a caterpillar and a troll). All the books
were authored by girls. This pattern shows that these children composed stories
in which the main character was their same sex. But, disturbingly, boys identified
with heroes and girl with victims (two exceptions are discussed later). These sto-
ries show us what little girls in our society are learning about how their gender
could or will define their lives.
Second graders wrote three of the texts, and one first grader wrote two.
Within most of the stories there are features of stereotypical gender roles as well
as those that disrupt expectations. Unlike the stories written above, these writers
are exploring options other than society's gendered ideals. Each story is dis-
cussed in more detail below.
The tale The Rescue of Amy and the Caterpillar is similar to the hero tales
except that it begins and ends by focusing on two females. During home and
classroom observations, Lauren interacted with females. Unlike some of the
other children, she rarely worked with boys. However, her talk with friends often
centered on sexuality. For example, when someone brought up the movie
Batman, Lauren said, "Ew, Catwoman is nasty. She touches herself like this [and
then she slowly ran her hands up her legs, stomach, and breasts]." (Laurie's
fieldnotes, i2-Sep-94). She repeated her last comment two more times as she ran
her hands up her body again. In another instance, she was teasing her friend
about wearing a bikini when going swimming with some boys from the class.

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At home, Lauren spent time with her little sister. Her parent's are both Ko-
rean immigrants. Korean is Lauren's first language and is the dominant language
at home. Her mother worked 9:00 to 5:30 during the week, and her father
worked at nights and on the weekends. Both the mother and the girls implied
that they did not interact a lot with their father. The younger one shared, "He's
always smoking and reading." And Lauren added, "Or smoking and watching
TV" (Interview, 6-Aug-94). So, as is often the case with préadolescent children,
Lauren's world seemed filled by women although frequently focused on issues of
desirability and sexuality.
Lauren's tale, as the title suggests, is about two swimmers - a human and
an insect - who need to be saved. The characters are drawn with attention to
only certain details. The eyes are dots with lines over them, and the arms and feet
of the humans are made similarly with three pudgy appendages each. In con-
trast, on each page, the girl's bikini has a tiny scalloped edge around the legs and
she has curling bangs, a bow, and long hair in a pony tale. Ripply arms suggest
muscles on the boy, but his bathing suit and hair are just outlined. We believe
Lauren emphasized the features she saw as most critical to the character's iden-
tity: the male's strength and therefore ability to act powerfully is shown in his
arms, and the female as object of desire is highlighted by her hairdo and atten-
tion to dress.
Two episodes make up the story. Just after introducing the characters,
there is an unexplained tragedy, "Amy was swimming, she started to drown."
Luckily, the boy who was playing nearby noticed. The text goes on, "The boy is
going to save her, and he did. 'The girl is alive!' said the caterpillar." Then the
"little cute girl caterpillar" begins swimming and also starts to drown, but luckily
a "boy caterpillar," on a surf board saves her. The story ends with both females
back on the beach, the bow still in Amy's hair and the males not in sight. The
story ends with these words, "Amy and the girl caterpillar were lucky to be alive."
Unlike in Super Cat, the saviors disappear. It is not clear whether the females are
left alone appreciating how "lucky" they were that two males of their same spe-
cies were around to save them or whether once the males had done their "duty,"
they were no longer needed. Although Lauren leaves open the possibility that the
heroes may not be integral to their future, she positions female as helpless in a
crisis.
Helen wrote The Troll and the Bean Stalk when she was in second grade.
She and Rachel, mentioned in the opening, were the two strong second-grade
girls in the class. Her parents are Korean immigrants, and Korean is her first lan-
guage. Her brother is 4 years younger. She acted as model for the younger stu-
dents in class as well as helping her peers, often explaining words or concepts
when necessary (e.g., Laurie's fieldnotes, 8-IUI-94). Helen was also very eager to
interact with the adults around her. At times, she would ask about Miss Chang's
boyfriends. In another instance, after one of Miss Chang's friends who was a law-
yer wrote to the class, she wrote back with many questions for him. They corre-
sponded during the year. Once she and Miss Chang visited his law office and had
lunch in response to her request.

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The Troll and the Bean Stalk is similar to "Jack and the Bean Stalk," yet it
features Winky, "a baby girl"; and Minky, "the big brother." Even though both
characters are introduced initially, Winky quickly fades, only appearing at the
end to prosper from her brother's adventures. The book is quite brief with few
elaborations. The "big brother" goes up the stalk and steals gold from the troll
while Winky stays at the base. She waits while he takes action. At the end of the
book, his return promises she will be cared for by his money.
The characters share certain features, such as odd-shaped faces. Yet some
aspects of each character draw on traditional stereotypes, for instance the boy
wears a baseball cap and the girl wears a bow. Also, the boy is wearing a T-shirt
and pants in contrast to the girl's outlined breasts, tiny waist, and puffy skirt. As
in The Rescue of Amy and the Caterpillar, the book attends to the needs of the fe-
male and the necessary action is undertaken by a male.
Marisol was a first grader when she wrote the following two books. She
was known in the class for her creativity and spunk. Because Miss Chang often
invited the children to act out favorite books, Marisol had frequent opportuni-
ties to perform. Spanish is her first language and is the dominant language in her
home. She has a brother who is several years older. Her parents had immigrated
from El Salvador. Throughout the year, Marisol had an emotional relationship
with two peers. They spent a large part of their time either laughing together or
furious over a recent disagreement.
No Love, written by Marisol, follows the simple dialogue exchange of a
classroom favorite, Yo Yes. The resolution is suggested by the illustration on the
front cover, which has a boy (gendered by pants and short hair), a heart with an
arrow through it pointing at a girl, and a girl (gendered by a long pony tale, a rib-
bon in her hair, red lips, and a short skirt). The first two pages show two girls in
conversation, dressed and drawn similarly except for different color dresses.
During the story, arms are present with no fingers, and tiny circles sometimes
appear from underneath the dress representing feet. One of the females is in
love, while the other is "sad. No love." On the next page, the sad girl appears with
a nameless man (none of the characters have names following the format of the
original book, Yo Yes). She asserts, "OK, time to love you." But then she screams,
"AAAAAA." While reading the book to Laurie several months later, Marisol ex-
plained, "He thought she was going to be pretty for him and when he saw her he
didn't like her because she didn't have so much hair" (20-Dec-95). But when he
realized that she liked him, he began to like her. He says, "You love me!""Yes, yes.
Yes, yes!" she responds. "The End" is written on the last page where the two are
standing next to each other smiling. There is a rainbow but it only goes over the
female, so the couple is literally separated rather than appearing completely
united at the end.
In this story, the man saves the day by offering his love rather than his
muscles. Yet Marisol's explanation made it clear that the girl is shunned at first
because of her disappointing looks. The giant rainbow, which only arches above
her head and comes down between them, emphasizes the female's happiness and

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could suggest the ability of contentment without the man. Like Lauren's ending,
the focus is on the happy and safe female, not the man who came to the rescue.
Marisol's second book in March, The Zoo, was quite different, almost the
antithesis of No Love. She dedicated the book to "my mom and my dad" and be-
gan by setting up the action, "I go to the zoo." She drew herself with shapely long
black hair, red lips, and a long skirt. There is a tiny snake in the bottom corner of
the page. She has short arms that are round at the end, no fingers, and no feet
appear from the bottom of her skirt. On the second page, she sees a snake. In this
illustration, it is almost as tall as she is with a forked tongue sticking out. She is
frowning and her long black hair is completely straight now. She is leaning away
from the snake (see Figure 2). On the third page, the snake fills the space except for
her words, "Help, help snake." On the next page, she reappears still crying for
help, except she no longer has any arms. The following three pages each tells of
someone else yelling for help. First her friend Jessica, then her "mom yelled too."
Her father yells too, but to no avail. On the following page, the illustrations show
a snake with blood all around its mouth, a body with no head, and a head rolling
along in a stream of blood. The text reads, "The snake ate all the people." On the
next page, Marisol reappears alone with a smile (and arms) waving "Goodby."
In contrast to No Love, the friends support the main character. One pos-
sible interpretation is that the snake is a phallic symbol. Although there could be
multiple interpretations, we share our reasoning below and leave it to the read-
ers to make up their own minds. The girl cries for help when the snake gets
larger, which might symbolize the power of an erect penis. Her friend yells, her
mother yells, and finally her dad tries to intervene but to no avail. The snake eats
"all the people," but she reappears with a smile and a wave. We feel this contrast
interestingly echoes images of the young bride before her wedding night and
then the next morning. After being scared and yelling, she emerges from the
scary, bloody event, and acting "appropriately" female (Lewis, 1993), she is smil-
ing. On the author's page at the end of the book, she is standing there with a
smile, no arms or feet, with the snake sticking its forked tongue at her. One could
read an ambiguous message in the illustration. The smile implies a happiness
that contradicts the immobility, the inability to leave, suggested by her lack of
arms and feet.
Although there is a different outcome, The Zoo is similar to The Lonely
Princess. Both stories are based on traditional plotlines, being chased and desir-
ing a date for a dance, respectively, yet they conclude violently. Most readers ex-
pect the people to be able to get away from the snake and are surprised to see the
girl reappear at the end - smiling but with no arms or feet. She is present but in-
complete, smiling but motionless. Rather than committing suicide in loneliness,
Marisol represents another scenario - living with "the snake" (phallus) and
keeping up a smile.
The Story About a Very Sick Woman was written by Rachel, the second
grader who also wrote The Lonely Princess. She, along with Hannah and Mario,
acted as a class leader. It was not unusual for Miss Chang to ask Rachel to read to

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1—1
 PRINCESSES WHO COMMIT SUICIDE P\Wi\

the class if Miss Chang suddenly needed to take care of something else. Rachel
lived with her mother and older brother, and they primarily spoke Korean. Her
parents were Korean immigrants. She attended Korean school every day after
school and complained frequently about the harsh teacher. When Miss Chang
mentioned her concern about the violent story lines to Rachel's mother, she ex-
plained that Rachel had said there was a girl in her Korean school who often told
her bloody stories. Her mother felt this peer was the source for Rachel's stories.
Rachel wrote The Story About a Very Sick Woman after writing The Lonely
Princess. Her friend, Lauren, drew the pictures. The book features a woman who
"gets sick, very sick" and dies on the third page. The illustration shows beams of
the sun shining through the window to her body on the bed. The fourth and last
page completes the tale, "Her family all cried. The [there was] only one who
didn't cry. He didn't like her so that night he chopped her." The picture has sev-
eral body parts strewn across the page. A small boy is in the corner with a bloody
knife his height. Blood surrounds arms, legs, eyeballs, feet, and the woman's
head. The author's page has an apology written by the author. "This story is fake.
Lauren [is] 7 years old. She lives at [her address]. Rachel lives in [her address].
This is very fake. Me and Lauren is very sorry. We wrote a nasty book. Thank you.
[smiley face]."
In some ways this story parallels The Mad Man except that the victim is the
main character and the decapitation is the climax of the story. Also, whereas
Mario taps the emotional nerve by having five children killed, Rachel sets her act
of violence in the home and has a son act out against his mother who is already
dead. At the end of the book, Rachel, possibly imagining her teacher's negative
response, apologizes. This time she takes one step back from suicide as in The
Lonely Princess and has a family member committing the aggressive act.
Commonalties. Marisol, a Latina, and three first-generation Korean-Ameri-
cans girls, ages 5 to 8, wrote the six tales that focus on characters in need. Like the
characters in the hero books, all of the characters appear Anglo. In every story, a
female is a victim (including Amy, the lonely princess, as a victim of
heterocentric, socially stratified society). In three stories, the males solve the
problems. In The Rescue of Amy and The Caterpillar, the male uses his strength to
save the day. In The Troll and the Beanstalk, the "big" brother's bravery allows
them to live "happily ever after." And in No Love, the male simply needs to appear
and state his attentions, "OK, time to love you." The variety of heroic deeds in
these stories contrasts sharply to the hero tales described earlier in which physi-
cal strength was the main characters' defining feature, so "maleness" rather than
strength is the key aspect of a hero.
In these six stories, some of the males have names, whereas others remain
simply labeled "boy" or "He." Nevertheless, secondary characters or not, they all
were central to the climax of the stories. Each narrative needed a male, yet in
some, a generic nameless fellow satisfies the part. A gender label is enough. We
believe these renderings echo those shared earlier. Sadly, almost all of the chil-
dren created an incredibly limited view of "males" as protectors.

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tmii MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

Also similar to some of the "hero" books described earlier, females are por-
trayed as submissive. For example, Amy, the lonely princess, "was left behind,"
"was very embarrassed," and "was very, very sad." Her suicidal act could have
been described, but instead she was found by the other princesses who "saw Amy
with a knife stuck in her head.... and they killed themselves too." Interestingly,
Rachel downplays the main character's self-inflicted death. Yet, in her other
book, when the boy acts in The Story About a Very Sick Woman, "He didn't like
her so that night he chopped her up," the reader is present during the violent act.
We see the male kill the woman, but no reader is present when Amy kills herself.
Similarly in The Zoo, the illustration suggests we are present when "the snake ate
all the people up." The young writers considered male acts worthy of inclusion
more often in their stories than those of women. This mirrors how children are
often gendered on television with the males engaged and the females observing
(Seiter, 1995).
In all of these stories, males are powerful - even in their absence, as in The
Lonely Princess. The females, although positioned as main characters by the girls,
are dependent on the males to resolve the problem (or to create the problem, as
in The Very Sick Woman). Regardless of who was writing the story, the power dy-
namics remained the same. Both boys and girls created stories about men as ac-
tive, adventurous, and brave, whereas girls spent much of their time longing for
a man either to save their lives or satisfy their desire. Although the younger boys
tended to write stories without females in them, all the girls included men (or
the need for men) in their stories. Within their first 3 years of school, the boys
and girls created worlds with powerful men and needy women.

Writing Against the Grain

Two stories written by a first grader break the mold of the stories described
above. These stories have no victim and construct the power dynamics differ-
ently without attention to gender. Elsa, born in California to a Guatemalan fa-
ther and an Anglo mother, was raised with explicit attention being given to gen-
der biases. When she was 4 years old, for example, she dictated a letter to a
car-seat company about how the placement of the straps was insensitive to girls'
long hair.
Her mother tries to encourage Elsa to be critical of mass media. Her father
always includes her in creating innovative structures out of wood, cardboard
and metal; so although less explicit, he too encourages her to stretch her mind
without attention to stereotypes. Yet both parents bemoan the power of mass
media and wonder how much to resist it. For instance, they let Elsa own Barbies
but were pleased when she declared she did not want any more Barbies for her
7th birthday and gave all of hers away. Throughout the study, Elsa at times com-
mented or acted against gender stereotypes and at other times did not. For ex-

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 PRINCESSES WHO COMMIT SUICIDE PJ^M

ample, she wanted pink Barbie roller skates on one occasion and on another oc-
casion told her mom to notice how the musicians in an orchestra they were lis-
tening to were all men (Interviews, 5-Aug-95,8-Jun-95).
During March and the beginning of April, at the start of writers' work-
shop, Elsa created two stories that have different structures but that both signifi-
cantly disrupt the hero-and-victim story line. Her narratives lack physical vio-
lence. The characters handle situations on their own. These features of her
books suggest a life in which gender does not limit or define humans.
The Space Trip is written in first person by a character named Kera. Her
partner, Michael, is male, but they are referred to as "we" throughout the book.
Elsa introduces Kera first, then Michael. The book begins, "My name is Kera.
Michael and I are going on a space trip. We are going to visit every planet. We are
scientist. This was going to be our biggest trip." A quest to learn drives the story.
There is no evil character, no strength required, no female desiring a male. After
their initial introduction, the two characters are never differentiated again. Tasks
are not gender defined.
The story describes their visit to each planet. For example, "Mars had red
dirt. Some scientist say that there used to be water on Mars, but we didn't see any.
We lifted off." In this illustration as in many of the others, there is a picture of the
planet with someone in a space suit. It is not clear which of the characters is ex-
ploring the planet. On the final page, Elsa writes, "It was so fun that I decided to
write a story about my trip." She drew a picture of two people. Both are wearing
jeans and long sleeve shirts. The only difference is that one has very short hair
and the other one has a pony tale and is missing hands. Except for the missing
hands, this adventure is different from the stories previously described.
Elsa's other book, The Happy Witch, has an all-female cast. It documents
the feelings of a witch as she adjusts to the idea of moving. The first line reads,
"She was happy all the time. She liked sun and flowers." On the next page, her
mood changes, "She had to go. She was sad. The other witches were happy." But
then time seems to heal her pain, as the tale wraps up in the next three pages,
"She was sleeping. In the morning she played. She went back home." The final
picture shows three witches hugging. Their bodies are all drawn similarly except
for different heights.
This book focuses on a girl's feelings and her adjustment to having "to go."
Although, she feels rejected by a group of witches, she "sleeps" and feels better. At
the end, she is with another group of witches smiling. Miss Chang only edited these
stories for spelling, and so did not push Elsa to add more details. But again, there
is great contrast to the other stories. Although Elsa's witch does feel rejected, her
friends are the focus rather than a male. Also, time solves her problem unlike the
male heroes of the other tales.
Both of these books disrupt the view of women as victims, men as heroes.
Michael is Kera's partner in science and adventure rather than her macho prob-
lem solver. Because the characters are not differentiated in the text or illustrations,

77
jmil MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

the assumption is that they are working together equally. The depiction of gen-
der is radically different from the male superheroes with muscles and the even
more common girl in a dress with a bow in her hair. In fact, Elsa's book is the
only one in which a female is wearing pants!
The Happy Witch is a story in which men are not present nor are they the
focus of desire. The Happy Witch survives the trauma of having "to go" without
male intervention. Elsa's story depicts a woman who is not dependent on a man,
yet desires the love of family and friends. Interestingly, the main character does
not slip into the still common assumption that a strong woman must fit into the
mold of a strong man who is typically without family and loved ones (such as
Superman and Batman). Her two tales reflect a different vision of male-female
relationships as well as a counter-hegemonic image of a strong woman.
As captured in this study, at times children will act against the grain of tra-
ditional stereotypes. We need to examine how we can model and support the
gender challenges of children. We agree with Walkerdine's (1987) emphasis on
the potential of fantasies as a genre to awaken other desires as well as illuminat-
ing new ways to fulfill old desires. Interestingly, fairy tales as fantasy seemed to
encourage rigid gender positioning. But we wondered whether explicit analysis
and critique, as well as the modeling of other genres such as science fiction,
could have disrupted this pattern.

Conclusion
This study moves our understanding of how children construct gendered identi-
ties in their published writing (cf. Davies, 1993; Orellana, in press) and the relation-
ship these have to power. Although there has been research documenting how
comics (Walkerdine, 1987), commercials (Seiter, 1995), romance novels (Chris-
tian-Smith, 1993), and the overall culture (Orenstein, 1994; Pipher, 1994) repeat-
edly position women as victims, studies have not thoroughly examined the way
women appear in young children's writing. In this classroom, across age,
ethnicity, and gender, young writers created books in which females were vic-
tims and males were heroes. Yet, as Dyson (1995) found in her study of elemen-
tary school children's writing, there were some children who "appropriated, in-
verted, and reconstructed symbolic material" (p. 322) as Rachel did in The Lonely
Princess. Both of Rachel's stories and Marisol's The Zoo could be read as a
reflection of how images of violence and sexuality are interwoven in today's
mass media and the toll it takes on women (Orenstein 1994; Pipher, 1994). In
contrast, Elsa's books capture the way students can create nontraditional tales in
which the genders are not rigidly categorized by their actions and girls are not
desiring a male. Although we observed some boys acting against hegemonic as-
sumptions, boys wrote dramatic tales of strength and violence with no obvious
signs of resistance to gender borders.

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Power and Gender

As teachers and researchers, this study speaks to the need to be aware of how our
children take up positions as gendered beings and also ways in which they break
out of those traditional frames. Without conscious attention, the children's ex-
ploration of the role of gender in their lives can go unnoticed and society's as-
sumptions about how life is defined by gender can become seen as the truth. In
her discussion of power in classrooms, Gore (1993) pointed out, "Pedagogy has
emphasized self-disciplining whereby students keep themselves and others in
check" (p. 60). We were in awe of the power of gendered messages to shape the
children's narratives.
The mainstream media, such as Disney books and movies, might be espe-
cially powerful for first-generation and/or poor children who share few similari-
ties to the traditional heroes. Interestingly, Elsa, the child most willing to disrupt
gender expectations, was blond, blue-eyed, and lived a middle-class life. Maybe
she saw enough of herself and her life in the media that she felt comfortable
choosing to be different in some ways.
It is amazing that most of the children, girls as well as boys, positioned the
heroes as male and victims as female. Too often boys and men are considered the
oppressors with little attention to the ways in which females participate in the
continuations of rigid gendered identities. As tempting as it is for us to only fo-
cus on equality of opportunities, we agree with Walkerdine (1987) that "it is no
good resorting to a rationalist account which simply consists in changing images
and attitudes." New forms must "map onto the crucial issues around desire." (p.
182). As Davies (1993) has documented, we have to know more about "how we
come to want what we want" (Walkerdine, 1987) in order to deconstruct the way
we see ourselves and others.
Thus, as Walkerdine (1987) and others (i.e., Davies, 1994; Orellana, in
press; Solsken, 1993; Thorne, 1993) have been emphasizing, we must move be-
yond our divided gendered worlds if we are going to offer new possibilities for
ways of being. Examining situated rules that bind genderedness into tight com-
partments is one way to gain insight into how to disrupt and rewrite concepts of
gender. For example, the prevalence of gender messages in Disney productions
might have had a strong impact on the classroom's tacit gender rules and the sto-
ries they wrote. With Aladdin and The Little Mermaid on home vidéocassettes,
and the omnipresence of The Lion King, children often talked about and acted
out love stories defined by strong men and powerless (in The Little Mermaid, lit-
erally silenced) women. Yet the complexity of learning, refuses to be simplified
even by such a conglomerate as Disney. Although Disney images appeared on
shoes, lunch boxes, and in class songs and books, almost every child in the class-
room had a mother who worked and numerous examples of the how humans
behave regardless of their gender. Many forces influence community assump-
tions. A simple cause-and-effect equation does not apply.
The complexity of the interaction between the classroom, media, and the

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children's topics relates to our assumptions about position and power discussed
earlier. Power is context specific and fluid over time (Foucault, 1978). There is no set
amount to measure. Certain acts are powerful only in specific situations; there
are no easy rules about power. We believe that exploration of power relations is
integral to the creation of stories. The children, albeit unconsciously, developed
their own power dynamics in each tale as do adult writers. Composing allows for
the trying on of multiple positions and the playing out of possible consequences
(Davies, 1993,1994). Characters' physical features suggested various positions
and some of their actions showed an exercise of power. Regardless of whether
the character was the "hero" or "victim," multiple interpretations of power are
still arguable. One could ask if the criminal in Juan's story exercised power by
acting so badly that Super Dragon had to come and "burn him." Or many might
make the case that even though the Mad Man in Mario's book ends in jail, his act
of murder was powerful. Writing allowed these children to create worlds, ex-
plore multiple positions, and play with multiple definitions of power.

Ethnicity and Social Class?

These stories seemed to primarily relate power to gendered acts, and we were
aware of few references to ethnicity and social class. In terms of ethnicity it is
hard to know if there were markers that we overlooked or if the characters were
mostly White. Although we envisioned examining when and how gender inter-
acted with ethnicity and social class, we did not have the data necessary. We real-
ized that because the students talked about gender markings, such as bows in
hair, it was easier for us to notice them. Also, there are multiple ways in which
society divides us by gender. Simply the name of a character or a pronoun an-
nounced male or female. Yet, as in society, differences across ethnicity and social
class were discussed less frequently. Miss Chang encouraged talk about the many
languages children spoke and various tastes in food, but the characters in these
books did not reflect those cultural markers.
In terms of ethnicity, we noted skin color, and as mentioned, Mario col-
ored in his characters to make them a light brown and Marisol used the pale pink
to color in her people in The Zoo. Miss Chang addressed the issue of varying skin
color and facial features by discussing individual differences and supplying vari-
ous colors of paper and crayons (both were specially created for ethnic varia-
tion) during their numerous art projects.
Similarly, we noticed few references to different social classes. When char-
acters were "home," they are in a house or castle and material needs are not dis-
cussed. One might conclude the narratives refer to a middle-class norm or at
least the typical media representation. Social class was most evident in Rachel's
The Lonely Princess because of the contrast presented between Amy and the
other princesses. On the cover of the book and then on the page that Amy real-
izes the other princesses are going to the ball, noticeable patches appear on her

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full-length dress. Part of being "plain and ugly" seemed to be attributed to a lack
of money for clothes.
In our continuing research, we are attempting to look more closely at how
social class and ethnicity interact with gendered assumptions. More recent nar-
ratives written by the children include family scenes that are rich sources for de-
tails of daily life that tend to reflect culture and social class. We also plan to lead
some small group discussions comparing and contrasting some of the books
written in class. In our experience with these children, talk that occurs during
activities is often more honest and elaborate than responses to interview questions.

Implications

The more we examine our own ways of taking up gendered positions and the
ways in which we resist, the better we see the contradictions in our own lives. Al-
though too much can be made of explicit awareness, this feels like the first step to
us. We now see our interactions with children from more perspectives and at
times think fast enough to disrupt a few hegemonic practices. The more we do
this as teachers, friends, and lovers, the more space we create for new possibilities.
Although there are many ways to increase our own and children's aware-
ness of gender stereotypes, two seem worth mentioning as a starting point. First,
student-teachers need to be familiarized with feminist theories and those of
critical literacy. Professionals in our schools must have the tools to look through
the assumptions that they grew up with to see how gender, ethnicity, socioeco-
nomic status, and physical attributes serve to frame people's lives. It is too easy
for middle-class Whites to talk about the disadvantages of being a person of
color without recognizing the advantages of being White. Feminisms encourage
us to think about how the world could be different without rigid gender rules.
And similarly critical literacy helps us to see why some actions or conditions are
positioned as normal and others as abnormal or inferior.
Teachers can then use these tools in their classrooms to encourage a criti-
cal reading of our society and its tacit messages about how to live our lives. The
media is a wonderful place to begin. Children can shift out of passive television
watching when asked to look for patterns across programs. We can ask which
ethnicities are present in their cartoons or if some jobs seem more closely tied to
a certain ethnicity, gender, or social class. We can compare parents on sitcoms to
our own parents and ask what events are integral to our family life that we never
see on television. As Freiré and Mecedo (1987) has encouraged us to do, we can
teach children how to "read" the world. Although simply being aware of biases
and assumptions will not necessarily change our desires, the ability to critique
media messages does acknowledge the possibility of other ways to live.
This study taught us the power of social constructions of gender. We now
know our reactions to tales of princesses who commit suicide might have long-
term consequences. In many other settings and more persistently with age, peers

81
tmi\ MACGILLIVRAY & MARTINEZ

will reprimand children with laughter or even exile those who disrupt gender
norms. We as teachers and researchers need to stop ignoring and avoiding
children's attempts to resist and even transform the shackles of gender stereo-
types. We can help support children take up various positions that allow them to
move beyond the dichotomies of crew cuts and ribbons, heroes and victims,
mind and body, strength and weakness.

Author Note
This study was partially funded by The University of Southern California's James H.
Zumberge Faculty Research and Innovation Fund and the Southern California Study
Center. We would like to thank the classroom teacher, known here as Miss Chang, and her
students for sharing their lives with us. Also, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana was particularly
helpful in responding to various drafts of this article as were the JLR reviewers.

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Manuscript received: July 12, 1996
First revision requested: September 30, 1996
Final revision received: April 29, 1997
Accepted for publication: May 15, 1997

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