Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories”

1. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What does Coats suggest that students in a children’s literature course learn? • They “learn more about ideology and how the aesthetic practices of literary representation transform culture more than in any other course they take” (405). • They “take apart the very stories that they used, that cultures use, to put themselves together” (405). • They “see how ideas of capitalism and imperialism get weeded to moral narratives…” (405).

2. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What does Coats suggest that students in a children’s literature course learn? • They “trace how piety and domesticity as values for girsl are undercut by tomboy figures” (405). • They “learn to think both developmentally and paralogically, to figure out why texts like The Giving Tree and Love You Forever, which they [may] find ideologically repugnant, nevertheless make them cry” (405).

3. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What does Coats suggest that students in a children’s literature course learn? • They “engage in difficult problems: if texts like Curious George and The Story of Babar do have the racist and colonialist implications that they seem to have, should we continue to hold them up as cultural icons worth keeping?” (406).

4. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What is Coats’ purpose in writing this article? • “I invite you into my classroom as we read three fish stories to demonstrate the methodological pluralism and literacy challenges one might explore through children’s texts” (406).

5. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What approach does Coats use to teach Chris Raschka’sArlene Sardine? • She asks her class to “discuss academic freedom and censorship” by teaching Arlene Sardine, a text that challenges what she terms her students’ “liberalism,” noting that prior to reading the text, her students were “convinced of their ability to tolerate all sorts of ideas and worldviews” (406).

6. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” How do Coats’ students react? • “This book,” they shout, “is not for children!” (406). • “My students agree that, although we may teach children about the processes of fishing and packing fish, we may not do so by introducing one of the fish in question by name” (406).

7. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • How does Coats encourage her students to think further about the topic? • “I then ask them if they would censor this book” (406). • In order to think about ways around censoring the book outright, the students come up with populations who might like the book: • Vegetarians – presumably to encourage their children not to eat canned fish • Farmers and fishermen – “whose children need to their parents’ work” in a positive light

8. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • How does Coats encourage her students to think further about the topic? • One student notes that if we view Arlene’s death as metaphoric (i.e., not real but symbolic, as in a parable), then she is a hero (407). • Coats also encourages students to think about how knowing the fish’s name – making it a subject – might impact their reading (407).

9. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • How does Coats encourage her students to think further about the topic? • Coats notes that “Arlene, rather than resist being essentialized and suffering the normative fate for brislings, embraces and celebrates” that fate (407). • Note: “essentialized” means being reduced to the supposed conditions of one’s being. For instance, we essentialize men when we make the assumption that all men will want to play sports because “that’s what guys do.” However, here, Coats suggests that Arlene embraces her fate to become a canned fish because “that’s what brislings do.”

10. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • How do Coats’ students benefit from this sort of analysis? • “My students begin to see that one way to fight censorship is to improve our literacy, to expand our reading skills and practices” (407). • “If we only read the words on the page, this truly is a cruel story. But if we read it ironically, we can see it as a fable speaking out against the eating of animals” (407). • Coats goes on to suggest other readings and their benefits.

11. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • For Rainbow Fish, Coats picked a text that she thought students would have enjoyed as children, but might see differently as adults. This is the opposite of what she attempted with Arlene Sardine.

12. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What is the initial reaction that students have to the text? • They “contend that The Rainbow Fish is a beautiful book about sharing” (408). • However, Coats asks them to look again, arguing that “there is no textual evidence that the rainbow fish is selfish; when asked to pull a scale off its body and give it to another fish, it simply refuses. The rebuffed fish then spreads the vicious rumor that the rainbow fish is vain and selfish” (408).

13. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • Coats suggests that the actual message of the text is that conformity is to be prized above every other desire: “not until full conformity is achieved can there be anything like community” (406). • At this point, Coats discusses a phenomenon with which I am very familiar: “My students are initially saddened by the ‘loss’ of this text” (408).

14. Dr. Tarbox Enters the Dialogue • One of the most important things to understand about literary criticism is that it is a DIALOGUE. Scholars make their assertions based on evidence from the text, but not everyone will agree on what evidence to use or how to interpret that evidence. • For instance, I see two details in The Rainbow Fish that Dr. Coats leaves out of her discussion. The first is the set of adjectives that Pfister uses to describe the Rainbow Fish’s attitude, “proud and silent” (np).

15. Dr. Tarbox Enters the Dialogue • The second detail occurs when the little blue fish asks for one of the Rainbow Fish’s scales. While I agree with Coats that the question might be presumptious, the Rainbow Fish’s response is anything but neutral. He cries out, “Who do you think you are? Get away from me!” • Clearly Pfister intends for readers to see that the Rainbow Fish lacks manners. That said, I agree with Coats that the one of the messages in the text is about conformity – but the other is about manners. It is possible to make the one argument, while conceding that the Rainbow Fish is not exactly polite or thoughtful of others.

16. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • Coats concludes her essay by discussing Lionni’s Swimmy, a text she feels puts forward difference in a positive light, as Swimmy’s ability to work with his fellow fish – and their ability to accept his difference – saves the entire fish colony from destruction.

17. Karen Coats’ “Fish Stories” • What does Coats say are the benefits of viewing children’s literature critically and taking it seriously? • “if we do not pay careful attention to the artifacts of child culture, we risk blithely passing on damaging, static traditions that inhibit social growth” (409). • Artifacts; static – what do those mean?