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Wanda Brooks

Wanda Brooks,
Assistant Professor of
Elementary Education & Reading
Curriculum, Instruction, Technology in Education

Ritter Hall 449
1301 Cecil B. Moore Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19122-6091

phone: 215 204-3344
wbrooks@temple.edu

Education

2001 Ed.D. University of Pennsylvania in Reading, Writing, Literacy
1995 M.A. University of California at Berkeley in Language & Literacy
1991 B.S. Hampton University in Elementary-Middle School Education

Areas of Professional Interest

  • African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature
  • Middle School Readers & Reader Response
  • Literacy Instruction & Culture

Recent Scholarship

Brooks, W. (in press). An author as a counter-storyteller: Applying Critical Race Theory to A Coretta Scott King Award Book. Children’s Literature in Education.

Brooks, W., Brown, S. & Hampton, G. (2008). “There ain’t no accounting for what folks see!” Considering colorism  within a Sharon Flake narrative. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 51(8), 660-669.

Brooks, W. & McNair, J. (2008). (Eds.) Embracing, Evaluating and Examining African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Brown, S. & Brooks, W. (2008). Historical fiction and “cultural evocations” in a community based literary club. In, Brooks, W. & McNair, J. (Eds.), Embracing, Evaluating and Examining African American Children’s and Young Adult Literature. (pp. 97-110). Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

Brooks, W. (2007). The literary voices of urban readers: Multi-factor influences on textual interpretations. In, Solomon, R. & Sekayi, D. (Eds.) Urban Teacher Education and Teaching: Possibilities and Hope in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Brooks, W. (2006). Reading representations of themselves: Urban youth use culture and African American textual features to develop literary understandings. Reading Research Quarterly, 41(4), 372-393.

Brooks, W. (2005). Reading linguistic features:  Middle school students’ responses to the African American literary tradition.  In Hammond, W., Hollins, E., Hoover, M., & McPhail, I. (Eds.), What  we know: Teaching African American learners to read: Perspectives and practices (pp. 253-263). Newark, DE:  International Reading Association.

Brooks, W. & Hampton, G. (2005).  Safe discussions rather than first hand encounters:  Adolescents examine racism through one historical fiction text. Children’s Literature in Education, 36 (1), 83-98.

Brooks, W. (2003). Accentuating, preserving, and unpacking:  Exploring interpretations of family relationships with African-American adolescents. Journal of Children’s Literature, 29, 2, 78-84.

Hampton, G. and Brooks, W. (2003). Octavia Butler and Virginia Hamilton:  Black women writers navigating the margins of otherness in the genre of science fiction. The English Journal, 92, 6, 70-75.

Brooks, W. (2002). Virginia Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear:  A textual analysis of embedded African American literary features. The New Advocate Journal, 15, 4, 283-291.

RECENT PRESENTATIONS

Brooks, W. (2007). Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Encountering Multiple Layers of Story Identification. National Council of Teachers’ of English Conference, New York, NY.

Brooks, W. (2007). Analyzing Sharon Flake’s The Skin I’m In Through the Lens of Black Feminist Thought American Education Research Association Conference. Chicago, Illinois.

Brooks, W. (2006).  Reading The Land by Mildred Taylor: Using Critical Race Theory to Examine Reader and Text-Based Constructions and Ideologies of Race and Racism. National Reading Conference. Los Angeles, California.

Brooks, W. (2006). Reader Response Criticism, Comprehension Pedagogy and Culture: When, Whether and Why They Meet.  International Reading Association Conference, Chicago, Illinois.

Brooks, W. (2005). Beyond Authenticity: Readers and an Author from a Similar Culture Viewing the "Inside" Differently. International Reading Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas.

Brooks, W. (2004). That’s a spirit not a ghost! Unexpected responses to an “authentic” cultural depiction embedded within a well known novel. National Reading Conference, San Antonio, Texas.

Brooks, W. (2004). Middle school students respond to the African American Vernacular English found in texts: Interpreting the language they speak. International Reading Association Conference, Reno, Nevada

Brooks, W. (2004). Texts thick with culture: How family themes, linguistic patterns and ethnic group practices mediate a reader’s understanding. American Education Research Association Conference, San Diego, California