Call for Papers (Edited Collection): Teaching with Fairy Tales

Teaching with Fairy Tales is a collection of essays that discuss the many ways to use fairy tales and folklore in classrooms at all levels. We are soliciting contributions of chapters focusing on classroom uses for fairy tales and/or folklore in any field. While lessons for any level of education are welcome, activities that can be adapted to more than one age group are preferred. 

Essays should be 6,000-8,000 words, MLA format. Priority will be given to submissions that have not been published elsewhere.

This peer-reviewed, edited collection will be published by McFarland (expected publication 2023). 

Fairy tales can be helpful in teaching concepts from the fields of literature, anthropology, history, film, gender studies, psychology, and more. Scholarly work in the field of fairy tale and folklore studies already covers an impressive range of topics. However, the work on using fairy tales in the classroom is overwhelming focused on the preschool and elementary levels. This collection will provide practical methods for taking the pedagogical possibilities of these tales into all kinds of classrooms.

Possible topics may include:

• National traditions and tales from different parts of the world
• Variations in different time periods, locations, and/or media 
• Adaptations
• Feminist versions
• Film/television versions
• The dark side! For example: the original Grimm’s tales
• Iconic figures: witches, princesses, princes, travelers
• Animals
• Magical items 
• How tales were/are used to scare children into behaving
• How tales teach us to contrast and value characteristics such as: beauty/ugliness, rich/poor, strong/clever.
• And many more.

Timeline

15 October 2021:  Due date for a proposal of no more than 1,000 words plus a brief professional bio to the editor: heather.powers@iup.edu

15 December 2021:  Prospective authors are notified of the status of their submission.

15 June 2022: Full versions of selected papers are due to the editor.

15 August 2022: Suggestions and revisions on submissions are sent to authors from the editor.

15 October 2022: Final, revised essay for peer-review due to editor. 

Manuscript-ready essays due to editor around February 2023.