Two students describe their experience presenting papers at the 2011 Children’s Literature
Association conference (ChLa).
Response 1
Adrienne Petro (presented paper on the depiction of teens as victims of organ-harvesting in
Unwind and Never Let You Go)
As my fourth year as an English major approaches, my family and friends are asking me
more and more often: Do you think you’ll go to grad school after you graduate? I feel like I can
never answer this question honestly because I have never understood what exactly graduate
school is. What do you do there? Why does it matter, if I don’t want to become an English
professor? Aside from some vague aspirations of working in the publishing industry, I am unsure
of what career path I will take after graduation. Being thrown into this ChLA conference as a
participant has been better for me than any on-campus information session or career pamphlet.
The conference gave graduate school a face.
Most of the members of the Children’s Literature Association are graduate students and
professors, and I got to have conversations with many of them at the presentation panels and
even at lunch in the dining hall. Watching these grad students and professors present excerpts of
their theses and dissertations—terms that always filled me with a certain measure of fear—I
could see the passion and love that these people have for what they do. They have taken the
initiative to study Children’s Literature in graduate school and beyond because they really care
about what children read and how they are taught. And I should say that not everyone was a
professor: I saw one presentation by a budding author for young adult readers, another by a high
school teacher trying to get her students more involved in social justice, and another by a young
woman who had worked in the children’s publishing industry for five years and is now shifting
into academia. The Association seemed very open about accepting members of various academic
backgrounds, including undergrads like me.
Presenting at the conference was a much-needed exercise in editing and public speaking
for me. As a writing tutor at IC, I wasn’t fazed much by having to cut my paper down from
twelve pages to ten to fit the twenty-minute presentation limit. But I dreaded the idea of giving a
Power Point presentation in front of a room of grad students and professors. I felt nervous each
time I practiced. Why should they care about what I have to say? When I arrived at my panel on
the last day of the conference, I think it was seeing the faces of the people who had come to see
my presentation—whether they were strangers or people I’d met at social events or panels earlier
in the week—that made me surprisingly excited to share my discoveries with them. They weren’t
there to judge me or put me down; they just wanted to hear about my paper topic (which was
“Anything But Human: Organ Harvesting of Children in Unwind and Never Let Me Go”).
Giving my presentation felt brilliant. I went from the stuttering wreck I had been when practicing
to an almost charismatic performer.
Presenting at the ChLA conference has given me guidance in several ways. I have
decided that I will definitely do an honors thesis in my last year at Ithaca College. I want to see if
I can be as passionate about literature as the people I met at the conference. I will also give more
thought to going to graduate school and/or becoming a teacher. If nothing else, though, attending
and presenting at the conference felt like a personal victory for me in terms of defeating my
shyness and raising my self-confidence, a battle I’ve been winning ever since studying abroad in
London this past semester.
Response 2
Samantha Flanagan (Presented a paper on the use of teen slang in three contemporary YA
vampire novels)
My ChLA Experience
Coming into the Children’s Literature Association Conference, I was pretty nervous
about presenting my research to a room full of academics and graduate students who had made
children’s literature their life’s passion. I had presented at the National Conference for
Undergraduate Research earlier this spring, but at that conference everyone knew I was an
undergrad and probably expected less from me because it was my first time. At least, that was
what I liked to think and it helped me to remain calm when I presented my paper. However, by
the time ChLA came around I was acutely aware of the professional level that the conference, its
presenters, and its attendees were at whereas I was merely an upcoming senior with only a minor
in English (my major is History). It was nerve-wracking to think I would have to stand up in
front of so many people who could very easily tear my argument to shreds if they wanted to.
Needless to say, I did not bother eating very much the morning of my presentation.
It turned out that my worrying was completely unnecessary—as worrying usually is. The
presenters and attendees at ChLA turned out to be an amazing group of people who were
accepting, encouraging, and supportive of newcomers and fresh ideas to the field of academia
they were dedicated to. While I have always enjoyed learning about children and YA literature,
the enthusiasm for the subject was infectious at the conference to the point where there did not
seem to be enough time in the day to take it all in. Professor Kittredge, Adrienne, and I went to
several panels a day, but it was surprisingly difficult during almost every panel sessions to pick
one panel over the other as often times there were multiple panels that were interesting in the
same hour and fifteen minute session. Going to other peoples’ panels before giving my own
presentation really helped me to relax into the idea of presenting my paper. Almost all of the
questions asked at the end of every panel were not judgmental or overly critical but
complimentary and interesting, making you the presenter feel like you really made an impact
with your research.
I am extremely grateful that I had this opportunity to practice public speaking and that I
was able to gain a better understanding of the different kinds of research I can pursue in the
future. I want to be a teacher, but I am waiting to go back to my home state before getting my
education degree so I have not had a lot of opportunities to practice presenting information in
front of a group of people before the conferences this year. ChLA really helped me to become a
better presenter and made more confident in myself as a public speaker. I was also grateful for
the fact that I got the chance to see how other undergrads took their love of a subject and let it
grow into something that they were visibly passionate about in their graduate level careers. It
was inspiring to see that it is possible to have fun with your field of interest while also combining
hard work and dedication to make a meaningful and interesting contribution to the academic
world. Going to this conference has convinced me that every undergraduate student should make
the time to at least attend a professional level conference simply so they can have the amazing
experience that Adrienne and I had in discovering the different possibilities that await students
after they leave college.