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My research and teaching interests focus on children and
adolescents and their literature. I am fascinated by the way young people read
and respond to the literature available to them, and, beginning with my
dissertation research, have been exploring young people’s responses since 1980.
I have studied how three fifth-grade readers created meaning in what they read,
conducted longitudinal research with middle-school readers in fourth to ninth
grade, observed children learning to read and write in a literature-based
classroom across the course of their first-grade year, and spent a year
documenting what happened in a second-grade book discussion group. I also
volunteer in the public schools, working on literacy tasks with elementary
school children and with their teacher on infusing more literature into the
curriculum. This research with children complements my research on children’s
literature.
This work directly connects to my teaching at the
University, for which I received the Robert H. Beck Alumni Teaching
Award in 2002. I bring my knowledge of adolescent and children’s
literature and my understanding of children into my own classroom.
Before coming to the University of Minnesota, I taught at the
University of Georgia where I received three awards for teaching. I
have served as a trustee for the Research
Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English, am a
fellow in the
National
Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, and am an
active member of several other organizations, including service as a
member of the 2003 Newbery Committee for the Association for Library
Service to Children, American Library Association (ALA). I also very
much enjoy writing with my current and former graduate students and do so frequently.
Selected publications
Galda, L. & Pellegrini, A. D. (in press).
Dramatic play and dramatic activity: Literate language and narrative
understanding. In Handbook of research on teaching literacy
through the communicative and visual arts. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
Galda, L. & Cullinan, B. E. (2006).
Literature and the child (6th ed.). Belmont CA:
Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
Galda, L. & Graves, M. (2006). Reading and
responding in the middle grades: An approach for all classrooms.
Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Galda, L. (2005). Exploring characters through
drama. In What a character! Character study as a gateway to
literacy understanding. Newark, DE: International Reading
Association.
Courses taught
- CI 3401—Children’s Literature: Pre-K Through Grade 5
- CI 5401—Literature for the Elementary School
- CI 5402—Introduction to Special Collections
- CI 5442—Literature for Adolescents
- CI 5410—Special Topics in the Teaching of Literacy
- CI 8400—Special Topics in Children's and Young Adult Literature
Featured research and outreach
Revised October 2006
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