Presentation about a Scholar:Vanessa Irvin Morris, Ed.D

“Give me a moment and I will give you a memory”. - Mc Elixir

Background and Education

University of Pennsylvania, Doctorate of Education degree in Reading/Writing/Literacy, *Magna Cum Laude Dissertation: Reading in Mirrors: Using Street Literature To Facilitate Practitioner Inquiry With Urban Public Service Librarians Clarion University of Pennsylvania Masters of Science degree in Library Science Rutgers University Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Media, minor in Philosophy

Vanessa Irvin Morris, Ed.D

Assistant Teaching ProfessorCollege of Computing and InformaticsDrexel University

- Reading/Writing: Literary and historical aspects of traditional and contemporary Street Literature

- Literacy: Social literacy interactions and practices between librarians and library patrons

- Technology: Social literacies of virtual experiences across social media platforms

Vanessa Irvin Morris, Ed.D

Vanessa Irvin MorrisBlogger

Urban Fiction

Cultural Competencies

Best Practices in Library Science

Teens and Reading

African American Literature

Social Media

DistanceEducation

African-American Studies

Reader’sAdvisory

Philadelphia

Writer

Educator

Scholar

ContemporaryStreet Literature

Favorite Theorists

Wolfgang IserDennis Sumara

Susan LytleGloria Ladson Billings

Brian StreetBell Hooks

Pierre BourdieuElijah Anderson

1974

Philadelphia Free Public LibraryTeen Librarian

Created innovative programsTeens embraced Street Literature

Critical Race Theory

Late 1990’s

Late 1990’s

Streetliterature.com 2009

The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Street Literatureby

Vanessa Irvin MorrisALA Editions, 2011

Defining Street Literature

Street LiteratureStreet Literature is concerned with the cheap ballad-sheets, pamphlets and other ephemera (temporary documents created for a specific purpose and intended to be thrown away) of the masses.They circulated from the dawn of printing right up to the end of the nineteenth century, a literature of often more influential than books. Leslie Shephard The History of Street Literature, 1973

The Dunlap Broadsides - One of the first published copies of

the Declaration of Independence, printed on the night of July 4, 1776.

Broadsides are large sheets of paper printed on one side.

Historically, broadsides were posters, announcing events or proclamations, or simply advertisements.

Often times pinned up on walls in houses and ale-houses, these broadsides provided the public with news, speeches, formal notices and songs that could be read or sung aloud.

One of the First Published BooksMaggie: A Girl of the Streets 1893 by Stephen Craine

Defining Contemporary Street Literature

Defining Urban Fiction

….stories set in urban settings/cities that feature characters whose experiences span cultural, social, political, geographical, and economic boundaries.

The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Street LiteratureVanessa Irvin Morris

Urban Fiction

Presentation: Street Lit Collection Development, 2013

http://www.slideshare.net/kcboyd1/street-lit-collection-development-2013-18651891

Street LiteratureWhat it is, what challenges it faces and how it can benefit teens.

http://youtu.be/SnqJ3daKgaY?list=PLZBs9Js_I-9CyKnnb71fYgoFaSwjhSqkD

These stories have the right to exist and to be respected as cultural artifacts, whether we educators like it or not.

Vanessa Irvin Morris, 2014

Different Levels of Understanding

Zeta Elliot

An interview with Vanessa Irvin Morris by Zetta Elliot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BDqeWFIiJo

Impact on Academia

The Impact on Higher Education - Literature Courses - English Courses - Library Science Courses

Works Cited in Books and Articles

- Classroom reading practice- Educating urban children

Irvin Morris is Cited In:Books Papers Conferences

Panels Blog Posts Social Media Webinars

Street Lit Book Award Medalhttp://www.streetliterature.com/p/slbam.html

Impact on My Practice

What frustrates me most is that people actually think they have the right to determine what qualifies as literature and what does not, for whole populations of readers. Of course we all have our preferences in what we deem appropriate or interesting to read. However, I don’t agree with the idea that just because I am a librarian or a teacher or an author or whatever, that I can say this literature is bad or this literature is better or this literature is good for others. If that were the case, I would personally dictate that the entire horror genre be banned, because that genre is not my particular preference to read or engage. But you see how silly that sounds, right? I guess I am most frustrated at the silliness of some of the anti-street lit rhetoric that is out there.

Vanessa Irvin Morris, 2011

Stand Up and Speak

Street Lit for Teens

Faculty Book Award. Reading/Writing/Literacy Program. University of Pennsylvania

Dissertation Award. **Merits Distinction** University of Pennsylvania

Book Award. Zora Neale Hurston Award. American Library Association/RUSA

Teaching Award. Most Innovative Instructor. Drexel University

Awards - Vanessa Irvin Morris, Ed.D

Street LiteratureConversations at the Circulation Desk: Teens and Street Literature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDLtJWfu6FY&index=1&list=PLZBs9Js_I-9CyKnnb71fYgoFaSwjhSqkD

Bibliography

Agosto Denise E., Hughes-Hassell Sandra, & Irvin Morris Vanessa. (2010). Street lit : before you can recommend it, you have to understand it . In Urban teens in the library :research and practice (pp. 53–66). Chicago: American Library Association. Retrieved from https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/47279/400_ready.pdf?sequence=2Boyd, K. (2011). Author Spotlight: Vanessa Irvin Morris. Retrieved from MissDomino Blogspot. http://missdomino.blogspot.com/search/label/Author%20SpotlightChiles, N. (2006, January 4). Their Eyes Were Reading Smut . New York Times, p. 1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/opinion/04chiles.html?_r=0Collison Robert. (1973). Story of street literature; forerunner of the popular press. London: Dent.Corley, C. (2006). Triple Crown: A Literary Empire of Hard Knocks. NPR: All Things Considered. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6538468Elliot, Z. (2010a). An Interview With Vanessa Irvin Morris. Retrieved from Zetta Elliot YouTube Channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BDqeWFIiJoElliot, Z. (2010b, January 25). What IS “street lit”? Fledgling. Retrieved from http://zettaelliott.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/what-is-street-lit/Gifford, J. (2013). “Something Like a Harlem Renaissance West”: Black Popular Fiction, Self-Publishing, and the Origins of Street Literature: Interviews with Dr.Roland Jefferson and Odie Hawkins. MELUS, 38(4), 216–240.Gleave, A. (2011). The Female Soldier in Street Literature and Oral Culture in the German-speaking Lands between 1600 and 1950: A Marker of Changing Gender Relationships? Folklore, 122(2), 176–195. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2011.570517Irvin Morris, V. (2011a). The Street Lit Author and the Inner-City Teen Reader. Young Adult Library Services, 10(1), 21–24. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.dom.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=67642897&site=ehost-live&scope=siteIrvin Morris, V. (2011b, February 27). Inner City Teens Do Read. Presented at the Beyond the Book Conference, University of Birmingham, UK. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/vanirvinmorris/inner-city-teens-do-readIrvin Morris, V. (2012). The readers’ advisory guide to street literature. Chicago: American Library Association.

Bibliography

Irvin Morris, V. (2013, May 15). Street Smart: Urban Fiction in Public Libraries. Webinar. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/vanirvinmorris?utm_campaign=profiletracking&utm_medium=sssite&utm_source=ssslideviewLawrence, J. (2014). “I Read even the Scraps of Paper I Find on the Street”: A Thesis on the Contemporary Literatures of the Americas. American Literary History, 26(3), 536–558.Marshall Elizabeth, Jeanine, S., & Simone, G. (2009). Ghetto Fabulous: Reading Black Adolescent Femininity in Contemporary Urban Street Fiction. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(1), 28–36. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.dom.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=1b270818-f5bf-45f8-8f15-91b875d39324%40sessionmgr4005&vid=7&hid=4112Minzeshelmer, B. (2008, November 20). Sister Souljah rejects any labels on her literary output. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-11-19-souljah-midnight_N.htmOfori-Atta, A. (2011, June 2). Sister Souljah: More Than a Street-Lit Author. The Root. Retrieved from http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2011/06/sister_souljah_interview.2.htmlRice, L. A. (2009, June 4). The Rise of Street Literature. Colorlines . News. Retrieved from http://colorlines.com/archives/2009/06/the_rise_of_street_literature.htmlSalman, J. (2012). Grub Street in Amsterdam? Jacobus (I) van Egmont, the Devil’s Corner and the Literary Underground in the Eighteenth Century. Quaerendo, 42(2), 134–157. doi:10.1163/15700690-12341237Shepard Leslie. (1973.). The history of street literature; the story of broadside ballads, chapbooks, proclamations, news-sheets, election bills, tracts, pamphlets, cocks, catchpennies, and other ephemera. Detroit: Singing Tree Press.Taft, J. (2011). “New Grub Street” and the Survival of Realism. English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, 54(3), 362–381. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.dom.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=62252217&site=ehost-live&scope=siteThe Word on the Street. (2004). The Word on the Street. Retrieved from http://digital.nls.uk/broadsides/index.htmlThomas-Bailey, C. (2011, November 3). Is “urban fiction” defined by its subject – or the skin colour of its author? The Guardian, 1. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/03/black-urban-fiction-american?commentpage=2