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Dr Sandra Williams

Senior Lecturer

contact:
Education
Falmer
Brighton
BN1 9PH

Telephone: +44 (0)1273 643402

Email: sjw7@brighton.ac.uk

Teaching

  • BA (QTS) Primary/Secondary: English specialism: children's literature, literacy, language development
  • Ph.D., Ed.D., M.A. thesis/dissertation supervision

Research

  • Emergent children's literature
  • Cultural indicators embedded in children's literature texts
  • The Implied Reader
  • Literacy and children's literature

Biography

I taught English and Drama for 10 years in West London after which I specialised in EAL and became an advisory teacher. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, I took up a post with the British Council to help develop teacher training in Eastern Europe. I was placed in the Pedagogical Faculty of the Masaryk University, Brno in the Czech Republic and lectured there for 3 years. During this time I developed a children's literature course and became interested in Czech children's books. Subsequently I obtained a bursary at University College Worcester to undertake a doctoral thesis which investigated cultural indicators of Englishness embedded in children's literature texts. I returned to teacher education as Senior Lecturer in Primary English at the University of Gloucestershire and after 3 years moved to join the English team in the National Institute of Education in Singapore. During this time I became interested in emergent children's literature and put together the first bibliography of Singapore children's books in conjunction with the National Book Development Council in Singapore. On return to the UK, I took up my present post at the University of Brighton. Currently I am researching emergent children's literature in Mauritius in conjunction with colleagues from the Mauritius Institute of Education and the British Council, Mauritius

Selected recent Publications

  • Williams, S.(2013) The Triumphant Return of the Dodo: Emergent Children’s Literature in Mauritius in Bookbird, IBBY
  • Williams, S.(2011) Rupturing the Past: disturbing family relationships in Hugh Scott’s ‘Why Weeps the Brogan?’ in Conflicts and Controversies Eds  Harding J., Pinsent, P. Cambridge Scholars
  • Williams, S.2008) That Wasn’t There a Couple of Minutes Ago - Australian Rain Forest meets the South Downs, in What do You See? International Perspectives on Children’s Book Illustration, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Williams, S. (2008) It’s All Coming Together: An encounter between Implied Reader and Actual Reader in the Australian Rain Forest in Literacy UKLA Vol 42, No.3
  • Williams, S. (2007) Death, Angels and Football – Blake’s Visions and Almond’s England in South Bohemian Anglo-American Studies No. 1. Eds Vrankova, K and Koy C. Ceske Budejovice
  • Williams, S. (2006) The Struggle to Develop a Distinct Children’s Literature in Singapore, New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, UK
  • Williams, S. (2006) Fireflies Light the Way for Czech Children’s literature, Slovo, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, USA
  • Williams, S. (2006) Entry on Czech author Jan Karafiat in Oxford Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature
  • Williams, S. (2004) An Annotated Bibliography of Singapore Children's Books, National Book Development Council: Singapore.
  • Williams, S. (2003) Constructing a National Identity through the “Adventures of a Nepali Frog”, Bookbird Vol 41, No.3. pub IBBY.
  • Williams, S. (2001) A Bridge Too Far? How Biff, Chip, Kipper and Floppy Fail the Apprentice Reader, NATE Vol.35, No.2.
  • Williams, S. (2001) The Creation of a National Identity in Broucci, Bookbird Vol.39 No.1, pub IBBY.

Conference Papers

  • 2010 - Rupturing the Past: disturbing family relationships in Hugh Scott’s ‘Why Weeps the Brogan?’ IBBY Conference: Conflicts and Controversies
  • 2009 - The Triumphant Return of the Dodo : Emergent Children’s Literature in Mauritius, at IRSCL Conference ‘Cultural Diversity in Children’s Literature, Frankfurt, August 8-12
  • 2009 - The Place of Implied Reader Theory in Teachers’ Subject Knowledge in Making Connections: Building Literate Communities in and Beyond the Classroom, UKLA. University of Greenwich July 10-12
  • 2008 - Templar Publications: A new Genre for an Electronic Age?’ at ‘Language, Literature and the Media’: Fédération Internationale des Langues et Littératures Moderns
  • 2007 - That Wasn't There a Couple of Minutes Ago: Australian rain forest meets the South Downs at IBBY One Day Conference (International Board of Books for Young People) Roehampton.
  • 2006 - Death, Angels and Football – Blake’s Visions and Almond’s England at Dream Imagination and Reality in Literature, University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic
  • 2005 - Children Against the Odds: an English Construction? At IRSCL: Expectations and Experiences: Children, Childhood and Children’s Literature, Dublin.
  • 2004 - Key note address: Singapore Children’s Literature at Asian Children’s Writers and Illustrators Conference, Singapore
  • 2004 - Writing Singapore: The Construction of Childhood in Post-Colonial Singapore, IBBY, East meets West in Children’s Literature, Roehampton University.
  • 2003 - The Development of a Distinct Children’s Literature in Singapore, IRSCL Telling a World - Shaping a World Kristiansand, Norway