By Jennifer Kiilerich
Convincing tweens and teens to read books can be an uphill battle. But a collaboration between two Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development students, their professor, and best-selling Disney Books author Jen Calonita is infusing an extra dose of magic into reading for young people.
Students Elizabeth Seeker and Marissa Tessier, along with Peabody professor Melanie Hundley, designed educational materials for Calonita's newest young adult novel, Fairy Godmother, which they presented at the November 2024 National Council of Teachers of English conference. The materials received rave reviews when Calonita used them in school visits across the country, and it wasn't long before Disney Books decided to make the resources available as official supplements to Fairy Godmother.
The project has spanned Seeker and Tessier's senior year in the Peabody Secondary Education and English program, to the beginning of their tenure last fall as master of education students in reading education. Hundley, professor of the practice of teaching and learning and associate chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning, focuses much of her work around the young adult genre. "Young adult literature is great for teaching about reading, writing, speech and literature, all those things, because kids want to read it," she said.
Calonita's novel imagines an origin story for Cinderella's famed fairy godmother in which the godmother is a 16-year-old human girl swept into a magical realm. It is one of three young adult, fairytale-driven books for which Hundley and her students produced learning materials for the NCTE presentation. They also created guides for two Bloomsbury Publishing books, Kalynn Bayron's Sleep Like Death, which is a retelling of Snow White, and Hearts of Fire and Snow, an Aztec folktale reimagined by David Bowles and Guadalupe García McCall.
Hands-on learning for Peabody scholars
The experience of developing-and presenting at a national conference-educational guides that will be used in real-world classrooms is an invaluable opportunity for students in Peabody's teaching and learning programs.
For Seeker and Tessier, the adventure began in 2023, when Hundley was presenting the team's work at the NCTE conference. Publishers from both Disney Books and Bloomsbury asked Hundley if the trio would create similar resources for three young adult novels and present with the authors at the next annual conference. Their answer was a resounding yes.
One year later, Hundley and her students were speaking onstage alongside authors Calonita, Bayron, Bowles and McCall. "It was so neat that it was our first time attending the conference, and we got to share our expertise. It felt like a very special thing that we got to do," said Tessier.
"It felt like a very special thing that we got to do," Elizabeth Tessier said of presenting her work at the conference.
"All of the authors said it was the best presentation they've ever done at a conference, and that's all credit to Marissa and Elizabeth because they made such great materials," added Hundley.
Hundley's hope is that by the time students in her program are seniors, they will be able to create their own targeted lesson plans and activities. As an academic tutor, Tessier has been able to not only design lesson plans but also try them out in real-world settings. "I've used them with fourth and fifth graders, and eighth graders at the oldest," she said. Hundley noted that doing this work has opened doors for her teaching students to interact directly with practitioners and kids.
"Any opportunity to be able to create a resource that's usable in a classroom is good practice," said Seeker. "But I also think that being able to read a full book and look for themes-that was a really great experience for future novel studies, for whatever classrooms we end up in."
The project, said Tessier, "really pushed us to consider all the different aspects of a book. Like how you can use the writing to make connections. So, having to think outside the bubble to create those worksheets for students was a very helpful practice for becoming a teacher next year."
Real-world demand for book studies
"As an author who visits a lot of schools all over the country, one question I'm always asked by educators is about supplemental material for my books," said Calonita, who has been using the materials as she shares Fairy Godmother with young readers. "These discussion questions, essay prompts, and wonderful teaching tools are such a great gift. I've been able to share them with so many schools who are reading Fairy Godmother and want to extend the discussion in ways that aid students."
The tools can be accessed here. The guides for the two Bloomsbury books are also available directly from Hundley, and she makes a point to provide all these resources for free. "What we want is to support teachers in as many ways as possible," she said.
Young adult stories inspire writing
Research suggests that when young readers select books they relate to, and then engage in thoughtful, relevant discussions about them, the benefits are practically endless: increased reading, improved test scores, stronger engagement in school and relationships, heightened empathy and emotional regulation, and more. Young adult stories can be the jumping-off point for these life-improving results.
Hundley also emphasized that although these books are different from more traditional texts, they are not simplistic. "They are really well written, they are thoughtful, and they have powerful language, but students can connect with the adolescent main characters and stories."
For their teaching materials, Seeker and Tessier pulled out especially descriptive passages from Fairy Godmother, with prompts asking learners to describe character traits, write their own fairytales, make real-world connections, and create personalized magic spells, among other tasks.
In one example the team shared at the NCTE conference, they reimagined a passage from the novel that described a blue ball gown in vibrant detail. The blue gown became a Vanderbilt football jersey, and the story transformed to that of the team's recent, historic victory against the University of Alabama: "To call the team's jerseys black, however, was doing them a disservice. The color was more a cross between ebony and sable. Glossier and deeper than a starless summer night, the tone was practically pitch, the exact shade of charcoal, which, the Commodores thought, eyes glinting with determination, stood in stark contrast to the losing Crimson Tide."
Education students at the forefront of developing classroom materials
This project is only the beginning of innovative collaborations between Peabody and major publishing houses and builds on years of work by Hundley and her students. Disney Books and Bloomsbury have once again requested that Hundley and her teaching students create materials for the 2025 NCTE annual convention. If accepted, she hopes to bring five student-scholars.
In a time when educators are wearing more hats than ever, the future teachers and researchers learning at Peabody can bring fresh, meaningful curriculum guides to their classrooms-and to classrooms around the country where teachers are hungry for materials that resonate with learners.
Melanie Hundley teaches in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Peabody College, where Elizabeth Seeker and Marissa Tessier are also completing their master of reading education degrees. Learn more about all of the program's degree options here.
