Lee Galda

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. I served as the editor for the Children’s Books column in The Reading Teacher for four years, and as a contributing editor to the Riverbank Review.

I bring my knowledge of adolescent and children’s literature and my understanding of children into my own classroom, so my research informs my teaching at the University, for which I received the Robert H. Beck Alumni Teaching Award in 2002, the CEHD Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007, and the International Reading Association Arbuthnot Award in 2011. Before coming to the University of Minnesota, I taught at the University of Georgia where I received three college-wide 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 served as a member of the 2003 Newbery Committee for the Association for Library Services to Children, American Library Association (ALA). I also very much enjoy writing with my current and former graduate students and do so frequently. I am an active member of the International Reading Association and the United States Board on Books for Young People, serving on various committees including the IRA Book Award committee, which I co-chaired for two years.

Courses taught

• CI 3401—Diversity in Children's Literature
• CI 5401—Literature for the Elementary School
• CI 5402—Introduction to Special Collections
• CI 5404—Culturally Diverse Books for Children and Adolescents
• 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