Linda T. Parsons, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Contact Info:

• E-mail: parsons.135@osu.edu
• Office: Morrill Hall (Marion Campus)
• Phone: (740) 725-6297
• Fax:

Mailing Address:

• 1465 Mt Vernon Ave
• Marion, Oh 43302

Biographical Information:

Linda T. Parsons is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University at Marion. After a full career teaching middle grade students in public schools, she now teaches middle childhood literacy and young adult literature courses in the School of Teaching and Learning. She earned a B.S. degree from Miami University in Elementary Education, an M. Ed. from Ashland University in Curriculum and Instruction, and a Ph. D. in Education with an emphasis on children's literature from The Ohio State University.

Her research interests include the content analysis of children's and young adult literature, both single titles and sets of books, to better understand the messages conveyed to young readers. She has also explored and documented children's engagement with and response to literature. The unique challenges involved in reading and responding to multimodal texts are also an area of interest. Her research and teaching pedagogy are situated primarily within the traditions of reader response, feminist, poststructural, and social-constructivist theories. She is an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, and the American Library Association.

Selected Publications

• Parsons, L. T. (2009). Readers researching their reading: Creating a community of inquiry, Language Arts, 86(4), 257-267.
• Parsons, L. T., & Colabucci, L. (2008). To be a writer: Representations of writers in recent children's novels. Reading Teacher, 62(1), 44-52.
• Colabucci, L. & Parsons, L. T. (2006). Getting to know characters who are writers. Booklinks, 15(5), 38-45.
• Parsons, L. T. (2006). Visualizing worlds from words on a page. Language Arts, 83(6), 492-500.
• Parsons, L. T. (2004). Ella evolving: Cinderella stories and the construction of gender-appropriate behavior. Children's Literature in Education, 35(2), 135-154.
• Parsons, L. T. (2003). Zeely: A "foremother" of the feminist children's novel. The New Advocate, 16(2), 149-160.
• Parsons, L. T. (2002). 'Otherways' into the garden: Re-visioning the feminine in The Secret Garden. Children's Literature in Education, 33(4), 247-268.

Courses Taught

• Edu.T&L 656, Adolescent Literature
• Edu. T&L 705, Reading Methods for Early Childhood
• Ed. T&L 739, Assessment and Instructional Decision-Making in Literacy