Sample A: Cover Page of Thesis, Project, or Dissertation Proposal

1. Books should be developmentally appropriate.
2. Books should have well developed plots.
3. Books should be skillfully illustrated.
4. Books should include characters appealing to children.
5. Books should emphasize caring characters who demonstrate prosocial behaviors
(i.e., helping, showing compassion, being considerate, sharing, being fair, doing
their share, fulfilling promises and commitments, telling the truth, showing
respect, offer love and affection).
6. Books should describe caring interactions between characters (i.e., a caregiver
listens to and empathizes with another character).
They also listed several titles that meet these criteria. Through discussions of caring in
picture books, McNamee and Mercurio (2007) believe that teachers can demonstrate and
teach children to care about themselves and others by encouraging them to feel, think,
and interact ―care-fully‖ as they develop their sense of self. Because storybook reading is
a common literacy practice in preschool settings, storybook reading activities can provide
opportune teaching mechanisms for facilitating social-emotional skills.
Based on Pianta et al.‘s (2003) conceptualization, enhancing the social-emotional
quality of the general preschool context, and particularly teacher-child relationships,
could positively influence children‘s social-emotional development. Despite the potential
importance of preschool teachers‘ roles in facilitating young children‘s social-emotional
development, however, little empirical research has examined teachers‘ emotion
socialization and its influences on children‘s social-emotional functioning (Ahn & Stifter,
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