LITR 306: Children's Literature (CRN 368)
MWF 9:00-9:50, HIRC 6
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For this class you have 4 assignments: Angel postings, an article comparison, a group presentation and paper, and a final exam. All written assignments must be typed, and all need to be in MLA format. Each assignment is worth 25% of your final grade.
Angel Posting and Miscellaneous: During the course, you will be required to post 13 responses to the readings and group presentations to Angel discussion boards. Each Tuesday by noon (except for the first post, which is due on Thursday, 27 Jan), you will submit a post to the designated discussion board (labeled by the name of the main book that week or in the Presentations board). You have several options for your posts: you may respond to a question/comment posted in the instructions for the discussion board; you may respond to a classmate’s comments; you may come up with your own topic of discussion. Some things to consider discussing about all of the books include character analyses, thematic elements, imagery/symbolism, and other aspects of literary analysis that you have learned in this and other classes. For picture books, you can talk about the role of the images in the meaning of the story. You are welcome to compare the book to others we’ve read (or to others with which you are familiar). You are not to summarize plot or discuss pedagogical issues (I have created a separate discussion board, ungraded, for pedagogy discussions). You may also choose to respond to something discussed in class, but if you do so, you need to contribute something new to that discussion, not just rehash what was said in class. For the presentation response posts (due 26 Apr and 12 May), you should offer comments about at least two group presentations. Though you may critique presentations as well as offer positive comments, you should not do so in a rude or dismissive manner—give constructive feedback. Your responses to the presentations should be specific, and they can follow similar critical lines as your Article Comparison (see below).
I’m looking for a solid paragraph or two of concrete, specific analysis, and I encourage you to reference specific passages in the texts in your analyses. Choose only a single aspect of the text to discuss or your post will be too broad. Use standard academic English (i.e. no emoticons or internet/chat abbreviations) in your posts. Posts will be graded on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 = no post; 1-5 = E; 6 = D; 7 = C; 8 = B; 9-10 = A. Flaming posts will earn you an automatic 0 for the post, and a second occurrence of flaming will earn you a 0 for the remainder of this portion of your grade. Note that you may post more than the required 13 times (and I encourage you to do so), but you will only be graded on 13. Grades for the posts will be available on Angel, and I will drop the lowest post grade. The grammar and mechanics policy will not be applied to the posts; however, excessive errors will have an adverse effect on your post’s grade.
In addition to the Angel posting, I may occasionally assign additional writings or give quizzes if I am dissatisfied with the quality of your discussions. These additional works will count as part of this component of your final grade.
Article Comparison: For this assignment, you will read 2 critical journal articles (or articles published in a book) that are at least 5 pages long about a related topic in children’s literature. Then you will write an essay in which you 1) give a short, 1-paragraph per article, summary of the arguments being made; and 2) analyze and compare the arguments made by the authors. You do not have to favor one article over the other, though you may do so. The focus should be on commenting on the articles’ content. You may choose any topic about children’s literature as long as it is not a pedagogically-focused article. The articles can be about a specific book or series in children’s literature (e.g. Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Junie B. Jones), about the same (or similar) genres of children’s literature (e.g. historical, classic, fantasy) or about similar topics of children’s literature (e.g. metafiction, the quest, narrative). Please note that you may not choose a book review as your article, nor may you use your Wyile and Rosenberg book. The Academic Search Complete and MLA International Bibliography are both excellent databases to search. Some journals I recommend looking into are Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Children’s Literature in Education, The Lion and the Unicorn, and The Horn Book, though there are many other journals that will offer excellent articles as well.
Your comparison should be 3-4 pages long, in MLA format, and you must include a Works Cited page listing the articles at the end of the comparison. Your goal is to analyze the authors’ approaches to children’s literature. Questions to keep in mind as you’re reading the articles and preparing your comparison include: What is the author’s thesis (i.e. main argument)? What literary theory (or theories) is the author employing? What books are being analyzed to formulate the argument? Is the textual evidence supplied by the author adequate to prove his/her point? Do you see any holes in the argument? Was there anything in the texts overlooked in the creation of the argument? Is there additional evidence to support the claim that the author overlooked? Be specific in your discussion—reference specific passages from the articles as you make your analyses.
Proofread your work carefully, for the grammar and mechanics policy will be applied to this assignment. You may submit the response in a hard copy or by e-mail attachment (use Word or Rich Text Format). The comparison is due on Friday, 4 Mar, by 5:00.
Group Presentation and Handout: For this assignment, you will work with 2 or 3 others. Though I would prefer you to work in a group, you may request to work by yourself. You will choose a genre of children’s literature and make a 15-20 minute (25 max) presentation about the topic in which you explain, using specific examples from the books and research that you’ve read, what the genre is—elements that it must contain, common but not required elements, elements frequently mistaken as part of the genre. As part of the presentation, you may choose to read a picture book to the class and analyze it to help explain your genre, but you may not use up the whole presentation doing this. You will also create a handout that contains the following information:
This handout must be posted as an attachment to Presentation Files and Responses discussion board before your presentation (post it as a Rich Text Format or as a Microsoft Word document). You must also give me a copy of the handout on the day of your presentation. Optionally, you may make copies for the class as well, though you are not required to do so. Plan to project your handout (or a version of it—you may create a PowerPoint presentation) for the class using the computer station. The handout may be single-spaced.
Each group will have a focal text that everyone in the group must read (it can be either a picture book or a chapter book/novel). In addition, each group member must read 2 additional books, chapter or picture, that fit the genre. Each book read must be annotated for the handout (a group of 3 would have 7 annotations). Your annotations of the children’s literature should include 1) a summary of the book, 2) a brief explanation of how it fits the genre, 3) the reading or grade level (usually listed on the book), and 4) a list of awards the book has won, if any. The annotations of the secondary sources should contain a brief summary (no more than 3 sentences) and an explanation of how they connect to the genre you’re defining. If one of the books from class fits your genre, you may use it as one of the books you annotate (I recommend it be the focal text). You may not choose more than one book from the same series for annotating, though you may list others from the series in the additional books list.
Your goal for the presentation is to clearly and specifically articulate a definition of your chosen genre. You will need to mention specific examples from the books you have read. Your secondary sources should help you to make your definition, though you should not rely on those sources for the full definition. Talk about some of the similarities and differences between books in the genre. What makes them all fit in the genre? Where do they differ from each other? Do the books for younger readers differ significantly from those for older readers in the genre? For those groups working with multicultural/underrepresented genres, think about who is entitled to create books in the genre (i.e. Do authors have to be part of the group?). Your presentation should not be a recitation of all the books that you’ve read; rather, it’s a chance for you to show how the books in your genre belong there, to define the genre. You will also want to consider the dividing lines—what would a text that is close to the genre but not part of it look like?
Sign up for the group presentation is Friday, 28 Jan, though you may have until 4 Feb to choose your genre (see my website for possible topics). There may be no overlap of genre, so have a couple of options in mind when you sign up in case someone else selects your first choice. Also note that students who took my LITR 237: Fantasy course must choose a different topic to present on than the one used in that class. Presentations will begin on Monday, 11 April. As your group is working on this assignment, you must schedule at least one meeting with the class TA, Heather Rutkowski, to discuss your work. This meeting can come anytime between creating your group and presentation your paper, though I recommend you meet with her after you have done some preliminary research and discussion about your genre. Failure to meet with Ms. Rutkowski will lead to a drop in your group’s grade.
*Only one secondary source may be a web site (and it may not be Wikipedia), and only one may be from a children’s literature textbook. The remaining sources must be journal articles and/or critical books about your topic. You may, if applicable, use an essay from the Wyile and Rosenberg text as a source or one or more of your Article Comparison articles. For this secondary research, you may need to interlibrary loan materials, so get started early. I don't want to hear the day before you present that you can't get any materials. If you have questions about finding secondary sources (or any other sources for that matter), see me.
Final Exam: Your final exam will be an essay response to a prompt that I give on the day of the final, Monday, 16 May, 8:00-10:30. You will be synthesizing the materials that we’ve covered in class throughout the semester and should be prepared to write about 12 of the 15 children’s texts we’ve read in class as well as 1 of the books you read for you presentation (you will, of course, be welcome to write about more than those). The exam will be open note and open book. We will discuss the parameters of the final exam more at the end of the semester.
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