LITR 306: Children's Literature (CRN 106)
MWF 12:00-12:50, SCHU 102
Home -- Policy Statement -- Syllabus -- Assignments -- Presentation Topics -- Blackboard -- Research Links
Assignments
For this class you will be assessed in 5 ways: Blackboard postings, a picturebook essay, a group presentation and paper, participation, and a final exam. All written assignments must be typed, and all need to be in MLA format (8th edition).
Blackboard Posting and Miscellaneous (20%): During the course, you will be required to post 11 original responses to the readings and group presentations to Blackboard discussion boards plus 11 responses to others’ posts. For each original response (see the syllabus for the specific deadlines), you will submit a post to the designated discussion board (labeled by the name of the main book or genre being discussed for the Presentations board). You have a couple of options for your posts: you may respond to a question/comment posted in the instructions for the discussion board, or 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 picturebooks, 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). Do not summarize plot or discuss pedagogical issues. 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 post (due 30 April), you should offer comments about at least one group presentation (not your own). 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.
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.
In addition to writing original posts, each week during which an original post is due, you must also respond to someone else’s post by 5 on the Friday of that week. You may not write both posts on the same day, so make sure that you return to the posts each week to write your response. Your response to the post should engage with the specific topic discussed by the original author. Though you do not have to write as much in your responses as you do in your original posts, you should do more than indicate agreement or disagreement with a point being made. The goal of this assignment is to begin a conversation about the texts.
I will be grading the original and response posts each week as a pair. 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. Grades for the posts will be available on Blackboard, 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. Note that you are required to submit both posts each week to receive full marks. If you only submit one post, you will lose 5 points (not counting any points lost for the content of the post). If one of the posts is late, you will lose half a point; if both are late, you will lose a full point. You may submit late posts up to one week late. After one week, you will receive a 0 for the post.
In addition to the Blackboard posting, I may occasionally assign additional writings or give reading 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.
Picturebook Essay (20%): For this assignment, you will choose a picturebook (see restrictions below) and write a paper in which you argue an interpretation of the book that includes a discussion of both the text and images. Because this is an argumentative essay, your paper must include a clear thesis statement. Your goal in this paper is to show how images and text work together to create the meaning you claim. Here are two sample thesis statements based on the picturebook Where the Wild Thing Are by Maurice Sendak:
The first thesis is more advanced, but both are argumentative theses than can be supported through examples in the book and thus appropriate for this paper. To argue either thesis successfully will require showing through specific textual and visual examples how the book demonstrates these positions.
I recommend that you choose a book from the list below, though you are welcome to choose a different book as long as you clear it with me first. Make sure whatever you choose is fictional. Non-fiction books will not work well for this assignment. You may only use Where the Wild Things Are if you work with a thesis different from the ones above. The following list of picturebooks should all work well:
David Weisner’s works, including The Three Pigs, Tuesday, Flotsam, Sector 7, Free Fall, Mr. Wuffles!, June 29, 1999, and Art & Max
Jon Sciezka’s works, including The True Story of the Three Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The Book That Jack Wrote, and The Frog Prince Continued [note: The Time Warp Trio books are not picturebooks and may not be used]
Ian Falconer’s Olivia books (any in series)
Pat Hutchins’s books, including Rosie’s Walk, Clocks and More Clocks, Good-Night Owl!, The Very Worst Monster, and The Wind Blew
Babette Cole’s books, including Prince Cinders, Princess Smartypants, The Trouble with series (Dad, Mom, etc.) [make sure it’s fiction]
Bruce Whatley’s books, including Wait! No Paint!, Diary of a Wombat, and Clinton Gregory’s Secret
Lauren Child’s books, including, Beware of Storybook Wolves, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book?, the Charlie and Lola series, and The Princess and the Pea [make sure it’s a picturebook and not a chapter book]
Chris Van Allsburg’s books, including Jumanji, Bad Day at Riverbend, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, The Stranger, Zathura, and The Polar Express
David Ezra Stein’s books, including Interrupting Chicken, I’m My Own Dog, and Ice Boy
Jan Brett’s books, including The Mitten, Mermaid, Trouble with Trolls, and The Hat
The paper should be 4-6 pages long and is due by 5 on Friday, 2 March. If you want me to look at a full or partial draft, I am willing to do so, but you must give me 24 hours to read it, and I will not read one after Tuesday, 27 February. You may submit the paper in hard copy or electronically. Electronic submissions must be submitted as e-mail attachments in either Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format, or PDF.
Group Presentation and Handout (25%): For this assignment, you will work with 1 or 2 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 Presentations discussion board before your presentation (post it as a Rich Text Format, a Microsoft Word document, or a PDF). You must also give me a hard copy of the handout in class 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 or other type of 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 one other 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, 2 Feb, though you may have until 16 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. Presentations will begin on Friday, 20 April, if necessary, and continue through the last day of class.
*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. 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.
Participation (15%): Discussions will form a heavy part of this course, and I expect everyone to be an active and engaged participant. You will be graded, starting on 24 Jan, on how often and well you participate in class discussions, both full class and small group. The grading will be calculated on a 5-point scale each day as follows:
I do not assign 1 point for this grade. I will update you on your participation average several times during the semester, and you may send me a query about your average any time.
Final Exam (20%): Your final exam will be an essay response to a prompt that I give on the day of the final. You will be synthesizing the materials that we’ve covered in class throughout the semester and should be prepared to write about 10 of the 13 children’s texts we’ve read in class as well as 1 of the books you read for you presentation, a total of 11 books (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.
Background from Backgrounds Archive