LITR 306: Children's Literature (CRN 36)
M-R 10:15-12:15, FITZ 307
Home -- Policy Statement -- Syllabus -- Assignments -- Presentation Topics -- Angel -- Research Links
Assignments
For this class you have 4 assignments: Angel postings, an article response, 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 9 responses to the readings and presentations to Angel discussion boards. Each Tuesday and Thursday starting 3 June, you will submit a post to the designated discussion board (they’re numbered except for the presentation response board). The subtitle of each board indicates the text(s) that you may focus on in your post. You have several options for your posts: you may respond to something that was discussed in class; 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). For the presentation response post, you should offer comments about at least one group’s presentation. 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 response to the presentation should be specific, and it can follow similar critical lines as your Article Response (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 9 times (and I encourage you to do so), but you will only be graded on 9. Grades for the posts will be available on Angel. 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 Response: For this assignment, you will read a critical journal essay (or an article published in a book) that is at least 5 pages long about children’s literature and write a response to it in which you 1) give a short, 1-paragraph summary of the argument; and 2) discuss the positive and negative aspects of the author’s claims. You may choose any article about children’s literature as long as it is not a pedagogically-focused article. The article can be about a specific book or series in children’s literature or about an aspect of children’s literature (e.g. metafiction, high fantasy, narrative, etc.). Please note that you may not choose a book review as your article. I have also posted several articles on Angel (in the Articles folder under lessons) to choose from. You may also search for a different article if you are not interested in the ones supplied (and there are many more articles available for this topic).
Your response should be 2-3 pages long, in MLA format, and you should include an MLA citation of the article at the beginning of the response. Your goal is to analyze the author’s approach to children’s literature. Questions to keep in mind as you’re reading the article and preparing your response 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?
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 response is due on Wednesday, 16 June, by 5:00.
Group Presentation and Handout: 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 Presentation Files and Responses discussion board before your presentation (post it in 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 1 additional book, chapter or picture, that fits the genre. Each book read must be annotated for the handout (a group of 3 would have 4 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 3 June, though you may have until 7 June 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 chooses 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 Thursday, 24 June.
*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. 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, Thursday, 1 July. You will be synthesizing the materials that we’ve covered in class throughout the semester and should be prepared to write about 8 of the 11 novels we’ve read in class as well as about 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.
Background from Backgrounds Archive