NOTE: This is not a class about discerning age appropriate literature or figuring out what children should read, though undoubtedly those questions may enter our conversation. This is a literature class. We will treat children’s literature or rather literature that has come to be regarded as “for children” as literature. We will approach it with the same kinds of analytic tools and inquiry as we would another genre of literature. HOWEVER, I am aware that many students attracted to a course in children’s literature may be considering becoming a teacher, particularly of primary and secondary aged students. I am sure that the contents of this course will enrich these students’ pursuits. I have particularly tried via the types of assignments to offer a range of ways to approach literature that may help students pursing careers in all levels of education, the humanities, social sciences, and even policy. The emphasis on projects and presentation (as well as the option to choose your own book) are in large part to accommodate those who are taking this course as a preparation for a career in secondary education.
Written Work:
With the exception of blog posts, written assignments must be typed, double-spaced, in 12 point Times New Roman font. Unless otherwise specified, I expect to receive BOTH a hard copy and a digital copy of your paper. Blog Posts should conform to the site’s default settings. Effects like “bold” and “underline” should be used only when visually necessary. They do not take the place of you articulating clearly the specifics of your ideas.
Papers:
Due September 27th
Paper #1. [30 %] Analyzing Form: One of the goals for this class is for students to demonstrate an understanding of and ability to analyze literary form. Literary form here means the actual literary devices, stylistic maneuvers, and rhetorical choices that an author employs. Particularly in the case of children’s literature, considering form also means considering the author’s employment of visuals, page layout, and book material. This first assignment is meant to plunge students into analyzing form and close reading practices[ check out necessary for the entire course: Close-Reading-Strategy-Clean ]. For this paper you have two options. You may either:
1) write a 5 page paper, in which you examine a very specific aspect of one of the texts we have read thus far. Ultimately your paper should make some sort of claim about how paying attending to this minor detail affects the way we understand the work as a whole. This means you must both pay attention to a specific detail (e.g. a repeating device, or a small line, or the appearance of a curious object) and situate those details within the big picture. This paper should have a clear, cogent, and arguable thesis. It should have relevant subsidiary claims which are supported by close reading of the literature (its, language, devices, accompanying visuals, layout, etc.)
2) write a modern version of one of the seemingly archaic and didactic readings from early American children’s literature section. While from the outset this assignment may seem easier than the first, please keep in mind that should you choose this option, I expect you to first diagram the various parts of the story you choose to imitate.
Your outline should identify the story’s main narrative movements (i.e. beginning, middle, end) and how the story uses those particular sections (i.e. background?). The outline should also identify the story’s particular literary strategies, its tone, its overall purpose (what is it trying to do?), its central idea or claim, the kind of descriptions it uses, and the kinds of things it leaves out. You should also be able to address the story’s assumptions about the audience and its historical moment. You may do this outline in a visual form (i.e. drawing or digital graphic). You can also do a more traditional linear Roman numeral outline or webbing. The outline is worth 40 percent of the grade.
You will also have to submit a 200-300 word assessment of your literary endeavor in which you will tell me what your central aim was, how you envisioned your narrative adaptations working in the 21st century, and whether or not your impression of this kind of story structure has changed when you view it in a more contemporary style. You should also suggest where you would want the story published (i.e. textbook, magazine, collection, random blog, etc.). The assessment is worth 30 percent of your grade.
I expect the story to be well written and to have the same (if not more so) attention to language as you would use in a traditional college essay. If visuals seem necessary or a particular form, I expect that you will include these. That is to say if visuals were essential to the original text, then your modern adaptation should not just attend to the content, but it should think about the form even as you modernize (do you have a digital video clip instead of sketch or block print?). The actual story and its presentation are worth 30 percent of your grade.
Paper #2. Contextual [i.e. Cultural, Historical, Political] Analysis[ 30%]
One of the objectives for this class is for students to examine and hypothesize about how historical-political contexts shape and are preserved by literature written for children. This second paper is an opportunity for students to explore the explicit and buried histories in a text, practice putting a text in its cultural-historical context, and articulate an argument based on this understanding of children’s literature as a dynamic product of and influence on history.
Assignment: Write a five page paper in which you, based on your research, posit how a minor detail of the text, if placed in historical (political, cultural, formal, etc) context, affects the way we understand the major objectives and bigger picture of the text. In this paper (which you might also use for your presentation option) you should focus on particular element of a text (e.g. an odd word, a historic reference, a material item etc). You should then do outside historical research on how that element might have been received in the time the author wrote the book (or when the book was published). You should look at more than one source so that you are not tunneled in your vision. HOWEVER this paper is NOT A RESEARCH PAPER. The central focus is still about doing a close reading of an aspect of the text, but you are using the history you’ve learned to help you analyze what might be at stake in this minor detail and how it is working (or not working) in the major texts. Note: If the Nodelman essay talked about the knowledge a reader brings to the text as pivotal to their experience of the text and how they will approach the text, you might think of this assignment as a chance to widen your knowledge about some thing or word or concrete aspect of the text. You are expanding your interpretive capacity, and writing a close reading paper that stems from that expanded perspective.
This paper should have a clear, cogent, and arguable thesis. It should have well-articulated subsidiary claims that are bolstered by textual and historical (your research) evidence. HOWEVER especially if you choose this assignment for your presentation, you should keep in mind that the paper should have a sense of your audience. Literally you should be able to read the paper to the class, and we should be able to follow you, so you may consider having stronger transitions and topic sentences. You should definitely make sure you introduce your argument and how you plan to go about illustrating it well. I expect you will have practiced reading the paper out loud ahead of time.
Paper #3. [40%] Literary Criticism – Scholarly Analysis
One of the goals for the course is for students to strengthen their ability to engage with the work of other critics and writers, using and citing such sources effectively. This third paper is an opportunity for students to practice engaging literary scholarship and putting their own ideas about a text in conversation with other scholars.
Assignment: (handout and partial paper sample, listed in posts )
This paper should be 5-7pages (double spaced, 12 point, Times New Roman). It should have a clear, cogent, and arguable claim that engages the arguable claim of one of the published scholarly essays on the syllabus. [If you are dying to use one not on the syllabus, you must get it approved with me ahead of time]. It should have a strong, logical structure complete with well-articulated subsidiary claims that draw upon both your close reading of a specific part of the text and your close reading of the published scholarly essay. Early in your essay you should demonstrate your awareness of 1) what the scholarly article is trying to do and how it does it and 2) your understanding of what the literary text is trying to do and how it does it.
I am particularly interested in your ability to join a scholarly conversation in written form. Joining a scholarly conversation means that you 1) acknowledge another scholar’s argument and how they made it 2) you share (by reading and studying) one of the primary literary text’s the scholar was focusing on and 3)using your own reading of the primary literary text, you engage the scholar’s original argument. It is in many ways just like having a dialogue in person except that because you are engaging someone’s written text the claims made are more complex or more thoroughly supported than sometimes we are able to do in a quicker real time conversation. You should make your own response thoughtful and thorough as well.
There are many ways to engage a scholarly argument. You may confirm all or some part of the argument by offering another point that strengthens or adds depth to the argument. You may highlight a small hole (or maybe even a major fissure) in the argument and the implications of that hole. NOTE this is a 5-7 page paper. You simply do not have time/space to demolish a whole article (itself easily 15-35 pages). Neither do you have time to take on the whole literary text. As with all these papers, you are responsible for identifying a very small and precise part of the argument or the text to bring together. Your smaller argument might however have serious implications for the whole (which if you were going to write a longer paper, you might be able to show completely).
Blog Posts:
There will be three post groups [A, B, C]. Posts groups will be assigned by Friday, September 5th. You are only responsible for posting the week your group is assigned to post. While you are only required to post when your group is assigned, you are required to read every post before class each week. (Note: if there are 30 people in the class, then you would never be responsible for reading more than 10 posts per week -except the one week we have two post groups).
Important Blog posts MUST be posted 24 hours prior to when class starts, which means by Sunday morning at 9:30 am. 24 hours is the least amount of courtesy to me and your peers in terms of allowing us time enough to read the posts. If you anticipate some conflict, you must contact me well in advance (the Wednesday class before) and we will make arrangements. It is disrespectful to other people’s time to give less than 24 hours. The preference is that you will post even before Sunday at 9:30 am. However I will not be sympathetic to postings after the Sunday 9:30 am unless the student has made prior arrangements with me.
While I want these posts to be an opportunity for you to share your thoughts and opinions, bring in outside material, and experiment with different associations, these posts should also be moments in which you practice your close reading abilities. Regardless of how long your post is (somewhere in the range of 150-450 words), a substantial post should 1) clearly identify a very specific (maybe even seemingly minor) aspect of the text (i.e. a weird use of grammar, a particular object mentioned in passing, an odd line, something that seems superfluous, an interesting juxtaposition or pairing, etc). Please include proper page citation. 2) two to four sentences in which you explain what might be at stake in minor detail in light of the major goals of the whole scene, chapter, or narrative. 3) Pose a possible discussion question based on the observations you have just made in order to facilitate further conversation in class.
NOTE: If you are really excited to engage an outside source (maybe a different piece of children’s literature or an article in the paper or even an anecdote you observed on the subway), the blogs are a good place to do this. You should make sure you relay the important parts of your outside source clearly (as we will not all have read it), and you should be sure to articulate precisely how you see it tying into the text we are discussing and your close reading of an aspect of that text.
Choose-A-Book PROJECT:
This final project should be an opportunity for students to integrate the various skills, concepts, and approaches students have been practicing throughout the semester. In this project students should practice analyzing the form and content of a piece of children’s literature (of their choosing though it must be preapproved by professor), placing that analysis in historical context, and in scholarly conversation with the writings of other scholars.
The student should incorporate all three of our major inquiries: it should present a claim (or rather, teach us via making a claim) about a text. It should include analysis of the content of the story and its form, but also an engagement of some aspect of the piece’s historical context, and its critical reception. This means your claim and your presentation should be both situated in some historical context and deeply engaging at least one piece of peer-reviewed scholarly criticism. Any and all claims should be supported by specific textual (also visual) analysis. Note: The best arguments are ones that arise a little organically out of not only your own thoughts but your legitimate exploration of the history and endeavors to understand what the scholar is trying to say in their article. If you formulate a hard-fast argument ahead of time, it will be very hard for you to integrate the history and the criticism well. Indeed you may find it very challenging to even find appropriate articles and primary text. While you can and you should have some idea about what interests you and what you think is going on in the text, you and your project will benefit greatly from your not preempting your argument. Let it really be a result of your research.
You may choose the form you wish to present your project. You may write a paper, which would likely need to be around 10 pages. However you may also decide to make a web page, do a PowerPoint, or a video. Unless you do a paper, you will be required to submit a one paged double spaced page articulating your overall claim and main project objectives and why you chose your medium. You must submit a bibliography, which will have at least three sources (the text you are working on, a piece of relevant literary criticism, and relevant historical source).
Note: if you are a major, thinking about an honors thesis, or maybe going into a graduate program in the humanities or social sciences, you may really consider doing a paper, as it might be a solid start to the writing you might need for your future goals. If you are more interested in teaching secondary or primary school, designing curriculum, you might consider another form other than the paper. The choice is yours.
Your project and your presentation do not have to be the same (you may have decided to present your history paper), but you may wish to present your project. Remember though that if you choose to present your project, you cannot just stumble through describing your project. You will need to teach us, which will mean you will have to have some specific tailoring of your project for your audience. You will need to make sure that your lesson and point-of-view is coming across.
Presentation:
You are required to do a 7-10 minute presentation for this course [I will cut you off at 10 minutes; no exceptions]. The hope is that you will have your choice of whether or not you present either the history paper or the Choose-A-Book project.
If you present, the Choose-A-Book project, you cannot just stumble through describing your project. You will need to teach us, which will mean you need to tailor how you reveal, show, explain [PRESENT] your project in order to teach the class. I will expect that you have practiced and have made sure that your lesson and point-of-view come across clearly.
If you end up presenting your history paper, please keep in mind that you will have to rewrite your paper (at least to some degree). The paper should read as a lecture or a presentation. Imagine you’re putting it up on YouTube, and indeed it is an option for you (particularly if you have stage fright) to do a digital presentation. Please note though that if you choose do a recording of yourself, you will still be required to be present in class during your presentation in case we have questions, which will mean that you will watch yourself along with the rest of us.
Whether you present your Choose-A-Book project or your history paper, please remember that a good presentation will 1) immediately draw us in or establish a relevance to our larger discussions, lives, interests, etc. 2) present early on a clearly articulated argument or central claim 3) provide early on a clear map of how you intend to take us through the presentation. 4) Each point should be readily identifiable, and 5) (going back to 1) make sure we under the significance of the information and/or point-of-view you are relaying.
PLEASE NOTE: While I want you to have a choice there will be some necessary assignments if everyone wants to present one particular assignment. There is not logistically enough time for everyone to do the same kind of presentation. You will see on the syllabus that there are five presentation days. Two of them are around midterms. Preferably history presentations will want to go around the midterm though we can make some allowances for a few end of term history presentations. Choose a Book presentations must be in the end of term presentation slots. If it does not work out naturally that you get the slot or the presentation assignment you want, I am sorry, but we cannot add extra presentation days and we cannot add extra presenters to the days we have allotted. We will go bonkers if we try to fit more than six presentations in a single class. All of this is to say, once you have signed up for a presentation slot, you must honor that date. Rescheduling is near impossible. Presentation assignments will be posted by Wednesday, September 10th. You should alert me to your preference by end-of-business-day on Monday, September 8th.