School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Department of English, Foreign Languages, and Journalism
English 300: Literature for Children
Spring,
2005
Section 01: 11 T, Th in
SS/C 210
Section 02: 12:30 T, Th
in SS/C 210
Dr. Cadden’s Office: 222-F Eder Hall (SS/C)
Office Hours: 9:00 am – 2:00 pm W; and by appointment.
Office Phone: 271-4576
E-mail:
cadden@missouriwestern.edu
Web Page: http://www.missouriwestern.edu/eflj/faculty/cadden.asp (syllabus can be found here.)
Course Description:
English 300 is our opportunity for you to learn about
children’s literature as an art form, which will have implications for those of
you who will end up teaching; but the
point of the course isn’t to teach you how to teach children; the point of the
course is to teach you about children’s fiction. The two
things aren’t at all mutually exclusive, but they also aren’t the same.
The course is an introduction to the genre of literature
for children. There is so much more out there than can be covered in fifteen
weeks. The course can’t be an exhaustive look at the whole field. We’ll focus
on an introduction to the nature of children’s books. Through critical
examinations of folk tales, novels, poems, and picture books, we will attempt
to understand how children's literature distinguishes itself from "adult
literature”--and when it doesn’t.
Education majors should consider this course to be the
content course companion to some of your education methods courses: EED 320 (Language Arts Methods), EED 360
(Assessing and Individualizing Reading), EED 380-385 (Reading Approaches), EED
440 (Curriculum Methods and Materials in Early Childhood Education), and EED
483-4 (Practica in Reading). But ENG 300 isn’t a methods course; this is a
literature course that focuses on children’s literature.
Let’s learn together as much as we can about what makes
children’s literature tick. It is my goal that you’ll leave the course more
thoughtful about what makes children’s literature the interesting and enjoyable
genre that it is--for adults as well as for children.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of ENG 108 or 112. ENG
300 is required in the Elementary Education program. This class does not count as an
English literature elective for English majors.
Required Texts:
Banks,
Lynne Reid. The Indian in the Cupboard.
Paterson,
Katherine. The Great Gilly Hopkins.
Paulsen, Gary. Woodsong.
Russell, David. Literature
for Children: A Short Introduction. 5th ed.
Ryan,
Pam Munoz. Esperanza Rising.
Evaluation:
Participation:
10%
Midterm
Exam (folktales and novels): 20%
Final
Exam (picture books): 20%
Reviews
(1 book, 1 journal, 1 website, 1 picture book, 1 chapter book): 25%
Bibliographic
Essay: 25%
Attendance:
The MWSC Policy Guide states that “each
instructor will determine and make known to the class the requirement for
attendance” (45). If you don’t come to class you will obviously jeopardize your
class participation grade. I will not quantify how much presence equals what
grade. I will be judging your total participation performance, not just your
presence. I can also tell you that the exams draw heavily from class work. Also, since you are responsible for all
announcements in class, you run the risk of missing important information
regarding other assignments; I will not accept absence as an excuse for
ignorance. In short, if you’re not here, you’re going to suffer through other
assignments directly and indirectly.
Be on time, please.
Academic Dishonesty: All cases in which students pass off others’ work as their own
will be referred to the Dean of Student Affairs. Students run the risk of
failing the assignment as well as the course, depending on the magnitude and
nature of the offense. If you are unsure about how you are using sources,
please check with me.
Late and Missing Work: I reserve the right to refuse
any late work.
Revision Policy: All written work may be revised any time up
until the revision due date (please see calendar). I require that all revisions
be accompanied by the original graded paper that contains my comments.
Policy on Students with Disabilities: Any student in this course who has a disability which requires different contexts for either evaluation or expression should contact me in the first few weeks of the course so that those needs can be considered.
Calendar (Subject
to Constant and Inexplicable Change):
Novels are to be
finished by the first day of the week on which discussion begins.
Jan. 18 T: Introduction to course, critical approaches,
and folktale types.
20
H: Introduction continued.
25 T: “Red Riding Hood”—tale types and versions;
Russell Chapter 8
27 H: Fable as children’s literature, children’s
literature as fable.
Feb. 1 T: Ryan; folktale meets historical fiction;
Russell 225-31; Review #1 Due.
3 H: Ryan continued.
8 T: Paterson; contemporary realism; Russell 216-24.
10 H: Paterson continued.
15 T: Censorship; Russell 7-12, 70-72; Review # 2 Due.
17 H: Censorship continued.
22
T: Banks; Russell Ch 5; Bibliog. Essay
book lists due.
24 H: Banks continued.
Mar. 1 T: Paulsen—(auto)biography &
nonfiction; Russell Ch. 12; Review #3 Due.
3 H: Paulsen continued.
8
T: Mode in Literature (handout).
10
H: Exam I
Spring Break
22
T: Popular series: Stine, Christopher, and the American Girls; Review #4 Due.
http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/serieslist.html
http://www.ability.org.uk/childrens_series_books.html
http://www.bookloversden.com/bseries.html
http://www.bookloversden.com/gseries.html
24
H: Poetry: issues of interpretation; Russell Ch. 9.
29 T: Poetry; voice and age.
31 H: No Class: Conference.
April 5 T: Poetry nonsense; Review #5 Due.
7
H: Poetry: collections reviewed.
12 T: Picture Books: format and dimension; Russell
Chapter 7; Bibliographic Essay due for
students who wish to revise.
14 H: Picture Books: dimension
19 T: Picture books: style and medium.
21 H: Picture books: style and medium.
26 T: Picture books: Peter Rabbit; Course Evaluations.
28 H: Picture books: review books; all Review Revisions Due; Bibliographic Essays Due.
Exam
II: The Final Exam will be held in
our regular classroom.
Section 01: Tuesday, May 10, 11:30 AM – 1:20 PM.
Section 02: Thursday, May 5, 11:30 AM – 1:20 PM.
ENG 300: Literature for Children
Review Assignments
Worth: 25%
Length:
Approximately one single-spaced page each.
I would like for you to review a web site, a scholarly journal, a book (handbook, theory, criticism, or collection of essays), a children’s chapter book, and a picture book this term. I want you to write a report for me, yourself, and for your peers about each of those five resources. Please review sources that are specifically children’s book related. Don’t review an education journal that isn’t about children’s books; this includes journals that deal with reading strategies but which don’t address children’s literature itself as the focus of study.
Format for reviewing a journal, book, and website:
(a list of books on
children’s literature available in the MWSC library can be found on my webpage
and in the library section marked PN 1009; a list of links to other children’s
literature websites is also to be found on my webpage. A list of appropriate
journals can be found at this website: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/%7Emjoseph/journals.htm.
These are all safe bets. When you review
a journal, review the entire journal as a whole rather than a single article. I
suggest that you look at a number of issues so that you don’t mistakenly
generalize about the journal based on one issue of the journal)
1. Provide complete citation information for the
video, research source, or web site in question in MLA style.
Book
or Journal
Last Name, First Name. Title of Book: Including Subtitle. Edition. Place of
(indent five spaces after first line) Publication: Publisher, Year.
Website
1. Name of author (if given)
2. Title of page accessed (in quotation marks)
3. Date when the material was posted (if given)
4. Title of the database (underlined) (e.g.. New
York Times Online or ERIC)
5. Publication medium (Online)
6. Name of the computer service (e.g. Netscape
Navigator or Lexis or CompuServe)
7. Date of your access of the material
8. URL (not in MLA handbook, but something useful for
us):
Vandergrift, Kay. "Author Biography and
Autobiography Page." Created
January 31, 1996, Last Updated February 8, 1997. Online. Netscape Navigator.
July 9, 1997. http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/special/kay/authorbios.html
For more specific detail on some of the subtleties of
citation:
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers. 5th ed. New York:
The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.
This text is available in the library and in my
office.
MLA Citation information provided by Diana
Hacker and Bedford/St.Martins Press:
Hacker, Diana. Research and
Documentation Online. Bedford/St. Martins. 20 Dec. 2003. <http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/sample.html>
2. Summarize what the source
offers the viewer/reader as thoroughly as you can in about a third of a page, single-spaced. What is provided? How is
it arranged or organized? Remember,
you are providing yourself (and possibly your classmates) a review that will
enable the reader to visualize the source as well as possible in print. This is
to be useful to someone who has not seen the text.
3. Pick a single interesting
textual, subtextual, or contextual issue connected to the journal and comment
on its significance. Examples: Is the layout surprising or interesting (text)?
Does the journal prove of use to a variety of people (context)? Does the
journal seem to imply or assume a particular position on something (subtext)?
4. Provide a critique of the
site/source. Given the information you've provided in # 2 & 3 above, how
successful is this resource? How well
does it do what it seems to want to do?
Is it something you think you'd return to? Could you improve it somehow?
Would you only use part of it?
Give us a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of this resource so that
when you look back on it later you can remember what you thought of it. Try to
give a thoughtful response to this resource beyond "I liked it" or
"I didn't like it." Start
with those reactions as you review and ask yourself "why?" and move
on to details.
Format for reviewing a picture book and a chapter book:
You may not review a book we
have featured in class, nor may you use a reviewed book in your
bibliographic essay.
1. Provide complete citation information in MLA style
(see above).
2. Summarize the story as
briefly as you can. Remember: you are providing yourself a review that
will enable you to have a complete sense of the story later when you refer to
this. Don’t hold back on the ending; it’s not a TV Guide listing or
something for the back of the book!
Provide roughly one-third of a single-spaced page.
3. Focus on one textual feature that the book employs.
Focus on one thing to do with the use of character, plot, setting, narrative
perspective, language, arrangement of chapters, pictures (be specific about
some aspect of the pictures if you go this route) or anything structural. What
do you notice that is interesting and why is it significant? Don’t choose something that you don’t have a
comment about or that isn’t significant in your opinion.
4. Focus on one subtextual issue in the book. What
idea, message, issue, or concept does the book contain? Don’t feel the need to comment on the
“moral” here; don’t reduce it to fable, in other words (unless it is one). It’s
necessarily the case that the story will have multiple subtexts; don’t,
however, feel the need to touch on them all.
5. Focus on a single context in which this book might prove
useful or interesting (reader); or consider the implications for the context of
the writing (something about the author, the place and era in which it was
written, etc.)
6. Provide a critique of the
site/source. Given the information you've provided in # 3-5 above, how
successful is this book? Is it
something you think you'd return to?
Could you improve it somehow?
Would you only use part of it?
Give us a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of this resource so that
when you look back on it later you can remember what you thought of it. Try to
give a thoughtful response to this resource beyond "I liked it" or
"I didn't like it." Start
with those reactions as you review and ask yourself "why?" and move
on to details.
All reviews should be about one side of one page,
single-spaced. A bit more or less is not a problem, though much less is likely
going to be indicative of incomplete development.
Please proof-read the page before submitting it. I will want it to be as professional looking as it
can be in case we should decide to distribute these to each other. Language is important. I expect that your
work will be carefully read and edited before you give it to me.
A Note on Revision: If you are submitting a revised copy of your
review, please resubmit the original copy that has my written comments (staple
or paper-clip the old to the new).
The act of revision does not guarantee an improved grade.
Editing isn’t the same thing as revision. If you would like feedback beyond
that which I have written on the original, you may visit me to discuss revision
strategies at any time prior to submitting a revision.
English 300: Children’s Literature Dr. Cadden
Bibliographic Essay
Worth: 25%
Length: ~10-15
pages.
The Task
You will choose a particular
author, theme, or genre in children’s literature in order to
investigate it further. You will choose a number of representative works by
that person, relevant to the idea/theme, or in the genre in question. The
number of books will vary according to your project, but seven to ten is the
usual range depending on the availability of books. The goal here is to become
well acquainted with one more small piece of the big picture of children’s
literature beyond our course readings.
Who or What?
Author: One
possibility would be to choose someone who is a good fit for the readers you’ll
encounter in the grades you want to teach; but then I also encourage you to
read whatever author you’re interested in despite his or her curricular
“use.” If I think your choice is either
inappropriate or if I just don’t know the name, I’ll likely talk to you.
An alternative to picking one author is to choose another
context of origin to examine. You might look at books written by people from a
particular place (region, country), ethnicity, tradition, or belief system.
Books by Japanese-American writers (as opposed to simply being about
Japanese-Americans, which might be written by a non-member of that ethnic
group) is one choice.
Theme/idea: You might decide that you want to look at older and/or
recent books about orphans, poverty, AIDS, divorce, death, circuses, animal
characters, environmentalism, Christianity, gay-lesbian issues,
talented/challenged characters, immigration, dance, homelessness, birthdays,
dragons, left-handed podiatrists, etc.
Genre/mode: Adventure stories, folktale sub-genres (creation
myths, Marchen tales, trickster tales, etc.), picture books (though this would
have to be paired with another genre or theme or author/illustrator), comedy,
tragedy, irony/satire, parody, coming-of-age stories, mysteries, travel,
historical fiction, dream stories, poetry (of various sorts), science fiction,
diaries/journal-forms, utopia/dystopia, etc.
Where?
Where to find names or ideas
from which to choose? Other than your
own or your child’s reading histories and the fine lists in our textbook, I
suggest that you pore over the bibliography information that I handed you, the
websites listed on my links page (http://www.missouriwestern.edu/~cadden/), the list of
resources on children’s and young adult literature at our library, the local
library’s children’s section, and local bookstores. I’ll be very glad and
interested in talking about possible choices for you depending on interests you
might have. Start looking at options right away so that you can begin
reading and taking notes. I may have some ideas about books that fit your
interests as well and may be able to steer you toward a more manageable focus
within your chosen area, so please don’t hesitate to employ me as a
bibliographic resource!
How?
I don’t give models.
Why? Well, because I find that people
tend to take the model and push the content into that container whether it fits
or not. Rather, I’ll describe what I want and you try to provide that making
your own organizational decisions to accomplish the task.
Let’s consider a sense of
format that also deals with matters of focus. I won’t give you a page limit
here, but you might consider that in terms of double-spaced pages, you could
devote a page or two to introductory materials (see below), a couple of pages
for each book (summary and analysis), a few pages of conclusions, and a works
cited page. This might mean that you have somewhere between twelve and twenty
pages.
The introductory material:
briefly tell us a bit about the author/theme/genre that you’ve chosen. What
interests you in the subject and what exactly will we be discussing? What have you ruled out in the course of
defining this focus? Then tell us a
bit about the main connection you’ll be covering across the books--the “thread”
that ties them together. If I’ve chosen Gary Paulsen, for instance, I might
focus on the fact that he writes about boys in adventurous outdoor
circumstances. I’ll be sure to compare the books in terms of that focus as I go
through the paper. The introduction might note various other trends or patterns
in the collection of books that are of secondary importance and interest.
The body of the essay is
devoted to discussing each book in turn, focusing on the thread that connects
each to the others, but also explaining
other observations about the book that might not have anything to do with the
other books. Begin your discussion of each book as you do in a book review:
summarize the book for us as briefly
as you can (brevity is tough!) What makes a bibliographic essay distinctive
from other essays is that the writer assumes that the reader isn’t familiar with the books. Be
mindful of proportion—the summary shouldn’t be most of your discussion, and you
should be careful to include commentary on the idea that links the books as
well as on other noteworthy things you’ve discovered. Don’t just note the
presence of the focus (“In this book too Paulsen writes about boys in the
wilderness.” “This is another book in
which Paulsen writes about wilderness-lovin’ boys,” etc.); discuss it and
compare to other books’ use of it. If most of what you have is summary and you
don’t have much commentary, there will be problems.
The conclusion of the essay
is very important, and is not simply a formality in which you sum up what
you’ve said. The conclusion should be where you share, in a few pages of
detail, what you think makes this study interesting, significant, and useful,
and where it might be taken from here. Dwell further on the threads that unite
them. Feel free to point out shortcomings or problems. What, after having
looked at these books in comparison, is your thoughts about trends,
limitations, successes in the area of study?
Draw thoughtful conclusions about all of these books, their
relationships to each other, and the implications they have for young readers.
You should include a
bibliography that cites the primary and any secondary materials used. You
aren’t required to use a certain number of (or any) secondary materials, just
what suits your task. You may have consulted a website, biography, journal
article . . . cite those. Please use MLA
style (available on line--http://www.mla.org or in the MLA Handbook
available in my office or the library). Be
sure to cite any material quoted or paraphrased from another source.
There are several sources
which will give bibliographies of books published by an author including: Something About the Author (Ref. PN
451 .S696), Contemporary Authors (Ready Ref. Z 1224 .C761 .A1), and the Dictionary
of Literary Biography (Ref. PS 221 .D554). There also were several other
biographical sources mentioned on the MWSC bibliography linked to my web page,
but some of them are getting quite old. For additional sources of biographical
information you may want to consult the following index: Biography and Genealogy Master Index
(Available on the computers, and on Index Table 5).
A word of caution. Few
published lists of an author’s work are complete or up-to-date (in the case of
living authors). You need to check the date of publication of the volume which
contains the bibliography you’ve found. Often the bibliography will not include
the author's works published during the previous year or two.
For more recent information
on new books published, you should consult the various periodicals mentioned on
the bibliography and more general periodicals such as Publisher's Weekly.
Many of these periodicals are indexed through the Reader's Guide Abstracts,
Humanities Index, or Masterfile Elite on the library computers. Amazon.com and
the Barnes & Noble sites are good resources as well.
Another source of more
recent information is the Baker & Taylor CD-ROM, available on most of the
computers in the Reference room. It lists books that are being published, as
well as many which have gone out of print. You can search by author, therefore
this would be a good place to look for updating most of the printed
bibliographies. This is not a reviewing source as it gives only citations.
You’ll find lots to comment
on as you read. I suggest that you read each book with a pen and paper handy,
and even plan on returning to books as you read the others (Reread?! Heavens!)
I think that with the pieces of this assignment, the number of books,
and the many links, you’ll be able to generate a lot of interesting material.
Before you submit this
assignment be sure that you have done some careful proof reading and editing.
Good language use isn’t “extra”—it’s inseparable from what you are saying.
I hope that you will share
these final copies with each other when you’re done! Good luck!
Grading Criteria for Writing in Dr. Cadden’s English
Courses:
A: 90-100 pts.
B: 80-89 pts.
C: 70-79 pts.
D: 60-69 pts.
F: 59 pts. and
below
The high end of each range (~7-10) should
be considered “plus”; for example, 88 is in the B+ range.
The
middle of each range (~4-6) should be considered a solid letter grade; for
example, 75 is a solid C.
The low end of each range (~0-3) should
be considered “minus”; for example, 92 is in the A- range.
“A”:
General Qualitative
Description: Excellent, Superior,
Outstanding.
Conception: Your idea should contain some new, perhaps surprising, element, some angle that is uncommonly thoughtful and insightful. You are not rehearsing other people's ideas, and you are going beyond an average reading. You expose and challenge the explicit and implicit assumptions of the text. If you are incorporating research, you will have WORKED your sources--using what supports your argument, and acknowledging and dealing with what challenges it.
Organization: Your organization should be flawless and should
match your content. You should anticipate, address, and work through opposition
to your argument and build a strong case for your own. You should employ
evidence with regularity and in appropriate circumstances. If you are
incorporating research, you will spend some time positioning your argument in
the context of the larger conversation.
Style: Your presentation should be artful. You have
obviously paid attention to the way your language sounds as well as what it
says. You have found a way to make your presentation style match the content of
your paper (other than a groovy font style!), perhaps through a sustained
metaphor, or a particularly apt example that you carry through and refer to in
the entire paper.
Grammar and Mechanics: Your paper should be absolutely clean and free of
grammatical and mechanical errors of a rudimentary nature, though you may have
a few problems with complex functions of grammar. You should never avoid
complex language in order to avoid errors, in other words.
“B”:
General Qualitative
Description: Above average, Good, Commendable.
Conception: Your idea will be better than average, but you may
have overlooked or not
acknowledged or interrogated the assumptions that inform it. The claim/idea is ambitious and, for that reason, may have gotten away from you. You will be rewarded for being ambitious even if you fall a bit short.
Organization: Your organization will be strong, but the signaling
might still be a bit
Awkward; you may find
yourself using a lot of directional phrases because your argument doesn't flow
naturally. (Ex. "As I said earlier..." "Firstly, secondly,
thirdly...") Here too the
organization will match the content rather than being formulaic.
Style: It's clean, readable, there's a consistent sense of
voice, and there aren't any places
where a reader has to go
back and reread a sentence just to understand its structure.
Grammar/Mechanics: Very few (almost no) errors of a rudimentary
nature.
“ C”:
General Qualitative
Description: Competent, Average, Fine.
Conception: Your idea for your paper should reflect
that you have read, thought about, and paid attention to the way we have talked
in class about similar issues. Your main point should be clearly stated and
defended with appropriate evidence. You should remain focused on your topic
throughout your paper, and you should have thoroughly examined the aspects of
your topic from your perspective. Your ideas should be internally consistent.
There won’t be anything terribly surprising, daring, or unusual here.
Organization: Your paper should have a logical, clearly
identifiable organization. Each
paragraph should address
only one aspect of your topic, and when you change aspects, you start a new
paragraph. Transitions between paragraphs should be competently handled. Your
strategy, that is, how you manage the interweaving of your idea and your
organization, should be standard and straightforward. For instance, if you
follow a traditional pattern of an introduction that includes a flagged thesis
statement ("in this paper I will..."), then proceed with evidence and
close with a restatement of the initial problem. That's a standard,
straightforward organization--a C strategy.
Style: Your style should be clear and readable.
Grammar and Mechanics: Your paper should not contain many distracting
errors in grammar or mechanics. Minimally, you should have run a spell-check
program, and you should know the difference between a complete sentence, a
fragment, and a run-on.
“D”:
General Qualitative
Description: Incompetent, Inadequate, Below Average.
Conception: Your idea will be immediately obvious to a casual reader--a no-brainer—yet it will be presented as news. It will likely also be not quite clear what it is that you are really saying. Split focus on more than one thesis or issue is likely.
Organization: Perhaps you split your focus (which
means you start out talking about one thing and shift to another) which means
that you are covering several or many issues in short paragraphs. You jump from
one idea to the next with no logical strategy or transitions. If there is no
plan, or if you don't stick to the plan, this is faulty organization. It may be
evident that there wasn’t ever really a structural strategy at all.
Style: Unclear language, usually. This may also be a
matter of using the wrong words for your ideas. Simply put, the language is in
bad shape.
Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent problems in sentence structure with
little sign of proof-reading.
“F”:
General Qualitative
Description: Unacceptable.
(The most common cause of an
F is a failure to adequately address the assignment. For instance, if I specify
that this assignment is to be researched, or if it is to address a certain
topic in a certain way, you have to at least complete the assignment.)
Conception: No clear idea governs the words on the page.
Organization: No plan is evident, much less achieved.
Style: Incomprehensible most or all of the time.
Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent problems with rudimentary mechanical
matters.
*******************
The
four major areas of concern discussed above (conception, organization, style,
and mechanics) will be considered separately, when that is possible. I may find
that it is difficult or even impossible to assess conception if the style and
mechanics are at the “F” or “D” levels. It may well be the case that your
organization is a real problem while conception, style, and mechanics are all
quite good. The ultimate assessment, then, will be the combined consideration
of all four areas. Any challenges to my assessments need to employ the above
issues in those challenges.
I
cannot assess effort. Note that I do not say that I will not assess effort; nobody can assess effort unless, perhaps,
he or she is there watching you work. I assume that you all work very hard on your writing. I can only assess the final
product.
I
do not give grades based on your perceived needs. If you need a “B” in the
course to keep your GPA up for a scholarship, loans, or admittance into a program,
then be sure you perform at a “B” level.
I do not give grades on the basis of your sense of identity or personal academic history. I assess each piece of work on its own merits. Just because you consider yourself an “A” student does not mean that you will do “A” work each time; just because you consider yourself a “C” student doesn’t mean that you won’t do “A” work. Try to separate your performance from your identity.