English | Children's Literature
L390 | 15888 | Kanwit/Horrocks/Stanton/Wadewitz
L390 15888 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
10:10a-11:00a MW (150 students) 3 cr., A&H.
The field of children’s literature presents a wealth of texts that
are both linguistically satisfying and theoretically rich.
Children’s literature raises profound questions, including those
about life, death, and marriage. Indeed, our focus in this course
is not teaching literature to children, but why children’s
literature is so powerful and why, therefore, we do teach it to
children. We will study three themes in particular: conceptions of
learning and education; children and adventure; and children,
cruelty, and violence. We will examine fairy tales, picture books,
childhood poems, nursery rhymes, film adaptations of children’s
literature, and longer readings by such authors as Lewis Carroll, R.
L. Stevenson, L. Frank Baum, Madeleine L’Engle, J. M. Barrie, Lois
Lowry, and Lemony Snicket. Course requirements are careful reading,
weekly written responses to the texts, reading quizzes, two longer
essays (5-6 pages), two exams, and thoughtful participation in