Department of English Literature Trent University

Transcription

1 Department of English Literature Trent University ENGL 2810Y: CHILDREN S LITERATURE (WEB) 2013 SU Distance Education/Online Instructor: Joanne Findon [email protected] Telephone: (705) ext Campus: Peterborough Office Location: Wallis Hall 116 Office Hours: Administrative Assistant: Patricia Heffernan Office Location: Wallis Hall [email protected] Telephone: (705) ext Course Description: This course explores children s literature (British, American and Canadian) from the 18th century to the present, addressing such topics as the transition from oral to literate culture, folk and fairy tales, the 18 th -century popular press, the late 19 th -century cult of the child, the art of illustration, the Golden Age, and cultural contexts. This is not a teaching methods course. It is instead an English literature course with the complicating difference that its subject, children s literature is a problematic category for several reasons. First, children s literature is not defined by period or genre but rather by its audience: children. Moreover, it is the only literary genre which is not produced by members of its own audience: it is instead produced BY adults FOR children a category that is in many ways constructed by the adults who control it. As a result, the history of children s literature is deeply rooted in evolving adult perceptions of what children SHOULD be reading, and of how this material will shape those children into acceptable social beings. Consequently, the history of children s literature is marked by the tensions between the impulse toward imaginative play on the one hand and the dictates of moralism and proper socialization on the other. Complicating matters are the newly literate child s position on the boundary between oral narrative and written literature, and the ways in which the oral/aural and visual elements of the child s pre-literate world intersect with and influence the production of books for that child.

2 While we will not always move chronologically, the course begins with an exploration of the early sources of children s literature in folk and fairy tales, in the 18th-century popular press, and in the late- 19th-century cult of the child which spurred the Golden Age of children s literature in Britain and North America. We will then move on to 20 th - and 21 st -century children s literature, paying particular attention to the role of gender in rites of passage and coming of age stories as well as other worlds and narratives of survival. We will note the ways in which contemporary picture books and novels engage with the tension between didacticism and the imagination, and the strategies they use to deploy, resist, and rewrite conventional assumptions about children and their needs. Course Pre-requisites: 60% in ENGL 1000Y or any two of ENGL 1001H, ENGL 1003H, ENGL 1005H. Learning Outcomes: Students taking this course can expect to be introduced to a representative sample of British, American and Canadian children s literature from the eighteenth century to the present to become familiar with the development of the folk and fairy tale in children s literature to approach the picture book with an awareness of the conversation between text and illustration to become aware of the historical development and nature of the genre of children s literature to be introduced to the culture and concept of the child to develop knowledge and opinions about the position of children s literature in literary studies to be introduced in a preliminary way to relevant theoretical and critical approaches to children s literature to discuss issues of identity, gender, class, age, race, colonialism, survival and disability as prompted by the texts to identify and explore the tension between instruction and delight in the literature to acquire skills and familiarity with close reading techniques and literary analysis to express and share thoughtful and well supported ideas and views about the genre of children s literature and the individual texts Online Course Structure The course is structured around reading the assigned texts and the online modules each week. You will also participate in our online discussions. The general aim of the modules is to provide a context for the works being studied and to present various models of how to read them analytically. While they will provide some historical background for the works, one of their main functions will be to relate the works to each other and to their broader literary and cultural context. The modules will also focus on the works themselves and will be illustrated by analyses of specific passages. The contexts provided by the modules are essential to the course. Students are expected to become familiar with these contexts and to show evidence of familiarity with them in online discussions, in essays and in the midterm and the final examinations.

3 Course Format: Online Lectures (modules) and online discussion. There will be one short essay (1000 words), one major essay (2500 words), a midterm (2 hours, online) and a final exam (3 hours, on campus.) Required Course Material Barrie, James, Peter Pan (Broadview) Brown, Margaret Wise, Good Night Moon (Harper Collins) Burnett, Frances Hodgson, The Secret Garden (Puffin) Carroll, Lewis, Alice s Adventures in Wonderland (Broadview) X Cooper, Susan, King of Shadows (Simon & Shuster) Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte) Brian Doyle, Pure Spring (Groundwood) Joanne Findon, When Night Eats the Moon (Red Deer) Alan Garner, The Owl Service (Collins) Phoebe Gilman, Something from Nothing (Scholastic Canada) Hallett, Martin, and Barbara Karasek, eds. Folk and Fairy Tales (Broadview) X Eileen Kernaghan, The Snow Queen (Thistledown) Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (Houghton Mifflin) Loris Lesynski, Night School (Annick) C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (HarperTrophy) L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (Broadview) Robert Munsch, The Paper Bag Princess (Annick) Kenneth Oppel, Silverwing (Harper Collins) Jon Scieszka, The Frog Prince, Continued (Puffin) X Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (Harper Collins) Uri Shulevitz, Snow (Farrar Straus & Giroux) R.L. Stevenson, Treasure Island (Puffin) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (HarperCollins) Teresa Toten, The Game (Red Deer) Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Broadview) Tim Wynne Jones, The Maestro (Groundwood) Recommended Texts: Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 8 th ed. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, Academic Skills online publications. Course Schedule Unit One: Introduction to Children s Literature Module 1: Historical roots, development, and continuing motivations. Module 2: Fear, Pleasure and Moral Teaching: from Instruction to Delight

4 Unit Two: Folk and Fairy Tales Module 3: The roots of folk and fairy tales: international folk motifs and their influence. Readings from Folk and Fairy Tales (FFT): Little Red Riding Hood (pp ), Hansel and Gretel (pp ), Cinderella (pp ), Vasilisa the Beautiful (pp ), Puss in Boots (pp ), The Frog King or Iron Heinrich (pp ). Criticism: Dundes, Fairy Tales from a Folkloristic Perspective (pp ); Hearne, Disney Revisited, Or, Jiminy Cricket, It s Musty down Here (pp ). Online reading: the Grimms version of Cinderella: Module 4: Fairy Tales, continued: Issues of voice, action, and gender; socio-historical and psychoanalytic approaches Readings from Folk and Fairy Tales (FFT): Seibles, What Bugs Bunny Said to Red Riding Hood (pp ), The Tinder-box (pp ), Andersen, The Ugly Duckling (pp ). Criticism: Bettelheim, The Struggle for Meaning (pp ); Karen Rowe, Feminism and Fairy Tales (pp ) Online Readings: The Little Mermaid Wilde, The Nightingale and the Rose Unit Three: Module 5: Module 6: Unit Four: Module 7: Unit Five: Module 8: Module 9: The Golden Age of Children s Literature Alice s Adventures in Wonderland and the birth of fantasy (and illustration) Peter Pan DUE: Fairy Tale essay The contemporary picture book Readings: Night School, Good Night Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, Something from Nothing, The Paper Bag Princess, The Frog Prince Continued, Snow. Words and pictures together: the rise of the picture book Male heroes and anti-heroes: rites of passage, journey and adventure Treasure Island The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mid-term examination June 13: 2 hours (online) Module 10: Unit Six: Module 11: Pure Spring Female Coming-of-Age stories The Secret Garden

5 Readings from FFT: Carter, The Company of Wolves (pp ), East of the Sun, West of the Moon (pp ); Beauty and the Beast (pp ) The Frog King or Iron Heinrich (pp Criticism: Rowe, Feminism and Fairy Tales (pp ) Module 12: Module 13: Anne of Green Gables The Snow Queen by Eileen Kernaghan. Read Andersen s original story here: Unit Seven: Other Worlds Module 14: Module 15: Module 16: Module 17: Module 18: Module 19: Unit Eight: Module 20: Module 21: Module 22: Module 23: Module 24 Introduction to Fantasy: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Closed Secondary World Fantasy: The Hobbit Closed Secondary World Fantasy: A Wizard of Earthsea Time-travel fantasy: When Night Eats the Moon Historical fiction and fantasy: King of Shadows Interpenetrating worlds: The Owl Service Survival Surviving by your wits: Tricksters Bud, Not Buddy Readings from FFT: The Brave Little Taylor (pp ), Puss in Boots (pp ), The Tinderbox (pp ); The Death of Brer Wolf (218-19). Physical survival: The Maestro Psychological Survival in the Young Adult novel: The Game Species survival and animal stories: Silverwing DUE: Major Essay Course conclusion and discussion of exam strategies.

6 Course Evaluation: Assignment (e.g., test, essay, lab report, etc.) Value Due Date Essay: Analysis of a Fairy Tale Midterm examination (2 hours, online) Major Essay Final Exam Online discussion 10% 25% 20% 30% 15% May 30 (Module 6) June 13 (Module 9) Aug. 1 (Module 23) Aug. 6 or 7 ongoing Brief Description of Assignments: Essays 1. Analysis of a Fairy Tale: 10% approx words In this short essay, an analysis of a fairy tale included in the course syllabus (from Folk and Fairy Tales, and those posted for the course online), you will respond to a primary text. You may refer to two different versions of the fairy tale if more than one version is provided. You may also refer briefly to the material included in Folk and Fairy Tales 4 th edition - for instance, the Introduction (pp ) and the articles at the end of the book (pp ). However, your focus should be an analysis of the fairy tale itself. Your essay will incorporate a close reading of the text and argue for your interpretation of it. 2. Major Essay: 20%. approx words. In this essay you will engage in a comparative analysis of TWO of the novels studied in this course. You must choose one of the topics provided. The questions included are there to start you thinking. Each topic must be narrowed and developed into a focused argument. Your argument must deal with the TWO works together and not divide itself into separate and independent discussions of the two works. As the writer of the essay, you shape and control the thesis and the scope of the argument. Do not make your focus too general. NOTE: each essay must have a Works Consulted page at the end which includes the bibliographical information of the primary source(s) the text(s) you are analyzing in proper MLA format. Academic Integrity Module: All students are required to complete an online module on academic integrity, which can be found on MyLearning System: Academic Integrity at Trent. This module will inform you of the major academic integrity regulations and the consequences for academic dishonesty. It will also provide you with instruction on how to avoid academic dishonesty when completing

7 assignments, tests, group-projects, and papers. At the conclusion of each of the three sections, you will be required to take a multiple choice quiz. You must earn 100% on each quiz, and you may take each quiz as many times as you need to in order to do this. The module will provide you with instructions on how to print-out proof of your quiz scores. Because in this course you submit your assignments online, you do NOT need to print proof of completing the Academic Integrity at Trent Module. Your instructor will be given access to your marks and will be able to determine that you have successfully completed it. Please make sure that you complete the module by the due date for the first essay, the Analysis of a Fairy Tale (May 30). You must achieve a score of 100% before you hand in this assignment. No assignments will be accepted without this proof. You may be in other courses that require completion of this module. If so, you only need to complete this module successfully once. Online discussion: 15% Discussions are a crucial component of the course. The two basic functions of the discussions are to explore the works more closely than is possible in the lectures, and to give students the opportunity to express, test and refine their own interpretations of the works. After reading each module and the text(s) it addresses, you will post a response to one of the discussion questions listed at the end of the module. Your participation is essential to your success in the course. To participate successfully you will have completed the reading for that module and you have read the assigned readings or the novel for that module before entering the discussion. The preparation of short written notes and questions before you enter the discussion is often helpful. Mid-term Examination: 25%. The midterm is based on course readings, lecture material and discussions from the first 8 modules of the course. It will include a substantial section on picture book illustration. Final Examination: 30%. The final exam will cover material drawn from the whole course, with an emphasis on material covered after the midterm. Contacting Your Instructor: I am available by . Please use your Trent account to ensure that you message is not spamfiltered accidentally. Remember that class discussion boards are also available for your general questions. Technology: This is an online course. It is the responsibility of you, the student, to ensure that you have the appropriate technology to access the course. It is your responsibility to ensure you are able to submit assignments online in the appropriate format (usually,.doc,.docx,.odt or.pdf, but see the instructions for each assignment for the accepted formats) It is your responsibility to ensure all of your assignments have been submitted properly. Submission areas permit you to verify your documents once they have been submitted.

8 Material submitted incorrectly, or in an unreadable format, will receive the standard penalty for lateness until submitted correctly. If you are experiencing technological difficulties accessing any of the content in this course, you should contact the Information Technology Service Desk as soon as possible ( phone , or visit the IT Support Desk in the basement of the Bata Library. Participation in Course Discussion Boards: In this course you are required to participate in the class online discussion boards. You should make at least one, and not more than four postings per week. This will allow all students to participate, and will guide you to choose your responses carefully and thoughtfully. Please limit each posting to the size of a single message board window ( < 250 words). When posting a response, reply initially to the instructor's discussion question by using the "Reply" button. Do not start a new discussion thread using "Create New Thread" unless your posting is unrelated to anything else that's already been said. Reply directly to other students' postings. Discussion Netiquette (Etiquette while on the Internet) Discussion Threads: The idea of the discussion list is to have an ongoing chain or "thread" of discussions with the members of your class. The discussion board works best when you respond to one another's comments and ideas. Please check the discussion board regularly for new postings and make thoughtful responses. Lurking: Don't "lurk"-- which means reading messages without posting any comments or replies. Remember that you are expected to participate in the discussions. Capital letters: Typing in all UPPER CASE LETTERS means that you are shouting in your message. Don't post messages all in upper case. Audience: Remember that depending on the type of Discussion Board, your posting may be visible to the entire class. Be sensitive not to offend anyone deliberately, but be sure to express your own opinions as well. Flaming: Intellectual disagreement is expected, but gives your classmates the same respect you would in the classroom. Avoid "flaming" or publicly attacking someone for their point of view. Language: Please use good taste in your language. Also try not to use slang or web abbreviations (e.g. LOL). Since these are classroom discussion boards, they should take on a more formal tone than public forums on the Net. Policy on Midterms, Exams and Assignments: Midterm Tests & Final Exams: Students should not make any commitments (e.g. vacation, job-related activities, or other travel plans) during the midterm or final examination period. Students are required to be available for all examinations during the periods for which they are scheduled (as published in the course syllabus or university time table). Assignment and Assessment Instructions: Assignments and Assessments have specific instructions regarding acceptable online submission formats (e.g..doc,.docx). Failure to follow

9 the instructions outlined in each assignment or assessment will result in a grade of 0 for each incident. Valid Submissions: Always check that your assignment was submitted correctly by returning to the assignment area and re-opening your submission. Assignments in incorrect formats, or assignments that are left un-submitted in the assignments area past the date due, will not be accepted. Deferral of Midterm or Final Examinations and Extensions for Assignments: Extension of due dates for completion of assignments or writing of midterms or final examinations may be granted to students on the basis of illness, accident or other extreme and unanticipated legitimate circumstances beyond the student s control, with supporting documentation. Supporting Documentation: Supporting documentation will be required and must be submitted before deferrals are approved. For illness or accident, supporting documentation will take the form of: o The Trent University Medical Certificate from Health Services o A certificate or letter from the attending physician clearly indicating the start and end dates of the illness and the student s inability to write an examination, complete an assignment, or participate in group activities or, o For other circumstances, students should consult the instructor about acceptable forms of documentation. Independent work: Unless you are specifically directed to work collaboratively with your classmates, all of the work that you hand in for assessment must be your own. Penalties: Assignments are to be submitted by the time and date they are due. Any assignment submitted after this time and date will be considered late and assigned a penalty of 2% per day. Example: one day late would bring a grade of 76% down to 74%. Assignments will not be accepted more than 3 days after the due date, and will automatically receive a grade of 0 at that point. Any assignment that is plagiarized automatically receives a grade of 0. Special Circumstances If there are exceptional circumstances that affect a student s ability to complete allocated course work, these should be brought to the attention of the instructor, with the appropriate supporting documents, as soon as possible. Extensions arranged after an assignment is due will normally not be granted. Each situation with regard to extensions or potential penalties will be judged on a case-by-case basis University Policies Academic Integrity: Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious academic offence and carries penalties varying from a 0 grade on an assignment to expulsion from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with plagiarism and cheating are set out in Trent University s Academic Integrity Policy. You have a responsibility to educate yourself unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse. You are strongly encouraged to visit Trent s Academic Integrity website to learn more:

10 Access to Instruction: It is Trent University's intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a student has a disability or health consideration and feels that he or she may need accommodations to succeed in this course, the student should contact the Disability Services Office (BH Suite 132, , [email protected]) as soon as possible. Complete text can be found under Access to Instruction in the Academic Calendar. Trent in Oshawa contact the Disability Services Office, Kristina Murray [email protected] (Room 111, ext 5024). Copyright notice: The materials presented in the course modules are for the sole purpose of the course and MUST NOT be duplicated.