Literature in English in relation to children and childhood.
Depending on the instructor, the course may concentrate on
critical approaches to literature for children or on the
representation of childhood or focalization through child
characters in works marketed primarily to adults.
Athena Title
Literature and Childhood
Prerequisite
ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1103 or ENGL 1050H or ENGL 1060H
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will learn to examine critically the representation of children in works written for children and/or in works written about children for audiences of adults.
Students will practice the application of critical thinking skills to what they read and hear, and to the social issues raised in such texts. They will contextualize and analyze examples from multiple literary genres and will practice analyzing literary form and thinking critically about literature and culture.
Students will learn to apply contemporary critical theories to works written for and/or about children and develop a critical vocabulary relevant to the study of works for and/or about children.
Students will practice engaging in collaborative discussion with their peers, in small groups and/or full-class discussion. They will improve their ability to express their ideas cogently and effectively.
Students will improve their abilities to argue persuasively, use textual evidence, and write vigorous prose that adheres to conventional standards of grammar and usage.
Topical Outline
Children’s literature scholar Jack Zipes once famously wrote that “there is no such thing as children’s literature, or for that matter, children.” With this rather provocative statement, Zipes highlights one of the central problems of children’s literature: unlike other minority literatures, it is created not by members of the minority group, but rather for them by adults, construed by Zipes as their colonizers. Thus, it is argued, children have even less control than the members of other marginalized groups over what literature is available to them or how they are represented within it. This course would seek to interrogate this claim by reading children’s literature or literature depicting childhood accompanied by literary theory relevant to the field.
Likely theoretical lenses to consider would include childhood studies, postcolonial studies (particularly as it has been applied to children as a colonized people), and gender studies, though other theoretical lenses may also prove advantageous depending on the specialty area(s) of the instructor.
Literary readings may be chosen to represent a history of children’s literature (e.g., moving from the first publisher of children’s literature in the eighteenth century, John Newbery, to the present) or to better foreground a particular theme or theoretical lens of the instructor’s interest (e.g., the evolution of the school story, gender in children’s literature, etc.).
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
