ENG 100 Children's Literature

Children’s Literature is a wide-ranging introductory course which includes the history of literature for children and a continuing discussion of the ways our culture and history have defined and created what children may or may not be and what they may or may not read, enjoy, or understand. Students will develop criteria for the selection and evaluation of literature for children at different developmental stages. Students will explore current debates in and around children’s literature, scholarship, classroom use, and publishing. This course features multicultural materials and touches on a variety of media, including film, cartoons, television, and print. Though many students who take the course are, or will be, working with children, the course addresses children’s literature from a literary perspective, discussing texts from theoretical as well as a pedagogical framework. A major aim of the class is to introduce students to recent and emerging authors in order to broaden familiarity with current material available to young people.

Credits

4

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Gain familiarity with a variety of texts for young readers across genres and historical periods
2. Learn to identify various genres and sub-genres within Children’s Literature and gain familiarity with some of the criteria used by teachers, publishers, and librarians for evaluating Children’s Literature
3. Critically consider a variety of texts such as cartoons, TV shows, movies, and advertisements aimed at children as part of the larger scope of the study of Children’s Literature
4. Critically consider how social, political, cultural, economic, geographic, and historical factors affect the lived experiences of children, as well as the norms and expectations of childhood in various places and times
5. Identify how social, political, cultural, economic, and historical factors influence the creation, publication, and interpretation of literature for young children
6. Critically read and engage with texts written for children, paying careful attention to issues related to diversity (or lack thereof) within these texts
7. Identify some of the major motifs and archetypes in Children’s Literature
8. Craft and present coherent arguments about both the Children’s Literature texts and the theory covered in this course in written assignments, in-class discussions, and oral presentations
9. Examine the role children’s literature plays in the literacy process