English 460.001: CRITICAL STUDY OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Spring 2011
T R 1:30-2:45, East 122

Professor Michals
Office Hours:  TR 12:00-1:00; W 4:30-5:30 and by appointment: Robinson A 428
993-1193
tmichals@gmu.edu
Home page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~tmichals

Children's literature is (usually) about children, but it is not written by children, or even chosen by children in the same way that a book from amazon.com is chosen by you or by me. In this advanced course in the history and the criticism of children's literature, we will examine the peculiar relationship that this kind of writing has to its implied readers.  Thinking historically about the genre will allow us to explore a paradox: we will look at how the child stands for Nature, for the ideal of living free of all social constraints, and we also look at how, at least since the English Puritans, every society that cares about its values and its future has directed at its children its most intense ideological fire. We will test the preconceptions about transparency and simplicity that make the critical study of children's literature especially challenging. We will study examples from the history of children's literature and some ancillary texts to consider the ways in which authors have exploited the various potentials of the genre--for didacticism, fantasy, escape, and agency, for themselves as well as for their young readers.  Our principal focus will be the texts rather than issues surrounding pedagogy.  Selected readings range from Puritans such as James Janeway to contemporary writers such as J.K. Rowling, as well as influential works in educational philosophy, such as those by Locke and Rousseau.  To focus on children’s literature as an evolving tradition very conscious of its past, we will consider several past-and-present pairings of texts (Hughes and Rowling; Kipling and Gaiman; Lewis and Grossman; Barrie and nearly everybody before and after him). This course assumes that you have the prerequisites for advanced work; we will discuss theoretical and critical issues to define our standpoints and to examine a variety of approaches. 

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Hard-Copy:

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963)
Maria Tatar, The Classic Fairy Tales (1812)
Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857)
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass (1871)
Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York (1867-1868)
Robert Lewis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1881)
E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure-Seekers (1899)
Frances Hodgeson Burnett, A Little Princess (1888-1905)
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1902-1911)
C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
Lev Grossman, The Magicians (2009)
Donna Jo Napoli, Zel

This syllabus is available on-line at << http://mason.gmu.edu/~tmichals>>  and contains links to sites relevant to studies in children's literature.   You will be required on occasion to download texts from links in the syllabus; you will need to work on campus or use your personal account when off campus in order to reach some of the links in the syllabus.  A general WWW Guide to children's literature (bibliographies, authors' websites, resources for teachers, and more) can be found at  Children's Literature on the WWW .  See also George Mason's own Center for History and New Media’s own site on children and youth in world history http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/  and Dr. Amelia Rutledge’s selective annotated bibliography of children's books.

COURSE POLICIES:

Attendance and Participation:
You are strongly advised to come to every class, on time, having read the assigned text more than once, having drawn stars, arrows, question marks, exclamation points or any other notation you find useful in the margins by striking or confusing passages, and having written down some questions or insights that you plan to bring up in class discussion.

Blackboard Responses:
You must post on Blackboard twelve responses to the reading by 10:00 the day before we discuss that reading. You must do six of these responses before Spring Break and six of them after Break.  Aside from that requirement, you may do them any day you like – please plan ahead for busy times! These responses will help you to begin to analyze the readings and lecture presentations so that you can more profitably participate when we talk about them in class. In addition, they give you a chance to start thinking in writing about the texts without the constraints of a formal essay and provide a record of your thoughts. Express yourself as clearly as possible in these responses. Do not merely summarize the text! Here are some suggestions for responding to children’s literature:

Generally, ask a question and explain why you think it matters, disagree with something in the text, talk about the quote of the day, relate some element of the text’s form to its content, or take a classmate’s response to the reading one step farther.

• Pay attention to ways in which childhood is socially constructed: what image of the "child" is conveyed by the text?  Pay attention to the text as well as to its date of publication.  Your text may be forward-looking or retrograde. 
• Although texts do not simply reflect the period in which they are written, they do indicate what the implied audience is assumed to find acceptable.  What indicators does your text provide?  Consider depictions of occupations, family life, gender issues, or the degree of agency permitted the protagonist(s). 
• If there is a third-person or implied-authorial narrator, how evident is that narrator's control?  Are there overt intrusions?  If there is a first-person narrator, are there passages that betray implied-authorial control?
• If you have any grounding in visual arts, please use it!

Responses must be approximately 250 words. I will not accept late responses, although I encourage you to compare later readings and lectures to earlier ones – synthesize as you go! Then the midterm and final will make sense.  I also encourage you to use your responses as starting points for your formal essays. If you want to explore a response further in an essay, please let me know.

I like talking to students about work-in-progress, so please come to my office hours or make an appointment to discuss your writing.  Since this class emphasizes the development of your own close reading skills, you are not encouraged to consult secondary sources; that is, your essays are not intended to be research papers. If you're having trouble getting started with an assignment, I advise you to get help from the Writing Center or from me in my office hours rather than flipping through a random and quite possibly overwhelming selection of critics. If you do chose to look at some criticism, you must cite all the articles or books your own final reading quotes or draws on, however indirectly, using a standard citation format, including a bibliography. You are strongly encouraged to go to the Writing Center (Robinson A116) for help at any stage of the writing process: call 993-1200 to make an appointment in advance.

PLEASE NOTE: Essays should be given to me at the beginning of class on the day they are due (not slid under my office door where they will be trampled on, or left in a departmental mailbox that may or may not have my name on it, or stuffed into an e-mail attachment that will overload my account).  Essays that are left in my departmental mailbox will be considered late at best, and may never reach me at all. Your work must be typed, double-spaced, proofread, use MLA format for citations and a reasonable font, and have one-inch margins. Always keep a copy of the work you hand in. Unless you have discussed a problem with me before the due date and I have approved a late submission, I will deduct one grade increment for each class period that the assignment is late: for example, and A- essay would become a B+ if it is late one class.  After two classes, it becomes a B.

Plagiarism: It Can Happen Without Evil Intent:
Taking words, phrases, ideas, or any other elements from another person's work and using them as if they were yours is plagiarism. Be sure to fully document any source you use, including introductions to editions of the text or study aids such as Cliffs Notes, following a standard citation format. We will discuss plagiarism in class. If you are ever unsure about this issue please discuss the work in question with me immediately, before you hand it in, because if someone else's words or ideas end up in your writing without being cited you have committed plagiarism, whether or not you intended to deceive.

Exams:
There will be a mid-terme ma exam and a final examination. There will also be many unannounced quizzes, which cannot bde up.  

Grades:
Here are the percentages for your final grade; please note that the quality of participation in class will affect borderline final grades.

• 3 two-page essays (5% each): 15% 
• 1 six-page essay: 15 % 
• 12 Blackboard postings. Half of your postings must be completed before Spring Break, all must be completed by our last class, and all must be at least 250 words: 15%
• Quizzes: 20%
• Midterm exam: 15%
• Final exam: 20%  
  

Here is the grading scale I use:

A Note on Grading Standards for Essays:
An "F" paper does not satisfy the purposes of the assignment. A "D" paper makes a visible effort to satisfy the purposes of the assignment, but still reads like a draft because of difficulty with writing clear sentences, developing and organizing an argument, and / or using textual support. A "C" paper shows fairly consistent mastery of the mechanics of organization and grammar, and uses textual evidence to support a thesis. A "B" paper shows very consistent mastery of mechanics, and a more thoughtful use of textual support. An "A" paper makes me smile as I read it - it proves that someone has mastered the peculiar form of the literary critical essay so completely that it can persuasively communicate his or her individual response to a text.  An “A” paper shows both that you speak the language of the profession, and that you have something to say.

 A Note on Grading Blackboard Responses:
To reflect their more informal, work-in-progress character, I use a different grading scale for the Blackboard responses. Each gets a 0, 1, 2, or a 3:

0 = does not satisfy the purpose of the assignment; make an appointment to talk to me about it, and then try again.
1 = adequate
2 = good  
3 = unusually good
 
MASON EMAIL ACCOUNTS:

Students must use their MasonLIVE email account to receive important University information, including messages related to this class. See http://masonlive.gmu.edu for more information.

OFFICE OF DISABILITY SERVICES:

If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see me and contact the Office of Disability Services (ODS) at 993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through the ODS. http://ods.gmu.edu

COUNSELING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES (CAPS):

(703) 993-2380; http://caps.gmu.edu