Lecture:
9:05A-9:55A  TR  (150)3 cr

Discussion:
1:25P-2:15P  R
1:25P-2:15P  R
2:30P-3:20P  R
2:30P-3:20P  R
3:35P-4:25P  R

This is not primarily a course in how to teach literature to children.  For the most part, the
literature we will be looking at is not "taught" to children so much as offered to them -- whether
it is being re-told or read aloud or acted out or simply recommended.  We will accordingly
consider book illustrations and video narratives along with printed words, asking how best to
present a particular poem or fairy tale or novel to a particular child.  We will spend a good deal
of time discussing issues of development, race, and gender.  And we will try always to bear in
mind the difference between critical analysis and the child's non-analytical ability to enter an
imagined world.  This course is as much concerned with the indebtedness of adult readers to their
own childhood beginnings as with the way such beginnings are shaped by the gifts, aims, and
biases of earlier generations of adults.

Students will write two essays, each of them between 600 and 900 words in length; two
full-period tests, and a final exam.  They will also routinely write brief, in-class exercises during
the lectures.  Attendance is crucial: plan to come regularly to class, and to participate actively, if
you take this course.

L. Frank Baum, THE WIZARD OF OZ
Kenneth Grahame, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS
Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek, eds., FOLK AND FAIRY TALES
Kenneth Koch, ROSE, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT RED?
Ursula LeGuin, A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA; TEHANU
Katherine Paterson, A BRIDGE TO TEREBITHIA
Mildred Taylor, ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY
Mark Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN
E. B. White, CHARLOTTE'S WEB