Course Descriptions

Spring 2004

• ENGL 306A: Children's Literature, C. Scott
  The greatest and most enduring works of children's literature are those that speak to both children and adults. I have chosen works that encourage analysis from this dual perspective, and we will be using our current and our remembered reactions to them as we explore and analyze what they have to say. The focus will be upon the books as works of literature and we will use a variety of literary methods to probe them. Although I will model a number of ways to engage with the books, this is not a course in how to teach, which comes later in the College of Education 's Credential program. It is important for future teachers (and parents or future parents too, for that matter) to have a deep understanding of the narratives, stories, and picture books which have a profound effect on the way young people are taught to see the world and their place in it.
  The initial list (to which a few more titles may be added) includes both British and American classics representing a number of significant children's literature themes such as nostalgia, home and leaving home, learning, subversion and disobedience, humor and irony, the unfamiliar and the uncanny, and of course, growing up. It also represents a variety of genres such as fantasy, animal, toy and school stories, tales and legends, and picture books.

  Book List
  Alice 's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll Twelve Dancing Princesses (A Collection of Tales)
  Child of the Owl - Laurence Yep
  Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter
  Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne
  Charlotte 's Web - E.B. White
  In the Night Kitchen - Maurice Sendak
  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
  
  There will be a number of short quizzes, a midterm and an end-of-term test, and a couple of short (500 word) papers/reports. This course is taken in conjunction with English 306W where writing about children's literature is the focus.

• ENGL 306A and 306W: Children's Literature and Advanced Composition M. Galbraith
" Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." (Mark Twain, Prefatory warning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn )
You are hereby given notice that everyone who takes this double course will be incited to commit two of the three crimes that Mark Twain promises to punish.  My section of 306A is designed as a personal history of children's literature, focusing on the childhood experiences of specific authors and the ways their childhood predicaments are restaged in their works (thus accounting, in my own thinking, for both motive and plot). We will also examine the specific cultural circumstances that give rise to a literature for child readers, and we will debate whether such a literature can be simultaneously disclosing and reassuring.  Further, we will inquire into the process of fictionalizing childhood experiences--if authors are indeed writing out of a well of their own actual childhood experiences, as I will argue, what do they honor about those experiences that makes for immortal fairy tales, classic novels, and great picture books? Authors whose autobiographical fictional works will be covered include (in historical order) Hans Christian Andersen ("The Red Shoes," "The Little Mermaid"), Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre ), Charles Dickens ( David Copperfield ), Mark Twain ( Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn ), Rudyard Kipling ( The Jungle Books ), Beatrix Potter ( Peter Rabbit ), Ludwig Bemelmans ( Madeline ), Maurice Sendak ( Where the Wild Things Are ), Shel Silverstein (The Giving Tree ), Beverly Cleary ( Ramona the Brave ) and Dr. Seuss ( The Cat in the Hat ).
The Advanced Composition segment, English 306W, will be devoted to writing closely argued essays about the literature and ideas discussed in 306A. There will be no penalty for disagreeing with the professor, provided you can convince her of your own line of reasoning.
• ENGL 502: Adolescence in Literature A. Allison
  English 502 explores prose in which key characters are adolescents, as well as works that have been specifically written for adolescents, primarily the contemporary Young Adult novel. Adolescence is an exciting time during which cognitive functions, argumentative capacity, identity, ego, sexual relationships and love, societal relationships, authority relationships, justice and conscience, bodily image, career, education--and of course much more--are developed, explored, challenged, outgrown. These issues are depicted frequently in first-person narratives that reveal the keen emotions, humor, and observations of teenagers, and sometimes their agonies. Our approach to adolescence will be through cognitive, developmental, and cultural features, our analysis of the literature aesthetic and formal, and our reading diverse, including short stories by Chekov, Joyce, Roth, Oates, Singer, and Boyle. The novels are W.D. Myers' Fallen Angels, Francesca Lia Block's Weetzie Bat, Anchee Min's Red Azalea, Buchi Emecheta's The Slave Girl, Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen, Russell Hoban's The Trokeville Way, and Peter Pohl's Johnny, My Friend (the last two books listed will be available at Cal Copy, along with the course's Reader.
  The class is recommended for students in general and especially for those interested in secondary school teaching. Requirements are four 2 pp. written assignments, four quizzes, a research paper, and a final. The quality of your writing is a very important determinant of your grade.

Graduate Courses

• ENGL 700: Major Authors A. Allison 

Among them, I.B. Singer, Russell Hoban, and Astrid Lindgren have published close to 200 books-but we won't be reading all of them this semester! With our focus on their works for children, we'll delve into their definitive novels, stories, and essays. I'll present the first two authors, we'll share presenting Lindgren, then your major project for the semester will be writing a comprehensive study of books by and critical commentaries on the children's author of your choice (with my okay on your selection) and presenting your findings to the seminar. This course can be taken as an elective by graduate students in specializations other than Children's Literature.

 

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