ENGLISH 505.01W
THE INVENTION OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND CHILDHOOD
COURSE SYLLABUS: FALL 2010
Instructor:
Dr. Karen Roggenkamp
Office Location:
HL 315
Office Hours:
M 1-3, W 11-12
Office Phone:
903-886-5260
University Email Address:
karen.roggenkamp@tamuc.edu
COURSE INFORMATION
Course Description:
This course will analyze selected fictional narratives
published and marketed for children, both
as works of literary art in their own right and as lenses
into historical and cultural ages with
shifting attitudes toward childhood and children’s
literature. We will start with some of the
earliest English-language texts written specifically for
children and wind our way up to the
“Golden Age” of children’s literature, pieces written between
roughly 1865 and 1911. The
course will end by skipping up further into the twentieth
century and some pivotal novels that
paved the way for contemporary children’s literature. Through
it all, we will analyze how
conditions of print culture, political change, and social
status influenced the delivery and
reception of children’s literature. And we will consider what
we mean when we talk about
“children’s literature” in the first place. How and why did
this category of literature emerge when
it did? How was it—and the modern concept of childhood
itself—“invented?” What literatures
have been considered “appropriate” for children across
different time frames and cultural
landscapes?
Student Learning Outcomes:
Students in this course will:
1. analyze the concept of “childhood” and “children’s
literature” as cultural invention, in relation to cultural, intellectual, and
political contexts;
2. understand the central complexities, contradictions, and
conventions of children’s
literature across time;
4. engage actively and deeply in on-line discussions of
literature;
5. write two original research-based papers.
Materials (required books):
The following works are available at university bookstores.
You may also obtain them from
other sources or use editions other than the ones I have
ordered through the bookstore.
▪ Louisa May Alcott,
Little Women
▪ J. M. Barrie,
Peter Pan
▪ Frances Hodgson Burnett,
The
Secret Garden
▪ Lewis Carroll,
Alice in
Wonderland
and
Through the Looking Glass
▪ Louise Fitzhugh,
Harriet the
Spy
▪ Kenneth Graham,
The Wind in
the Willows
▪ Heinrich Hoffmann,
Struwwelpeter
▪ James Janeway,
A Token for
Children
▪ A. A. Milne,
Winnie the
Pooh
▪ L. M. Montgomery,
Anne of Green
Gables
▪ Beatrix Potter,
The Tale of
Peter Rabbit
▪ J. D. Salinger,
The Catcher in
the Rye
▪ Mark Twain,
The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
▪ Additional readings provided through eCollege, in “Doc
Sharing”
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Each week you will work on various assignments, readings, and
discussions designed to assist
you in achieving the outcomes for the course.
In brief, this course will be structured with:
1.
"Lectures"
(in quotations because the lectures will actually be written out--more reading
for you to do, hooray!). I will provide a number of usually brief reading
notes for most of the texts, and you should read these notes before you start
the novel.
2.
Online
discussions
As you
are reading you will participate in the online discussion of the text. You will
be required to participate ACTIVELY and THOUGHTFULLY if you wish to earn a high
score in this class. Remember, the goal is to get a "conversation" going,
so respond to each other's comments! I will participate somewhat in these
online discussions, but I expect the bulk of the conversation to come from you
all. I am not going to set a quota for
how many posts you need to provide per assignment. Rather, what you want
to do is take a look at what your "competition"--the other students--are doing.
Who are the students whose posts are most thought provoking (these would merit a
higher grade). Who, on the other hand, just seems to stick to basic ideas
or plot summary, who doesn't respond to other people's posts, who posts just
once and then is done with it (these would merit a lower grade). Please
know also that I can see how many minutes you have spent in
eCollege! Discussion comments will be closed at
midnight on
Saturday of the week for whichever
book we are working on. Anything you post after that time will not count
toward your participation.
3.
Writing.
You will have two papers, which you will submit in the
Dropbox portion
of this website the weeks they are due (weeks 7 and 15).
The first paper will be a
Bibliographic Review Essay (about 7-8 pages).
Instructions for this essay are posted in a document in Doc Sharing, as
well as under the Week 7 tab. This
paper requires that you access and analyze critical essays through university
databases and journals, so you will want to get started on it right away!
You
will probably need to request some articles via Interlibrary Loan, which can
take some time! The
second paper (about 13-14 pages) is to be a research-based original
paper, based on or inspired by anything we read or any other aspect of
children’s literature (I have placed a sample paper, which is actually a project
I am currently working on and so is not totally complete, in Doc Sharing, under
the title “Little Eva”—it’s a little longer than what I’m asking for from you,
but it should give you the idea). I
will be looking for the skillful and sophisticated incorporation of secondary
sources/critical theories in the construction of your thesis.
I’ll be asking for a proposal and your thesis several weeks before the
paper is due, so you’ll want to be thinking about this project right from the
start. Remember, it’s a
research paper, and I’ll be expecting
you to dig into relevant scholarship about your topic—and obviously Wikipedia is
NOT “relevant scholarship.” Get to
the library. Get into the scholarly
databases. Read and think furiously.
And for goodness sake, don’t wait until a week before it’s due to get
started! (Note: if you do not
understand how the library’s databases work and/or have never used a source like
the MLA International Bibliography to search for academic articles, a visit to
the reference librarians at Gee Library is in order.
It’s your responsibility as graduate students to know the basics of how
to do academic research.)
Each
week you should review the syllabus carefully and make sure you are looking at
the "Lecture," "Assignment," and "Discussion" areas under the "Week" tabs on the
left side of the screen. Be thorough in looking over relevant areas of the
eCollege website, and let me know if you can't find something!
Grading:
Participation in weekly discussions
45% of course grade
Essay 1 (bibliographic essay)
20% of course grade
Research paper
35% of course grade
Total 100%
The department of Literature and Languages does not, as a rule, allow an
“Incomplete” (X) on
the transcript; incompletes are
only
awarded under extraordinary circumstances, pending
Department Head and Dean approval. If personal issues or
conflicts arise that lead to your
missing a substantial amount of class, you will want to
consider withdrawing from the class early
on.
As a rough guideline for what A-F grades mean, an A is
awarded for truly outstanding work, a B
denotes work significantly above the level necessary to meet
basic requirements, a C is for work
that meets basic requirements in every way, a D is given for
work that meets only some of the
requirements yet is still deserving of minimal credit, and an
F results if work is not completed or
if it fails to meet the requirements of the assignment and/or
course. I will provide detailed
information about paper evaluation at the time of those
assignments.
TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS
This course will be facilitated using eCollege, the Learning
Management System used by
tamuc. To get started with the course, go to:
https://leo.tamucommerce.
edu/login.aspx. You will need your CWID and password
to log in to the course. If
you do not know your CWID or have forgotten your password,
contact Technology Services at
903-468-6000 or
helpdesk@tamuc.edu.
To complete this online course successfully, you will need a
computer with internet access (high
speed recommended, not dial-up), and a word processor
equipped with Microsoft Word. Our
campus is optimized to work in a Microsoft Windows
environment. This mean ours courses
work best if you are using a Windows operating system (XP or
newer) and a recent version of
Microsoft Internet Explorer (6.0, 7.0, 8.0). Your courses
will also work with Macintosh OS x
along with a recent version of Safari 2.0 or better. Along
with Internet Explorer and Safari,
eCollege also supports the Firefox browser (3.0) on both
Windows and Mac operating systems.
COMMUNICATION AND SUPPORT
Interaction with Instructor:
Personal concerns and/or comments can be sent directly to my
university email account at
karen.roggenkamp@tamuc.edu. More general
questions may be posted in the
“Virtual Office” portion of eCollege. I will generally
respond to emails within 24-48 hours. I will
post general announcements on the front page of our course
page in eCollege (under
“Announcements”), and if I need to contact you directly, I
will use your university email account
(myLeo).
eCollege Student Technical Support:
Texas A&M University-Commerce provides students technical
support in the use of eCollege.
The student help desk may be reached by the following means
24 hours a day, seven days a
week:
▪ Chat support: Click on “Live Support” on the tool bar
within your course to chat with an
eCollege representative.
▪ Phone: 1-866-656-5511 to speak with eCollege Technical
Support Representatives.
▪ Email:
helpdesk@online.tamuc.org
to initiate a support request with an eCollege
Technical
Support Representative.
▪ Help: Click on the “Help” button on the toolbar for
information regarding working with eCollege
(e.g. how to submit to Dropbox, how to post to discussion,
etc.)
COURSE AND UNIVERSITY PROCEDURES/POLICIES
▪ You will have two major pieces of writing due. Information
about each paper is forthcoming. I
will not grant extensions on papers unless merited by truly
exceptional circumstances. Late
work will only be accepted by prior arrangement between us
and with documented proof of your
inability to complete the assignment on time due to
extenuating circumstances (e.g. death in the
IMMEDIATE family, truly severe illness, etc.). Technology
problems are not an excuse for a late
paper—make sure you submit your work in time to allow for any
problems accessing the
Dropbox, eCollege, etc.
▪ Instructors in the Department of Literature and Languages
do not tolerate plagiarism or other
forms of academic dishonesty, and acts of plagiarism can lead
to immediate failure of the
assignment and/or course. Instructors uphold and support the
highest academic standards, and
students are expected to do likewise. Penalties for students
guilty of academic dishonesty
include disciplinary probation, suspension, and expulsion (Texas
A&M University—Commerce
Code of Student Conduct
5.b[1,2,3]). Examples of plagiarism include but
are not limited to
cutting and pasting information directly from online sources,
copying material from books
without providing source documentation, taking essays
wholesale from online sources, having
someone else write a paper for you, and turning in work that
you have already submitted for
another class.
▪ All students enrolled at the University must follow the
tenets of common decency and
acceptable behavior conducive to a positive learning
environment. Standards of decency and
acceptable behavior extend to the use of cell phones and
instant messaging—please turn them
off in the classroom unless you are awaiting a real emergency
call for some reason.
Additionally, please note that I enforce standards of
inclusiveness in my classes. What that
means is that I will not tolerate discrimination and
disrespect in regard to race, color, creed,
religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status,
disability, public assistance status, veteran
status, or sexual orientation.
▪ The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal
anti-discrimination statute that provides
comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with
disabilities. Among other things, this
legislation requires that all students with disabilities be
guaranteed a learning environment that
provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities.
If you have a disability requiring an
accommodation, please contact: Office of Student Disability
Resources and Services, Texas
A&M University-Commerce, Gee Library 132, Phone (903)
886-5150 or (903) 886-5835, Fax
(903) 468-8148,
StudentDisabilityServices@tamuc.edu.
▪ You are responsible for reading and understanding all the
information on this syllabus, as well
as on any additional materials I distribute during the
course.
COURSE OUTLINE / CALENDAR
English 505 Schedule of Assignments and Readings
Week 1: What is Children’s Literature, Anyway?
8/30 - 9/4
▪ Introduction to course: What are our ideologies about
childhood and children’s literature?
Week 2: Before the Golden Age—Puritanical Treatises
9/6 - 9/11
▪ Read James Janeway,
A Token for
Children: Being an Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy
and Exemplary Lives and Joyful
Deaths of Several Young Children
(1671)
▪ Read excerpt from Gillian Avery,
Behold the Child: American Children and their Books, 1621-
1922.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
Available in Doc Sharing.
Week 3: Before the Golden Age—“To Entertain and Delight”: The
Development of Children’s Lit
9/13 - 9/18
▪ Read John Newbery (printed by Isaiah Thomas),
A Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744) at
following link:
http://faculty.tamuc.edu/kroggenkamp/Newbery.pdf
▪ Heinrich Hoffmann,
Struwwelpeter
(1845)
▪ Read excerpt from Gillian Avery,
Behold the Child: American Children and their Books, 1621-
1922.
Available in Doc Sharing.
Week 4: Seminal Stories for Boys and Girls
9/20 - 9/25
▪ Read Humphrey Carpenter, “The Road to Arcadia” (prologue to
Secret Gardens: A Study of
the
Golden Age of Children’s Literature,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985).
Available in Doc
Sharing.
▪ Read Lewis Carroll,
Alice in
Wonderland
and
Through the Looking Glass
(1865, 1871)
Week 5: The Boys’ Book
9/27 - 10/2
▪ Read Mark Twain,
The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
(1876)
▪ Read Alan Gribben, “Boy Books, Bad Boy Books, and
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
Available in Doc
Sharing.
Week 6: The Girls’ Book
10/4 - 10/9
▪ Read Louisa May Alcott,
Little
Women
(1868, 1869)
▪ Read Sarah A. Wadsworth, “Louisa May Alcott, William T.
Adams, and the Rise of Gender-
Specific Series
Books.” The
Lion and the Unicorn 25 (2001): 14-46.
Available in Doc Sharing.
Week 7: Paper 1
10/11 - 10/16
▪ Paper 1 due by October 16th at midnight in Dropbox
Week 8: The Romance of Nature and the Power of Positive
Thinking
10/18 - 10/23
▪ Read Frances Hodgson Burnett,
The Secret Garden
(1911)
Week 9: Siren Calls and Gentle Spaces
10/25 - 10/30
▪ Read Kenneth Grahame,
The Wind in
the Willows
(1908)
▪ Read Jane Darcy, “The Representation of Nature in
The Wind in the Willows and
The Secret
Garden.”
The
Lion and the Unicorn 19 (1995): 211-222.
Week 10: The Zen of Peter and Pooh
11/1 - 11/6
▪ Read Beatrix Potter,
The Tale of
Peter Rabbit
(1902)
▪ A. A. Milne,
Winnie the
Pooh
(1926)
▪ Read Robert Hemmings, “A Taste of Nostalgia: Children’s
Books from the Golden Age—
Carroll,
Grahame, and Milne.”
Children’s Literature
35 (2007): 54-79.
▪ Also, e-mail me a 300-500 word proposal for research
paper
Week 11: “Kindred Spirits”
11/8 - 11/13
▪ Read L. M. Montgomery,
Anne of Green
Gables
(1908)
▪ Read Mike Snow, “Pilgrimage to the Land of Anne.”
Americas 61 (2009): 14-19.
Week 12: Of Pirates and Pan
11/15 - 11/20
▪ Read J. M. Barrie,
Peter Pan
(1911)
Week 13: Saucy Girls and New Realities
11/22 - 11/27
▪ Read Louise Fitzhugh,
Harriet the
Spy
(1964)
▪ Read “The Legacy of Peter Pan and Wendy: Images of Lost
Innocence and Social
Consequences in
Harriet the Spy.”
The Image of
the Child. Ed. Sylvia Patterson Iskander.
Battle Creek,
MI: Children’s Literature Association, 1991. 168-173.
Week 14: To Tell the Truth
11/29 - 12/4
▪ Read J. D. Salinger,
The Catcher in
the Rye
(1951)
Week 15: Research Paper
12/6 - 12/13
▪ Final Paper due in Dropbox by MONDAY,
DECEMBER 13th at midnight