CE4939: Exploring Children's Literature

School Continuing and Professional Education
Department Code LEARN
Module Code CE4939
External Subject Code 101108
Number of Credits 10
Level L4
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader
Semester
Academic Year null

Outline Description of Module

Children's Literature is a vastly popular subject – both generally and at an academic level. This module seeks to discuss and critically consider a range of children's texts from different historical periods. The focus will be on gender, sexuality, and ideology. The function of children's literature, its narrative/s, overarching themes, debates and issues will also be considered.  

On completion of the module a student should be able to

Knowledge and Understanding:

  • Demonstrate an informed knowledge of cultural and historical perspectives to children's literature;
  • Demonstrate an awareness of critical approaches to children's literature;
  • Critically consider the constructions of literature for children and literature for adults.

Intellectual Skills:

  • Appraise and assess sources;
  • To reach conclusions about the issues raised in the course, and base these conclusions on sound reasoning.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

  • Close reading;
  • analytical skills;
  • research skills;
  • essay/assignment writing skills 

How the module will be delivered

This module is taught in 10, two-hour sessions, delivered on a weekly basis.

  • Lectures: these introduce the basic information to the students, and will form the bulk of provision. Hence there will be basic seminar-style sessions with tutor leading with talk and PowerPoint presentations during the first part of the session as basis for group discussion and questions and answers in the second part. Students will be invited to read up on relevant topics for homework including specific passages.

Discussion and group work: where appropriate, students will work in small groups to apply what they have heard in the lectures to a given case study. Students are asked to reflect critically on set questions and to contribute their own ideas 

Skills that will be practised and developed

Academic Skills:

By the end of the period of learning, the typical student will have:

  • found relevant resources in the library and online;
  • assessed the reliability of different sources of information;
  • demonstrated a critical approach to academic texts.

Transferable/employability Skills:

By the end of the period of learning, the typical student will have shown that he/she can:

  • work effectively as part of a group;
  • present views and arguments clearly;
  • communicate clearly and accurately in written form;
  • argue a point with supporting evidence 

How the module will be assessed

Type of assessment

%Contribution

Title

Duration
(if applicable)

Approx. date of Assessment

EITHER: Essay

100%

Essay (c.1500 words)

 

Set at start of course, submission shortly after course has finished

OR: 3 ‘mini-essays’

33.3% x 3

Embedded Assessment/Assignments (totalling c. 1500 words)

 

Set and submitted at different stages throughout the course.

Learners will be encouraged to develop their own topics/options to discuss in the embedded assessment/assignments or the essay. 

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Written Assessment 100 Exploring Children'S Literature N/A

Syllabus content

Week 1. Introduction: What is Children's Literature?

Week 2. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865)

Week 3. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868)

Week 4. Alcott, Little Women

Week 5. Robert L. Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883)

Week 6. Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows(1908)

Week 7. E. B. White, Charlotte's Web (1952)

Week 8. Anne Fine, Madame Doubtfire (1987)

Week 9. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)

Week 10. Conclusion and Q+A 

Essential Reading and Resource List

Key Resource List

Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories, ed. Janet Maybin and Nicola. J. Watson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Children's Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. Heather Montgomery and Nicola J. Watson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Children's Literature: New Approaches, ed. Karín Lesnik-Oberstein (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004)

Hunt, Peter. An Introduction to Children’s Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)

Hunt, Peter. Criticism, Theory, & Children's Literature (Wiley Blackwell, 1991)

The Cambridge Companion to Children’s Literature, ed. M. O. Grenby and Andrea Immel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 

Background Reading and Resource List

Literary texts used in module

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865)

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868)

Robert L. Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883)

Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows(1908)

E. B. White, Charlotte's Web (1952)

Anne Fine, Madame Doubtfire (1987)

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)


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