Philip Nel > Courses > English 355: Literature for Children (Fall 2008)

Last updated Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Required Texts:

• Molly Bang, Picture This (Seastar).
• Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, ed. Donald J. Gray, 2nd. ed. (Norton).
• Andrew Clements, Frindle (Aladdin Paperbacks).
• Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963 (Bantam).
• Neil Gaiman, Coraline (HarperCollins).
• Jack Gantos, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (HarperCollins).
• Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon (HarperCollins).
• Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth (Random House).
• X. J. Kennedy and Dorothy Kennedy, Knock at a Star (Little, Brown).
• Munro Leaf, The Story of Ferdinand, illus. Robert Lawson (Puffin).
• Leo Lionni, Frederick (Knopf).
• Arnold Lobel, Frog and Toad Together (HarperCollins).
• Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard (HarperCollins).
• Katherine Patterson, The Great Gilly Hopkins (HarperCollins).
• Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach (Dragonfly Books).
• J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Scholastic).
• Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (HarperCollins).
• Class Pack for English 355. Available in Eisenhower Copy Center (EH 011) as of Weds., 27 Aug 2008.

Objectives:

        To introduce major genres in and conventions of literature for children, and to develop critical skills for reading, thinking and writing about children's literature and culture. In order to foster these goals, you will write two papers, take quizzes and exams, make regular postings to your section's message board, and participate in class discussions. In this class, education will not be a passive experience: I expect discussion, debate, and exchanges of ideas. You must be not only present but an active presence.

Requirements: Papers | Quizzes | Class Participation and Attendance | Technology | Message Board | Assignments

        Papers: The papers must be typed (word-processed) and double-spaced; include a title, your name, the date; and have numbered pages that are stapled together. Late papers will be penalized one grade (e.g., B+ to C+) for each day late.

        Sources: Use the MLA method for documenting sources. Don't plagiarize. When you turn in a paper, you pledge that you have faithfully abided by the guidelines for documenting sources -- most grammar handbooks provide guidelines for documentation. Remember: You must cite the sources of any ideas that are not your own. If you quote, paraphrase, or use another's ideas, you must give credit to the person whose ideas you are using. If you have questions, please ask. If you plagiarize, you will automatically fail this course. For more information on Kansas State University's Honor System, please visit <http://www.k-state.edu/honor/>.

        Quizzes: Approximately 12 times during the semester, there will be a quiz. Sometimes the quiz will be announced, and sometimes it won't. But the quiz will always address the reading for that day. Because everyone can have a bad day, I will drop the lowest quiz grade.

        Class Participation and Attendance: Read everything, and come to class prepared to talk about what you have read. On the first day of discussion for each assignment, you must have finished the reading and be ready to discuss it. "The reading" is all the text assigned for that day. We make sense of literature by discussing it. For this reason, class participation will count for 20% of your final grade. Discussion will take place both in class and out of it, via the Message Board (explained below). I reserve the right to assign homework or in-class writing projects that are not listed on the syllabus.

        Class attendance is required. Since the class meets twice a week, you are granted two absences, but more than two will lower your final grade by one increment for each absence (e.g., B+ would become B). I appreciate your offering explanations for absences; however, the only way to excuse an absence is to provide me with an official letter from the dean. You cannot earn credit for work missed in class. If you miss class, it is your responsibility to discover what went on that day. "I didn't know because I wasn't in class" is never an acceptable excuse.

        If you have a portable computer, you may use it to take notes in class -- but that's all you may use it for. Don't check email, surf the web, etc. Similarly, out of common courtesy, you may not text-message during class. And turn off your cell phone.

 

        Technology is a component of the state licensure requirements, including the standards for English Language Arts. For this reason, we are meeting in ECS 017 (a technology classroom) and you will participate in an electronic message board. Our work with computers should serve not only as a forum for discussing our reading, but also as a way for you to sharpen your communication skills and web skills for an increasingly technological age.

       This syllabus is on-line, available through the "Courses" section of my homepage: <http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/>. I have linked authors' names to relevant webpages, listed resources, and provided links to the paper assignments.

        Message Board: Post comments to the message board every other week (or more frequently, if you wish). An average posting should run one or two paragraphs in length. In other words, your postings do not need to be long, but they must be substantive -- long enough to convey clearly the problem you are taking up and your point of view, connecting your comment to others' comments, as appropriate. I will monitor these discussions and asses a grade (at the end of the semester) based on the thoughtfulness of your comments, their ability to foster discussion among your classmates, and their responsiveness to both our readings and to your classmates in comments on the message board. Though extra postings to the message board will not automatically replace participation in class discussions, regular contributions above and beyond your weekly posting can improve your class participation grade.

       Access the message board via K-State On-Line.

1. Log in to our class on K-State On-Line.
2. At left, choose "Message Board."
3. Then, choose Section C (if you're in the 11:30 class) or Section D (if you're in the 12:30 class).

       Email: My email address is philnel@ksu.edu. Please use the subject line. Due to the increased volume of spam, messages without clear subject lines will be deleted unread. You can write with questions, send a thesis statement or outline for an essay, make an appointment to meet me in my office, or do anything else that could be handled with a quick exchange of messages. I check email several times daily, but I am not on-line at all times.

Schedule of Assignments

Subject to change.

[W] = Web. [CP] = Class Pack. [R] = On Reserve (at Hale Library).

Note: "through" means "to the end of" (not "up to"). Page numbers refer to the editions assigned.

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