The Art of the Picture Book

Students will develop an understanding and appreciation of the processes of the creation of the visual aspects of children's books, including the development process from preliminary sketches and/or storyboard to the published book; relationships to verbal texts; format and layout; various media and techniques; case studies of individual artists and works.
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Children's Literature Goes to the Movies

This course will examine the interpretive structures of American children's movies based on children's literature. Discussions will center on a variety of contemporary issues, including how literal fidelity relates to creative license (i.e., adaptation versus translation); how evolving understandings of race, gender, ethnicity and age affect filmic interpretation and presentation; and whether a book's theme or core narrative can be divided from the vast body of cultural, ideological and political influences that constitute its identity. We will also examine questions such as how successful children's films of the past impose upon the presentation of new works. Children's Literature Goes To The Movies will also ask students to decide whether knowledge of the original book enriches the experience of going to the movies (and the movie enriches one's understanding of the original book), or whether movie and book are essentially separate. Films we will study will include: The Little Mermaid , Snow White, Cinderella, Aladdin, Pinocchio, I Am the Cheese, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Matilda, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Fellowship of the Ring, Jumani, Shrek, and several versions of Little Women. Note that you will be required both to read the literature and view the films; all required films will be readily available from popular video outlets.
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Does the Shoe Fit? Fairy Tales as Literature for Children

In this course we will look deeply at the complications and complexities of fairy tales. Among other things we will examine the definitions, histories, and variations of fairy tales. Additionally, we will investigate how fairy tales have been used to instruct and entertain children. Finally, we will consider how children's literature creators interpret and re-interpret fairy tales.

The Fact of the Matter: Informational Literature for Middle and High School

Informational or nonfiction literature is often overlooked in studies of youth literature. In this course, a new addition to our Youth Literature and Technology Certificate Program, we will consider the many literary qualities of nonfiction literature published for children aged ten to eighteen. You will have the opportunity to read both good and bad examples of nonfiction literature and examine how the review media evaluate such books. We will examine a variety of types of nonfiction, and by the end of the semester the class as a whole will work collaboratively online to develop a list of best nonfiction books.
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Fantasy and Speculative Fiction

This course offers professionals serving middle and high school students the opportunity to increase your appreciation and knowledge of fantasy and speculative fiction through intense reading and discussion of representative works. Among the authors whose works we will cover are Ursula LeGuin, William Sleator, and Robin McKinley. You will read texts on topics such as reader response/reception theory and explore the nature of literary response through examination of your own responses the responses of the other professionals in the class. Finally, we will investigate and consider options for teaching Fantasy and Speculative Fiction with young people.
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Female Voices in Historical Narratives

From picture books to teen novels, from history to folktale, this course will examine the voices of women and girls as they tell their own stories and as stories are told about them. We will work from a list of titles, most published within the past five years, and will read and discuss some of them together and some as individual projects. The emphasis in the course will be on reading widely and on intense engagement with the texts. Students will have the opportunity to create book lists, book talks, and/or Web pages to explore their interpretations of this literature.
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Gender and Culture in Children's Picture Books

In this course you will work online to develop an understanding of: criteria for evaluating children's picture books for their cultural authenticity; different illustrative techniques and their effectiveness for particular texts; problems of translating children's books from one language and culture to another; and the variety of materials available and publishing trends in multiculturalism. Coursework will emphasize books that use powerful verbal and visual images to promote self esteem and cultural awareness among young children. You will participate in online discussions with your colleagues in the course and with various experts in other parts of this country and abroad.
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Information Seeking and Using: Understanding How Young People Use Electronic Information

Librarians and teachers are often called upon to select and recommend websites, CD-ROMs, and other electronic information resources for young people, a task that can be very difficult without an understanding of what aspects of these resources appeal to and repel young users. This course is intended to facilitate that evaluation and recommendation process by helping you to understand how young people interact with and evaluate digital information. This is largely a reading course, requiring you to read the foundational works dealing with young people and electronic information, including works from library science, information science, and gender studies. Major assignments will include a related research project and a Web-based annotated bibliography of recommended websites for young people.
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Man of Advantage: Books and Boys in the Middle and High School Years

Poetry for Children and Young Adults

This course has been created to assist teachers and librarians in selecting, evaluating, and encouraging the informed enjoyment of poetry written for children and young adults. We will cover poetry written in the twentieth century only. In this course you will look closely at poetic structures and language, engage in close readings of poems by a variety of poets, and expand upon their understanding of the relationship of poetry and illustration. Other topics to be studied will include the poetry of under-represented people, and the room for inventiveness and self-expression within a single verse form (such as the haiku). Assignments will consist of developing lesson plans and/or web pages to support poetry in the curriculum, compiling a short anthology of poems for a specific grade, and creating original illustration or illustrations (can be computer art, pen and ink, crayon, or other media) for a selected poem. You will also prepare several short critical essays and participate in web-based discussion.
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In Search of Cupid and Psyche: Myth and Legend in Children's Literature

In this course you will learn to analyze children's books that borrow heavily from myths and archaic legend, and to recognize and describe mythological elements within a broad range of books for children and young adults. You will learn to recognize mythic elements in text and illustrations, discover commonalities among culturally diverse literatures, and explore how contemporary myths operate in specific literary works.
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From Seuss to Sendak to Sis

This course will study the development of children's book illustration in the work of three masters of the twentieth century. You will explore the picture books of Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, and Peter Sis, considering issues such as the use of history made by each illustrator and his concern for social context, the relationship of image to text and of illustration to a linear narrative, and repeating motifs and symbols that join individual publications into an organic whole. Students in the course will be divided into groups which will explore the three illustrators; this exploration will include a look at work by other important 20th century contemporaries such as Hillary Knight, Mitsumasa Anno, and Quentin Blake. The final weeks of the semester will be a conference period during which the groups will share some of the papers they have written and together discover how different perceptions, research, and group dynamics led to alternate hypotheses about these three masters.
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The Voice of the Author

(Note: this is the description as it appeared the last time it was offered. We may have other authors online with us in the future; announcements will be made the semester before the course is offered.) In this graduate seminar you will read works by and about a half dozen children's authors, paying special attention to the authors' own statements about the creative process. We will consider the work of authors including Jane Yolen, Eric Carle, Leo Lionni, Katherine Paterson, Jane Kurtz, and Julius Lester.   During the semester, authors Yolen, Kurtz, and Lester will enter the online discussion with the class for one week each.  
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Writing a Life: Biographies and Personal Narratives

Biographies, autobiographies, diaries, and personal narratives are all ways of telling the narrative of a life. In this course, we will examine how writers take a life lived and turn it into a story. We will read picture books, chapter books, collective biographies, autobiographies, and biographical narratives for young people of all ages. Most titles will be recent (within the past five years). The focus will be on reading widely, and on intense engagement with the texts.
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