Critical Approaches to Children's Literature
This thematic route is not running 2007-2008. It will resume in October 2008.
Full time Master of Philosophy (MPhil)
Introduction
This specialist course is aimed at applicants who already have knowledge of and interest in children's literature and who want to develop expertise in the subject at masters' level.
What makes this course distinctive?
This thematic route is distinctive from masters' courses on children's literature at other universities in the following respects:
- A whole term module (8 x 2 hours) on students writing their own fiction and poetry for children (including a visit from a well known writer);
- A whole term module (8 x 2 hours) on visual texts for children;
- A strong emphasis on poetry for children and media texts;
- A core research training course which runs alongside this thematic route.
Course content
As well as considering picturebooks, poetry, media texts and writing for children, this thematic route concentrates on a wide range of fiction for children, including the 'classics', texts for very young readers, international literature and novels for young adults. Close textual study and the history of children's literature are embedded within the course which also concerns itself with exciting new texts (often using sound and image) produced by ever changing new technologies. Qualitative action research involving empirical work with children on visual literacy will be undertaken during the course. Participants are encouraged to keep a working journal and to include references to their own reading autobiographies.
Theoretical perspectives
The course focuses throughout on different representations of childhood in the texts that are studied and examines what is meant by the contested term 'children's literature. Participants will be expected to engage with some of the key debates in the field and to consider a range of theoretical perspectives - from Romanticism to reader-response theory; gender issues to postmodernism; historical studies to New Historicism; sociocultural viewpoints to semiotics - as well as examining critically views of young readers and their reading choices.
Assignments
The assignments reflect the nature of this course which is designed to be personally rewarding as well as professionally enlightening and intellectually challenging.
Essay 1
A theorised autobiography of myself as a reader of texts for children with particular reference to changing constructions of childhood.
Essay 2
An empirical study of children responding to a selected picturebook.
Thesis
A topic of the applicant's own choosing which can either be a purely literary study or a small research project.
Course convenor:
Morag Styles - Reader in Children's Literature and Education