ENGL 293C. Children’s Literature:
Politics and the Young Adult Novel

This course reads American children’s literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, focusing on the didactic and political functions of the genre. We consider the ways that children’s and young adult novels have engaged in political and social issues. How do novels push children to understand themselves in relation to their community and nation? To what extent do they attempt to shape readers’ political philosophies and to introduce children to previously unknown political and social dangers? How subversive is children’s literature, and how subversive should it be?

Course Information

Spring 2017
MTuW 12:20-2:15
Th 1:25-4:30
Payne 212

Instructor Information

Sydney Bufkin
Washington 108
bufkins@wlu.edu
Office hours:
MTuW 10:00-11:00
Th 10:00-12:00
And by appointment

Course Objectives

This semester you will:

• Analyze literature and culture in historical context, and across historical contexts
• Read closely, recognizing subtle and complex differences in language use
• Practice developing analytic claims and supporting those claims with specific, appropriate and properly cited evidence
• Write clear, persuasive analytical essays driven by arguments about texts
• Reflect on and hone your writing process, with particular attention to revision
• Derive pleasure and edification from a broad range of texts

Required Texts

• Alcott, Louisa. Little Women. 1868. New York: Norton, 2004.
• Bacigalupi, Paolo. Ship Breaker. New York: Little Brown, 2010.
• Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War. 1974. New York: Ember, 2002.
• Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. New York: Tor, 2010.
• 
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1960. New York: Harper, 2002.
• Myers, Walter Dean. Fallen Angels. New York: Scholastic, 1988.
, Gary (dir.). The Hunger Games. 2012.
• Taylor, Mildred. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. 1976. New York: Puffin, 2004.

Grading

Grading scale
93-100 points A
90-92 points A-
87-89 points B+
83-86 points B
80-82 points B-
77-79 points C+
73-76 points C
70-72 points C-
67-69 points D+
63-66 points D
60-62 points D-

Assignments

Provocation questions

Ten times over the course of the term, you will be responsible for submitting a detailed, substantive question about some aspect of that day’s reading. At the beginning of the course, we will discuss what constitutes a detailed, substantive question, and I will provide several examples for you to refer to. Provocation questions must be posted to the course blog no later than midnight on the day before class. Over the course of the semester, you will submit ten provocation questions; I will average the top nine.

Reflections

At several points throughout the term, I will ask you to reflect on and write about the material in the course. These reflections are intended to help you think about the readings in relation to one another and to the themes of the course as a whole, as well as to give you an opportunity to construct a study plan for the exams. They are not intended to test your knowledge of the reading, and I will not be evaluating them for content or correctness. They will be graded on a check plus/check/check minus basis.

Final exam

The final exam will ask you to identify the source and significance of meaningful passages from the texts we have discussed in the course, as well as to write a synthetic, timed essay about the course material.

Writing Assignments

Research presentation (500-750 words)

Once during the course of the semester, you will be responsible for giving a research presentation about the author and text under discussion for the day. Your presentation should introduce the class to some historical or contextual issue that is relevant to our understanding of the text being discussed that day. In addition to an oral presentation of your findings, you will also post a bibliography and synthesis (500-750 words) of your research to the course blog.

Close reading (500-750 words)

Literary analysis is grounded in close reading. This term, you will write a short, focused close reading of an important passage in a text. The goal of this assignment is to look in depth at a small part of the text, rather than reflecting generally on the entirety. You should be able to identify a few paragraphs—a page at most—from which you will draw your evidence and focus your analysis. Your goal should be to connect the insights you draw from a short and well-defined section of the text to the work as a whole—that is, you will draw most of your evidence from a single passage, but your thesis and conclusion will attempt to show why your ideas about this one section are relevant to understanding the work as a whole.

Contextual close reading (500-750 words)

Close reading and analysis is the foundation of all good writing, but there are plenty of questions that can’t be answered solely with evidence drawn from a single text. For your second short writing assignment, you will make an argument about a scene from a novel that requires some contextual information drawn from outside the text in order to be fully understood. You will combine close reading of the scene itself with research into the scene’s context. Your goal is to show your reader how the addition of specific contextual information (historical, biographical or even theoretical) enhances, complicates, changes or disrupts our understanding of the scene.

Final paper (2000-2500 words)

You may choose from several options for your final paper. They include:

A) An analytic paper that examines two or more texts from the syllabus, enlarging or expanding on one or more ideas from your blog posts and provocation questions. Your paper will combine close readings, summary, and synthesis in order to show your reader something interesting that emerges when you consider two or three texts in relation to each other.

B) A critical essay written for a blog or website that focuses on cultural criticism. This essay may present an argument about one of the texts from the course in terms that will be appealing to a broader audience, or it may connect one or more of the course readings to contemporary issues. You will also write a short reflective essay on why you chose the specific publication venue for your essay, what expectations and interests your audience is likely to have, and how you addressed those expectations and interests in your essay.

C) A short, creative blog post that makes an argument about YA using the conventions of online writing (the listicle, the mash-up, “Texts from,” etc.), accompanied by an essay analyzing your creative post. The idea here is to connect the novels we’ve read in class to contemporary experience using popular forms of writing. What does the Buzzfeed version of this class look like? How might you get Internet audiences to see the connections we’ve bee making in class? How can you use writing styles other than straightforward analysis to make a point about historical and cultural analysis?

Prior to submitting your final paper, you will complete a paper proposal assignment that describes what you will argue and how you will support that argument. You will also submit a draft of your paper that you will then revise based on instructor feedback.

Course policies

Revision

Because revision is an essential part of the writing process, you will have the opportunity to revise your short writing assignments and submit them at the end of the semester. Your revisions should each constitute a significant change from the previous draft; revisions that do not contain significant changes will not be accepted.

Class blog

The blog for this course will serve as a place to extend and expand on our discussions in class. You will post your research synthesis and provocation questions to the blog, and you are encouraged to comment on your classmates’ questions. There will also be periodic brief responses and assignments that you will be asked to post to the blog. I will provide instructions for posting to the blog, but if you are having any difficulties, you are responsible for getting assistance, either from me or from campus ITS.

Attendance

Because this is an intensive Spring Term course, attendance is essential to your work in this class. We meet only 16 times all term, so even a single absence results in a significant loss of instructional time. Unexcused absences will have a negative effect on your final course grade, and more than three absences will result in a failing grade.

Technology

Classroom engagement and active discussion are essential parts of this course. For that reason, I ask that you consider carefully your use of technology and whether it serves as a distraction from your participation and attention to your classmates. If using a laptop or tablet is a marked aid to your note-taking process, then you may do so, but I encourage you to put electronic devices away whenever possible. In addition, there should be no audio or visual recording of the class without my explicit permission and that of your classmates.

Plagiarism

Washington and Lee defines plagiarism as “the use of another’s words or ideas without proper acknowledgment.” You are responsible for familiarizing yourself with what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. For assistance, see the resources available on the library website and consult with me during my office hours.

Accommodations for Students With Disabilities

Washington and Lee University makes reasonable academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. All undergraduate accommodations must be approved through the Office of the Dean of the College. Students requesting accommodations for this course should present an official accommodation letter within the first two weeks of the term and schedule a meeting outside of class time to discuss accommodations. It is the student’s responsibility to present this paperwork in a timely fashion and to follow up about accommodation arrangements. Accommodations for test-taking should be arranged with the professor at least a week before the date of the test or exam. For more information contact: Wendy L. Price, Assistant Dean of the College, Lee-Jackson House (540) 458-8746.