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English 3406 Literature for Pre-Adolescents

Donelson and Nilsen (2006) note that “in the late 1980s and early 1990s . . . publishers began focusing their attention on junior high and middle school readers.”  Award-winning works such as Holes (Sachar), Ella Enchanted (Levine), The Watsons Go to Birmingham~1963 (Curtis); books in the phenomenally popular Harry Potter series; and increasingly sophisticated hybrid works (novels in verse, graphic novels) belong to this growing body of literature.  In this course we will focus our critical eye on those works that fall between “children’s literature” (nursery rhymes, fairy tales, picture books) and “young adult literature.”  Literature for Pre-Adolescent readers (approximately ages 8-12, grades 4-8) encompasses poetry and non-fiction as well as a rich variety of classic and popular novels in diverse genre: from contemporary realism to historical fiction, from dystopia to epic fantasy and fractured fairy tale.  Our exploration of these works will take into account their historical and social contexts, and we will work to develop criteria for evaluating them that are responsive to literary quality and attentive to issues of ideology, cultural authority, rhetoric and pedagogy, and to the strategies and techniques used by adult authors of youth literature to accommodate their intended audience.  Assignments will reflect the genre in which scholars and professionals working with youth literature conventionally communicate their ideas (e.g. academic essay, review, book talk) and will give you a chance to work with the print and electronic resources that enable them to engage in the lively contemporary discussion of this literature. (Group 5)