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SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE ST ES
NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM
1.
Calendar Information
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Department English
Abbreviation Code: FNC,I
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Course Number: 367
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Credit Hours: 4 Vector: 2-2-0
Title of Course: Studies in
Children's Litera-tvre
Calendar Description of
Course: LAn
intensive study of selected works of children's
literature from various periods. One objcct
o-f--..lhe
course will b-t© consider whetherrf
principles of interpretation and evaluation differ for children's and "adult"
literature.
Nature of Course 'Lecture/Seminar
Prerequisites (or special instructions):
Any two of ENGL 101, 102, 103; and any one of ENGL 204, 205, 206
What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is
approved:
none
2.
Scheduling
How frequently will the course be of feredt least
once every
4
semesters
Semester in which the course will first be offered?
81-1
Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposed offering
possible? Curtis, Harris, Steig
3.
Objectives of the Course
(see attached
sheet)
4.
Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only)
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7
What additional resources will be required in the following areas: none
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0
Faculty
Staff
Library
Audio Visual
Space
Equipment
5. Approval
Date
'
: '2.
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Q_--77
F.
&,-,tLa-^^
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Department Chairman
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Chairman, SCUS
SCUS 73-34b:- (When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a.
Attach course outline).
Arts 78-3
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Proposal for English 367: Studies in Children's Literature.
Nature and objectives of the course:
First, a brief history of the teaching of children's literature in
the English Department: In 76-1, a Special Studies course in children's
literature was given jointly by Professor Steig and Visiting Professor Bleich.
Student demand for the course was very heavy, and the drop-rate was low.
Subsequently, the Department proposed a new course, English 363, Varieties
of Fantasy, which, it was understood, would sometimes be taught as a
children's literature course, concentrating on fantasy for children. Since
its approval, English 363 has been offered alternately as Science-Fiction
and as
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Children's Literature. There has been a consistently high enrollment
and continuing demand for both courses, which has created something of a
problem, in that there has been little opportunity to offer 363 with a
different content, such as adult fantasy or the gothic novel.
Children's literature has in the past decade become an •extremely
active and lively subdivision of literary study in English departments
throughout North America. The annual journal, Children's Literature,
enters its eighth year with a new publisher, Yale University Press, and
several other journals have recently begun publication--journals con-
cerned with children's literature as a field of study within the disci-
pline of English literature, rather than to the use of children's litera-
ture in the elementary or secondary school classroom. UBC has courses
in children's literature in the faculty of education, the English
department, and the graduate School of Librarianship.
The children's literature courses taught thus far under the
rubrics of Special Studies or Varieties of Fantasy in our English
department have made rigorous demands on students. The "response"
approach described in the attached course description for 80-1 has
generally been used, but there is no requirement that such an approach
always be used in this course; the only requirement is that children's
literature be treated seriously and as of value in itself. The English
department's approach will always be sionificantly different from that
of Education 465, which is directed towards the use of children's
literature in the elementary or secondary classroom; indeed, the courses
should, for students goinn into teaching, complement one another.
The creation of English 367 will acknowledge and regularize an
already existinq situation: that the demand for a course In children's
literature is heavy, and that it must be given frequently. It will
reduce the pressure on English 363, so that a number of interested faculty
members may offer that course with a different content than either
science-fiction or children's literature. And it will make our offerings
more nearly equivalent to those of a large number of English departments
in North America.