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    COURSE DESCRIPTION
    SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
    Summer 2009
    EDUC 465
    Children's Literature
    Elizabeth Marshall
    Office: edb
    8545
    EMAIL: beth_marshall@sfu.ca
    PREREQUISITE: 60 credit hours
    DESCRIPTION
    This course offers a critical introduction to literature and other cultural texts produced for
    children, including fairy tales, picture books, contemporary fictions, and film. Course readings
    include materials produced for children (kindergarten through middle-school) as well as current
    research and theory about children's literature and culture.
    OBJECTIVES
    This course draws on and introduces a range of theoretical perspectives that allow readers to ask
    questions about literary elements, cultural productions, representations of social categories such
    as gender and ethnicity, and to examine how these constructions of children and difference are
    tied to larger social and political contexts. Students will:
    • Read a variety of titles and genres to become familiar with the range of materials
    available for children
    • Use a variety of theories to analyze literary elements and to critically examine
    representations of race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality
    • Read contemporary scholarship on children's literature
    • Identify authors of landmark and contemporary texts and use professional resources to
    select and evaluate children's literature
    • Research children's responses to literature
    REQUIREMENTS
    The course includes: individual study, daily assignments, research, small group and whole-class
    discussion, a mid-term and a final exam.
    Course Requirements comprise the following:
    Quizzes:
    20%
    Participation/Seminar Discussion:
    30%
    Mid-Term:
    20%
    Final:
    30%
    REQUIRED READINGS
    Ellis, D. (2004).
    The breadwinner.
    Toronto: Groundwood books. 0-88899-416-8.
    Gaiman, N. (2008).
    The graveyard book.
    New York: HarperCollins. 978-0-06-053092.
    Montgomery, L.M.
    Anne of Green Gables.
    Norton Critical Edition.
    New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 978-0-393-92695-8.
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    Nodelman, P. & Reimer, M. (2003).
    The pleasures of children's
    Literature
    (31(1
    Ed.).
    Toronto: Allyn & Bacon. 0-8013-3248-6.
    Snicket, L. (2007).
    The bad beginning.
    New York: HarperCollins. 978-0061146305.
    Tatar, M. (2002).
    The annotated classic fairy tales.
    New York: W. W. Norton. 0-393-05163-3.

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