The Blog
The ENGL 3820 Blog is a great resource for students enrolled in the course and for members of the Western Michigan University English Studies community who are interested in keeping up with what is going on in the class. On these pages you'll find links to announcements, handouts, photos, and student assignments.
Designed as a survey course, ENGL 3820 introduces students to many of the ideas and practices relevant to literature for the young child.
Course Materials
Course Recap
Before we started to talk about the text, I asked those of you who had purchased used copies of The Giving Tree to see if there were any inscriptions on the inside cover pages. At least six of you found inscriptions that seemed to support an interpretation of the text in which selfless giving was put forward as an ideal. This morning, when I typed in "The Giving Tree" into Google Images, many other inscriptions, which had been captured in photos and downloaded to the Internet, came up, as in the example to the right.
Next, we discussed as a class the various interpretations that you had generated for homework. Keep in mind that the first part of the template I gave you asked you to write a statement about what you thought the story was about. This phrasing is equivalent to making a claim about the story that could then be supported with evidence from the text. If a critic were writing a paper about The Giving Tree, this statement could serve as the thesis. While a topic is the general concept a critic is exploring (i.e., parent/child relationships in The Giving Tree), a thesis should reflect a specific claim about that topic.
As an example from our class session, many groups wrote a general statement at first, something along these lines: "The Giving Tree is a story about parent/child relationships" or "The Giving Tree is about selflessness." My goal is for you to move beyond these general statements to more specific claims about the text. For instance, an edited version of the questions might include these possibilities: "One interpretation of The Giving Tree is that a particular type of parenting -- one in which a mother gives up everything for her child -- is (advocated or criticized) in the text." Or: "Silverstein writes a text in which the reader is encouraged to question the results of selflessness, as the tree seems to give up everything without receiving anything in return, until it becomes a mere stump."
I know that making claims about a work of literature is challenging and that sometimes a critic has to float a number of possibilities before latching onto an explanation that can be supported fully with evidence from the text. I also want to emphasize that it is possible to arrive at more than one interpretation for a text -- that fact seems obvious: think about the times when seeing a movie with friends turns into a debate about the significance of the film. The reason I asked your groups to ccompare your interpretations was to underscore the importance of looking beyond one's first claims about a text in order to arrive at as many interpretations as possible. The key is that in order to be successful, an interpretation must be supported with evidence from the text.
Next, I provided you with information taken from Lisa Rowe Faustino's article on The Giving Tree. Faustino's purpose in the essay is to convince her readers that traditional interpretations of The Giving Tree may not have sufficiently taken issues of gender into account. I would like you to read Faustino's text for homework because it provides even more possible interpretations of The Giving Tree. In class on Thursday, I will have you complete a quiz in which you write up a solid argument for one interpretation of The Giving Tree. You will be able to use your class notes, the text, and Faustino's article as references. My goal is to have you practice making a claim about a text and supporting it with evidence. Here is a PDF scan of the segment of Faustino's essay that I would like you to read (if you did not get a copy in class): Download Faustino Excerpt
Towards the half-way mark of class, I pointed out another interpretation for The Giving Tree that no one had mentioned yet: the idea that the tree represents Nature and the boy represents humankind. In this interpretation, the boy's desire to take without concern for sustaining the tree leads to the tree's eventual demise. I noted that many environmentalists have put forward this intepretation of the text and have linked it to Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.
One final note on Silverstein. As you will recall, I asked you to watch for homework this past weekend the video of Silverstein reading his text. Did you notice that Silverstein eliminated the one line the text ("but not really") that might indicate that the tree was unhappy in her relationship with the boy? I find this to be a fascinating discovery -- one that should make you think carefully about Silverstein's intentions (especially in light of Faustino's argument that Silverstein portrays mothers in a way that might diminish their individuality and might suggest that their primary value as people resides in the relationships that they have with their children).
During the last part of class, you worked in groups to answer these questions on Dr. Seuss' The Lorax: Download ENGL 3820 Lorax Exercise Sp 12
If you were not in class, please be sure to complete this assignment so that you will be caught up.
For class on Thursday, bring all of your books and notes, as we will finish our discussion of Dr. Seuss and engage in a review for the exam which will take place on Tuesday, February 7.
Annie has agreed to run a study session this coming weekend -- please contact her at anneliese.l.stephens@wmich.edu, if you are interested in participating.
Course Recap
At the beginning of class, we had the chance to hear Catherine Bailey's presentation on the services available to you at the WMU Writing Center and on the strategies that you could use to study for and to take an essay exam. As Catherine explained, you can sign up for an individualized session in the writing center by following the links on the writing center homepage. If you missed class today, you can get the handouts that Catherine used in her presentation -- I saved copies for you and will bring them to class next Tuesday.
During the second half of class, I gave a short presentation on the history of children's poetry: Download ENGL 3820 History of Children's Poetry Sp 12
I wanted to be sure that you understood that Shel Silverstein was part of a group of 1960s and 1970s poets who created believable child speakers and showed them positing ideas and desires that would be typical of most children. That said, Silverstein's The Giving Tree is a bit different -- it departs from Silverstein's typically jovial and irreverant poetry to tell a fable. The question we will be answering as we consider his text involves just what sort of message or messages that Silverstein might be trying to convey in the text.
Homework
For homework, I would like you to fill out the following handout -- if you were in class, you already have a copy, but if you were not, you can access a copy here: Download ENGL 3820 Silverstein Exercise Sp 12 Like most of the picture books we are reading this semester, The Giving Tree does not include page numbers. I would like us to use the following numbering system: Page 1 will be the one that contains the text, "Once there was a tree...". By my calculation, the book ends on page 52, with the text, "The End."
Also, I would like you to take a few minutes and watch this video, a 1970s production in which Silverstein reads The Giving Tree.
Finally, in class, I said that I wanted you to read a short excerpt from scholar Lisa Rowe Faustino, but I have decided that I would rather share her ideas with you in class next time. That way, as you do the exercise, you will be reflecting on your own ideas, and then later, you can see how they matched up with Faustino's.
Next week, we will move from Silverstein right into Seuss -- so please also be sure that you have read Seuss' The Lorax and bring it with you to class on Tuesday, along with your copy of The Giving Tree. We will probably only spend about 20 minutes on The Lorax, but at least we can get a start.
Course Recap
The picture to the right is a self-portrait by Shaun Tan.
During the first part of class, we discussed what I termed two "comparative strategies" -- techniques that Shaun Tan uses in order to have his readers compare situations that occur in the novel. The first comparative strategy is the embedded narrative. Most texts include a main or primary narrative. In The Arrival, the main narrative is the story of the man who leaves his family in order to immigrate to a new land. He goes through the immigration process, meets other immigrants who help him to learn the customs of the new land, and finds a job. When he has saved up enough money, he is able to send for his family, and they are reunited. The embedded narratives in The Arrival are the short stories that are told by the other immigrants whom the man meets; they are stories about those immigrants' reasons for leaving their homelands and coming to the new land. The first storyteller is a young woman who recounts her experiences as a slave in a mine; the second storyteller is a married man who explains how he and his wife escaped a totalitarian regime; the third storyteller is an elderly man, a former soldier, who lost everything in a war and has tried to rebuild his life in the new land.
Each of these embedded narratives serves as a point of comparison among the various immigrants. By hearing these stories, the man learns that he is not alone in his attempt to start over and to build a better life for his family. If we link these embedded narratives to the multiple faces that adorn the flyleaves of the book, we can see how Tan's story is both specific and general. In class, I told you that my friend, the Belgian scholar Christophe Dony, just published an essay on this aspect of The Arrival -- you can read his short essay at this link.
I also explained in class that the embedded narratives are linked to the major set of questions that are raised in the first part of The Arrival. These questions are:
1. Where is the man going?
2. Will he see his family again?
3. What might happen to his family while he is gone?
You will note that every time the man hears one of the embedded narratives, these questions -- especially 2 and 3 -- are brought to the fore, as readers are encouraged to remember the basic tension that emerges at the beginning of the text and is not resolved until the family is successfully reunited at the end.
The second comparative strategy is the normative center, a place in the text where ideal human interaction occurs. In The Arrival, the reunited family scene placed towards the end of the text provides the clearest example of a normative center, and the visual similarities between this scene and the family scene in part I is very important to our understanding of Tan's message. In the first kitchen scene, the man and his wife are still holding on to each other, which suggests their love and closeness, and they are surrounded by hints at their happy domesticity -- the tea things, the daughter's drawings -- however, their faces are strained, as they anticipate their separation. In the mirror scene at the end of the text, the family's joy is underscored by the ample food on the table, the abundance of material goods, but perhaps most importantly, the clear joy that Tan evokes through the use of light.
A number of you also identified the scene that takes place right after the embedded narrative told by the man who escaped the totalitarian regime with his wife. In this normative center, the immigrant family welcomes the man to their home and demonstrates through their closeness and their bountiful food that there can be a happy ending to the immigrant experience. However, because the man has not yet been reunited with his wife and daughter, this normative center is meant both to point towards what might be, but also to underscore what isn't yet. All three of the scenes I have just discussed come together and enable the reader to make a comparison between the various stages of the man's journey.
After discussing The Arrival, I handed out a series of poems that represent examples of the shifts in children's poetry over the last century. In class next time, we will briefly go over these poems, we'll have our visit from Ms. Catherine Bailey, a writing lab consultant who will talk to us about exam-taking strategies, and we'll begin our discussion of Silverstein's The Giving Tree. If you were not in class, be sure to get a copy of the poetry handout from me next time.
Course Recap
For the first part of class, I provided you with a number of resources that you can use to interpret visual images. We went over Molly Bang's discussion of how she depicted the fairytale "Little Red Riding Hood," using only minimal shapes and colors. Then, we reviewed Bang's principles for visual interpretation. Download ENGL 3820 Bang Principles Text
Additionally, I took you through Scott McCloud's guide for understanding the relationships between panels that can occur in a comics text.
Once we had gone over all of this preliminary information, I provided you with an exercise that you could use to begin your work with Shaun Tan's The Arrival. Towards the end of class, I suggested that you go over the questions on your own so that you will be all ready for our class discussion of The Arrival on Tuesday, January 24th.
I want to take a moment to reflect upon the first question in the handout. As I mentioned in class, this question was a new one for me -- and as I saw you all working through it, I came to realize that while I could verify some of your questions about whether a particular image pair or set of images fit into a category, there were some image pairs or sets that seemed to support more than one type of relationship. Upon further reflection, I think that this situation is actually very instructive. McCloud's categories can certainly overlap, and I am comfortable with your interpretations going forward, as long as you can support them with evidence from the text. Indeed, I can tell you up front that there will NOT be a question on the upcoming exam that asks you to make a definitive identification of the relationship that occurs between two panels. You are more than welcome to make reference to these sorts of relationships in your exam answers, but my goal in having you practice McCloud's system is to heighten your appreciation of the potential relationships between images. I want you to think about how Shaun Tan creates a narrative without ever using words, and the ability to talk about the relationship between panels is just one method among many that we will use.
Here is an electronic copy of the exercise: Download ENGL 3820 The Arrival Exercise Sp12
Homework and Class Agenda for Tuesday
In class on Tuesday, we will engage in a class discussion of The Arrival, and we will go over the study guide for Exam 1. A representative from the WMU Writing Lab will join us from 2:15-2:45 to go over strategies for writing essay exams. Here is a link to the Study Guide: Download ENGL 3820 Exam One Study Guide Sp 12
Although we will not begin our discuss of The Giving Tree until Thursday, you should be sure to be reading that (very short) text.
Course Recap
At the beginning of class, I took you through the highlights of Karen Coats' essay, focusing primarily on a discussion of segment that covered The Rainbow Fish. Here is a copy of the presentation that I used:
Download Fish Stories Powerpoint Sp 12
As part of my presentation, I engaged in a dialogue with Coats' interpretation of The Rainbow Fish. I suggested to you that whenever you read a scholarly article, you should try to locate the place in the scholar's argument where he/she seems to be making the most important claim about a text. For instance, in Coats' treatment of The Rainbow Fish, she contends that the Rainbow Fish simply objects to sharing parts of its body with the blue fish and that based upon this reasonable unwillingness to give away an intrinsic part of itself, the Rainbow Fish is shunned by the other fish. Ultimately, I agree with Coats' assertion that the message the story imparts is that in order to have friends one must erase some of what makes one unique. I think that this interpretation is supported in the text. Where I depart from Coats' argument is that I feel the Rainbow Fish is shown to have a very unfriendly and even rude attitude towards his fellow fish -- an attitude that makes it difficult for me to accept all of Dr. Coats' argument that in the encounter between the Rainbow Fish and the blue fish, the Rainbow Fish is a neutral participant. Part of the author's goal, I would argue, is to teach the Rainbow Fish manners (and by extension advocate those manners to young readers).
What is significant about this dialogue I had with Dr. Coats is that it demonstrates how experienced readers can produce different interpretations of a text and that these interpretations can build off of one another and add to their understanding of literature. It is my hope that during the semester, you will hone your own ability to read a text carefully, to consider other scholars' viewpoints, and to develop viewpoints of your own. In order to be taken seriously, a scholar must be able to back up his or her opinion with evidence from the text. The exciting thing about literary interpretation is that multiple meanings can be taken from the very same passage in a text.
Next, we talked briefly about Jacobs' variant of "The Three Little Pigs" folktale, his "The Story of the Three Pigs," written in 1890. I introduced you to the terms "variant" and "version" that can be used to refer to a particular iteration of a fairy tale.
We agreed that Jacobs' text was didactic, and we noted that there were a number of lessons that Jacobs probably felt young readers should take away from the text, including 1) the benefits inherent in the third pig's willingness to do the hard work necessary to build a strong house and 2) the wisdom of the third pig's choice to learn a lesson from his brothers' mistakes.
We then spent time as a class going over the questions contained in the following handout related to Wiesner's contemporary picture book, The Three Pigs:
Download ENGL 3820 Wiesner Inclass Exercise Sp12
The questions I raised were designed to encourage you to think about how Wiesner's text disrupted the tidy moral world created in Jacobs' variant of "The Three Little Pigs" folktale. I also wanted you to be able to identify ways that postmodern sensibilities pervaded Wiesner's text.
When I asked you to consider Wiesner's purpose in writing the text, the class came up with some very sound observations. Wiesner may have wanted:
1. "to switch up" or to play with the plots of traditional stories, bringing a contemporary sensibility to bear upon them;
2. to encourage young children to move outside of their comfort zones and to understand that change could be beneficial;
3. to suggest that a person does not always have to accept the circumstances of the world s/he inherits; and
4. to advocate for making the best of chances that do come along.
I added to the conversation by suggestiong that Wiesner is invested in the postmodern valorization of playfulness -- his characters have a great deal of fun turning the story world upside down, further reinforcing what some of you termed his "thinking outside the box" stance.
As part of our discussion, I introduced you to the term "volition," which refers to a person's ability to change the circumstances in his/her life. We noted that once the fairytale characters move outside of their stories, they use volition to alter the course of their lives. They also make friends with beings such as the dragon, who might appear to be mean on the exterior, but who is actually very kind.
I underscored, as well, the concept of Home-Away-Home, a pattern that emerges in children's literature in the 19th century and has remained a constant to this day. Thus, while Wiesner's text upends many of the conventions of storytelling, it still presents a conclusion in which the fairytale characters "come home" -- however, it is a home of their own choosing, built out of an expression of their own volition.
Homework
In class on Thursday, I will give a lecture on Molly Bang's principles of visual interpretation, prior to our work with Shaun Tan's The Arrival. Please review the handout I gave you on visual interpretation:
Download ENGL 3820 Basics of Visual Interpretation Sp 12
Remember to bring both Wiesner's The Three Pigs and Tan's The Arrival to class.
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically...Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education.”
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wanted to remind you of all of the opportunities for you to become involved with the university-wide celebration of MLK Day. Earlier in the decade, I served as the chair of the university's MLK Committee that plans the week-long celebrations, and I can attest to the benefits of attending these sessions. Click here for a link to WMU's annoucement of events and activities.
I wanted to highlight two events that may be of special interest to you. First, there is a session planned by the College of Education and the Departments of English and of History for Wednesday, January 18th: "Addressing the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement," with Dr. Don Cooney, WMU professor of social work, followed by breakout sessions, 2028 Brown Hall, 5 p.m.
This session is designed to inform the way that we can incorporate issues of social justice into our classrooms.
The second event that I think will be truly amazing is a speech by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University to be held at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15 in Miller Auditorium. I have had the privilege of meeting Dr. Dyson and of hearing him speak, and I can tell you that he is truly inspirational.
Course Recap
At the beginning of class, I gave a lecture on the history of children's literature, making reference to a number of examples of the genre, taken from the 18th through to the 21st centuries. The important take away from this discussion was the fact that children's literature changes over time to accomodate shifts in the way that childhood is perceived within a particular culture. For instance, Puritan concerns regarding infant mortality led them to value a highly didactic, religious, and realistic mode of expression. On the other hand, 19th-century attitudes regarding childhood as a time set apart, with an emphasis on playfulness and the melding of "instruction with delight," led to the rise of imaginative literature for children.
Here is a copy of the presentation and a scan of the excerpts that we read and discussed in class:
Download The History of Children's Literature Spring 12
Download Children's Literature Excerpts Sp 2012
During the second part of class, we began our discussion of the texts mentioned in Karen Coats' essay, "“Fish Stories: Teaching Children’s Literature in a Postmodern World.” I must say that my decision to bring canned fish to the classroom so that you could get an idea of the irony inherent in Chris Raschka's Arlene Sardine was probably not a popular one -- don't worry, near Valentine's Day, if I bring something that is hermetically sealed, it will be of the candy variety! Here is a link to the exercise that we will work on that the beginning of class on Tuesday:
Download Critical Thinking Questions for Coats
Homework
For homework, you will need to read Wiesner's The Three Pigs and Jacobs' "The Story of the Three Little Pigs," readings which are also listed on your syllabus. Click on this link for the story. In the syllabus, I mention Molly Bang's Picture This -- I will be presenting it to you in class and will link it to the blog next week.
Also, you have an assignment that is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday. Here is a link to it:
Download ENGL 3820 Jacobs Wiesner Homework 1 Sp 12
Finally, as a reminder, please try to drop by the Bernhard Center some time in the coming week to pick up your $5.00 fee (or copy) card from the bookstore. See you on Tuesday.
Course Recap
In class today, I began by asking you to reflect on your reading habits as a young child. I wanted you to remember what it was like to "lose yourself" in a book. I explained that one of the key features of contemporary children's literature is that it is often focalized through first-person narrators whose language seems age appropriate. I noted that whether young readers identify with a protagonist because she remings them of themselves or if they learn about new subjectivities by identifying with a character who seems to be different from themselves, the goal for most authors is to create characters who seem believeable. These characters appear to encourage readers to "get lost" in a text, and literary critics term this process engaging narration.To give you an example of how a contemporary author creates a relatable protagonist, I read you an excerpt from Christopher Paul Curtis' intermediate novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963.
Next, I introduced you to the concept of "the hidden adult," which refers to the fact that behind any work of children's literature is an adult author who may often choose to voice his or her didactic ideas through the voice of a first person child narrator. I noted that this concept is best expressed in Perry Nodelman's aptly-named study, The Hidden Adult.
During the second half of class, I took you through the course policies and syllabus, and I showed you how to locate scholarly articles off of the Project Muse database. Here is a handout with the directions:
Download ENGL 3820 Project Muse Instructions Sp12
Although I will not go through each of these presentations in depth, please take a look at them, as they are designed to provide you with suggestions for how to maximize your study time this semester:
Download ENGL 3820 Reading Strategies Handout Sp12
Download ENGL 3820 Reading Tool Kit Presentation Sp12
Homework
For class on Thursday, January 12, 2012, you will be studying Karen Coats' article "Fish Stories: Teaching Children's Literature in a Postmodern World." To prepare you to have the best experience possible, I would like you to read in advance the three primary texts that Coats mentions in her essay: Leo Lionni's Swimmy, Marcus Pfister's The Rainbow Fish, and Chris Raschka's Arlene Sardine. Here are links to each text. Keep in mind that these pdf files can take up to 8 minutes to load, especially if you have an older computer. If your computer rebels, not to worry, as we will go through each book in class next time, using copies that I will bring with me.
