Course Descriptions

Fall 2006

• English 306A: Children's Literature Prof. M. Galbraith. Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:45 in SS 2650.
  This semester's theme: A Child's-Eye View of Adults. At the end of the eighteenth century, English poet and artist William Blake used a child's point of view to savage adult moral bankruptcy.  In the nineteenth century, Victorian authors Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte took readers inside childhood traumas at the hands of frightening adults, and American author Mark Twain used an adolescent perspective to critique a nation of adult hypocrites, racists, and sanctimonious moralists. Since then, books for children have grown into a major industry.  Although this special area of publishing is pledged to reassure child readers that adults care about them, the best of these books also provide unsettling views of adult culture.  In this course, we will be reading children's literature­-poems, fairy tales, novels, and picture books­-noticing its critiques of adults and their inevitable lesson plans (including this one?).

• English 306A: Children's Literature Prof. P. Serrato. (two sections) Classes meet MWF 9:00-9:50 and 11:00-11:50 in COM 206.
To your amusement, fascination, dismay, horror, and/or surprise, this semester we will explore the amazing complexity of children's literature. We will begin by acquainting ourselves with some classics, such as Heinrich Hoffman's Struwwelpeter , Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Then we will look at some more recent works, including George Selden's The Cricket in Times Square , Gary Paulsen's Nightjohn, and, Kathleen Leverich's The New You. Finally, we will focus our attention on the ways that different genres of literature create different types of reading experiences for young people by analyzing books such as Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Captain Underpants, Jim Murphy's An American Plague, Anthony Browne's Voices in the Park, and a (newly revised!) biography about George W. Bush. By the end of the course you will wield an expertise in children's literature that will allow you to think, talk, and write about children's literature in wonderfully sophisticated-and perhaps unusual-ways. Requirements include one paper, 2 exams, a final exam, and a presentation.
Required Texts:

• Heinrich Hoffman, Struwwelpeter  (Dover; ISBN 0486284697)
• Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden  (Dover 0486407845)
• Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland  (Dover 0486416585)
• Franklin Dixon, The Secret of Skull Mountain  (Grosset & Dunlap 0448089270)
• George Selden, The Cricket in Times Square  (Yearling 0440415632)
• Gary Paulsen, Nightjohn  (Laurel Leaf 0440219361)
• Gloria Anzaldúa, Friends from the Other Side  (Children's Book P 0892391308)
• Patricia Reilly Giff, Pictures of Hollis Woods (Yearling 0440415780)
• Anthony Browne, Voices in the Park (DK Publishing 078948191X)
• R.L. Stine, The Ghost Next Door  (Scholastic 0439568323)
• Dav Pilkey, The Adventures of Captain Underpants  (Scholastic 0590846280)
• Jim Murphy, An American Plague  (Clarion 0395776082)
• Beatrice Gormley, President George W. Bush  (Revised) (Aladdin 0689878346)
• Kathleen Leverich, The New You (Scholastic 0439108012)

• English 501: Literature for Children. Prof. J. Griswold. Class meets Thursdays 15:30-18:10 in COM 206.
  An introduction to Children's Literature and its various genres. Likely to include: the picture book (The Tale of Peter Rabbit), poetry (A Child's Garden of Verses ), fairy tales (e.g., "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Little Mermaid"), fantasies (The Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, Charlotte 's Web, The Jungle Books), and novels (Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island ).

• English 503: Chicana/o Children's Literature: From Chicano, Amigo to La Llorona to Lucha Libre! Prof. P. Serrato. Class meets MW 14:00-15:15 in SH 339.
  This semester we will research the history of Chicana/o children's literature. Soon enough, you will realize that this literature is a very ambitious type of literature. In different proportions, the works of authors such as Nepthalí de León, Elia Robledo Durán, Ernesto Galarza, Pat Mora, Gloria Anzaldúa, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Gary Soto feature doses of cultural nationalism, a desire to entertain and amuse young readers, and a willingness to engage issues such as racism, immigration, poverty, homophobia, love, tequila worms, and the do's and don'ts of quinceañeras. In many cases, we will find that depictions of culturally specific experiences simultaneously hold universal relevance. In the course of the semester, we will talk about different genres, including poetry, theatre, the picture book, the novel, music, ghost stories, and choose-your-own-adventure books. This class does NOT presume or require prior knowledge of or experience with Chicano/a literature or culture. Students interested in children's literature in general, Chicano/a literature in particular, multicultural literature, and/or Chicano/a Studies are invited to enroll. Requirements include two papers, two exams, and one presentation on a picture book of your choice.
Required texts will include:

• Rudolfo Anaya, My Land Sings: Stories from the Río Grande (Rayo 0380729024)
• Gloria Anzaldúa, Friends from the Other Side  (Children's Book P 0892391308)
• Gloria Anzaldúa, Prietita and the Ghost Woman (Children's Book P 0892391677)
• Diane González Bertrand, Sweet Fifteen (Piñata 0689878346)
• Viola Canales, The Tequila Worm (Wendy Lamb 0385746741)
• Lori Carlson (ed.), Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (Fawcett Juniper 044970436X)
• Juan Felipe Herrera, Downtown Boy (Scholastic 0439644895)
• Juan Felipe Herrera, Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box (Harper Tempest 0060579862)
• Hernán Moreno-Hinojosa, The Ghost Rider and Other Chilling Tales (Piñata Books 1558854002)
• Pam Muñoz Ryan, Becoming Naomi León (Scholastic 0439803772)
• Gary Soto, Baseball in April (Harcourt 015205721)
• Gary Soto, Novio Boy (Harcourt 0152015310)
• Tracey West, Scream Shop: Day of the Dead (Grosset & Dunlap 0448433605)

There will also be a photocopied reader that will feature reproductions of early picture books that are now out of print and very difficult to locate. For a finalized list of the required readings, feel welcome to email the instructor (pserrato@mail.sdsu.edu) over the summer.

Graduate Courses

• ENGL 606C: Folk Tales. Prof. J. Griswold. Class Schedule: Thursdays, 7-9:40 p.m.
  In-depth, close readings of well known Folk Tales ("Marchen" or "Fairy Tales"). Psychological, socio-historical (Marxist), and feminist interpretations. Examinations of origins in Asian sources (e.g., The Panchatantra) and Greco-Roman myths (e.g., Apeleius' The Golden Ass). Worldwide variants. Retellings in contemporary fiction (by, for example, Anne Sexton and Angela Carter) and reinterpretations in films. Special attention to the following story cycles: "Litle Red Riding Hood" (from bzou stories to Neil Jordan's "The Company of Wolves"), "Cinderella" (from the Scottish "Rashin Coatie" through King Lear to "Ever After"), and "Beauty and the Beast"(from "Swan Maiden" tales to "Shrek").

• ENGL 727: Seminar: Children's Literature and Film. Prof. J. Cummins. Class meets Wednesdays, 15:30-18:50 in AH 1222.
  In this class, we will explore the at times symbiotic and at other times parasitic relationship between children's books and the cinema. Why and how do certain texts for children get adapted into movies? What happens to these texts when the adaptation occurs? What are audience's expectations for children's films as opposed to or in tandem with their expectations of children's books? How does the heightened emphasis on the visual in movies affect the narratives of literature that began in books and then moved to screens? What makes a movie a children's movie, and do filmmakers and audiences always agree that a movie is for children? What role does economics play in the adaptation of children's books into film? How do other media, such as the internet, affect the book/film relationship? We will examine and question the aesthetic, technical, and most of all cultural aspects of the ever-increasing phenomenon of adapting children's books into movies.