Course Recap for February 23

Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

Today at the beginning of class, you took a short reading quiz over Yang's speech and Chen's article. We then spent some time discussing the text as a large group. I then gave a short presentation introducing the medium of comics; you can access that presentation HERE on the left-hand side of the course blog. I provided you with a handout on the basics of visual art that summarizes some of the key points of the presentation; you can access that document HERE. I then asked each of you to choose a significant image from Yang's American Born Chinese and to use a term from the handout to discuss its significance.

Critical Approaches to American Born Chinese: Chen and Yang

During the second half of class, I asked you to work with small groups in order to identify and examine the three narrative strands running through the comic, answer questions related to Chen's article, and examine Yang's discussion in his Printz speech of his depiction of the Chin-Kee character. You can access that exercise HERE. One group focused on the narrative threads chart, one group focused on the Chen article questions, and one group worked on a comparative analysis of the Chin-Kee character and the historical images upon which Yang based his representation. Each group presented their work, and we continued our discussion of Chen's article and Yang's speech and their relationship to the narrative strands in American Born Chinese.

Studying for the Midterm Exam 

At the end of class, I gave you suggestions for ways that you might study for the midterm exam. First, I suggested that you continue to practice writing about passages in a timed situation. Next, I suggested that you make table and list all of the possible critical ideas and terms that could be used to discuss the five primary texts: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Brown Girl Dreaming, and American Born Chinese. As a class, you identified the following terms/ideas for American Born Chinese: Chen's reverison, Nodelman's discussion of elements of visual dynamics (shapes, size, location and composition, figure and ground), Bang's discussion of space and line, Joseph's liminal character, Hintz and Tribunella's historical models of childhood, Bakhtin's the carnivalesque, Hintz and Tribunella's discussion of anthropomorphic fantasy, Trites's Entwicklungsroman and/or Bildungsroman, and Yang's discussion of his use of historical references to political cartoons in his creation of the Chin-Kee character. 

Remember: Beyond simply identifying that one of the above ideas/theories relates to the novel you are discussing, you should also explain the significance of the theory and relate it directly to the passage you are discussing and its significance to the novel as a whole. Keep in mind that the majority of your writing in part one of the exam should focus on your own analysis of the passage and its significance, while a much smaller portion of your discussion will focus on another critic's theory. You are using the critic's ideas to add weight to your own argument. Be sure to practice transitioning from your idea to the critic's idea, and then linking the critic back to your main point. Your midterm exam will take place next week on Tuesday during our regular class time (do not to miss class and be sure to be on time or early). This exam is open book, and all you will need to bring to class is your books and a pen. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me, contact me during office hours, or to set up a time to meet that works better for you. Once again, the best way to study for the exam is to write timed practice responses to significant passages in each novel AND to identify several critical ideas/terms that you could use to talk about each novel. Be sure to take some time to relax and breathe in between study sessions!

Key Questions From Class
What are the three interwoven narratives within American Born Chinese, and what major themes and conflicts emerge in each? How is stereotypical representation figured in the novel? How does this comic address issues of authenticity (especially compared to other texts we have encountered this semester)? What are the historical roots and origins of the Cousin Chin-Kee character? What was Yang trying to achieve with this representation? Where did the Chinese folktale “Monkey King’s Journey to the West” originate? How has this tale been altered for a western audience?

Homework

• Study for the Midterm Exam

Course Recap for February 16

Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming
Today at the beginning of class you took a short quiz over Woodson's verse novel. I then gave a short presentation on race, ethnicity, and culture in literature for young readers. You can access that presentation HERE and on the left hand side of the blog. I provided you with a document with some vocabulary and pointers for how to begin talking and writing about poetry. You can access that document HERE. I then asked you to spend some time working with a small group to identify significant poems from Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming and writing about different elements of form and poetic craft present in Woodson's verse novel. You can access that exercise HERE. You worked with your small group to evaluate your written responses according to a rubric I wrote on the board. Your response should include: citation of the author (first and last name, correctly spelled), book title (capitalized and underlined), poem title (in quotation marks), and significant characters/speakers in the poem; identification of the context of the passage or poem; discussion of the significance of the poem or passage to the text as a whole (at least one paragraph); and identification of a scholar (last name) and their idea or term to bolster your argument. We then came together as a large group to begin our discussion of the novel.

Critical Approaches to Brown Girl Dreaming: Stevenson and Woodson
After the break, I asked you to break into pairs to work on a series of discussion questions related to Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming. You can access that exercise HERE. These questions relate to the theme of naming in the novel, the haiku series, the paratext, the awards the novel has won, the narrative's participation in the Künstlerroman tradition, racism, and the We Need Diverse Books movement. Each group then presented on their questions, and we continued our discussion of the novel.

Key Questions From Class
What formal techniques and elements of poetic craft (music/sound, language, emotion, imagery) does Woodon use in Brown Girl Dreaming? What impact do these elements have on the reader? What is the verse novel? How are race, ethnicity, and culture represented in children's literature (historically and contemporarily)? How does Woodson's verse novel represent racism historically, and how do the events that occurred last year at the National Book Award ceremony relate to historical discussions of racism? What is the We Need Diverse Books movement, and why is diversity important in children's literature?

Homework

• Read Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese
• Read Irene Chen’s “Monkey King’s Journey to the West: Transmission of a Chinese Folktale to Anglophone Children” and Gene Luen Yang’s “Printz Award Winner Speech”
• HERE is a link to some of the images Yang references in his Printz Speech 

Blog Post Drop Box: Gene Luen Yang's _American Born Chinese_

Click on the "comment" button below to leave your blog post. I suggest you type your response first in a word document, and then copy and paste it into the comment box. When using book titles in your post you should set the title off with the underscore key: _American Born Chinese_ (as the comment box does not recognize italics). If you are signed up to be a discussion leader, your blog post should be at least 500 words of original prose (do not duplicate anything other bloggers have already said here) in which you engage with the text for the week critically AND pose an original discussion question. If you are signed up to be a responder, your post should be 250 words in length and respond to, answer, extend, or disagree with a question or thought from another student's post. Be sure to write your full name and word count at the bottom of your post. The cut-off time for this blog post is Friday, February 19 at midnight (for discussion leaders) and Monday, February 22 at midnight (for responders).

Discussion Leaders: Vincent, TeAnna, and Bryan
Responders: Michelle and Jonathan

Blog Post Drop Box: Jacqueline Woodson's _Brown Girl Dreaming_

Click on the "comment" button below to leave your blog post. I suggest you type your response first in a word document, and then copy and paste it into the comment box. When using book titles in your post you should set the title off with the underscore key: _Brown Girl Dreaming_ (as the comment box does not recognize italics). If you are signed up to be a discussion leader, your blog post should be at least 500 words of original prose (do not duplicate anything other bloggers have already said here) in which you engage with the text for the week critically AND pose an original discussion question. If you are signed up to be a responder, your post should be 250 words in length and respond to, answer, extend, or disagree with a question or thought from another student's post. Be sure to write your full name and word count at the bottom of your post. The cut-off time for this blog post is Friday, February 12 at midnight (for discussion leaders) and Monday, February 15 at midnight (for responders).

Discussion Leaders: Summer and Bryan
Responders: Carla and TeAnna

Course Recap for February 9

Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
Today at the beginning of class you took a short quiz over Sommers's and Reid-Walsh's articles. I then gave a short presentation on gender and sexuality in children's literature. You can access that presentation HERE and on the left hand side of the blog. Next, I asked the class to break up into four small groups to work on a series of different literary interpretation exercises; each group spent ten minutes at each "station," and the final group at each station presented the completed work to the class. On one white board, students worked on identifying the types of conflicts present in Blume's novel; you can access a handout including the skeleton of this activity HERE. On another white board, students created a bubble map for the term "girlhood" citing page numbers from Reid-Walsh's chapter. On another section of white board, students used a list of critical terms (Hintz and Tribunella's models of childhood, Hintz and Tribunella's three tensions that define children's lit, Trites's entwicklungsroman and bildungsroman, Nodelman's home-away-home, Reid-Walsh's girlhood, Butler's gender as performance, Joseph's liminality, Gruner's unschooling, Sommers's sororal dialogism) to talk about events, characters, passages, and the representation of childhood in Blume's novel. On the back table, students worked to group significant passages from Blume's novel (written on post-it notes by students at the start of class) into different categories. We then spent time discussing your thoughts and responses to Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Critical Approaches to Margaret: Sommers and Reid-Walsh
After the break, I asked you to work in small groups to complete a longer annotation (break down piece by piece) of Sommers's critical article. You can access that document HERE. Because this article was a bit more difficult and contains some heavy Bakhtinian narrative theory, we spent a good deal of time working through the article. I asked each group to be responsible for a series of five questions relating to four or five pages of the reading. Each group then presented their responses to the larger group. I asked each group to type up their response and send them to me. You can access the completed document HERE. We spent some time at the end of class defining Sommers's "sororal dialogism" which means sisterly communication and disclosure across time, space, and cultures; he identifies this sororal dialogism as happening between the reader and the text. We also discussed some textual examples of this term.

Key Questions From Class
How is growing up gendered? What is the relationship between religion and puberty in the novel? What are the significant conflicts in Margaret?
What is the value of the problem novel (and the entwicklungsroman)? How have these genres been critiqued? What is sororal dialogism? And how/where do we see it in the novel? What is Sommers's argument? What is the relationship between Margaret and the reader? Where in the novel do we see Margaret directly address the reader? Why, according to Sommers, does she do this?

Homework

• Read Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming
• Read Jacqueline Woodson's "The Pain of the Watermelon Joke" and Deborah Stevenson's review of Brown Girl Dreaming

Blog Post Drop Box: Judy Blume's _Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret._

Click on the "comment" button below to leave your blog post. I suggest you type your response first in a word document, and then copy and paste it into the comment box. When using book titles in your post you should set the title off with the underscore key: _Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret._ (as the comment box does not recognize italics). If you are signed up to be a discussion leader, your blog post should be at least 500 words of original prose (do not duplicate anything other bloggers have already said here) in which you engage with the text for the week critically AND pose an original discussion question. If you are signed up to be a responder, your post should be 250 words in length and respond to, answer, extend, or disagree with a question or thought from another student's post. Be sure to write your full name and word count at the bottom of your post. The cut-off time for this blog post is Friday, February 5 at midnight (for discussion leaders) and Monday, February 8 at midnight (for responders).

Discussion Leaders: McKenna, Amanda, Carla, and Aly F.
Responders: Cassi, Gianna, Alison M., and Summer

Course Recap for February 2

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Today at the beginning of class, you took a short reading quiz. We then discussed of some of the repeated themes and ideas you  noticed in Alice and made a list of these on the board. Next I gave a short presentation on domesticity and adventure in children's literature. You can access that presentation HERE. I also introduced you to a few terms that you can use to discuss Carroll's Alice: carnivalesque, frame narrative, and defamiliarization. Carnivalesque (a term coined by Mikhail Bakhtin) refers to the subversive questioning of authority through humor and chaos. Much of children's fantasy can be characterized as carnivalesque because it empowers the child protagonist to question authority (even if only for a short time). A frame narrative is the structure of including a story within a story. Alice embodies a specific type of frame narrative known as the dream vision narrative, in which most of the story is presented as the dream of a character. Defamiliarization (a term coined by Viktor Shklovskij) is the artistic technique of making the familiar strange in order to jolt the reader out of their normal/natural perspective.

I then handed out a literary interpretation exercise on intertextuality and form borrowing. You can access that document HERE. You worked in a small group to analyze and interpret Carroll's parodies and the original songs/poems that he based his works on. Each group also worked on one of the following tasks: identifying examples of the carnivalesque, examining the events of the main/introductory narrative, identifying examples of defamiliarization, or exploring Lewis Carroll's personality and behaviors. I asked you to consider the following questions: Where do you see the carnivalesque and defamiliarization in Alice? How are the frame narrative and defamiliarization used to engage the reader? What occurs in the introductory part of the narrative that frames the Wonderland narrative, and how might this relate to the author's purpose in writing Alice? How does knowing information about Lewis Carroll impact (or not) our reading of Alice? Then each group presented their interpretations and findings.

Critical Approaches to Alice: Abate
After the break, we turned to Michelle Abate's article. I asked you to identify Abate's main arguments and ideas. I asked you to identify her possible research questions, her thesis, passages she uses from Alice to illustrate her points, and scholarly sources she cites in her essay. We will continue to do this with all of the critical sources we encounter for the rest of the semester in order to answer one of the main questions of the course: What forms of critical analysis have been used to examine children's literature, and how can they enrich our understanding of the genre? This exercise will also help you connect the critical writing we read in class to the research you will do for your poster presentation. At the end of class, I asked you to reflect a bit upon your own areas of interest in relation to Carroll's Alice. You spent some time writing on a topic you were interested in Alice. I asked you to pull out a specific passage from Carroll's text to illustrate your topic or question and to cite a critic to back up your claim. Feel free to see me in office hours if you would like, and I would be happy to read and comment upon your writing.


Key Questions From Class
How are intertextuality and form borrowing used to comment upon the models of childhood represented in the narrative? How are capital punishment and criminal law figured in Alice? How can historical, political, and cultural knowledge about the period during which a text is published contribute to our understanding of the narrative? What cultural commentary might Alice be making about the society during the time of its composition (and contemporary society)?

Homework

• Read Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
• Read Jacqueline Reid-Walsh's "Girlhood" and Joseph Michael Sommers's "Are You There, Reader? It's Me, Margaret: A Reconsideration of Judy Blume's Prose as Sororal Dialogism"