To fulfill the requirements for the Youth Literature Online Certificate offered by the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies at Rutgers University, I completed the following courses:
This course offers professionals serving middle and high school students
the opportunity to increase your appreciation and knowledge of fantasy and
speculative fiction through intense reading and discussion of representative
works. Among the authors whose works we will cover are Ursula LeGuin, William
Sleator, and Robin McKinley. You will read texts on topics such as reader
response/reception theory and explore the nature of literary response through
examination of your own responses the responses of the other professionals
in the class. Finally, we will investigate and consider options for teaching
Fantasy and Speculative Fiction with young people.
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the complete syllabus.
(Note: this is the description as it appeared for the Spring 2000
section of this class. We may have other authors online with us in the
future; announcements will be made the semester before the course is offered.)
In this seminar you will read works by and about six children's authors,
paying special attention to the authors' own statements about the creative
process. We will consider the work of Eric Carle, Leo Lionni, Katherine Paterson,
Jane Kurtz, Julius Lester, and Philip Pullman. During the semester, authors
Kurtz, Lester, and Pullman will enter the online discussion with the class
for one week each.
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the complete syllabus
From picture books to teen novels, from history to folktale, this course
will examine the voices of women and girls as they tell their own stories
and as stories are told about them. We will work from a list of titles, most
published within the past five years, and will read and discuss some of them
together and some as individual projects. The emphasis in the course will
be on reading widely and on intense engagement with the texts. Students will
have the opportunity to create book lists, book talks, and/or Web pages to
explore their interpretations of this literature.
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the complete syllabus.
In this course you will learn to analyze children's books that borrow
heavily from myths and archaic legend, and to recognize and describe mythological
elements within a broad range of books for children and young adults. You
will learn to recognize mythic elements in text and illustrations, discover
commonalities among culturally diverse literatures, and explore how contemporary
myths operate in specific literary works.
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the complete syllabus
In this course you will work online to develop an understanding of:
criteria for evaluating children's picture books for their cultural authenticity;
different illustrative techniques and their effectiveness for particular texts;
problems of translating children's books from one language and culture to
another; and the variety of materials available and publishing trends in
multiculturalism. Coursework will emphasize books that use powerful verbal
and visual images to promote self esteem and cultural awareness among young
children. You will participate in online discussions with your colleagues
in the course and with various experts in other parts of this country and
abroad.
Go to
the complete syllabus.
Here are the projects I completed for this program:
Hermione's Notebook
Holocaust Voices
From Myth Motifs To Contemporary Texts
Three Women Artists of Color in Children's Picture Books
Goin' Someplace Special: A Visual Interpretive Analysis