GETR 345 | RELG 374
Syllabus

August 24

     readings:

     work due:

Introduction: Why Study Young Adult Literature in College?

Reflections

• e-mail us your goals and expectations

August 29

     readings:

    
     work due:

-- E. B. White, Charlotte's Web

Optional: Perry Nodelman, The Text as Teacher: The Beginning of Charlotte's Web

• By 8 a.m.: e-mail your Reading Response as a word attachement. Please consult these reading questions.
• Read the instructions for and then purchase a journal and bring it to class.
• Bring completed MER questionnaire to class.

August 31

     readings:

     work due:

Spiritual Journeys

-- C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
-- Millner, Fantasy: Humanist and Religious

Optional: Adam Gopnik, Prisoner of Narnia

• Journal entry
• In preparation for your Team Project, look carefully through the syllabus as you consider these questions: What's missing? What other issues/topics should be included in a college course such as this? Read instructions for toolkit postings. Post a list of suggestions and your reasons for wanting to include these topics in college course.

September 5

     readings:

     
    work due:

The Concept of Childhood and Young Adulthood

-- Little Red Riding Hood, In: The Classic Fairy Tales. 3-24;Grimms' version in the    German original
-- Zohar Shavit, The Concept of Childhood and Children's Folktales: Test Case - Little Red    Riding Hood. In: The Classic Fairy Tales. 317-332

Optional: Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment. The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. In: The Classic Fairy Tales. 269-273

• By 8 a.m.: e-mail your Reading Response as a word attachment. Please consult these reading questions.
• By 8 a.m.: e-mail your team project choices to Prof. Bach

September 7

    readings:

   work due:

Fairy Tales (cont.)

-- Snow White. In: The Classic Fairy Tales. 74-96; Grimms' version in the   
   German original
-- Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Snow White and her Wicked Stepmother. In: The    Classic Fairy Tales. 291-297

Optional: Jack Zipes, Breaking the Disney Spell. In: The Classic Fairy Tales. 332-353
--Fairy Tale Adaptations: Selected Poems

• Journal entry

September 10

    readings:

     work due:

SUNDAY, September 10: 4 p.m.
Directions to Prof. Bach's home. We encorage you to carpool.

Please bring an appetite and anything fairy tale related that you'd like to share with the class.

September 12

    
     readings:

     work due:

Story and Healing
Guests: Rachel Mann (Slavic) and John Alexander (Slavic)

-- Images of Wholeness, Lawrence E. Sullivan

• By 8 a.m.: post your afterthoughts (600 words) to our discussion on fairy tales to toolkit (instructions). Alternatively, you can post a creative response.

September 14

    readings:

     work due:

Journey Inward

-- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

• Journal entry

September 19

    readings:

     work due:

Journey Inward (cont.)

-- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

• By 8 a.m.: post a reading response or an essay on a personal intervew to toolkit
• TEAMS: Make an appointment with one of the instructors to discuss your team project (see checklist!)

September 21

    readings:

     work due:

-- Michael Ende, The Neverending Story (Chapters A-C, pg. 5 - 66)

• Think about your 1st paper. I encourage you to work in short daily thinking/writing sessions Using your Reading Journal to Get your Paper Underway.

September 26

    readings:

     work due:

-- Michael Ende, The Neverending Story (Chapters D-W. If you are a slow reader, you    can skim chapters D, H, N, O for plot.)

• By 8 a.m.: post your Reading Response to toolkit
• By 8 a.m.: post a potential paper question on toolkit

September 28

    readings:

     work due:

-- Michael Ende, The Neverending Story (Chapters X-Z)

• Journal entry

October 3

    readings:

    






    work due:

Nature vs. Culture

-- Mordecai Gerstein, The Wild Boy

Resources:
-- Nancy Yusef, Savage or Solitary?
-- Web resources on Wild Boy of Aveyron
-- Francois Truffault, The Wild Boy (movie, available at Clemons library)
-- Werner Herzog, Kaspar Hauser (movie, available at Clemons library)

• Bring 2 copies of your draft to class for peer-review.

October 5

    readings:

    work due:

Journey Home/ TAP

-- Katherine Paterson, The Great Gilly Hopkins

Resources:
-- William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

• Journal entry
• By 8 a.m. e-mail two classmates your feedback on their paper drafts.

October 10

    readings:

     work due:

-- Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy (first half)

• Paper due (to be handed in during class with your peers' reviews and your original draft.)

October 12

    readings:

    work due:

-- Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy

Optional: Violet J. Harris, African American Children's Literature: The First One Hundred Years. Journal of Negro Education 504-555

• After class, post your afterthoughts to our discussion on The Wild Boy,The Great Gilly Hopkins,and/or Bud, not Buddy

October 17

    readings:

    work due:

-- Chaim Potok, The Chosen

Optional: Jonathan Haidt, Divinity With or Without God

• By Sunday, Oct. 15, 6 p.m.:
  • post 500-word proposal of team project;
• each team: e-mail Prof. Bach an evaluation of team functioning
• By Monday, Oct. 16, 6 p.m.: post feedback on proposals
• Before class: Read feedback on your team's proposal and bring your questions to class

October 19

    readings:

     work due:

-- Chaim Potok, The Chosen

Resources: Quotes from Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

• journal entry
• By 8 a.m.: Teams email electronic files with reading materials for uploading to the course webpage. Please include a list of media needed for your presentation.

October 23

Monday 4:30 p.m., Auditorium of the Harrison Institute Small Special Collections Library
Nessa Rapoport, author of Preparing for Shabbath and artist Tobi Kahn, give a public lecture entitled Artist's Journeys

October 24

    readings:

     work due:

Guest: Nessa Rapoport

-- Nessa Rapoport, Preparing for Sabbath

• journal entry: questions for our guest Nessa Rapoport

October 26

   
    work due:

Work Time for Groups
-- no class, this time is set aside for you to work on your group presentation

• On toolkit, post your afterthoughts to our discussion on The Chosen and Preparing for Shabbath. What are the hallmarks of Jewish Spiritual Journeys, male and female?

October 31

     readings:

Team 1
Diverging from the Path: An Analytic Comparison of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Film (equipment: laptop, projector, speakers)

Team 2
To Kill a Mocking Bird On Trial: An Exploration of Adult Themes in Children's Literature

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (excerpts)
--Lorie Blair, Strategies for Dealing with Censorship
--Katharine Cashaw Smith, Trauma and Children's Literature

November 2

    readings:

Team 3
The Beginnings of Faith: Examining the Spiritual Journey through Children's Adaptations of Sacred Texts (equipment: TV, projector))

Team 5
Animals: A Menagerie of the Mind: Animals & their Function in YAL

--George Orwell, The Animal Farm, Chapter 1

November 7

readings:

Team 4
The Wild, Wild, Non-West (equipment: laptop, projector)

Team 6
The Magical Metaphor Tour: Magic, Escape, Power, and Diversity

-- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Scholastic, paperback ed.): p. 115-122 (the first seven pages of chapter 7 "The Sorting Hat")
-- Year 5 Sorting song
-- Classic Fairy Tales (Tatar): p.107-116 ("Yeh-Hsien" and "Donkeyskin")
-- Perrault's Cinderella

November 9

   
    readings:

    work due:

His Dark Materials : Grace
Guest: Claire Lyu (French)

-- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

Optional:

Heinrich von Kleist, Über das Marionetten Theater (English Version)
Philip Pullman, Introduction to Milton's Paradise Lost
Richard Schweder, Jonathan Haidt, Cultural Psychology of Emotions

• Journal entry

November 14

    readings:

    work due:

Dark Materials (cont.): Science and Religion
Guest: Doris Kuhlman-Wilsdorf (Physics)

-- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
-- Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife. Chapter 1, (if possible chapter 3 & 4)
-- John and Mary Gribbin, The Science of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, (for those of you who want to read more here is part 2)

• By 8 a.m.: post you Reading Response to toolkit
• individually e-mail your completed peer evaluation form

November 16

    readings:

   




      
    work due:

His Dark Materials (cont.)

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
-- The Philip Pullman Debate

Optional:
-- Gooderham, David. Fantasizing It As It IS: Religious Language in Philip Pullman's Trilogy His Dark Materials.

• Journal entry
• Team Project: Final Document due in class

November 28

    readings:

     work due:

The Magical and The Mysterious

-- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

• By 8 a.m.: on toolkit post you Afterthoughts to The Golden Compass OR a Book Review OR a reading response to A Wrinkle in Time

November 30

    readings:

work due:

The Magical and The Mysterious (cont.)

-- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
-- Jack Zipes, The Phenomenon of Harry Potter, or Why All the Talk? In: Jack Zipes, Sticks and Stones, The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. 170-190

Other Resources: Deborah L. Thomson, Deconstructing Harry. In: Susan Lehr (Ed.) Beauty, Brains and Brawn : The Construction of Gender in Children's Literature. 42-51

December 5

    readings:

     work due:

Wrap up

• Learning Portfolios
• Reading Journals