Children's Literature Class Analysis

Children’s literature is defined many different ways. It can be simply defined as a book that a child reads, or as Kiefer defined it “as the imaginative shaping of life and thought into the forms and structures of language.” (Kiefer, 2010, p.5) Literature has been around for hundreds of years, although not in the form that we are used to seeing now. There have always been stories to be told for as long as one can remember.

In this Summer English session in room 303 I learned a lot of interesting things. I spent a lot of time in this room with several people. I spent my summer school session reviewing texts such as Edgar Allan Poe, and General George Washington excerpts. I found a lot of the text very interesting and intriguing and I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. McGee’s extensive lectures. I absolutely love lasagna. Through his lectures, texts, and interesting insight on respect. I learned several different important aspects in this classroom. However, the three most important lessons I learned were; teachers don’t follow contracts, I absolutely hate writing, and I am scared to be a senior.

In this class I have studied numerous things, which have developed my view on the importance of reading and education. I learned how much value other people and communities can place on reading, writing and education. There is also a greater struggle for education and the right to education than I ever could have imagined. This makes me appreciate abundantly how I am able to read, write and obtain an education without having fear in doing so. There are hundreds of organizations filled with people who are passionate about education. Education is vital, everyone should have a right to education and resources to obtain it.

According to Shelby A. Wolf in her book Interpreting Literature with Children, transactional criticism is when “the reader brings individual life experience to the text that acts as a guide” (Wolf, 2004, p. 32). In other words, while reading the text it is an experience in which the reader’s life experiences are brought in to form their understandings of the text. Growing up, every child wonders about the impossible things. For example, children often wonder and wish that they could fly or be able to have super hero powers; however, these are all just dreams that will never become a reality. In Chris Van Allsburg’s books, he is able to turn children’s thoughts and feelings into a reality through his stories. In his book Jumanji, Allsburg creates a story in which a game board comes to life and the main characters of the book race the clock to try and finish the game. I am sure that children of all ages have thought, one time or another, what it would be like if their favorite game or toy came to life. Chris Van Allsburg allows that fantasy to become a reality. Another example of Chris Van Allsburg’s books being relatable to the reader is in his book The Polar Express. In the book The

The world is overflowing with all types of literature and readings. Everyone reads myriad of stories and novels in their lifetime. Some stories are promptly considered favorites, while others are immediately forgotten. All opinions towards certain reads are valid, as everyone’s feelings are different. That’s the beauty of literature.

However, it needed a lot of effort in the beginning to start a good class. We spent too much time preparing this class from scratch. Moreover, the class was and still elective not core or required course.

The best thing about reading this year was the strict scheduling. I loved that we were supposed to read everyday and we had a concrete foundation where we were able to choose our own book to read and were able to elaborate on it. With the concrete foundation I was able to always know that I had something to do and I always looked forward to reading the book that I chose.

I took this class because the class description sounded like a good fit for the type of reading I like to do. The books I like to read are newer and easier to understand. I have taken an Early American Literature class before, and it was difficult because I could not read the text quickly or understand the text easily. We will most likely be reading some texts that might be difficult, but a challenge is not always a bad thing.

Literary Imagination class allowed me to explore the meaning of books. I’m appreciative of the class because it opened my eyes to reading books. My original opinion about books are that they are pointless to read and a waste of my time. I could not have been more wrong. Before taking the class I would not want to read more than a paragraph of any kind of story.

The problems they face big or small, are similar in their own ways. In "X: a Fabulous Child's Story" and if I" loved you", both have problems that can't be told to others because others wouldn't understand or it was always meant to be kept a secret from society. The two show that their problems really can't be displayed for all to see, simply because wouldn't understand or care about their issues that they could never talk about in public. In baby X, the parents do everything in their power to keep the baby's gender a secret but society keeps butting in and ignoring their problems a bit

Children's literature has evolved immensely over time, and is now commonly used for a variety of objectives throughout education. In classrooms, it is often used as a tool with an intermixture of diverse goals and intentions. Children's literature has proven to be a highly effective method of both teaching lessons to, and connecting with children on a conscious, and subconscious level. "Close reading brings our own and others' perspectives and contexts to bear on them" (Hintz, and Tribunella 1). Learning how to read children's literature critically can open channels of learning about oneself, society, and culture, past and present. Identification of intention and point of view, along with discussion and critical thinking typically motivates people to engage in a deeper analysis. It can open the reader’s eyes to different ways of viewing consistencies, or lack thereof; with attention to aspects of plot, setting, and message; and also of character traits of the

Everything that has happened to me, every TV show I have watched, every person that I have met, and every book I have read has molded me into the homosapien I am today. The clothing I wear, the music I listen to, and the people I talk to is heavily influenced by embarrassing mistakes of the past. To put it simply, I like books and movies and I used to love them. The constant page turning and scene watching had shown me extravagant worlds that didn’t exist, but I grew to love the people that lived in them. I sometimes loved them more than the people in real life. The connection I had felt to the fictional worlds gave me an almost pathetic sense of joy, but that over joy gave me the chance to grow into myself.

This creative writing class was a lot of fun and better than I expected it to be. I did not think that I could actually write poems and short stories, but I did. For this class I would definitely say we had great pacing and we had enough time to do everything that was given to us. The 5,000 word story I would say should maybe go more in the middle so that way it doesn’t feel as stressful being in the end of the year. I would say that the short stories should go first, then the 5,000 word story and then the poems. I would say the poems last because they were a little easier to go through because you explained what needed to be done and how to do them very well. You also gave a lot of examples which helped a lot because without the examples

My overall experience within the World Literature class was rather lackluster if I may say so. The content that was shown within the class I found rather boring and did not have much reason to teaching it. Although three sections that I had found interesting which was Beowulf, Asian Literature and our independent novel study. They both held values and moral standards that were in place to teach the reader. These were interesting and compiled. For the instance of all the other stories or literature that we examined in class it was boring and did not do much for me. Although I only skimmed those ones I could see that they seemed to be dragged out and tedious to read. As for trips the took they were well planned and gave the class something to watch which is expansive in the realm of forms of study.

Within the larger scholarly conversation surrounding folklore, different academics have employed contrasting techniques to interpret folk tales and to investigate the social and psychological conditions in which folklore developed and changed from one form to another. With a particularly strong focus on those tales of French origin, historian Robert Darnton examines a number of fairy tales related to Paul Delarue’s “The Story of Grandmother” from a historical perspective in his essay “Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose”. In contrast, Catherine Orenstein criticizes Darnton’s narrow historical focus and his failure to observe the thematic changes relating to gender which occurred when authors began to cement tales into the