Module overview:

This module introduces you to a range of critical and theoretical approaches and demonstrates how these help in furthering an understanding of children’s literature and childhood studies.  

You will learn about key ideas that have shaped literary criticism in general, such as structuralism, Marxist theory, identity politics and intersectionality (including queer theories and disability studies), and postcolonial theory, plus those that have a particular resonance for children’s literature studies, such as hermeneutics and reader-response theory, theories of power, and the carnivalesque. These wide-ranging theories encourage critical thinking about narrative, ideological, political, historical, and social discourse at work in children’s books. Indeed, CTP provides you with a grounding in some of the best and most provocative critical material in the international field of children’s literature. Through cross-referencing between topics, it also encourages comparison, critique, and a sense of the history and global reach of the discipline. You will become familiar with some of the philosophical foundations of the study of children’s literature and will develop a set of critical tools with which to tackle your own readings of texts aimed at young readers. You will be equipped with the tools necessary to identify mechanisms in books for young people that reinforce and/or challenge prejudicial and non-inclusive attitudes, behaviours and practice—such tools are crucial to the consideration of this formative field of literature. Throughout the module, you will encounter and analyse a variety of fairytales, short-form fiction, and picturebooks selected from a culturally diverse range of practitioners across the field of children’s literature and its scholarship. 

Teaching and learning:

You’ll learn through large group forum discussion/learning, small group forum discussion, live seminars (optional/recorded), long-form recorded lectures, pop-up briefings, individual tutorials, draft feedback sessions, and lecture/syllabus support materials. 

Assessment:

This module will be assessed by two summative assessments: 1 x critical annotation (summative 30%) and 1 x theoretical essay (summative 70%). 

Module overview:

Ecology, Environment, and Youth Culture is a politically engaged and socially committed module that traces the history of ecocritical developments in children’s literature and youth culture and engages with the environmental concerns of young people in the 21st Century. Via a range of novels, visual texts, poetry, nature writing, and ecocriticism, you will explore longstanding links between environmental discourse, youth cultures, and constructions of childhood. The timely relevance of the Eco Module is confirmed by recent developments in youth activism that respond to environmental crises or climate change and emphasize experiential and imagined correspondences between childhood, young adulthood, and the natural world. You will participate in an exciting youth outreach task involving environmental NGOs, such as the RSPB, or the WWF. 

Teaching and learning:

You’ll learn through large group forum discussion/learning, small group forum discussion, live seminars (optional/recorded), research outreach task (summative), long-form recorded lectures, pop-up briefings, individual tutorials, coursework feedback sessions, and lecture/syllabus support materials.

Assessment: 

This module will be assessed by 1 x Eco research initiative (summative 40%) and 1 x research portfolio (summative 60%). 

Module overview:

Reading and Writing Genre Fictions for Young Readers introduces you to some of the most important genres in the field of children’s and Young Adult literature – such as verse novels; web comics and graphic novels; fan fiction; and road trip fiction, to name a few – providing you with the opportunity to interrogate their literary, social, cultural, political, and historical contexts. This module will be structured on a pattern of alternating “critical” and “creative” weeks, furnishing you with the knowledge of young reader’s genre fictions while also offering them the opportunity to undertake your own creative writing and critical reflection. The “critical” weeks in the module will feature a 1-hour asynchronous lecture and 3-hour forum activities. Simultaneously, the module offers you the opportunity to develop your own creative practice in writing for young readers, by focusing on your implied readers; character and plot; narrative relationships in different genres; ideology and didacticism; and creating a short story premise. “Creative” weeks will involve 4 hours of writing, editing, and providing peer feedback. Each week features a one-hour-long “Students as Partners in Assessment” task in which the two different pathways (a Critical Essay OR a Creative Portfolio) are explored in relation to marking criteria and the development of your skills. These asynchronous tasks will provide you with the opportunity to get feedback and guidance. An extra half hour every week will be devoted to General Forums in which you will be able to discuss the module’s learning with your tutors and with each other. 

Teaching and learning:

You’ll learn through large group forum discussion/learning, small group forum discussion, live seminars (optional/recorded), long-form recorded lectures, pop-up briefings, individual tutorials, draft feedback sessions, and lecture/syllabus support materials. 

Assessment:

This module will be assessed through two critical essays or a creative portfolio.

Module overview:

This module outlines major developments in children’s literature from the classic period (BC) of Aesop’s Fables, through the late fifteenth century when printing was fully established in the UK, and up to the early 1960s, by which time the field of children’s literature was flourishing. You will learn about some of the economic, technological, marketing, and ideological forces that affected the production of literature for children across these historical and developmental periods. You will be introduced to and explore a range of literary forms and genres associated with the social and historical evolution of youth and print culture. This module takes a revisionist approach to early developments in children’s literature. For example, it challenges assumptions about the nature of women’s writing for children and makes space for ‘invisible’ storytellers across a diverse cultural range of materials for young people who have not been the focus of popular histories of children’s literature. The syllabus includes some classic texts produced for children or adapted for them, while also introducing a range of popular, ephemeral, and lesser-known material that children in Britain may have encountered as the field/market for young readers developed. 

Teaching and learning:

You’ll learn through large group forum discussion/learning, small group forum discussion, live seminars (optional/recorded), creative prologue task (summative), long-form recorded lectures, pop-up briefings, individual tutorials, draft coursework feedback sessions and lecture/syllabus support materials. 

Assessment:

This module will be assessed by a creative prologue (30%) and a research portfolio (70%). The research portfolio’ allows you to write a critical essay, or a series of blog posts, or a piece of creative writing and critical reflection. 

Module overview:

This module prepares you to devise and produce independent research and/or creative-practice-based projects. The module achieves this using two distinct but joined strands: a spring-semester unit on archives, and the summer-semester dissertation element. 

This module bridges creative and critical approaches to literary studies, by fostering independent research skills in preparation for the dissertation, and by providing you with opportunities to explore potential professions or prepare for further academic study. 

Teaching and learning:

You’ll learn through online lectures, seminars and independent exercises, guided exercises to develop practical skills, archive visits, individual tutorials and feedback on research and drafts. 

Assessment:

This module will be assessed through a dissertation proposal form, an archive portfolio and a dissertation.