Welcome to Children's and Young Adult Literature at Dalarna University

This course is offered as a campus course  held at Falun campus and a distance course through Zoom for digital meetings.

It is important to note that your application determines whether study this course on campus or distance.  If you enrolled as a campus student,  then you must come to the campus seminars.  You cannot choose to study this course as a distance student.   

Distance students must have a reliable internet connection and a working camera and microphone.  During the seminars, your camera must be turned on at all times to determine your identity, presence, and participation. 

This course is an undergraduate freemover course within the academic field of Literature Studies.   This is an introduction to the genre of children's literature as an academic subject and scholarly field.  You will be introduced to aspects such as critical reading and thinking, argumentation and interpretation of literature, literary terms used in discussing literature, relevant  literature and cultural theories,  and socio-cultural contexts.    All of these are centred around the ideological concept of the "child". 

The chosen literature focussed on the development of the genre of children's and young adult literature which is based round the broad categories of the three golden ages of children's literature - each age dealing with interpretation of the concept of the child.  

The course syllabus 

On completion of the course students will be able to:

• demonstrate a good understanding of modern as well as contemporary children’s and young adult literature in English by critically analysing and interpreting a selection of texts
• orally and in writing communicate and argue for their own interpretations of the texts making use of basic literary concepts.
• orally and in writing explain and discuss scholarly arguments on the study of childhood and children’s and young adult literature.

Course Content 

This course treats a selection of modern and contemporary children’s and young adult works from the English-speaking world. It introduces basic literary terminology for the analyses of the works as well as theoretical perspectives to childhood and the study of children’s and young adult literature. These broaden the understanding of the genre and increase the awareness of how the perception of children is created and transformed, and the implications of this for debates over both childhood and children’s and young adult literature.

Assessment

We hope you engage in inspiring, interesting, and challenging discussions with your teachers and fellow students. As with all courses at Dalarna University, this course has a strong foundation in theory and research.
An important feature in the design of the course is that it connects theory with practice. For example, we go through important things to consider. We apply what we have learnt. We then analyse and critically review our findings. We view group work as an important resource in all course activities, made evident by the feedback of previous participants of the course, who highlighted the value of group discussions.

Due to the broad scope of the course, it is impossible to go into depth on all topics, but we hope that what you learn will inspire interest and hel you develop the tools you need in your continued professional development as a higher education teacher in collaboration with your colleagues.

Click the link to download the preliminary course schedule Preliminary Schedule GEN33R Children and Young Adult Literature -2.docx

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