We've entered a new semester here at the high school. I've picked up a new class to teach: Children's Literature.
So far, I like it. It's much different from my small British Literature class (although, I did just gain a student in that class so I have 9 now!) in more ways than one. First off, it's a much larger class (20 students). Secondly, it's an unleveled class (meaning that it's not "College Prep" or "Advanced" or "General", it just exists as a class anyone can take) so I have students of all abilities. Third, I have to approach it differently; Children's literature is almost as much art and creative writing as it is a study of literature.
Right now, we're easing our way into the semester with picture books. The kids spent the last week looking at Caldecott Medal-winning picture books studying art styles and what makes a picture book a GOOD picture book. We're starting to look at the text of picture books now, too. This means thinking of what kind of vocabulary authors use, how to lay out the text on the page, and even what amount of text belongs on a page.
The students have also just started a project researching an author-illustrator. In singles or pairs, each picked the name of an author-illustrator out of a hat and will be looking at that person's writing style, art style, and doing biographical research. I've given them until the 21st of February to finish the project, which includes a poster and a 1-2 page paper on their person. I think that length of time is more than fair enough to analyze six picture books and write a 2-page maximum paper.
British lit is in full swing right now. As I mentioned, I got another student (plucked him out of the other section of British lit) and he's fitting in much better with my group than he did with the other one. The only downside is that I still have only one girl in my class. I worry that she feels isolated--especially since a few of the boys like to tease her. But she's bright so I think she can handle them.
As far as what we're covering in that class, we've just entered the Restoration--and I don't plan on staying here for long. We read works by Jonathan Swift last week and this week including two parts of Gulliver's Travels and all of "A Modest Proposal" in order to look at satire as an element of literature. The class is working on their own "modest proposals" and should be handing them in tomorrow by midnight. The idea of the "modest" proposal is that it isn't modest at all--Swift's focuses on solving poverty in Ireland by using babies as a food source (ergo bringing in income to the families that sell their children for slaughter, being a food source for families who may otherwise not be able to afford food, etc;). The proposals are all completely satirical; nobody should actually find them to be reasonable solutions, but instead they should point out some injustice in the world and shed light on it in an extreme manner.
After finishing Swift and satire, we'll be looking briefly at Milton before we move into the Romantic era and crack open Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
As for me, I'm re-taking a class I didn't do very well in the first time I took it. The downside is that it's in Manchester so I have to commute there two days a week which is really cutting into the time I have to work on my colloquium and philosophy of education papers--let alone the time I have to plan for the classes I'm teaching.
This is going to be a truly busy semester.
