ENGLISH 240

Children's Literature: Words and Pictures

Please note: this is archived course information from 2012 for ENGLISH 240.

Description

Children’s books often combine verbal and visual forms. This course requires students to think about meanings generated by both words and pictures in different genres for children. Picture book creators studied include Beatrix Potter, Maurice Sendak, New Zealander Robyn Kahukiwa, Australians John Marsden and Shaun Tan and the Japanese-American Allen Say. Illustrated novels for older children include classic texts like E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It and Joyce West’s Drover’s Road, a New Zealand story of 1950s farm life. The course also covers a comic book and Miyazaki’s recent animated film version of Diana Wynne Jones’s fantasy novel, Howl’s Moving Castle. The course aims to extend students’ knowledge of theories of interpretation and audience in children’s literature and to develop understanding of the messages for children, some obvious, some hidden, which may be carried by written words and visual images.

Availability 2012

Semester 2

Lecturer(s)

Coordinator(s) Dr Rose Lovell-Smith

Assessment

Coursework + exam

Points

ENGLISH 240: 15 points

Prerequisites

Any 30 points at Stage I in English