Teaching texts across borders - from picture books to teenage fiction and film (P02601)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : EDU-P-P02601

The literature and film produced by a society for its children and young people are worthy of investigation because they reveal much about a society’s ideology, aspirations and the complex relationships between text and reader.

This course is suitable for both practising teachers and for others with an interest in children’s literature and children’s film. The course will give participants the opportunity to investigate the way in which text – of any kind – is situated in socio cultural readings. Participants will have the opportunity to investigate and discuss the relatively recent burgeoning of theory in relation to children’s texts; they will develop an understanding of and be able to analyse the different polemics within this area and they will develop an understanding of the relationship between this aspect of studying text and related areas within childhood studies. Students will further come to understand that young people are subject to an unregulated mass of information from a variety of different kinds of text from which they have to make meaning and that teachers can enable them to do this by teaching from a critical literacy perspective. Students will have the opportunity to investigate methods of teaching text in order to help young people become effective contributors in school and in society. Students will also consider the links between literacies and social inclusion.

Entry Requirements

? Costs : Students are required to purchase the core texts marked in bold and the selected children’s literature.

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Education, (The Moray House School of Education, Schedule C)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : To be arranged/Unknown

? Contact Teaching Time : 3 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

Successful completion of the course will allow participants to:

• read/watch and reflect critically on a variety of texts for children and young people from around the world
• consider, analyse and question the theorising of children’s texts from picture books to texts for young adults, fiction and non-fiction and film
• understand and evaluate critically the key debates within the theorising of children’s texts
• reflect critically on children’s literature from different cultures and countries
• evaluate the pedagogy of teaching text, how this has changed over time and the importance of discussion in the classroom in relation to this area of the curriculum and the development of habitual, critical readers
• understand and be able to demonstrate in their thinking and / or practice, theories of critical literacy in relation to teaching language texts
• analyse the relationship between children’s literature and popular culture and reflect on ways in which this relationship can be used in the classroom to develop young people’s aesthetic and critical understanding

Assessment Information

Participants will be required to produce an assignment of approximately 4000 words in which they will be expected to discuss and evaluate critical literature which theorises either children’s literature or film, and link this to a systematic examination and critical analysis of a particular children’s text or texts.

In discussion with the tutor it will be possible to make this assignment more practice-based and related to embedding a critical literacy approach to teaching text.

To meet the general standards expected of postgraduate work, participants will need to display:

• knowledge and understanding of concepts
• knowledge and use of the literature
• that any investigation they have conducted in the course of their assignment has been planned and implemented competently
• that the assignment is written in an appropriate, clear, coherent manner