Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Nerida Wayland
By appointment - please email to arrange time.
Toby Davidson
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MChildLit or MCrWrit or GradDipChildLit or GradDipCrWrit or MEChild or MA in Children's Literature
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
A broad aim of this unit is to survey the range of picture books produced for children and, in doing so, to examine the range of possible ways in which words and pictures can be combined to create narrative and to generate meaning. The unit examines the different ways in which pictures and words represent reality, construct narrative and communicate ideology, as well as focussing in more detail on aspects such as textual layout and composition, visual and verbal point of view strategies, strategies for depicting time, space, movement and stasis, style and genre.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
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Participation and Engagement | 10% | No | Weeks 1-13 |
Seminar Paper | 35% | No | 31 August, 2018 |
Self-assessment | 5% | No | 31 August, 2016 |
Final Essay | 50% | No | 11 November, 2018 |
Due: Weeks 1-13
Weighting: 10%
Students' participation and engagement will be evaluated on a weekly basis. Please check the LIT 856 Unit Handbook for further details about how this grade will be calculated.
Due: 31 August, 2018
Weighting: 35%
Students must submit a seminar paper on the Week 2 discussion topic:
Words, pictures and picture books are merely parts of a vast and complex system of significance that define our reality for us. In a comparison/contrast of two different picture books, examine the functions of modality in the production of meaningful worlds.
This paper should be approximately 2500 words in length.
In conjunction with this seminar paper, students must submit a self-evaluation of their performance in this task.
Due: 31 August, 2016
Weighting: 5%
In conjunction with their seminar paper, students must submit a self-evaluation of this paper.
They must use the Assessment Rubric document (listed in the Weekly Guide, which is available from the iLearn site) to grade their own performance in this paper. Students must evaluate their performance in each individual assessment criterion (please do so by highlighting the relevant box on the rubric).
The purpose of this task is to ensure that students are fully aware of and engage with the set of criteria used to grade their essays.
Students who generally evaluate themselves correctly (i.e. they evaluate their performance similarly to the examiner) will receive 5 marks. Students who are generally incorrect in their self-evaluation will receive no marks for this exercise.
Due: 11 November, 2018
Weighting: 50%
Please select one of the topics listed in the LIT 856 Handbook (available from the iLearn site) for your final essay of approximately 3000 words. For your primary corpus, focus on no more than three picture books. Do not use any of the picture books that you referred to in your seminar paper.
REQUIRED READING
These books can be found online via the university library:
RECOMMENDED TEXTS
The six picture books listed below are a selection that you can refer to each week. It is also expected that you use your local library to locate some of the others listed under each topic:
WEEKLY READING
A number of picture book texts are listed each week. In addition to the six books mentioned above, you will also need to access at least one additional text out of the books listed for each weekly topic (for the purpose of making comparisons). You can source your texts from good online second-hand booksellers or public libraries.
Additional required readings will be available via iLearn.
UNIT WEBPAGE AND TECHNOLOGY USED AND REQUIRED
Online units can be accessed at: http://ilearn.mq.edu.au PC and Internet access are required. Basic computer skills (e.g., internet browsing) and skills in word processing are also a requirement.
Please consult teaching staff for any further, more specific requirements.
Words, pictures and picture books are merely parts of a vast and complex system of significance that define our reality for us. In a comparison/contrast of two different picture books, examine the functions of modality in the production of meaningful worlds.
On their own, pictures and words each first allow a number of different narrative possibilities; together, they make each other more specific. Compare how pictures and words interact to construct narrative significance in the picture books listed above.
Kress and Van Leeuwen, Reading Images, Chapter 2
Pictorial structures are never merely formal; they have a deeply important semantic dimension. Compare how aspects of composition and layout in the picture books listed contribute to thematic significance.
Compare visual and linguistic strategies for constructing point of view in two of the picture books listed. How do these strategies contribute to the texts’ significance? How do they position readers?
In a comparison of two of the listed books, examine whether verbal and pictorial styles might be said to constitute a ‘genre’. (Select two books which arguably belong to the same genre or to different genres.)
Stories, which are about movement and change, necessarily take place in time, whereas most pictures depict only how things look at one moment separated from the flow of time. Compare how words and pictures imply temporal and spatial relations in the picture books listed.
The most successful picture books seem to be those in which a unity on a higher level emerges from pictures and texts which are noticeably fragmentary -- whose differences from each other are a significant part of the effect and meaning of the whole.
Discuss this claim, referring to the picture books listed.
Lehr, Susan. S., 'Lauren Child: Utterly and Absolutely Exceptionordinarily', Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality (2008): 164-179 (available via iLearn site)
How does the comedy employed in each picture book encourage readers to interrogate the ways in which the text (and society) operates, and position them to respond both creatively and critically?
Fairytale retellings
1.
2.
3.
Selkie Stories
The dual codes of the picture book dramatically increase the possibilities for retelling and reshaping stories, through the pictures, the verbal language or a combination of both. In a comparison/contrast of two or three books from one of the groups above, examine how words and pictures can reshape a story and its meanings. (There are many picture book versions of popular fairy tales and folktales, so you may substitute the list with other versions.)
“Metafiction involves games in which conventions of the real (and the reader’s understanding of those conventions) are flouted and overthrown.”
Examine this claim with reference to the picture books listed for this week, comparing how the books employ: frame-breaking devices; mise en abyme and self-reflective devices; genre-mixing and parody; narrative discontinuities. What textual (verbal) metafictive elements are used? How are pictorial elements (perspective, framing, vectors, layout, etc.) used metafictively?
Societies or groups within societies share bundles of ideas or assumptions about the world, about how it is or should be organised, and about the place and role of people in it. Such a bundle of ideas is known as an ideology.
Following is a list of picture books that have been categorised according to ideological discourses. Choose a group and explore the operation of ideology in these books:
Browne, A. Piggybook
Cole, B., Prince Cinders
Van Allsburg, C., The Widow's Broom
Baker, Jeannie, Mirror
Doh, Anh & Suzanne, The Little Refugee
Loh, M. & Rawlins, D., The Kinder Hat
Baillie, A. and Wu Di, Old Magic
Lofthouse, Liz and Robert Ingpen, Ziba Came on a Boat
Miller, David, Refugees
Tan, Shaun, The Arrival
Wheatley, Nadia & Rawlins, Donna, My Place
Baker, Belonging
Burningham, J., Oi! Get Off our Train
Foreman, One World
Van Allsburg, C., Just a Dream
Cole, B., Mummy Laid an Egg
Garden & Wooding, Molly’s Family
Loh, M. & Rawlins, D., The Kinder Hat
Pinfold, Levi, Black Dog
Rosen, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Say, Allen, Tree of Cranes
Blabey, Aaron, Noah Dreary
Duddle, Jonny, The Pirates Next Door
Graham, B., Spirit of Hope
Loh, M. & Rawlins, D., The Kinder Hat
Barnett & Klassen, Extra Yarn
Blabey, Aaron, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley
Moss, Thylias, & Pinkney, Jerry, I Want To Be
Parker & Ottley, Parachute
Say, Tree of Cranes or Grandfather's Journey
Saunders & Ottley, the incredible freedom machines
Tan, The Red Tree
Tregonning, small things
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To complete LIT 856 students must:
*Absence from more than two seminars without written explanation (medical or counselling certificate) will disqualify a student from passing the unit. University regulations also stipulate that a student must attempt every part of assessment in order to be eligible to pass a unit of study.
Notes on Class Participation for External Students External students must participate in online discussions via the LIT 856 iLearn site. External students should read the weekly texts and prepare the seminar discussion topics in advance, then post responses to the seminar questions and respond to the postings of other students, to facilitate an active discussion such as would occur in a face-to-face seminar. Students are also encouraged to raise other relevant points of interest in their online discussions. Be prepared to question the opinions of others, to have your opinions challenged and to participate actively in discussion. Students are expected to make at least 6 posts* over the semester.
Please make sure that your posts do not exceed 500 words, as it is harder for others to respond to postings that are excessively long and detailed.
*A “post" is defined as a discursive response relevant to unit interests of at least 50 words: a short paragraph of at least 4 sentences.