Final Thoughts and Conclusions

Consider These Thoughts

Regardless of age, children listen to a variety of children’s literature styles and genres while learning to recognize literary movement, rhyme, theme and pace. It is within childhood that a love of literature is either made or broken where children understand the significance of books. Beyond the exposure to various narrative, children learn to associate children’s books to fond memories with mom and dad where a feeling of safety and love is nurtured during story time at night. In the elementary classroom, children learn that children’s books are essential to their learning and incorporated into almost any topic or lesson.

Upon reaching adulthood, we continue to live in a world full of books and hopefully continue the tradition of books all around the home, the heart and the mind. Whereas adults move on to more age-appropriate texts suited for adult interest, they continue the tradition of using children’s literature to teach, nurture and entertain children or students of their own. Yet it was the literature of childhood that established the interest and roots of a literary world in a modern-day adult reader. Children’s books are where we learned to read.

With this in mind, why should we stop here? Books are books, regardless of who writers and publishers ‘think’ they were written for. Undergraduate English majors deserve an introduction to this genre just as they need to learn about more complicated and significant texts throughout history. Why should an adult literature student learn about Jane Eyre, Great Expectations or War and Peace and not about the controversy behind Through the Looking Glass, Little Women or The Swiss Family Robinson? After all, they were written in the same era under the same constricting cultural expectations for living. And, the child reader in the 1700s and 1800s matched the skill level for reading that most adults possess today.

Assessing student progress as students climb the previously forbidden walls into the world of children’s literature will require special consideration and planning. Students may assume the course will be easier with literature originally intended for children. They may not feel a need to focus as hard on the texts or allow enough time for analysis. With the application of learning objectives, rubrics, video introductions, a detailed syllabus and more hands-on formative assessment activities, the likelihood of student slippage is reduced. Keeping the course fun and enlightening includes the use of creative assessment to monitor student learning – especially when it comes to a course in children’s literature. After all, it is the enchantment of books that lures the English major.

Photo Citation:

Little Girl is Flipping Over Pages of a Book. [Photograph]. Licensed by Bigstock on Oct 6, 2015 from http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-22162139/stock-photo-little-girl-is-flipping-over-pages-of-a-book