The Children's Literature Study Web is a work in progress, which will be created by students enrolled in English 240, Literature for Younger Readers, and other relevant courses at Northern State University and elsewhere. It is intended to serve as a resource for students and others considering children's books from all periods and from all critical perspectives.

The Study Web does not contain complete papers, so as to minimize the temptation to plagiarize. Rather, it contains segments of student discussion, from papers, bulletin board responses, exams, and other classroom activities, each of which will consist of no more than a few paragraphs. These segments may be useful nuggets to stimulate a student's own individual research, or to raise questions for class discussion.

The Study Web grows and changes as student research and other inputs are added. Not all student input is automatically entered into the Web; inclusion is subject to the decision of the instructor/website owner. Student perspectives are included in the Study Web if:

1. They provide useful information about an author or book;
2. They offer a valuable critical insight about a book, or about children's literature in general; or
3. They may be used as discussion starters to generate critical thinking about children's books.

• Author: All entries dealing with a particular author may be accessed from this zone. Since most of the student discussion and research tends to focus on individual authors, almost all of the study material will be listed in this zone, and most users will want to start from here. If, however, one wished to look at children's literature through a different lens (for example, to identify characteristics of work written during a particular period, or in a particular genre, or to find different critical or pedagogic approaches to children's literature), then it might be more appropriate to search through a more appropriate category than "Author."
• Period: Materials are here organized by literary period. Again, most of the information in the web will be accessible through this zone, insofar as it relates to works written at a particular time in history; but other zones may be more useful to those who are approaching children's literature from a perspective other than that of literary history.
• Genre: Among the more interesting questions about children's literature are whether books for children form a genre of their own, whether the same genres (fiction, historical fiction, mystery, nonfiction, etc.) that are used for adult literature work in the same way for children's books, or whether there are specific literary genres unique to children's literature. Material gathered in this zone will address literary works in terms of their generic characteristics and may address some of these specific questions.
• Type of Student Work:  This directory allows students to see relatively successful approaches taken by previous students to answering exam questions, taking part in bulletin board discussions, and carrying out class assignments.  

In addition to the collections of student-generated material, there are two other sections to the Study Web: a Useful Links section containing links to other websites dealing with children's literature, which may be of use to the student, and a Reference section that will contain a bibliography of print sources used by students in generating the material various web zones.
 

Page designed and maintained by: A. Waller Hastings Northern State University Aberdeen, SD 57401

Last updated: July 5, 1999