This course is about ideas, the kinds of ideas that help teachers, teacher educators, librarians, parents, and scholars think more deeply about children's literature. Frank Smith wrote in Reading without Nonsense that teachers have no shortage of advice on how to teach reading to children. There are hundreds of books available that advise teachers on which methods to use and how to use them. What teachers do need, according to Smith, is theory, theory that helps them understand what reading is, select the most appropriate advice, and develop their own practice. This course is based upon the premise that there is nothing so practical as a good theory. Theory helps us to see the possibilities of a book and the possible pedagogical practices we might employ around that book. Theory focuses our attention on text and shapes the meanings we make of that text.

We use ideas with which to think. This means how we build theory, the ideas we hold and eventually make tacit, are vital to what we believe about ourselves, about others, about children, about teaching, and about literature. This course is about provoking those assumptions and asking the reader to consider other possibilities of meaning.

Reading children's literature, like reading any genre of literature, is about reading what is there in the text so that we might fill in what the text doesn't state explicitly. Put another way, we attend to the signs of the text so that we can fill in the gaps. It is how we attend and how we fill in the gaps that give form to the interpretations of literature we make.

To read literature we need a repertoire, a body of knowledge about language, literature, and life and as part of that repertoire a set of strategies for using our knowledge to interpret text. This course is about stretching the repertoire of teachers and expanding their strategies for making meaning of children's books.

Learning isn't something we do alone. We learn from each other and with each other. Carole Edelsky and other progressive language educators have argued persuasively that demonstration is vital to children's literacy learning. According to Edelsky, children need to see demonstrations of the literacy they are trying learn. The teacher-parent-librarian, then, isn't just another reader in the classroom but a demonstrator of what is possible in reading literature. The teacher's repertoire and the strategies the teacher employs are loud and clear calls to children on potential ways to approach and interpret the books they read.

As much as some educators talk about "exploring" books with children, the teacher or any adult for that matter, isn't just another explorer. Students in classrooms take their interpretive cues from the teacher. By showing what she attends to in a text, by the questions she asks, the teacher demonstrates an interpretive posture. If children are going to grow as interpreters of texts, they are going to need to see demonstrated various ways of interpreting literature. If the teacher or other adult isn't showing much, if anything, in how he or she attends to literature, then the children are left to interpret their reading by reproducing strategies they pick up elsewhere. Some children may be fortunate enough to have accomplished readers of literature at home and thus may see demonstrated many possible strategies for interpreting text. But for most children the most accomplished readers they will encounter will be their teachers. Thus it is vital to the learning of children that their teachers continue to grow as readers of literature. This course addresses this need.

Typically, we tend to divide pedagogy into teacher-centered or child-centered education. Because the focus of this course is upon the teacher as a reader of children's literature, the temptation may be to see this course as advocating teacher-centered pedagogy. That would be a mistake. This course is neither teacher-centered nor is it child-centered. It is relationship-centered; the relationships readers form with texts and with one another. This course is about exploring, exploring something in particular, children's books, with a knowledgeable guide. This course is about the repertoire of children's literature and the strategies knowledgeable guides might employ to understand this literature and to teach to their fellow explorers. The focus, then, is neither with teacher nor with child nor with the text, but rather the focus is upon the interpretive space that resides among the three.

In this course you are going to try on different theoretical lenses to gaze at children's books. We will be doing this in a playful manner, not seeking for one, absolute correct meaning, but rather to enjoy the mysteries and ambiguities that fine literature offers readers. For the most part we'll be reading middle grade novels with a few picture books sprinkled in. These books are books that have been well-reviewed and/or are wildly popular.

So, this class will take a tour of several important theories and ideas from literary criticism on children's literature and show the connection these theories have on which books get read in classrooms and how these books get read. Because these theories are all anchored in dominant culture, they often play out in educational practice in unconscious forms. The point of the course is to make these theories explicit and conscious to adult readers of children's books.

A Web-based course grants you a great deal of freedom, but also a great deal of responsibility. While you don't have a fixed schedule of classes, you do have a fixed schedule of deadlines by which assignments must be completed. In general, you should expect to put in about as much work, and about as many hours, as you would for a traditional resident-instruction course.

Be aware that there is much reading in this course. Pace yourself accordingly and don't allow yourself to get behind. This class is also highly participatory as you will be in electronic discussions with your classmates throughout the term.

Throughout this course you will:

• Learn about the Tell Me framework for exploring stories.
• Consider childhood as an idea and children's literature as a social project.
• Stretch your strategies and repertoire for reading children's literature.
• Consider issues of race, class, and gender in children's literature.
• Look at the role subversion plays in children's books.
• Consider what role colonialism might play in children's literature.
• Read in a playful manner.