This course has two major goals. One is to help you prepare for writing the paper that is the capstone of this program. The other is to acquaint you with a variety of research traditions that are used to frame research in children's literature studies.

Contrary to what many outsiders might assume, children's literature studies has a rich and varied body of research. Any tradition that considers language, literacy, literature, culture, psychology, and children can be used to frame research in children's literature studies.

Historically, we've looked at research in children's literature studies as coming from the three disciplines most commonly associated with children's literature: education, English literature, and library science. Broadly, research in education has looked at some matter relating to pedagogy, English literature to literary criticism, and library science to bibliography. We will be looking at research that emanates from each of these traditions, however, we will also be looking at theoretical foundations that cut across the three disciplines.

The course will begin with a quick overview of teachers-as-researchers. Many of you are practitioners and are perhaps interested in conducting some kind of study at your own workplace be it a classroom, a library, or some other kind of venue where children's literature is present and used by children and/or adults. We will take in the first few chapters of Hubbard and Powers' Living the Questions to gain a sense of what teacher-research is about. For those of you who may wish to conduct such a study for your capstone paper, the remainder of the book will help you set up your study and give you pointers for carrying out the study and then writing it up. Any research that collects data from living human beings is subject to human subjects review. In this part of the course you will do a brief tutorial on the responsibilities of researchers when human subjects are part of the research project.

There also some research basics that are common to all types of research in children's literature studies. We'll take some time to acquaint ourselves with online databases, special collections, style manuals, and other resources that are invaluable to conducting research in children's literature studies.

Research, ultimately, is a claim to know something. These claims rest upon some theoretical and philosophical assumptions about knowledge and truth. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that looks at questions of how we know what we know, how we can tell if what we know is true, what we should do with knowledge, and what counts as evidence of knowing. Epistemological traditions cut across the disciplines. We will be considering epistemological traditions that value proficiency and technical skill, initiation and practical knowledge, self-actualization, and social justice/emancipation. We will also be considering a wide range of possible evidence for supporting research in children's literature studies. Though this section is highly theoretical, understanding epistemology is vital for being able to read and evaluate scholarship in children's literature studies and it provides a solid foundation to your own research.

The last two thirds of the course will focus on major bodies of theory that can serve as foundations for research. Literary theory, New Criticism, Reader Response, Literacy & Learning, New Historicism, Marxist Criticism, Psycho-Analytic Criticism, Cultural Theory, Feminism and other theories will be touched upon. We don't expect you to become proficient at each of these theories, but we do hope you will grasp the kinds of assumptions about knowledge and research and the kinds of questions each of these theories often generate. These theories are sometimes confusing and difficult to understand. We've put on the reading list an excellent book by Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today. The readings in this book aren't required, but we do highly recommend you read around in this book as Tyson will provide you with more background and discussion than the readings in the Hunt book will.

The major goal of this class is for you to develop a problem statement for the research you would like to do for your capstone paper. This course will guide you in how to compose a problem statement, what questions need to be addressed in such a statement and how to form a plan of study to accomplish conducting and writing your research. You will then bring this problem statement into the next course, Doing Scholarship in Children's Literature Studies, which will guide you through the process of composing a complete draft of your capstone paper.

Upon completion of this course you will:

• Develop knowledge of a range of research approaches in children literature studies
• Become familiar with epistemological traditions.
• Describe major bodies of theory that serve as foundations for research.
• Explore your own research interest