What Content Should Be Taught in Children's Literature?

Abstract

What Content Should Be Taught in Children's Literature? Jill P. May (bio) A recent undergraduate elementary education student at Purdue University wrote, "Books are designed to teach reading." She went on to explain that "illustrations add to the story, thus giving interest to a book while a child learns to read." In contrast, nineteenth-century author Charles Dickens wrote of his early literary experiences, saying, "Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could marry Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss." These two adults obviously view reading and literature in very different ways. One hopes to work directly with children and to teach them what is important, the other sought to write books which evoke an emotional response from his audience. Both set goals for themselves which relate directly to their experiences and their understanding of childhood. Theories on learning to read, to comprehend, and to communicate are divergent. The study of reading and children's literature is fragmented across the academic community, and various camps stand at arms, each defending its right to determine what the content of a children's literature course should be. In 1983 the Children's Literature Assembly of NCTE published the results of a survey of 251 randomly chosen college and university courses of children's literature to determine how children's literature was approached by the various academic fields. Of those responding, 43% taught in schools of education, 27% in library schools, and 14% in English departments. Education respondents placed their content emphasis on literature as a resource for genre study, library science on a survey of literature that emphasizes children's interests, and English on the literary elements of children's literature (9-11). Betsy Hearne noted that children's literature is the topic of discussion in an expanding number of fields, including psychology, anthropology, and history, and added, "While many are speaking to the issues of children's literature, they're not always listening to each other...In many cases, the selection of what to study and how to study it is influenced by the kind of informal networking that is very hard to trace without 'inside knowledge' " (27, 31). The lack of communication among American scholars of children's literature is largely caused by current philosophies of undergraduate education. Most of the students who take children's literature at the undergraduate level plan to be elementary teachers. Throughout the years, my Purdue students have answered my survey of their background in children's literature and interests in teaching children by telling me that they were not readers themselves as youths, and that they want to teach because "they love children." Rarely does a student say that she has entered the field of elementary education because she wants to help children learn new ways of thinking, new concepts that will help them as adults. Their focus is on the child as an entity in and of itself. Without a larger philosophy about the need to promote attitudes of lifelong learning, they value children's literature as a teaching tool. Because they were not introduced to children's literature in a meaningful way during their elementary school years, they see no purpose for the study of literature in the elementary classroom other than as a means to teach other concepts in the curriculum. Often the study of children's literature within education schools is dominated by theories of reading instruction or the correct classroom uses of children's literature when teaching other skills such as listening, writing, and oral expression. Aligned to teacher certification programs, college education students learn to value testable skills. Their key word is literacy. Literacy denotes the ability to read, write and speak properly. All are skills that can be tested by standardized tests and traditional classroom practices. Since college students understand that as teachers they will be held accountable for their teaching, they seek validated ways to teach the skills deemed important by society as a whole. They want to know about relevant modes of teaching which most often meet with success. When they are informed about whole language theory in the U.S. Commission on Reading...