Picture Books and the Anxiety of Freedom
Using the picture books I have supplied you, work in groups of 3 - 4 to read the book together and to determine what "anxieties" you see playing out in the text. You'll want to note both alphabetic and pictogrpahic examples of these anxieties.

As well as the list you create, look specifically for how these books demonstrate an anxiety about freedom. How do the texts and pictures represent "freedom" and "constraint" and what position might the author be taking? Are there moments of subversion, moments when the text (visually or linguistically) might be contradicting itself? (Often, the text is written before the illustration, so the illustrator may create visuals that work against the words — although some authors are illustrators and work in a more back-and-forth manner between word and image.) Why might U.S. culture have vexed feelings/needs when it comes to freedom and constraint with children? Where do these anxieties come from? Are they rational or irrational or both?

Choose a scribe for your group so that you end your group time with a list of the anxieties and the text-based examples of those anxieties (on the worksheet provided). Then, as a group, fill in the other columns on the sheet. The group should also choose one member to report its findings back to the class.

"I Believe" Statements
Keeping in mind our discussion from class about Millay's "Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies," you should create a chart with four distinct columns. In the first column, write statements like "Childhood is . . ." or "Children are . . ." or "Childhood should be . . ." or "Children should . . ." You should fill in at least five or six statements that fit your ideas of children/childhood (we'll add to the chart in coming weeks). In column two, write down what evidence fits your column in the first statement — anything descriptive would be fine. In column three, list those people/individuals or groups/organizations that you think would agree with you about this statement. In column four, list those people/individuals or groups/organizations that you think would disagree with you. It might look something like this:

We will add to this chart over the coming weeks, so make sure to bring it each class. Also, as new ideas come to you, you should add them.

Power and Subversion in Peter Pan
After you've finished the first chapters of Peter Pan and Chapter 10 from the Hart book, write a brief (3 - 4 page) critical analysis of two scenes from the novel that demonstrate a conflict between Power and Subversion (of that power). Power, of course, can come in many forms: it can be the power of the father in the Darling household, the power of Hook among the Pirates in the Neverland, the power Peter wields over the Lost Boys, the power Wendy wields over the Lost Boys, Peter, Hook, etc. In each of these, "power" may be either obviously or more subtly produced and lived; likewise, in all of these situations, there may be moments of subversion, moments when the the powerful are over-turned or moments when what "seems" powerful is, in fact, revealed to be a weakness.

Create a workable thesis about power/subversion and use two scenes from the novel as examples of how power/subversion (one or the other, or both) work in those scenes. You should come to some interpretive claim, meaning that you should be able to explain WHY power/subversion may function in these scenes as it does. You may certainly use hypothetical language in your explanation ("Perhaps Barrie suggests in this scene . . ." or "This scene may demonstrate that . . .").

Papers should be typed, double-spaced, using Times New Roman 12 pt. font.

Gender Play in Peter Pan
In Peter Pan, we see again and again that the Neverland is very much represented as a place of the mind, a dreamscape, as it were, of what children desire (and then that desire is what makes them children because to grow up is to desire different things/beings). In "Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Beyond the Symbolic," Karen Coats argues that the novel elaborates on the psychonalytic notions of jouissance and the child's move (or refusal) into the Symbolic: "Neverlands vary with the individual, Barrie [writes], 'but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's noses, and so forth' (19)" (90). Likewise, Marjorie Garber has observed that "Peter is a kind of Wendy Unbounded" (168). For these critics, Peter Pan and the Neverland serve as metaphorical spaces for child and adult readers (as well as the characters in the texts themselves) to work out various psychological issues that we may all experience as a natural part of maturation.

Write a short (3 - 4 page) essay in which you explore how one character plays with gender (its own or that of others). You should try to find at least two different scenes/examples to quote in your paper, and for each example, you should explain in your own words/thinking how this scene plays with (disrupts, upsets, unsettles, subverts) gender. How is Peter a sort of "Wendy Unbounded"? What might that mean? Why is Hook drawn as such an "impotent" character? (After all, his hook hangs like "limp noodle"!) What makes Peter a "boy"? How does Barrie use his text to construct an image of what a "boy" should be (or was) in Victorian England? What makes Wendy a girl, and then a woman?

IMPORTANT: For this "shorty," you should use at least one of the secondary sources that you've found in order to support your key thesis. Don't just throw a quote in, though; make sure it has purpose, supports your claims or advances your thinking in some way in the essay. Be sure to supply a Works Cited page with the novel (any movie version you reference) and your article.

Book Banning/Censorship
So far, we have spent the semester discussing texts that adults have written either about children/childhood or (ostensibly) for children. These texts often serve a very rhetorical function: they ask us to imagine a particular image/construction of childhood; they ask us to take a stance in relation to that image we create; and they work to prevent other ways of thinking about childhood.

One of the ways that these discourses of childhood come into play in our everyday life is in the ubiquitous movements to ban books from children or schools or to censor those that are allowed. For this assignment, you should find an editorial or essay (you must have an author; no anonymous essays, please) that argues either FOR or AGAINST banning/censorship. As you read, you need to look for what arguments or assumptions this author makes about children, childhood, and texts.

Write a short (2 - 3 page) analysis of the major arguments/assumptions that your text makes about children/childhood and texts/reading. You're looking for how these writers construct an image of childhood that is somehow helped or put in danger by certain texts or ideas and WHY this writer (or group) thinks these children will be in danger.

Excess and Culture
Boy Meets Boy is not your typical adolescent novel in many ways. To start, it involves a highly fantastical representation of a high school (in what seems like Washington, DC), a representation of a high school that none of us could probably imagine (except, of course, in fiction). In this way, and many others, the novel exceeds our learned cultural assumptions about 1) texts for teens and 2) cultural itself.

Write a short (2 - 3 page) explanation of up to three (3) different excessive parts of the novel, parts of the novel that exceed our expectations. How do these events/people/concepts/etc. exceed what we expect? Why do they exceed those expectations? And ultimately, are these excessive performances "checked" in any way in the novel (i.e., are they constrained by other cultural factors or are they given free reign to disrupt)?

Banning the Boys
We've looked at several of the reasons that people opt to ban or censor texts, and we've talked about the different ways that these texts get "censored" (teacher selection, for example, isn't really "banning" as we usually think about it because no teacher could choose all texts). For this assignment, I want you to produce two (2) letters:

• One should be from the parent of a high school student (you choose the gender); the parent finds the book Boy Meets Boy objectionable and wants the book pulled from the shelves.
• The second letter should be from the parent of a gay high school student; the parent wants to thank the teacher for choosing this book. (This letter may be framed as a "reaction" to the first letter if you want.)

For both of these letters, you want to think of the best arguments you can for the respective positions; try to be rational, if possible, and intelligent, if possible. Use examples from the book so as to demonstrate that you, as a concerned/thankful parent, have read the book.

These letter should be no longer than a page, single-spaced, 12 pt. font.

Students will do three (3) short annotated bibliographies, the content of which will connect to class readings and topics and ultimately, if the students think through their choices, these texts will also be useful for the Major Analytical Project. In each annotated bibliography, one or two articles will be assigned for all the students to find and use in their bibliographies, while the other articles will be for the students themselves to select (as long as they are related in some way to the bib topic).

Annotated Bibliography #1
The topic of AB#1 is, broadly conceived, "The Historical Invention of Childhood." Students should use the library to locate academic articles that discuss the concept of childhood in history. For this AB, the "common texts" will be the Introduction and Chapter 4 of Andrew O'Malley's The Making of the Modern Child: Children's Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century (on two-hour reserve at Joyner Library). Students should then locate one (1) other 15+ page academic article or book chapter on "The Historical Invention of Childhood" and supply a photocopy of the article along with your annotation. Students should be prepared to explain the highlights of their third annotated article to the class.

A sample annotation will include the bibliographical data in proper MLA format. Paragraph One will be in the form of the rhetorical précis. In Paragraph Two, you should offer your own response to the argument(s) made in the article, perhaps why you found it convincing or not or what problems the author doesn't address.

Annotated Bibliography #2
For AB#2, we will be looking to find what scholars have said about Peter Pan, which may entail discussions of the play, the novelization (Peter and Wendy), the less-well-known Peter in Kinnsington Gardens, the musical, the movie versions by Disney et al, or even the psychological syndrome.

Common texts for everyone's bibliography will be Alison Lurie's "The Boy Who Couldn't Grow Up: James Barrie" (Don't Tell the Grown-Ups) and Marjorie Garber's "Fear of Flying, or Why Is Peter Pan a Woman?" (Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing & Cultural Anxiety). Of the other two texts you should include, one should be a review of a theatrical production of Peter Pan (play or musical) and the other should be an academic text that you locate in a journal or book in the library.

A sample annotation will include the bibliographical data in proper MLA format. Paragraph One will be in the form of the rhetorical précis. In Paragraph Two, you should offer your own response to the argument(s) made in the article, perhaps why you found it convincing or not or what problems the author doesn't address. Here's a sample (doc) of what it might look like.

Annotated Bibliography #3
Our third AB will focus on book banning as a rhetorical controversy. While it may be uncommon for a text as popular as Peter Pan to have faced such censorial challenges, many books that are as complex as Peter Pan have certain had their share of banning request. Recently, in fact, Bless Me, Ultima, a popular and oft-taught novel about Latino/a culture and struggle, was so hated by one school board official that he collected the books from the students and handed them out to parents so that they might all take part in a ritualistic book-burning!

The common text for this assignment will be the "Introduction" and Chapter 1: "To Deprave and Corrupt" from Majorie Heins's book Not in Front of the Children. Students should locate three popular-press articles (magazine or newspaper articles) about recent book bans/challenges in the United States. You might start with books that you have read and found interesting so as to have greater insight into why these books have been banned -- or shouldn't have been banned.

A sample annotation will include the bibliographical data in proper MLA format. Paragraph One will be in the form of the rhetorical précis. In Paragraph Two, you should offer your own response to the argument(s) made in the article, perhaps why you found it convincing or not or what problems the author doesn't address. Here's a sample (doc) of what it might look like.

Like many courses, this one has focused on a particular theme and engaged that theme in the different ways that English studies professionals would: through poetical and rhetorical texts, as well as through culture and psychology. By this point, you should have thought enough about some aspect of the course topic to have developed an idea for a Major Analytical Project.

This project is broadly conceived so that students may write about any topic/text they choose, as long as that topic/text is clearly related to the course theme. Student projects will be negotiated with the Professor on a one-to-one basis. Students are encouraged to be as creative and thoughtful as possible, keeping in mind that topics can range from an analysis of a particular censorship case and how that case enacts the theories of childhood we've discussed to a close-reading of a novel or poem we read this semester.

There are only possibilities here.

Minimum Requirements:

• The project must be 10 - 12 pages in length, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, one-inch margins.
• The project must use at least five (5) academic sources (like those from your first two annotated bibliographies).
• Students must turn in all parts of the assignment at the given due date (proposals, drafts for peer review, conference with the Professor, etc.)
• Final projects should demonstrate significant revision over previous drafts. Students are encouraged to use the University Writing Center, Bate 2026, for help with their projects. They should also consult with their Professor when necessary.

Your course portfolios represent an archive of the work you have done for the semester. One reason they are useful to keep is that they force students to keep up with the work they're doing. While it isn't often that a professor forgets to record a grade -- or records a grade incorrectly -- it does happen and students need to protect themselves. But the main reason for the portfolio is that you get to look back at your work and see how you've developed as a writer over the semester.

The portfolio should be put together in the following order to ensure that the professor can find everything; otherwise, students may not get credit for the work they've done:

During the final exam time, students will prepare a short, 10 minute presentation of their final projects. These presentations should begin with the writer explaining why they chose the topic they did -- what they found personally interesting about it. Next, the writer should share his/her thesis with the class and then talk for a few minutes about some of the examples that he/she used in the paper. Writers might also talk about what they learned in the process of putting their papers together.

Due: Tuesday, May 3, 2005 @ 6:00 p.m.