CURRENT COURSES I:
YOUTH LITERATURE
Hello everyone! Stevenson University’s English department is currently offering numerous interesting courses, and I wanted to highlight a few. One course you will definitely enjoy is Dr. Kathy Brown’s ENG 282 class on “Youth Literature.” In this course, students read childhood favorites from “Winnie the Pooh” and “A Wrinkle in Time” to “Julie of the Wolves,” examining each from the perspective of young readers. I had an opportunity to talk about the course with Professor Brown, who told me “I taught this course last year and had so much fun that I wanted to do it again.” It certainly sounds like a fun way to look at stories students have grown up reading from a different perspective.
In my interview with Professor Brown, she also emphasized to me that, in this course, her students “learn to articulate the values present in each text.” “For example,” she continued, “the Pooh stories are all about the importance of friendship and the need to reach out to those who are unhappy.” Students began the semester by studying the Pooh stories and have since moved into literature with which older children can identify. If you grew up listening to stories at bedtime and were a bookworm as a kid, this course sounds like a great learning experience.
A special thanks to Dr. Kathy Brown for speaking with me. For the English Department, I’m Marc Kohlman! Stay tuned for more awesome course updates and other exciting news.