Literary Praxis

Across recent decades, there has been an ever-broadening range of theoretical perspectives used to explore issues related to literacy, perspectives ranging from cognitive to socio-cognitive to cultural to critical. Not unexpectedly, the sub-arena of children's literature has also been shaped by these many contemporary and traditional theoretical frames. This edited book focuses on children's literature courses as grounded in different theoretical frames. It is the first volume to address the diverse theoretical perspectives on teaching children's literature. Each chapter explicates the primary theoretical framework (as well as others) shaping a particular children's literature course, followed by the ways in which the framework shapes instruction. As well, a theory-to-practice approach section in each chapter including students' vignettes as testimonies of this approach to improve instruction. Chapters show the range from children's literature survey courses to children's literature courses focused on more specialized topics (e.g., picturebooks, graphic novels, service-learning), and all reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of faculty, students, and children's and young adult literature.