For this first presentation, choose a picture book to read to us. In your video, we should be able to see YOU reading to us for the majority of the video. You may share the images if you wish, either via a physical book or digitally, or choose to just read the text to us. Your video should be between 3 and 5 minutes long, so if your book is a long one, choose a section to read as an excerpt.

As an introduction (or conclusion): Tell us in a few sentences why you chose the book to introduce it to us. I do not need to know your book choice in advance.

You should tell us the story you chose in whatever way you wish in under five minutes. This can be aimed at an audience of your choice.

Your performance can be based on any of the versions you looked at, a combination of them, or something original based on your tale.  Keep in mind the elements that make a good story work that we will discuss in class.  Factors to consider this performance include narrative arc, consistent tone, character, vocal performance, physical performance, and setting. 

Be as creative as you want to be! People have done incredible things with this. But don’t worry if you only feel comfortable reading a story aloud to us at this point.

When you post your video please let us know with the post if your presentation is appropriate for children or not.

You are responsible for presenting an excerpt of approximately 3-4 minutes from an assigned book that at one time has been considered a classic of youth literature.  Your presentation should include a 2-3 minute introduction to your material.

Be sure to give us context for the excerpt. We need enough of the plot overview to know where this excerpt occurs and tell us any information that we might need. However, your introduction should be more than just a summary of the book’s plot.

Tell us about the book: When was the book written? By who? Was there a reason? What is the writing like? What are themes found in the book? Why do you think it might have been a classic? Should it still be considered one and read by kids today?

Try to keep the whole presentation under 6 minutes.

Choose a book that you feel represents a voice we haven’t heard or enough in the traditional children’s literature canon.  As you choose a book for this final assignment, consider the relationship between classic and canon and what might mark a book as a potential classic.  Does the book you chose have the potential to become a classic? Is it especially timely for right now? Do you think it will speak to children in the future as well?  

Please read us an excerpt and use your introduction to make the case for why this book should be added to the canon of literature for young people.

When you post your video on the classroom stream, please include 3-4 sentences of introduction to entice your classmates to read your book/listen to your presentation. 

Choose a single story that you will use for the first half of this course.  This can be a fairy tale or folk tale.  It must be approved.  No more than three individuals may choose the same story.

Look for SEVEN versions of the story and ONE academic article about your story.  These will be used for your annotated bibliography but will also influence your presentations.

1. Academic article or book chapter – this should be something that helps you to think critically about the story you chose. It might be specifically about the older text of the tale or deal with a variation that you are choosing.

2. An older version of the TEXT written pre-1900.  This may be published in a more recent edition, but you are looking for an early version of the story – most likely one by one of the major collectors of folk tales (Perrault, Grimm, Jacobs, etc.)

3. A picture book version of the story

4. A version of the story written AFTER 1970 that is written for an older audience. This can be for an Adult, Young Adult, or Middle-Grade audience.  The point is to look at a book or story that expands the story, giving it new detail and scope, either as a retelling or adaptation, or as an inspiration.  There is a spreadsheet of various possibilities in the Resources section of the course site.

5. A version on film.  This could be a film, animation, YouTube, etc., but it should tell a version of the story in its entirety. 

6. A visual version.  A single image or series of still images or other visual object based on the story.   We will look at some possibilities collectively.

7. A version meant to be performed.  This might be a ballet, an opera, a musical, a school play, a song, a storyteller’s version.  

8. Another version of your choice.

See above – You tell your story however you wish.

Provide citations and a 1-2 paragraph analysis of each source.  Don’t just summarize the plot, start to dig into the themes and ideas and what makes these variations interesting and unique.  

Dig deeply. 

Why this story at this time and place? How does it make you rethink the story as you have known it? What kinds of symbolism are you starting to see? What are the deeper themes and ideas that underlie these variations?  Are they the same or do they differ?  What does a particular version pull out of the story?  Think about how each variation supports or complicates the pattern of the story it is using and why. 

This assignment will be submitted in three stages:

• Citations Only: Find your materials and via Blackboard, submit just the citations for the materials. Citations should be done properly a style of your choice (I recommend MLA or Chicago).    Please indicate what style you are using on your document.
• Draft of annotations: Add a draft of your annotations to your bibliography. Submit this via Blackboard. We may also use this for an in-class assignment.
• Final Annotated Bibliography: Create a post for your classmates of your annotated bibliography. Add an introductory paragraph or two about what you discovered about your fairy tale over the course of this paragraph.

At least 24 hours before your appointment, please email me a 500-word self-reflection about your experience in this course.

Questions you may consider include: What have you learned about yourself as a speaker? As a listener? As a critical thinker and interpreter of sources? What worked for you or didn’t work for you in terms of this course overall? Were there exercises, readings, or discussions that were particularly helpful? Particularly awful? In terms of preparing for presentations what helped? What might you take away from this course for the future? What do you feel you still could improve on or work towards? Were there things you took away that could apply to other areas of school or life?
Look back at the initial course learning outcomes – do you feel you’ve made progress toward these?

Finally, what grade would you give yourself? What is your justification for this?

Schedule link to come