The Child Writer

Module code: EN3073

Teaching is through weekly two-hour seminars which will include whole and small group discussions based on set readings.

This module provides both traditional and innovative approaches to the child author. This will be broken into themes such as war, historical fiction, adventure fiction, fantasy worlds, country house literature, and editing children's literature. It will cover a range of authors, some well-known like the Brontës, Keats, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and Anne Frank, and other less known child writers, such as Mary Arnold and Iris Vaughan.

Each student will give a short formative presentation based around an object owned by a child author. This will be used to link to themes within the literature and wider context of children's agency. This model encourages students to think creatively, develop presentation skills, and increase their confidence in conveying information to a non-academic audience. There will be opportunities to contact the V&A Museum of Childhood and Brontë Parsonage Museum, and liase with the curatorial staff on which objects/images/archival documents to use. Students will receive feedback from the seminar tutor and each student will fill in an anonymous peer review form, which will be handed to the student that is presenting.