Child_Lit in the Classroom

Child_Lit & the College Classroom
What Is Child_Lit? Created in late 1994 by Michael Joseph of Rutgers University, Child_Lit is a forum for engaging and often spirited discussion of topics related to the theory and criticism of literature for young people. Its subscribers, at times numbering over a thousand, include librarians, K-12 teachers, college and university professors, publishers, authors, illustrators, and parents.
Although Child_Lit was originally developed to serve researchers and professionals involved in some capacity with literature for young people, instructors of children's and YA literature courses are increasingly recognizing that exposure to Child_Lit can be a valuable learning experience for their students. The following guidelines and recommended practices for using Child_Lit in the classroom have been developed to facilitate the participation of students who are carrying out course assignments without changing the nature and intentions of the listserv. See Child_Lit's home page for more information about the group's purpose and history, along with instructions for subscribing.

Using Child_Lit in College Courses
The following sections can also be reached by scrolling through the document.
Why Ask Students to Join a Listserv? | Preparing Students to Participate in a Listserv | Alerting Child Lit Participants | Copyright Dos and Don'ts | Citing Internet Sources | Child_Lit Archives

Why Ask Students to Join a Listserv?

Child_Lit is such a rich repository of ideas, information, and points of view that many teachers are eager to share it with students. Among the reasons:

The way participants talk about literature provides a good model for student discussion, demonstrating that children's literature is a field worthy of study and respect.
Discussion threads indicate current topics and issues in the children's literature field.
Multiple approaches to children's literature are valued.
New books are often mentioned and discussed, sometimes even before they are reviewed or otherwise brought to readers' attention.
No matter what kind of information is being sought, there is usually a subscriber who knows it or knows where to find it.
Boundless possibilities are offered for person-to-person connections: between researchers with similar interests or teachers in similar situations, between students and authors, publishers and librarians, illustrators and teachers.

Preparing Students to Participate in a Listserv Cyberspace is a foreign culture for the uninitiated. No one should send a student online without adequate instruction, since a positive outcome depends on knowing the rules, or netiquette, of cyberspace. At this point, it's a rare student who has never used email, but even practiced emailers may benefit from looking over M.C. Morgan's Composing E-Mail: Some Suggestions & Conventions. An excellent and concise introduction to listserv behavior is The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette by Arlene Rinaldi, who includes permission for duplication and distribution of her document. For more extensive discussion (the whys and wherefores) direct students to the online excerpts of Netiquette by Virginia Shea.

Several of Rinaldi's points bear repeating here as they relate to Child_Lit and prospective students. The sample set of instructions below can be reproduced as a handout.

GOING ONLINE
1. When you have successfully subscribed, you will receive a "Welcome to Child_Lit" message (the same information that appears on the Child_Lit home page). READ this message so that you understand the focus of the list and how to send messages, and SAVE the message (if possible, print it out in addition to saving it electronically) so that you that can sign off without problems (easier said than done).
2. Monitor the list messages for several days before jumping in with your own contribution. (This is known as lurking.) Lurking will give you a feel for the "list culture"-what's appropriate and what's not appropriate.
3. If you have a topic to raise or a question to ask, first look through the archives to see if your topic or question has been discussed in the past. Because the same topics appear with regularity as new people subscribe and ask the same "old" questions, longtime subscribers tend to skip messages or ignore questions when they are asked for the fourth, fifth, and twenty-fifth time. Thus your question, while important, might elicit a poor response, and you might do better to look for the topic in the Child_Lit archives. Child_Lit does not yet have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) feature, which serves to alleviate this problem on other listservs.
4. The first time you send a message, include a brief introduction of yourself (or add it under your name to explain your connection, e.g., "Grad student, English Education" or "English major." (On some email programs, this information can be configured as an automatic signature.)
5. Every time you send a message, include your name and email address (again, this can be included in a signature file). Some subscribers' software programs for reading email do not automatically show the sender's name or address, which means they will not be able to identify who sent the message or to what address they can reply unless you include this information in the body of your message.
6. If your reply function automatically copies the original message to which you are replying, snip all parts that are not absolutely necessary. What you have to say should appear on the screen so that readers do not have to scroll down to find your comments before they make the decision to read or delete.
7. When replying to a question, consider whether your information might be of general interest (for instance, your response to the book under discussion) or primarily of interest only to the asker (the name of your second-grade class's favorite read-aloud) and direct your message appropriately.
8. When posing a question intended to build a list (e.g., suggestions for tried-and-true books for reading aloud to second-graders), request that responses be sent privately to you and offer to distribute the finished bibliography to the entire list.
9. If you are replying privately to a message, make it a habit to check that the address in the "To" line belongs to the intended recipient and not to Child_Lit. Some people have been unspeakably embarrassed when their personal messages (their real thoughts about other participants or their chatty notes about life since grad school) have been distributed for all to see.
10. Provide enough contextual information in the questions you pose to be sure others understand that you have thought through the various elements of the question and/or "done your own homework." For instance, if asking for books on a certain topic, name the ones you have already found. This gives direction to your question and avoids duplication. It also gives you credibility. If you are posing a theoretical question or asking for opinions, discuss your terms or give examples to ground your question. If you rely on generalities, you may receive a response like the following (an actual exchange, with names changed):

Message #1:

There have been several books written that use foul language and graphic scenes. I was wondering if any of you would ever use these in your classroom, and under what circumstances?
Sally V.
Message #2:
Sally: It would be more helpful if you told us what books you are writing about and what specific language and scenes you are referring to in your message. Individuals have very different definitions for "foul" language and "graphic" scenes. I, as a respondent, have no frame of reference since you did not offer one. Kay

© 1997 Susan Stan; permission granted to reproduce for educational use
also available at http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/Susan_Stan/childlit.html

Alerting Child_Lit Participants If as part of a course assignment you will be requiring participation in Child_Lit for a large number of students, alerting the list ahead of time would help ensure a positive outcome for all involved. Child_Lit participants are generous with their knowledge, and you'll probably find that if they understand something about the students and the assignments, they'll respond more willingly to their requests.

Copyright Dos and Don'ts If you encounter a situation that you're uncertain of (for instance, whether or not the "fair use" laws would apply to some information you would like to use), consult the University of Houston's copyright site, which spells out the copyright issues clearly and addresses frequently asked questions.

Citing Internet Sources Child_Lit's policy regarding the use of opinions and information found in its discussions, whether current or archived, is that the poster should first be consulted for permission. If permission is granted, Janice Walker's Style Sheet provides a guide to citation forms for those who follow the MLA style.

Archives To date, there are no complete archives of Child_Lit discussions, although some exchanges have been archived on Fairrosa's Cyber Library of Children's Literature. In late 1996, Child_Lit's listowner began to archive discussions, which can be accessed through the home page or directly at http://email.rutgers.edu/archives/child_lit.html

About This Page While the above guidelines have been compiled for those who want to incorporate assignments involving the Child_Lit discussion group into their children's and young adult literature courses, all material can, of course, apply equally to listserv discussion groups and courses in any discipline. Permission to reproduce this document in whole or in part is hereby granted provided the URL or document source appears somewhere on the document.

This document has been prepared at Central Michigan University by Susan Stan, who welcomes any suggestions you may have for guidelines or assignments to be added to this page.

02/13/02

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