From Critique to Community (and the Final Assignment)

LCN617—Children’s Literature: Criticism and Practice (2015) Erica Hateley, erica.hateley@qut.edu.au

• “When children are allowed to use their prior knowledge, raise questions, make intertextual connections, and experience transmediation they become engaged in meaningful and relevant learning about their world.” (Schmit 35)

• Schmit’s piece should hopefully spark some reflective and cumulative thinking about what you’ve read, critiqued, and produced in LCN617

• “libraries need to expand reader’s advisory resources to homepages and social networking sites. Librarians can record book review podcasts, maintain blogs, and use video to encourage patrons to read” (Ellis 24)

• “Just as movie trailers are influential in increasing a potential viewer’s interest in a movie, trailers made specifically for a book should increase a potential reader’s motivation to read it.” (Gunter and Kenny 88)

The newly-familiar book trailer

• A straight-up marketing tool:– “Book trailers, in the same style as those for blockbuster

movies, are becoming a crucial marketing tool for publishers, with videos of varying quality and budgets popping up on YouTube.The rise of video-sharing sites has meant literary trailers can reach big audiences, at a fraction of the cost of newspaper or magazine ads, airtime on television or the flights and expenses of author tours.” (Kent)

Several commentators point to the “Mobys” – awards for book trailers – as an indicator of the cultural penetration of this new advertising genre.

Reversing the Flow?

• I’d like to point to the “Trailie” awards, coordinated by School Library Journal!

• I think we spend enough time seeing marketing/advertising cultures appropriate and commodify creative enterprises (and yes, I realise we live in a consumer capitalist society); I’m particularly interested in seeing the flow reversed, folks taking the tools of advertising back, and “de-monetizing” them!

• Publishers sell books. Librarians sell reading.

Education & Participation• Re: “amateur culture”

– “Lawrence Lessig, the inventor of Creative Commons and a fan of the phenomenon, defines the work of amateurs on the Web as the creative appropriation and reuse of existing materials, what Claude Lévi-Strauss called the art of bricolage. Perhaps more important for Lessig, amateurs create their work from love, without any expectation of compensation, and thus acquire an aura of artistic purity. Lessig’s principal opponent on this point is Andrew Keen, the subtitle of whose critique of amateur culture is How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture. Keen argues that amateur work on the Internet too often involves both the theft of others’ intellectual property (e.g., Napster) and a dumbing down of knowledge (in Keen’s opinion, the effect of Wikipedia). Teachers probably will want to take both positions into consideration when counseling students about their projects, but the youth culture that YouTube supports, by nature appropriative and playful, is already a powerful cultural force” (Desmet 66)

• “Whether the trailer aims to construct an alternate reality, as one might for a fantasy novel, or evoke a mood in viewers, such as the trepidation and curiosity constructed in crime fiction; the trailer enables viewers to impress their own meaning upon the series of signs and signifiers constructed through the multimedia productions. […] Book trailers in this sense construct the fictive landscape of the novel and position viewers to perceive a relational connection with their own lives, furthered by purchasing the printed text.” (Fitzpatrick 22)– And, perhaps even by reading it?

Complicating the trailer/book/reading relationship…

• Book trailer for Neil Gaiman’s Blueberry Girl: http://youtu.be/QH4lyJWa_84

• Book trailer for Lane Smith’s It’s a Book: http://youtu.be/x4BK_2VULCU

• Morris Gleitzman @ the Brisbane Writers Festival 2010.

• Naomi Bates• http://lcn617.tumblr.com/tagged/book-trailers

Assignment 2…

• [cue Jaws soundtrack]• A combination of an “old school” written component

and a “new school” book trailer…– 1,500 word critical rationale about a book for young

people• NOT the same book you used for Assignment 1• NOT a book from the syllabus for LCN617• published in the last 5 years

– Book Trailer – MAXIMUM 3 minutes long• Could be as short as 30 seconds

• DUE: June 10, 2015 via a “Digital Dropbox” on Blackboard

An “Old School” Written Component?

• Think about the (“good” / convincing) articles you read in children’s literature & librarianship journals—these are extended arguments about the meaning and significance of a text or texts.

• The authors/critics:– Take a position

• Here’s what I think this book is about; what it means

– Provide evidence• Here’s why I think that

– Quotations / concrete examples from the primary text– Examples / Concepts / Ideas / Contexts from secondary materials (e.g. criticism,

theory, professional journals etc.)

– Explain significance• Here’s why it matters

Why I’m asking you to write a rationale:• It develops and hones your critical/analytical

skills re: children’s literature;• It forces you to cohere material from

primary and secondary resources, and to ‘tell a critical story’ in such a way as to make sense to another human;

• It demands deep, thoughtful engagement with a text beyond “that’s quite pretty”– As I’ve said many times, sometimes “that’s quite

pretty” is more than enough justification for reading and/or promoting a book;

– It’s not enough for the final assignment in LCN617

• It engages you in conversation with the discipline of children’s literature– There is no minimum number of references for the

rationale, but logically, if you’re participating in a conversation, there are bound to be some!

• The genre of the rationale asks you to so do in a specific professional context

Elements of the Rationale

1. The context you are addressing 2. Bibliographic citation for the book3. A brief summary of the book4. Strengths of the book5. Weaknesses of the book6. Opportunities offered by the book7. Threats posed by the book8. Existing responses to the book9. Summation and Conclusion10. Bibliography (for the assignment as a whole)

The rationale will help you sort out:

“New School” Trailer?

Planning / Storyboard

• What do you want to say?• How do you want to say it?• What elements do you want to

include?• In what order?• Whose voice(s) are you planning to

represent?– The book?– Yours?– Students’/school community’s?

• Will voices be read (visual text) and/or heard (aural text)?

• To whom is the trailer addressed?

Assembling the Materials

• Creative Commons etc. for existing digital content that may be used freely

• Self-generated Content– Drawings / written responses that can be

scanned and included– “Live” commentary – digital video & audio

• Get folks to perform quotations or other elements from the book / context

• Get folks to share their opinion of the book / context

• Always remember: credit where credit’s due—include an element at the end where you acknowledge all contributors!

Hey, you! You should read this book! Here’s why!

Building the Trailer

• Do some reconnaissance– check out book trailers on YouTube, animoto etc.– Check out what you have access to e.g. at home or

school, mac or pc, programs already available or free to download?

– On Blackboard, I’ve linked to folks giving instructional advice for different programs / resources

• Stand-alone program or online resource?

Go for it!

• No such thing as a “perfect” trailer

• This is a chance to make a case for a book creatively

• I’d rather watch a book trailer that comes from passion than one that comes from Scorsese!

Sharing the Trailer

• There is a discussion category on the LCN617 Google Community expressly for the sharing of trailers (“A2: Share your book trailer!”)

• Add a post to that category with a weblink to your trailer

• Please remember: I have to be able to access it easily!

Grading the Assignment:• Assignment 2 is worth 50% of your overall mark for LCN617.

– 1,500 word rationale component weighted at 40%– Book trailer weighted at 10%

• Which, for the mathematically inclined means, for this assignment—written component = 80%; digital component = 20%

– You must submit both components to pass the assignment.• The rationale will be marked according to the rubric which appears in the

“Assessment Information Document” on Blackboard [as the first assignment was]—graded on the 1-7 scale

• The book trailer will be marked according to the “Book Trailer—Checklist” which appears on Blackboard—graded pass/fail– For example:

• A strong, “distinction” level rationale earns a “6” = 32/40• A passing book trailer = 10/10

– The grade for this assignment overall is 42 / 50 which equates to a 6.

• A strong, “distinction” level rationale earns a “6” = 32/40• An unsuccessful book trailer = 0/10

– The grade for this assignment overall is 32 / 50 which equates to a 4.

Discussion Prompts

I realise that much of folks’ mental energy will be taken up with the final assignment, but I hope you will allow yourself to engage with wider ideas about critical practice related to children’s literature…• Tell us about reading promotion strategies you’ve found

interesting, successful, or useful (and those that have fallen flat!)

• How can we think (or re-think) about such strategies in light of some of the critical concepts used in children’s literature studies?

• Are there other critical concepts we might want to bring into play?

Works Cited:• Desmet, Christy. “Teaching Shakespeare with YouTube.” English Journal 99.1 (2009): 65-

70.• Ellis, Emily. “Book Trailers: Available at a Library Near You.” Indiana Libraries 29.2 (2010):

24-26.• Fitzpatrick, Katherine. “Judging a Book by its Trailer: Media Literacy, Viral Advertising and

the Novel in a Digital Age.” 3pm Journal of Digital Research and Publishing 2 (2010): 19-28. Available at: http://www.artichokewebdesign.com/ARIN6912/3PMjournal_2010s2.pdf

• Gunter, Glenda and Robert Kenny. “Digital Booktalk: Digital Media for Reluctant Readers.” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 8.1 (2008): 84-99.

• Kent, Melissa. “Don’t Judge a Book by its Trailer.” Sydney Morning Herald. June 27, 2010. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/dont-judge-a-book-by-its-trailer-20100626-zb1u.html

• Schmit, Karla M. “Making the Connection: Transmediation and Children’s Literature in Library Settings.” New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship 19.1 (2013): 33-46)