This document outlines a proposed course on the fantasy genre for lower level literature students. It begins by discussing issues with traditional lecture-based models and the use of strict literary periods. The proposed course would use genre as an organizing principle and examine both classic and contemporary fantasy texts through genre theories. Students would analyze patterns in the genre while also producing creative works. The document provides learning goals and discusses several pedagogical influences and genre theorists that would guide the course. It outlines the curriculum, including topics, texts, and assessments that would encourage active engagement with the evolution of the fantasy genre.

1. There and Back Again:
Introduction to Literature
(and Genre)
Megan K. Mize
mmize@odu.edu
Twitter: MerryQuinn

2. Pedagogical Concerns
“Sage on the Stage” Model of Lecture
How might Textual Studies instructors
better engage students?
Periodization as Organizing Principle
Is it reductive, leading students to
passively accept literary history as
clear-cut constructs?

3. Alternative Approach
• Lower level courses may observe the evolution and interaction of texts
through the lens of genre-based theories in combination with formalistic
terminology.
• Students should respond to classic and contemporary texts that reflect
trends and diversity within a selected genre. Such discussions highlight socio-
cultural concerns and various forms of expression.
• At the same time, such a course must acknowledge the changing modes of
textual production, discussing the effects of new media on the genre.
• As a result, using genre studies at the lower levels encourages students to
examine patterns within literature, rather than focusing on periods of time
and their arbitrary impositions.

4. Pedagogical Influences
Paulo Freire
“The Banking Concept of Education”
“Education is suffering from narration sickness” (99).
Freire describes traditional instruction in terms of student
passivity.
Through collaboration, students should interrogate the
ways a genre unfolds.
By introducing a creative writing element, students also
engage in the creation of that genre.
Thus, they move from passive recipients of “knowledge”
to active participants in the field of literary and textual
studies.

5. Pedagogical Influences
The New London Group
Situated Practice: students discuss their pre-existing
awareness of and engagement with the genre, or
“available design.”
Overt Instruction: will be used to introduce key
terms and lead discussions of genre and critical theories,
using guiding questions to allow students to reach their
own conclusions.
Critical Framing: will provide theoretical lens to
consider the nature of genre and the role it plays within
culture.
Transformed Practice: assignments, such as
multimodal presentations and creative writing projects,
encourage the student to join in the act of “designing,” as
well as a traditional analytical essay in which students
become producers of knowledge.

6. Course Goals
•Apply traditional tools of literary analysis to a broad
array of texts, within the framework of genre.
•Become familiar with conventional elements of the
fantasy genre, while assessing the ways such traits are
engaged with, undermined, and altered over time.
•Encourage students to actively evaluate literature, rather
than passively accepting institutional canon.
•Enable students to draw connections between texts
from past periods to their contemporary, "real world"
experiences.
•Promote collaboration as a valid method of inquiry.
•Prepare students for future literature courses, many of
which are also genre-based, as well as increasingly
multimodal in scope.

7. Genre Theory
Uri Margolin
“Historical Literary Genre: The Concept and Its Uses”
Highlights the constructed nature of genre,
initiating the discussion pertaining to the fluidity of
genre conventions.
Also calls attention to students’ ingrained
constructions of contemporary genres.
Offers a methodology for discussing genre,
establishing a three-tier of generality, describing
genre in terms of a “system, norm, and
parole” (53).

8. Genre Theory
Alistair Fowler
“Genre and the Literary Canon”
Suggests that through genre we are studying the
evolution of canon.
Claims genre determines canonical worth, creating
hierarchies of value.
Claims there are multiple versions of literary canon,
differentiating between institutionalized canon and the
“personal” canon of individuals.
As each generation has new concerns, and hence
different generic tastes, the “official” canon eventually
incorporates individuals’ “personal” canon (98).
Validates genre studies as relevant to literary history as
a whole.

9. Genre Theory
Wai Chee Dimock
“Genre as World System: Epic and Novel on
Four Continents.”
Through genre studies, we witness texts from a
variety of cultures interact and influence one
another.
Provides a model in which we view genre as
“constellation” added to by various cultures,
rather than a straight line within a singular culture.
To apply the theory, students will find examples of
fantasy from other cultures, creating a similar
constellation within class.

10. Why Fantasy?
•The fantasy genre has a long and complex history
•Currently experiencing popularity
•Has been adapted into many modes
•Novice may readily identify many conventions
•Those conventions are currently being altered, creating
sub-genres.

11. Establishing Genre Within the Course
Micah Mattix’s “Periodization and Difference” supports
genre study, succinctly describing current problems
regarding periodization.
Students will create their own justifications for using genre
and fantasy as organizing principles.
Using freewriting and lists to start the discussion, the class
develops a list of conventions significant within the genre.
The list is consulted throughout the semester, marking the
origins of conventions, as well as alterations in the tradition.
This marks the ways that a genre unfolds, as well as ways
that students currently experience contemporary iterations

12. Origins of Fantasy
Gloss on the origins, such as mythology, folklore, and
fairy tales, acknowledging that wide body of texts
demonstrate similar markers.
Begin to establish a line of influence
Introduce formal elements such as “plot,” “setting,”
“character”
Possible Texts:
Fairy Tales
J.R.R. Tolkien (translator), Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight.
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

13. Contemporary Fantasy
Shift into more recent examples of the genre
Introduce “point of view,” “focalization,”
“symbolism”
Introduce significant theoretical lenses, such as
gender and race studies
Identify evolving sub-genres
Begin comparisons with adaptations
Possible Texts
Michael Ende, The Never-Ending Story
William Golden, Princess Bride
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber
Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

14. Adaptations
The New London Group: “literacy pedagogy must
now account for the burgeoning variety of text
forms associated with information and multimedia
technologies” (9).
Thus, this course examines various modes, such as
film, graphic novels, games, and fan fictions as a
means of observing the genre in alternative modes.
Possible Texts
Animated Hobbit
Live action The Never-Ending Story and Princess
Bride
Bill Willingham, Fables: Legends in Exile
Zelda, World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons

15. Fantasy and Young Readers
Through contemporary incarnations of earlier texts, this
sections establishes a sense of genre’s cyclical nature
Examines context for recent popularity and growth
Highlights the darker aspects of youth fantasy
Students provide other examples from their childhood
that may have shaped their perception of the fantasy genre
Thus the course examines how our generic expectations
are shaped from an early stage.
Possible Texts
Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
J.K. Rowling, The Sorcerer's Stone
Guillermo Del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth
Jim Henson's Dark Crystal

16. Evolution and Hybridity
Focus on current popular culture versions of the
fantasy genre
Examine hierarchies of value within the genre: “high
art” vs “low art”
Discuss the ways mode and visual elements may
shape the genre
Through interaction with another course centered
on science-fiction via film-viewing, observe overlaps
and divergence between the genres
Discuss the possibilities for the fantasy genre’s future
Possible Texts
Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
Jim Butcher, Storm Front
Bill Willingham, Fables: Legends in Exile
Guillermo Del Toro, Hellboy II

17. Significance
By combining Freirian principles and the New
London Group’s stress on supplementary
practices, as well genre-study theories, we create
a course that works with traditional texts and
theories, as well as artifacts that reflect other
literacies that the students are already engaged in.
Through the study of genre and its various
textual modes, students may view literary studies
as having a more immediate bearing on their
present culture.

18. Dimock, Wai Chee. “Genre as World System: Epic and Novel on Four
Continents.” Narrative, 14:1 (Jan. 2006): 85- 101. Print.
Freire, Paulo. “The Banking Concept of Education.” Pedagogy of the
References
Oppressed. New York: Continuum Books (1993): 99-111. Print.
Fowler, Alastair. “Genre and the Literary Canon.” New Literary History.
11:1, Anniversary Issue II (Autumn, 1979): 97-119. Print.
Kalantzis, Mary and Bill Cope. “A Multiliteracies Pedagogy: A
Pedagogical Supplement.” Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the
Design of Social Futures. Eds. Bill Cope ad Mary Kalantzis. New York:
Routledge, 2001. 239-248. Print.
Margolin, Uri. “Historical Literary Genre: The Concept and Its Uses.”
Comparative Literature Studies. 10:1 (Mar., 1973): 51-59. Print.
Mattix, Micah. “Periodization and Difference.” New Literary History.
35:4 (2004) 685-697: Print.
Taylor, Richard. “Literature and Literary Criticism.” English Studies: An
Introduction to the Discipline(s). Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana, IL:
NCTE (2006): 199-222. Print.
The New London Group. “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social
Futures.” Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social
Futures. Eds. Bill Cope ad Mary Kalantzis. New York: Routledge, 2001.
239-248. Print.

19. Megan K. Mize
mmize@odu.edu
Twitter: MerryQuinn