Cirrus@Austlit

This article offers an overview of current and apparent trends in the teaching of children's literature in Australian tertiary institutions. The aim of the paper is to provoke discussion and provide a forum to explore and develop the study and teaching of children's literature. Rossiter and Tandy briefly outline some approaches to the study of children's literature and list the focus of units before detailing the subsets and genres which are generally emphasized within the units/curriculum. They conclude that a definite assessment is hard to make as topics are dispersed widely, however they surmise that 'the teaching of theory may be a way of demonstrating the intellectual credibility of studies in children's literature' (42).