ERDG506: Young Adult Literature (3 credits)Course Template
Last Updated: October 11, 2006
|
 |
ERDG506: Young Adult Literature (3 credits)Course Template
Last Updated: October 11, 2006
|
|
Program requirementsPrerequisites (if any): |
Elective course in the Reading Department. Offered on campus and only in the Fall. Open to all students. No prerequisite. | |
Catalog Description: |
Examines the broad range of genres and the rich variety of texts for use in classroom settings. Presents strategies for incorporating literature into various curricular areas. Topics include motivation issues, text difficulty, and use of literature with controversial themes. (3 credits). |
|
Extended Description: |
The subtitle of this course could easily be "what to read and ways to read it." Students will spend the semester plowing through a wealth of texts (of various genres and across a range of media); talking about those texts and the young adults who might (or might not) choose to read or view or otherwise consume them; and thinking about productive ways to link up young adults with texts that they will find interesting, informative and provocative. Students will also consider strategies for incorporating literature into various curricular areas. In general, this class should help 5-12 teachers build a broad and deep repertoire of texts of interest to young adults; develop methods to assess readers' interests in and facility with a variety of texts; explore approaches for evaluating text readability or accessibility; and explore ways to sharpen their own and their students' critical literacy perspectives. |
|
|
Pedagogical Content Knowledge** individual and cultural differences: knowledge of economic, academic, social, and cultural diversity; use of this knowledge to inform instructional decisions** methods and materials: the range of techniques and materials appropriate for literacy instructiontask difficulty: relation to student learning, independence, and developmentassessment of literacy: the value and properties of assessment methods and instrumentstechnology: understand the nature and functions of information technologies in contemporary literacy practices; use relevant information technologies for teaching and assessmentorganization of instruction: organization, regulation, and reform of literacy instruction
|
|
Themes/Content |
Assignments(Note: these are suggested assignments--actual assignments in this course will be listed in the current course outline) |
Readings(Note: these are suggested texts--actual readings in this course will be listed in the current course outline) |
|
Brief
History of Young Adult Literature |
Reading History This three-part essay asks students to 1) reflect on their own reading histories, focusing especially on (speculating about and trying to account for) influences (positive and negative), resistances, sparks, and changes in reading habits over the years (emphasizing their teen years); 2) compare their own reading histories to the reading histories of others (e.g., particular authors & classmates); 3) contemplate what these various histories have to say to them about what might count as 'young adult literature' and what place that literature might take in their teaching and in the lives of those they teach. Annotated Bibliography This assignment asks students to read widely (a minimum of 40 young adult books, savoring some, skimming others), to make summative and evaluative notes on these books, and to develop a useful and flexible system for cataloging these notes -- a 'shuffle-able' system that allows for interesting groupings of texts and for creative and effective pairings of kids with texts. The completed bibliography will reflect an awareness of and attention to diversity in terms of age levels, topics of interest, orientations to the world, and facility with reading. In addition, the bibliography will reflect a range of genre and a range of forms (e.g., print texts, digital texts, video texts). Book Groups/Group Presentation Students will be asked to participate in in-class book groups, in which they share thoughts on the books they choose to read, and work together on certain assignments. One of the assignments will be to present, as a group, a set of books. Each group will decide on what constitutes a "set": It might be a group of books that taken together represent a genre or an author's range or a theme or an important young adult "issue". Individual Book Talk Each student will prepare and present to the class one brief book talk. Criteria for effective book talks will be developed jointly, based on discussions of particular assigned readings. Reading Interest Survey In order to learn more about young adults' reading interests and habits, the class will conduct a reading interest survey. Using a questionnaire proposed by the instructor and fine-tuned by the class, each member of a book group will conduct a reading interest survey with 30 kids/young adults. An individual group member may choose to focus on kids within a particular age range, but the full book group is responsible for getting responses from young adults across the 5-12 spectrum (they are encouraged to include kids in that age range who have left school and who are home schooled). Each group member will supplement his/her set of surveys with two very brief interviews, which allow for elaboration on and stories behind survey answers. Each group will prepare and distribute to the class a written summary/commentary on the findings from its set of surveys and interviews. Class time will be set aside to discuss each group's findings, as well as the combined results of all groups. Facilitating Online Book Discussions with Young Adults The instructor will arrange for groups of kids in grades 5-12 from a variety of schools around the country to "meet" online (asynchronously over approximately an 8-week period) to talk around and about books, characters, issues and ideas. The Master’s students in this course will be asked to facilitate these discussions. This assignment is intended to help students 1) broaden and deepen their understandings of young adult readers, and 2) develop confidence and competence in facilitating open-ended discussions with a diverse group of kids reading different books (or other kinds of texts) at the same time (or avoiding reading at the same time). Personalized Anthology Whereas most of the other assignments are intended to get students thinking broadly about a wide range of texts for a wide range of young readers, this assignment asks students to focus on particular texts for a particular young reader. Students will identify a particular young adult reader (might be a relative, a neighbor, a student - doesn't much matter to me as long as it's a "kid" between the ages of 10 and 20), and then will create/edit a "personalized anthology" for and present it to this kid. The anthology will be an illustrated or animated (web-based or multimedia versions are acceptable, even encouraged, as are handbound books) collection of readings (or at least meaningful and effective excerpts from readings) that speak in a particular way to this particular young adult reader. The student/editor will write a preface (approximately 5 pages) to the anthology. Decisions about this prefatory essay's voice and shape are, of course, the student/editor's, but I want some say about the essay's intent/content: It should speak in some way to the selections the student/editor has made, addressing in some way how these selections hold together as a collection, and how this collection in turn speaks to (or is imagined to speak to) the kid. Students will share thoughts on and drafts of this preface with their book group periodically throughout the semester, and will share final products with the whole class. |
Readings
will be comprised of current and relevant journal articles, as well as
selected web sites and chapters from such books as: .
http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html
|