3-7-13 Where We’ve Been & Where We’re Going

Jan 10 – Introductions & Course Overview

Jan 17 – CCSS; Readicide; Woods Runner

Jan 24 – Defining/Describing YA Lit; Between Shades of Gray

Jan 31 – Setting up Book Clubs

Feb 07 – Book Club 1A

Feb 14 – Recreational Reading (SSR); Book Club 1B

Feb 21 – Building a Class Library; YA Issues; Book Club 2A

Feb 28 – Formal Paper due; Book Club 2B

Mar 07 – YA Genres & Marketing; Book Club 3A

Mar 14 – Learning Styles; Book Club 3B

Mar 21 – Book Club Group Reports; Book Club Paper due

Mar 28 – Units of Study; Kizzy Ann Stamps

Apr 04 – Spring Break; no class

Apr 11 – Unit Plan due

Apr 18 – Final Exam due

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Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction / Problem Novel

Character: “regular” people, often lower class

Setting: difficult living situation

Language: colloquial (often with profanity & bad grammar)

Content: problems/challenges faced by teens

Attitude: goal is to allow vicarious experience (rather than, say, to provide instruction in manners and morals)

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction / Problem Novel

•counterbalance to realism (happy endings)

•generally involves a quest/leaving home

•protagonist undergoes trials, but prevails

•extreme sufferings (nightmare quality)

•unlikely successes (happy daydream quality)

Genre: Romanticism

What is our responsibility

with respect to what students read

from the class or school library?

Genre: Dystopias

Key elements:

“a setting so vividly and clearly described that it becomes almost a character in itself”

“individuals or forces in charge who have a legitimate reason for being as they are”

“protagonists who are shaped by their environment and situations”

“a conclusion that reflects the almost always dire circumstances”

(These characteristics could be useful measures by which to evaluate the quality of a work.)

Dystopian Novels

Why do we teach “classic” dystopian novels?What standards do we meet?What goals do we have?

How might YA novels compare, in terms of accomplishing the same goals or eliciting the same kinds of thinking and writing?

Dystopian Novels

Historical Fiction

Why do we teach history?

What might students learn from fiction that’s worthwhile – and maybe not accessible from textbooks or fact-intensive texts?

Book Talks

Book Club Discussion 3A

Group Members: Annalisa, Devan, Jacqueline, Josie , Richard

Topic #3: From Print to Film (Books Made into Movies)Books: The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Beautiful Creatures; The Life of Pi; The Last of the Mohicans

Group Members: Ashlee, Holly, Laura, Paul

Topic #3: My America seriesBooks: Our Strange New Land; Freedom's Wings; The Starving Time; A Poetry Atlas; Flying Free

Group Members: Erin, Jeannie, Michael, Tammy

Topic #3: NonfctionBooks: Baghdad Burning; Girl, Interrupted; The Pregnancy Project;A Long Way Home

Next Week:•Final Book Club discussion (3B)•Plan Book club presentation for March 21

Looking Farther Ahead:Read some Civil Rights era books for March 28, when we will discuss Kizzy Ann Stamps