Friday, February 25, 2011

Week 7-1 Promise & Peril of YAL

What is Young Adult Literature?

Personally, I wish there was not a category called Young Adult Literature. I think it creates artificial restrictions and expectations for literature and other texts that would appeal to kids going through adolescence. I think that writers should write what they want and publishers should publish what they and the market want and then these adolecents can choose whether a book fits their maturity level, interests, and reading purpose.

There are so many varieties of text and ways for kids to access those texts that students should not be limited by somewhat arbitrary labels. Instead, there are many places in libraries and on the web which are able to suggest books that might appeal to students or stretch students' horizons ranging from the classic cannon to popular, modern books and even online texts.

A teacher's responsibility is to make sure that students are exposed to a wide variety of literature.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Week 5-2 The YA Controversy (follow-up)

What is better for the YA audience? A book with higher "literary quality", a more "popular" book, or a "readable" book?

1 comments: Cris said...

Hmmm good question. Now that you've experienced the Eva Perry teens talk about books, how would you answer your question? Any epiphanies?

February 19, 2011 9:54 PM

I believe that a "readable" book that kids enjoy is the highest praise a book can have. Kids will read more and so learn a valuable skill and experience. Forcing them to read books that OTHER people like or CRITICS say is high quality will not keep kids reading.

Week 6-2 Promise and Peril of YA Lit (Preparation)

How should my belief in how literature affects the reader guide my teaching and learning through literature with young adults?

I think this is an important question and I have secretly been wanting to answer it for a while. I believe that it is all about relationships that the reader has with the subject/theme, characters, and setting of the books.

I have a very simple philosophy about teaching. Dewey (learning imitating life) and Britton (reading across the curriculum) made the basic points that learning/school should relate to real life through it’s relevance to kids/students current experiences (start where the kids are) and self-projected future experiences. “Dewey came to the realization that learning was a process starting from uncertainty and growing from the impulse to resolve that uncertainly.” (from back cover of “The School and Society”.)

Readings for before 2-25-11:

•How Are Children Affected by the Books in Their Lives? Marc Aronson (eReserves)

•Beyond the Pale by Marc Aronson, Section Two and Section Four (our textbook)
Chapter 4 - What is Good Art, Now?
Chapter 5 - Of Camels and Needles' Eyes: Art and Young Readers
Chapter 10 - The Pursuit of Happiness: Does American History Matter?
Chapter 11 - Teenagers Don't Want to Read about Teen Angst, So Why Are So Many Angst-Filled Books Published?
Chapter 12 - What Is a YA Book, Anyway?

Prompts for before 2-25-11:

•What is young adult literature?

•On the literary to moralist continuum, where do I fall? How should my belief in how literature affects the reader guide my teaching and learning through literature with young adults?


•What should be the role of Young Adult Literature in the English Language Arts program?

"The Book Theif" by Marcus Zusak

This book has been suggested now by Dr. Crissman and a fellow student. It is in a similar vein as "The Diary of Anne Frank" about a young girl in Nazi Germany. But is has a unique point of view - the narrator is Death!

It makes history interesting and provides a unique take on a subject that has quite honestly been overdone. I say overdone despite it's importance to human history becuase there are other parts of history that could use a looking into but they are always being over-shadowed.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Asian-American Teen Lit from Goodreads

It seems that Amy Tan is not alone. A lot of books are aimed at the young adult Asian-American FEMALE reader.

List of YA Titles about the Asian-American Experience

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Multi-cultural Digital Storytelling!

I ran across this multi-media story and thought it would be perfect for a book club!

Knite the Original Story on DeviantArt

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Breaking Down and Building Up "Ship Breaker"

Ship Breaker is about family. It is about a society where your job is your family. You belong to a "crew" and take care of each other like brothers and sisters, and parents. Like any family they have good members and bad, except this family can change a lot faster and more irrevocably than a blood family.

I have been blessed that I have several "families" in my life. I have my mother's side of the family (I have only infrequent contact with my father's family). I have two "second moms" and their eldest daughters who have been my oldest friends. And, I have my small circle of friends (mostly from middle/high school) who are always there when I need them most. I would say these are my three "crews" and that I was blessed in the same way Nailer was that I found and was accepted by these amazing people. In the future, I hope to have a "crew" from my professional career, including professors, fellow teachering professionals, and possibly even students and parents.

Nailer went through a science fiction adventure but as Joseph Campbell would point out, we can all relate to the the archetypal journey of growth and discovery.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Week 5-2 The YA Controversy

What is better for the YA audience? A book with higher "literary quality", a more "popular" book, or a "readable" book?

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Generational Differences in Working/Learning

Dr. Pope had her daughter Amy come into our class last semester to discuss how recognizing differences in what motivates Baby Boomers, Millenials, Gen X'ers, and Gen Y'ers can make a HUGE difference in how they work together. She also said that one person can aspects of more than one generation depending on how they grew up. I believe that these generational perspectives are just as important as the theory of Multiple Intelligences but have not gotten nearly enough attention and respect.

The student's perspective changes how she views school, what her goals are, and how she believes tshe can acheive her goals. That's pretty important information for teachers and other education professionals to take into account. It might provide part of the solution to the apparent "loss of interest" in school that is happening with our current group of students.

How Different Generations are Motivated to Work

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Plan for Action Research Project

With help from my colleagues, I would like to get a group of 3 or 4 high school students willing to work with me to complete a "Short Story Workshop" over a matter of 3-4 weeks with twice a week check-ins. We would communicate through email and blogging (unless another method like IM or SecondLife was agreed upon).

During this workshop, I would like to discuss the form of the short story, creating one's own short stories, and the idea of scaffolded or unscaffolded learning.

I believe learning to write short stories has value for any student. Short stories are a lot of fun once the potential writer gets comfortable with writing and expectations. They are also a great form of self-expression with many fewer limits than the typical essay.

I would also like to discuss the teaching methold called "scaffolding". Scaffolding in teaching is when you build an informational and experiential support structure that students can use to climb to new academic heights. The principle is the same as a house painter that builds a lower level, then a middle level and finally the hightest level of scaffolding to help him reach his goal of painting the top area of the house. Academic teachers often use scaffolding to help students learn complicated information and new paradigms.

I want to relate scaffolded academic learning to learning out in the real world, like for a job. In school, teachers go out of their way to scaffold new academic projects for students. But, in a job, it is more likely to be here's a set of directions (complete or not) and get me the product by such and such time. Thinking about scaffolding is slight shift in perspective and strategy for students that may help them recognize and succeed in both academia and the real world.

A WebQuest format for the student directions/teacher view of project would be a great start!

Bookcast3: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi



Brand NEW bookcast HERE!

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Week 4-3 Literature as a Performing Art

The main argument that I offer for "slowing down" and savoring a book is the different material and experience offered by a book or other literature. Movies and TV offer 30-minute to maybe 2-hour long story arcs that have to be wrapped up quickly and are usually heavy on the solving the problem or taking action and light on the reflection (the two parts of a story mentioned by Ira Glass).

Also, the moving screen is designed to catch a wide variety of people with as little story background as possible while literature has some series that have hundreds or thousands of pages of worthy and interesting background.

My main reason for loving literature and choosing to spend time reading books over movies is the availability of a wide variety and numerous books by my favorite authors. A book is relatively inexpensive to produce and the typical author averages one book every year or two. You can choose to follow one author and have many more hours of enjoyment than a movie that costs millions and is over in two hours. Also even if you like a particular director or movie star, you cannot predict the quality of the movie because there are so many factors involved. With a book, rarely does an author throw out a book that is a significant disapointment, if you enjoyed their other books.

One final reason for choosing to slow down and read books is that books (and other literature) can explore ideas in depth and in ways that other formats cannot.

Students should be exposed to these possibilities in a firm but supportive way before they are allowed to write literature off as "old fasioned".

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Happy Ground Hog Day!

After all this winter weather in the U. S., we get to look forward to an early spring!

The famous varmint himself!

Bookcast2: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver



New and improved bookcast coming soon!