OVERVIEW: I could have just as easily called this theories of reading or reading theory. This second discussion board is a precursor to the group assignment for the semester on Reading and/or literacy theory. Literacy work skews more towards education and reading theory more towards literary analysis, but both tend to get downplayed when critical theory is discussed in most graduate classes. Thus, we will be taking a deeper dive into theory as we approach the midterm. 

But, for this week, we will start with practice. You all wrote some very lovely flash memoirs (even though many of you complained about being restricted to 750 words). Those memoirs are excerpted on the Class Profile Page along with links to the full versions of each memoir. 

PRIOR TO POSTING: Read at least five and preferably 7 (about half the class) of your classmate's Mentor Text Memoirs, available linked to the Class Profile Page.

WHAT TO POST: Once you've read, post to the discussion board about what you notice about the reading experiences of your classmates. What can you extrapolate about reading as an experience, about how literacy education takes shape in and out of school? What commonalities do you see? What seems to be an outlier? What do you notice about what people have to say about reading as a young person, about reading in school versus reading for pleasure, about being or not being a confident reader. You can write this as a numbered list. Posts should be between 250 and 350 words. 

Overview: When we see each other next week, your official reader's notes for Little Women will be due and be used in class. This gives some of you a little extra time to finish reading this long book and some of you a breather since you've already completed the journal. 

For this week, I want to begin the work of getting at what makes YA uniquely YA as a genre, and it is worthwhile to begin that work with a text like Little Women because, I would argue, very little has actually changed in how YA stories are actually structured and told. 

To demonstrate that point, please consider the characteristics I run through in the PowerPoint video embedded here or on the syllabus, consider, as well, what are the essential elements of the novel (character, plot, theme) and write a synopsis of your updated version of the novel. What has to change? What would not need to change? What could not change because if you did it would not be the story of Little Women. ​Are there essential aspects of the novel that just will not translate to 2025, thus, making it impossible to bring Little Women into the 21st Century? If that's the case, make that argument. 

ONCE YOU'VE POSTED: Please make sure you've read at least half of the posts of your colleagues. In class on the 25th, we'll return to these synopsis to discuss what we learn about the genre and about the idea that LIttle Women just might be the super hero origin story of the genre. 

Introduction: No one, and particularly nobody who teaches, is unaffected these days by book banning. Perhaps you teach or have taught a book that has been banned--either at your school or in your classroom or someone else's that you've heard about. Maybe a book that you have long loved has shown up on a list. Maybe a book has been pulled from your school library, or perhaps you've tried to teach a book in class and gotten resistance. Or maybe you've just read about the parents and teachers and school boards and communities and, most of all, students and readers, caught up in conversations, fights, and legislation around who gets to read what. 

Consider that reading theorists, some of whom we will read this semester, argue that reading is an experience--not unlike travel or living through an event. Not exactly like it, but an experience, still, that changes us and can't be undone.  we can't visit, or a person whose life we will never be able to live--widens how we understand the world. That's what makes reading so powerful. Reading about something that we might not otherwise have access to--like a time and place

Prompt: Take a look at the list of top ten books most recently banned in various places. If you scroll all the way down, you'll find top ten lists from the past few years. You can also look at banned books from a more historical perspective with this list of books from the past century. 

Select one of the books that appears on the list. Make sure it is a text hat you care about either as a teacher of that text or a reader. Take some time to write about what that book has meant to you and what you would have lost if that book was not a part of your life or the lives of your students. Once you've posted your response, take time to read and respond to at least two of your colleagues. There is no particular directive for that response, only that it be thoughtful and authentic. 

HOW TO POST: Click on the link that says "comment" in the upper left by the title. Write in the dialogue box and follow the directions on the screen to post. 

HOW TO REPLY: Click on the link that says "reply" and, again, write in the dialogue box and follow the directions on the screen to post. 

NOTE: You'll have to click all the way back to the original blog page to be able to read posts as they come in.