ENGL 511 Special Topics in Writing: Young Adult Literature
Write Your Own YA
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Lee Torda, PhD Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies 200 Clement C. Maxwell Library 508.531.1790 Teaching Website: www.leetorda.com |
OFFICE HOURS: By appointment. Email me at [email protected] with times/days you'd like to meet, and I will respond within 24 hours.
“Let’s save pessimism for better times” --Eduardo Galeano |
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Introduction
One of the best ways to understand a genre as a reader is to try your hand at it as a writer. It’s also an excellent way for us to assess how well you understand the characteristics of a genre. This project sometimes really stresses students out, but it’s not meant to. I’m not asking you all to suddenly be brilliant writers in the genre. This is an exercise. But I also know that for some people this is your thing. But we also don’t have time for you to write a novel, Shakespeare. The semester is over in a month.
Thus, the parameters of the assignment are meant to strike a happy medium between folks who really love to do this kind of thing and folks who would rather chew metal.
Details
In-Class Analysis
On the day that your assignment is due, you will have roughly 20 to 30 minutes to answer the following questions:
Evaluation
Harkening back to what I said about why I’m asking you to do this in the first place (to demonstrate what you’ve come to understand about the genre) and not your creative prowess, the evaluation for this project is simple:
This assignment is worth 10% of your final grade. The in-class writing during the week that it is due, which replaces the midterm portfolio, is worth 5%.
One of the best ways to understand a genre as a reader is to try your hand at it as a writer. It’s also an excellent way for us to assess how well you understand the characteristics of a genre. This project sometimes really stresses students out, but it’s not meant to. I’m not asking you all to suddenly be brilliant writers in the genre. This is an exercise. But I also know that for some people this is your thing. But we also don’t have time for you to write a novel, Shakespeare. The semester is over in a month.
Thus, the parameters of the assignment are meant to strike a happy medium between folks who really love to do this kind of thing and folks who would rather chew metal.
Details
- You have roughly 750-1500 words—that’s 3 to 5 pages. I know that some of you would like to write much longer, but this isn’t the time for that. So this is, like our first project for the semester, micro in length.
- You can elect to either write short fiction or you can write nonfiction (memoir).
- How considerate are you of your reader? This is a bit of a trick question. While some of the material we’ve read is for the age range of roughly 13-18 year’s old, not all of it is written with a young adult reader in mind. And, as we’ve discussed, YA as a genre and publishing phenomena is often marketed to adult-age adults.
- What is the oppositional force that instigates the action of your piece? The authority our main characters are acting against?
- What firsts is your character or character’s experiencing?
- How has your main character left “childhood” behind and how have they embraced “adulthood.”
- Consider other “tropes” of the genre that we’ve noticed (tomboys, the role of reading/literacy/education)
- How does your story teach students to read other texts?
- Finally, is there a reason, in your story, to play against these characteristics? It can feel tempting to push here, but, remember, the genre is the genre that it is for a reason.
In-Class Analysis
On the day that your assignment is due, you will have roughly 20 to 30 minutes to answer the following questions:
- Which of the characteristics of the genre described above have you included in your piece?
- How and why did you make those choices?
- What did this experience tell you about the three parts of the genre, the young, the adult, and the literature parts? What does this experience tell you about the genre—did you discover anything while writing it that reading it did not make as clear to you?
- Finally, if applicable, did completing this assignment make you think anything about how/what you teach in relationship to the genre?
Evaluation
Harkening back to what I said about why I’m asking you to do this in the first place (to demonstrate what you’ve come to understand about the genre) and not your creative prowess, the evaluation for this project is simple:
This assignment is worth 10% of your final grade. The in-class writing during the week that it is due, which replaces the midterm portfolio, is worth 5%.
- If you turn in both parts, you will earn 15% of an A towards your final grade.
- If you don’t turn in both parts, you will receive an F for that 15% of your final grade.