Talk Back Discussion Board (optional post)

You know how I often start a response in your book clubs or in the Monday Update with some version of "I wish we could talk more about this face-to-face in class?"

​Well, that's what this is.

As part and parcel of a general check-in during the semester, this optional discussion board is a place to return to points either I made or a classmate made or you made during the first little over half of the semester. You are welcome to agree, challenge, or simply comment on any part of any of the discussions we have had and continue to have about YA lit in general or specific texts.

 Here are some "for instances:" 

• There was a lot of discussion in the first half of the class about Little Women being dated because the main characters cooked and cleaned and looked for husbands. And yet we just read a novel last week, the Poet X, where the main characters was burdened by exactly he same expectations. Some folks saw Gossip Girl as a real challenge to these norms. And yet many of you did not. What a fun conversation to return to. 
  
  
• Another point: How are your ideas of the genre holding up? Do the characteristics we initially talked about still hold up? Would you add to them? Are some just pointless? Is YA literature? Does it merit literary study? 
  
  
• What have the different teaching scenarios made you think about in terms of the genre? In terms of helloing other readers become better readers? 
  
  

Again, there is no requirement to post, but I want to give folks the chance, in this weird electronic teaching space to 1) return to ideas we've talked about so they don't slip too much away from us (I find in online teaching it is easy to compartmentalize the learning into weeks without a concerted effort not to) and 2) give you the chance to "talk back," to take control of the narrative of the class rather than me always having the final word from week to week.