ENGL 511 Special Topics in Writing: Young Adult Literature
Policies
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Need to be in touch with me?
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 |
ZOOM link to attend class: https://bridgew.zoom.us/j/91202035302?pwd=akVFQ4cdIaHX77ttkfZFFM10iTdtmW.1
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Young Adult Literature should be understood as an area of study that intersects with three very different fields: it is possible to study YA as a publishing industry phenomenon of the last 15 to 20 years representing one of the few print genres that remains profitable in the mainstream publishing market. And while there are many factors that contribute to this, one of the main reasons for its success is the number, large and growing, of non-young adults who read them.
It is also possible, and perhaps even necessary, to understand YA within the context of the middle and secondary education classroom, where current texts like The Hate You Give live alongside what one might call the classics of the genre like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye. While no scholar of literature would argue against the idea that reading–any text–has the potential to teach a reader something, no other genre could be said to be tasked with that job. To understand the genre is to understand the intrinsic connection between the literature and the fraught history of literacy instruction, including the constant threat of censorship of YA through book-banning, a practice currently in the spotlight but a longstanding threat for the genre.
And, of course, finally, we must see YA literature as exactly that–literature–and read it with the same care and sensitivity that we, as expert readers of literature, bring to all texts.
In this course, we will consider the genre from these different and sometimes competing lenses as we read deeply in the genre. We will consider the genre historically, including its relationship to children’s literature. Students will have the opportunity to consider their own relationship to YA as both reader and writer, and where appropriate, as teacher. And we will consider the modern landscape of reading and writing more generally through this genre which finds itself the intersection of many of today’s most complex cultural touchpoints (education, politics, the culture wars, to name a few), as is appropriate for this deceptively complicated, conflicted, and interesting genre.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Young Adult Literature should be understood as an area of study that intersects with three very different fields: it is possible to study YA as a publishing industry phenomenon of the last 15 to 20 years representing one of the few print genres that remains profitable in the mainstream publishing market. And while there are many factors that contribute to this, one of the main reasons for its success is the number, large and growing, of non-young adults who read them.
It is also possible, and perhaps even necessary, to understand YA within the context of the middle and secondary education classroom, where current texts like The Hate You Give live alongside what one might call the classics of the genre like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye. While no scholar of literature would argue against the idea that reading–any text–has the potential to teach a reader something, no other genre could be said to be tasked with that job. To understand the genre is to understand the intrinsic connection between the literature and the fraught history of literacy instruction, including the constant threat of censorship of YA through book-banning, a practice currently in the spotlight but a longstanding threat for the genre.
And, of course, finally, we must see YA literature as exactly that–literature–and read it with the same care and sensitivity that we, as expert readers of literature, bring to all texts.
In this course, we will consider the genre from these different and sometimes competing lenses as we read deeply in the genre. We will consider the genre historically, including its relationship to children’s literature. Students will have the opportunity to consider their own relationship to YA as both reader and writer, and where appropriate, as teacher. And we will consider the modern landscape of reading and writing more generally through this genre which finds itself the intersection of many of today’s most complex cultural touchpoints (education, politics, the culture wars, to name a few), as is appropriate for this deceptively complicated, conflicted, and interesting genre.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
In this course you will
TEXTS
Included here are the novels we will read in class. I've included the Amazon links to whatever was the cheapest edition. To be clear, I don't care what edition you use as long as they are unabridged (in the case of Little Women). I also understand that you are all busy people, and so you might consider using audio books to augment your reading. Keep in mind, though, that you will need to be able to reference the text in detail for discussion and book club.
Any supplementary texts (like scholarly articles) will be provided for you, linked in the syllabus.
In this course you will
- Learn about the genre characteristics that are unique to Young Adult
- Learn about theories of reading and literacy instruction as it relates to the YA genre
- Read deeply in current and canonical YA
- Read about the literary, critical, and theoretical history related to YA
TEXTS
Included here are the novels we will read in class. I've included the Amazon links to whatever was the cheapest edition. To be clear, I don't care what edition you use as long as they are unabridged (in the case of Little Women). I also understand that you are all busy people, and so you might consider using audio books to augment your reading. Keep in mind, though, that you will need to be able to reference the text in detail for discussion and book club.
Any supplementary texts (like scholarly articles) will be provided for you, linked in the syllabus.
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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
ISBN-10 : 9780140390698 ISBN-13 : 978-0140390698 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ISBN-10 : 0060935464 ISBN-13 : 978-0060935467 Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger ISBN-10 : 0275965074 ISBN-13 : 978-0316769174 |
Saints of the Household by Ari Tison
ISBN-10 : 0374389497 ISBN-13 : 978-0374389499 Dear Medusa: (A Novel in Verse) by Olivia A. Cole ISBN-10 : 0593485769 ISBN-13 : 978-0593485767 For Lamb. By Lesa Cline-Ransome. ISBN-10 : 0823458946 ISBN-13 : 978-0823458943 |
Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
ISBN-10 : 1250766583 ISBN-13 : 978-1250766588 Promise Boys. By Nick Brooks. ISBN-10 : 1250866979 ISBN-13 : 978-1250866974 Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir. By Pedro Martín. ISBN-10 : 0593462297 ISBN-13 : 978-0593462294 |
REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and Participation. This is a graduate class, and we meet once a week (only once). I hope you will make every effort to attend every week. You may have occasion to have to miss. I feel confident that, as graduate students, you'll manage those absences. If absences become a problem, I will talk to you about how it can affect your final grade.
A NOTE ABOUT ONLINE & SYNCHRONOUS: It's been my recent experience that while graduate student seem to prefer online courses, they don't love to participate in them. And, from my perspective, I don't really love teaching them, mostly because folks that are lively and great in person suddenly clam up online. I know that this class is filled with a lot of teachers, many of whom taught through the pandemic. We all know how it can, frankly, suck. So let's not let it. Let's really work together to make this time together lively and excellent and smart. I will do my best to make it a good experience, and I ask, most sincerely, that you do the same.
INFORMAL WORK
Reader's Notes. Each week, you will write a 500-750 word Reader's Notes about that weeks reading. Those 500-750 words will cover all of the reading for that week, even when there are multiple things to read. In general, I will ask you to respond to how what we read, either an example of YA or scholarship or other commentary on YA, helps us to understand the genre--what makes it "young," what makes it "adult," and what makes it "literature." More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
Book Club. Book Club is a time to discuss the texts in greater detail in a smaller group. While there is a small writing component, it is primarly a place for discussion. While the Reading Journals will be more general, Book Clubs will have more specific questions to guide the small group discussion. These questions will be wide ranging, and will depend to some degree on the make up of our class (if all of us or most of us are teachers, that's one thing; if we are all aiming to be YA authors that's another). More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
Student Profile. This is a short, informal project I started to do during the pandemic and now do for all of my classes. You will interview a classmate and write a 250 word profile. We'll workshop these profiles in our very first class so we can learn about each other and learn how workshopping will work in our class as it will play a significant role in our course, particularly for the final project. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
A NOTE ABOUT "INFORMAL" I mean it. I'm more interested in your ideas than in correctness. And any comments on make on informa writing is meant to be a conversation. Please don't get caught up in some idea that if I'm commenting that I'm critiquing--even when I disagree with you. As you'll see in the evaluation section of these policies. Informal work, either writing or discussion, you earn your grade by committed and enthusiastic participation, not perfection.
FORMAL WRITING
Mentor Text Memoir. This is our first, short assignment. You'll have roughly 500 to 750 words to tell a story about your own experience as a young reader and the texts that did (or didn't shape you). This first assignment is meant to connect us to our reading selves, which we all are, first. Some of us come to reading with joy, some with trepidation. Either way, the experience of coming to literacy shapes us. And that's what this assignment gets at. It's a way to open the discussion and exploration of the semester. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
Reading Theory Pecha Kucha. I know you are wondering about those last two words, but there is time to explain all of that. What is most important to know is that this is your formal presentation for this class. You will present as a group (and, yes, you'll be given time in class to prepare so you are not trying to work out how to meet with groupmates outside of class). Each book club group will be assigned an article about reading theory. You'll present on the key ideas of the article and connect it to the texts we are reading in class (at least one). Depending on the make up of our class, we may incorporate a connection to pedagogy. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
YA Short Story. In the second half of the semester, you'll try your hand at writing a short piece of YA (1000-1500) by writing a YA short, short story or memoir. For some folks this will be fun, and for others this will stress you out. But don't panic. You won't be judged on how create or elegant your story is. You'll be evaluated on how well your story or memoir reflects what we've learned about the genre.
Final Project. You'll have a variety of ways to fulfill the final project for this course, depending on your interests and future plans. You will have the option to write a traditional literary analysis, a lesson plan, or a creative piece. Most important to know is that during the lasst month of class we will be workshopping each person's project. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
EVALUATION
As will become clear to you very quickly, this course, as are all of your courses, based on certain pedagogical premises that inform the assignments, requirements, and, of course, assessment and evaluation of the course. I use a combination of “spec/contract” grading and portfolio assessment.
Spec/contract grading lays out very specifically what you have to do to earn a particular grade for each assignment. The “spec” part is the requirements. The contract part is what grade meeting the different requirements earns you: essentially, we, you and I, are entering a contract whereby we both know at the outset how your grade is earned. Reading Journals an Book Club are evaluated this way.
You might be more familiar with portfolio assessment. Essentially, The portfolio allows me the chance to give you credit for the things that grading individual papers will not let me do: effort and revision and improvement. A system like this makes room for you to develop as a writer—it makes room for failures and eventual successes. Revision as a requirement is built into the spec/contract described above and the portfolio is a place to showcase that revision, to reflect on it and to identify what you’ve learned (it works in other ways too, that we will talk about in class).
This means that while you will receive extensive feedback on all of your writing while it is in process; you will receive letter grades at the midpoint and at the end of the semester. At midterm and at the end of the semester, you will put together materials representative of your performance in the class to that point. You will receive the results of how well you met the contract for a particular assignment, and you will receive a grade letter outlining your entire performance in the class. We will meet one-on-one during the mid-point of the semester for a grade conference. I'll respond to final portfolios in writing. Complete information about portfolios is available here on this website as well as from the dropdown menu above.
Most of all, your success in this class will depend upon:
Breakdown of assessment percentages. Different assignments require different amounts of effort. The percentages that accompany each of the requirements in this class should give you an indication of the time and energy that each should take up in your student life.
Reader's Notes 20%
Book Club 20%
Partner Profile 5%
Mentor Text Memoir 10%
YA Short, Short Story (or memoir) 10%
Midterm Portfolio Reflection 5%
Final Project 25%
Final Portfolio Reflection 5%
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but please do not.
Students who require accommodations. Students who need special accommodations due to a documented disability should come to see me with written documentation and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the LEGCIE Center, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. All of this is in addition to the graduate school staff, who are always happy to help you navigate your graduate career, as is the graduate coordinator in English, Halina Adams. You most likely already know this, but you can reach out to Halina at [email protected].
ONE LAST NOTE
I am very aware that many of you are working adults with busy work and family lives. I am always trying to balance the demands of a graduate level course makes on a student with the lives I know you are leading. I’m trying to make this class as useful to you as possible without it being overly burdensome. It’s work, not six flags, but I don’t want it to become your favorite thing to hate either. If as the semester progresses we need to alter our course to accommodate our shared burdens, then we’ll do this. I enjoy this material so much and want you to find some joy in it as well. Good luck to us.
Attendance and Participation. This is a graduate class, and we meet once a week (only once). I hope you will make every effort to attend every week. You may have occasion to have to miss. I feel confident that, as graduate students, you'll manage those absences. If absences become a problem, I will talk to you about how it can affect your final grade.
A NOTE ABOUT ONLINE & SYNCHRONOUS: It's been my recent experience that while graduate student seem to prefer online courses, they don't love to participate in them. And, from my perspective, I don't really love teaching them, mostly because folks that are lively and great in person suddenly clam up online. I know that this class is filled with a lot of teachers, many of whom taught through the pandemic. We all know how it can, frankly, suck. So let's not let it. Let's really work together to make this time together lively and excellent and smart. I will do my best to make it a good experience, and I ask, most sincerely, that you do the same.
INFORMAL WORK
Reader's Notes. Each week, you will write a 500-750 word Reader's Notes about that weeks reading. Those 500-750 words will cover all of the reading for that week, even when there are multiple things to read. In general, I will ask you to respond to how what we read, either an example of YA or scholarship or other commentary on YA, helps us to understand the genre--what makes it "young," what makes it "adult," and what makes it "literature." More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
Book Club. Book Club is a time to discuss the texts in greater detail in a smaller group. While there is a small writing component, it is primarly a place for discussion. While the Reading Journals will be more general, Book Clubs will have more specific questions to guide the small group discussion. These questions will be wide ranging, and will depend to some degree on the make up of our class (if all of us or most of us are teachers, that's one thing; if we are all aiming to be YA authors that's another). More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
Student Profile. This is a short, informal project I started to do during the pandemic and now do for all of my classes. You will interview a classmate and write a 250 word profile. We'll workshop these profiles in our very first class so we can learn about each other and learn how workshopping will work in our class as it will play a significant role in our course, particularly for the final project. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
A NOTE ABOUT "INFORMAL" I mean it. I'm more interested in your ideas than in correctness. And any comments on make on informa writing is meant to be a conversation. Please don't get caught up in some idea that if I'm commenting that I'm critiquing--even when I disagree with you. As you'll see in the evaluation section of these policies. Informal work, either writing or discussion, you earn your grade by committed and enthusiastic participation, not perfection.
FORMAL WRITING
Mentor Text Memoir. This is our first, short assignment. You'll have roughly 500 to 750 words to tell a story about your own experience as a young reader and the texts that did (or didn't shape you). This first assignment is meant to connect us to our reading selves, which we all are, first. Some of us come to reading with joy, some with trepidation. Either way, the experience of coming to literacy shapes us. And that's what this assignment gets at. It's a way to open the discussion and exploration of the semester. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
Reading Theory Pecha Kucha. I know you are wondering about those last two words, but there is time to explain all of that. What is most important to know is that this is your formal presentation for this class. You will present as a group (and, yes, you'll be given time in class to prepare so you are not trying to work out how to meet with groupmates outside of class). Each book club group will be assigned an article about reading theory. You'll present on the key ideas of the article and connect it to the texts we are reading in class (at least one). Depending on the make up of our class, we may incorporate a connection to pedagogy. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
YA Short Story. In the second half of the semester, you'll try your hand at writing a short piece of YA (1000-1500) by writing a YA short, short story or memoir. For some folks this will be fun, and for others this will stress you out. But don't panic. You won't be judged on how create or elegant your story is. You'll be evaluated on how well your story or memoir reflects what we've learned about the genre.
Final Project. You'll have a variety of ways to fulfill the final project for this course, depending on your interests and future plans. You will have the option to write a traditional literary analysis, a lesson plan, or a creative piece. Most important to know is that during the lasst month of class we will be workshopping each person's project. More details are available on this website (click on the title or use the drop down menu).
EVALUATION
As will become clear to you very quickly, this course, as are all of your courses, based on certain pedagogical premises that inform the assignments, requirements, and, of course, assessment and evaluation of the course. I use a combination of “spec/contract” grading and portfolio assessment.
Spec/contract grading lays out very specifically what you have to do to earn a particular grade for each assignment. The “spec” part is the requirements. The contract part is what grade meeting the different requirements earns you: essentially, we, you and I, are entering a contract whereby we both know at the outset how your grade is earned. Reading Journals an Book Club are evaluated this way.
You might be more familiar with portfolio assessment. Essentially, The portfolio allows me the chance to give you credit for the things that grading individual papers will not let me do: effort and revision and improvement. A system like this makes room for you to develop as a writer—it makes room for failures and eventual successes. Revision as a requirement is built into the spec/contract described above and the portfolio is a place to showcase that revision, to reflect on it and to identify what you’ve learned (it works in other ways too, that we will talk about in class).
This means that while you will receive extensive feedback on all of your writing while it is in process; you will receive letter grades at the midpoint and at the end of the semester. At midterm and at the end of the semester, you will put together materials representative of your performance in the class to that point. You will receive the results of how well you met the contract for a particular assignment, and you will receive a grade letter outlining your entire performance in the class. We will meet one-on-one during the mid-point of the semester for a grade conference. I'll respond to final portfolios in writing. Complete information about portfolios is available here on this website as well as from the dropdown menu above.
Most of all, your success in this class will depend upon:
- Meeting all of the requirements described above;
- The quality of your written work, including how successful your revision work is;
- The quality of your effort in the class, in workshops, in class discussion, in your groups, in conferences, and in general;
- Your demonstration of a willingness to try new things, think in new ways, and explore different perspectives as both a reader and a writer.
Breakdown of assessment percentages. Different assignments require different amounts of effort. The percentages that accompany each of the requirements in this class should give you an indication of the time and energy that each should take up in your student life.
Reader's Notes 20%
Book Club 20%
Partner Profile 5%
Mentor Text Memoir 10%
YA Short, Short Story (or memoir) 10%
Midterm Portfolio Reflection 5%
Final Project 25%
Final Portfolio Reflection 5%
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but please do not.
Students who require accommodations. Students who need special accommodations due to a documented disability should come to see me with written documentation and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the LEGCIE Center, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. All of this is in addition to the graduate school staff, who are always happy to help you navigate your graduate career, as is the graduate coordinator in English, Halina Adams. You most likely already know this, but you can reach out to Halina at [email protected].
ONE LAST NOTE
I am very aware that many of you are working adults with busy work and family lives. I am always trying to balance the demands of a graduate level course makes on a student with the lives I know you are leading. I’m trying to make this class as useful to you as possible without it being overly burdensome. It’s work, not six flags, but I don’t want it to become your favorite thing to hate either. If as the semester progresses we need to alter our course to accommodate our shared burdens, then we’ll do this. I enjoy this material so much and want you to find some joy in it as well. Good luck to us.