ENGL344 Young Adult Literature CLASS UPDATES
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Class Update for 19 September 2022
First, let me start this update with a note of gratitude. I know some of you, for reasons I don’t quite understand, never got an email through blackboard–further evidence that I’m glad not to be using it. Secondly, what a lovely first post and response. Really seriously. I appreciated so much reading all of your stories of reading and I very much appreciated the real interest you displayed in your thoughtful responses to each other. I think it bodes well for the semester. Now to the heart of the matter: a round up of what you had to say this week.
Your classmate Chloe Devine asked these very useful questions in her post: “Why is studying young adult literature relevant, and why should we value the genre even if a lot of us are not young adults? What can we learn by studying these books?” Those are pretty great questions and ones I hope you will all feel get answered over our time together.
As I read about your experiences, I notice a number of themes, all of which are relevant rto our time together:
As a genre, YA can be underestimated. A lot of you talked about this. Meaghan Cook, Samantha Tyrell (prepare yourself, Samantha, I fear I will slip into calling you “Sam”--so if you don’t want me to do that tell me) and Sam Isom all talked about how YA seems to feel like “less than.” Lucienne Quirk closed out our discussion by talking about she actively avoided YA because she wanted to be the kid who was beyond YA. And I get that. I went through that phase too. We will need to think about this this semester because it affects your ability to select and teach YA texts (that aren’t as a number of you noticed, school-sanctioned texts like To Kill a Mockingbird). And it is true that not all YA texts are created equal (ask Alexa Delling about my reaction to You and Me at the End of the World–I think this is what Sam Isom was talking about when they said that some YA is “hot garbage.”
And yet, very clearly, YA offers readers a wide range of vital experiences. I’ll let your words make this point. As Chloe Tavernier wrote “despite their occasional unconventional premise and setting, at their core the genre of young adult still embodies the most familiar and fundamental aspects of human life; the desire for connections, the joys and strife associated with coming of age, and the innate yearning to be understood.”
Lucienne Quirk wrote that “sometimes we will want to forge an identity around a text not because we are 'just like' the main character, but because it invites us to pretend and explore ourselves, allowing for the possibility that you could take up a small space on the page.”
And Meaghan Cook: “These books tell stories about finding your voice and your place in the world. The stories I’ve read have taught me about life, love, loss, family, and adventure. As a younger reader, I enjoyed young adult novels because they proved to me that I wasn’t alone, that the things I was thinking and feeling weren’t strange or wrong.”
Linnea Fawkes, Nicole Shepard, Maddie Ames, Katie Rodrigues, and Ally Raposo, among others, echoed the above, making an important point about the role of YA plays in many young reader’s lives: young readers find characters to connect and identify with, sometimes to aspire to be (or not to be).
Further, YA novels (as do many, many texts) gives readers access to experiences and realities beyond their own lived experiences. Celeste Barbosa made the point, that I very much agree with, that the new batch of YA novels introduce young readers to some of the most crucial and sometimes controversial topics of our current age. As Meaghan C. also said YA books “took me back to times in history I wasn’t around to experience and put me in the shoes of people whose lives I wouldn’t otherwise understand.” So it’s not just about identification, it’s about expanding our awareness of our world.
And, lest we forget, reading YA, like reading anything on a beach, can sometimes be a great diversion from our own lives, a point that Patricia Diaz Fernandes made.
In many ways, the point we are collectively making in the last two bullets could be said for any reading experience, but a crucial point of this class is that one of the rather unique characteristics of the genre is that it teaches you how to read. Jenivieve D’Andrea wrote that “writing about YA literature was rewarding in high school because the intersection between the coming of age and literary elements would make for a challenging, but a great piece.” Here she is highlighting that dual function of the genre–it’s literary function as well as it’s more visceral connection to younger readers. She described reading about tough topics in YA texts really interestingly. She called them an “achievable read.” And that’s exactly right.
A number of you wrote about books read when you were younger and how you eventually grew out of them and grew into more adult texts (Chloe T, Catie Mullen, Megan Moore). You went from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Harry Potter to John Green. Mary Viera very precisely captured that amazing feeling when you graduate from kid books to chapter books. Maddy Ames’s story about having an “emergency book” in the back seat of the car was by far the most responded to post and with good reason. Swoon.
Total Aside in this already overly long post: My nephew, who is nine, just finished a book that he insisted on showing me on Facetime had no pictures that he had to check out of the school library, which prompted me to tell him how I lived in fear for a full six months that the school librarian would not let me check out Little House on the Prairie even one more time.
And consider how many of you talked about how you became avid readers: Christina Carter talked about reading and re-reading books. Right there with you Christina. Me and Chloe Devine are dedicated Little Women readers. I read Little Women every year from the time I was 12 to 18.
A lot of you had library memories–and connected to that, family memories. Olivia Mattson wrote about bonding over books with her father. That brings me to another point. Literacy is much more than decoding, a point Jessica Sweeney made quite eloquently in her post. It’s this all encompassing experience that affects our actual lives.
Which brings me to a last point that a number of you touched on in different ways: the role of school in any discussion of YA. Allie Gallahue talked about the ways picking the right text can connect teacher to student in powerful ways. But both Sydney Blair and Alexa Delling talked about not being readers, something you will all find in classrooms you teach in. Megan Moore talked about liking to read the books from classes (echoing Jenivieve’s quote above), but how, also, school makes little time for pleasure reading and can sometimes actually kill the reading instinct. Which, seriously, school should not do that to a student.
There is so much to think about. My own experience with YA is very different from yours. I read Little Women, all of the Little House on the Prairie Books, all of the Anne of Green Gables books. All was very big for me. I felt so accomplished when I. got through a whole series. I read books about horses. I read books about queens. I read books about first ladies (In sixth grade we were asked to name a woman we admired and while every girl in my group said their mother, I said “Eleanor Roosevelt.” My mom was perfectly fine, but, I mean, it’s Eleanor Roosevelt). I eventually moved on to Jane Austen and the Brontes, to Edith Wharton, to Virginia Woolf, to Toni Morrison. Novels by and about women (mostly white, I must admit) shaped me as a reader, thinker, human. And as your posts this week indicate, I am not alone. So, to begin to answer Chloe’s questions, this is why we need to spend time understanding, exploring, critiquing, and, most of all, taking seriously this genre.
Welcome to ENGL 344 Young Adult Literature
Hello Everyone--
If you are reading this email, you are currently enrolled in ENGL 344-CO1 Young Adult Literature. I write this announcement close to midnight on the first day of classes (7 September 2022). I do not have as complete a syllabus I would like, but I don't want any more time to pass without getting you out this information. Here are somethings you should know about the course:
This information will be repeated on our Class Update Page. And that page will serve as the permanent place that announcements about class, announcements that will also be emailed to you, will be archived.
First, let me start this update with a note of gratitude. I know some of you, for reasons I don’t quite understand, never got an email through blackboard–further evidence that I’m glad not to be using it. Secondly, what a lovely first post and response. Really seriously. I appreciated so much reading all of your stories of reading and I very much appreciated the real interest you displayed in your thoughtful responses to each other. I think it bodes well for the semester. Now to the heart of the matter: a round up of what you had to say this week.
Your classmate Chloe Devine asked these very useful questions in her post: “Why is studying young adult literature relevant, and why should we value the genre even if a lot of us are not young adults? What can we learn by studying these books?” Those are pretty great questions and ones I hope you will all feel get answered over our time together.
As I read about your experiences, I notice a number of themes, all of which are relevant rto our time together:
As a genre, YA can be underestimated. A lot of you talked about this. Meaghan Cook, Samantha Tyrell (prepare yourself, Samantha, I fear I will slip into calling you “Sam”--so if you don’t want me to do that tell me) and Sam Isom all talked about how YA seems to feel like “less than.” Lucienne Quirk closed out our discussion by talking about she actively avoided YA because she wanted to be the kid who was beyond YA. And I get that. I went through that phase too. We will need to think about this this semester because it affects your ability to select and teach YA texts (that aren’t as a number of you noticed, school-sanctioned texts like To Kill a Mockingbird). And it is true that not all YA texts are created equal (ask Alexa Delling about my reaction to You and Me at the End of the World–I think this is what Sam Isom was talking about when they said that some YA is “hot garbage.”
And yet, very clearly, YA offers readers a wide range of vital experiences. I’ll let your words make this point. As Chloe Tavernier wrote “despite their occasional unconventional premise and setting, at their core the genre of young adult still embodies the most familiar and fundamental aspects of human life; the desire for connections, the joys and strife associated with coming of age, and the innate yearning to be understood.”
Lucienne Quirk wrote that “sometimes we will want to forge an identity around a text not because we are 'just like' the main character, but because it invites us to pretend and explore ourselves, allowing for the possibility that you could take up a small space on the page.”
And Meaghan Cook: “These books tell stories about finding your voice and your place in the world. The stories I’ve read have taught me about life, love, loss, family, and adventure. As a younger reader, I enjoyed young adult novels because they proved to me that I wasn’t alone, that the things I was thinking and feeling weren’t strange or wrong.”
Linnea Fawkes, Nicole Shepard, Maddie Ames, Katie Rodrigues, and Ally Raposo, among others, echoed the above, making an important point about the role of YA plays in many young reader’s lives: young readers find characters to connect and identify with, sometimes to aspire to be (or not to be).
Further, YA novels (as do many, many texts) gives readers access to experiences and realities beyond their own lived experiences. Celeste Barbosa made the point, that I very much agree with, that the new batch of YA novels introduce young readers to some of the most crucial and sometimes controversial topics of our current age. As Meaghan C. also said YA books “took me back to times in history I wasn’t around to experience and put me in the shoes of people whose lives I wouldn’t otherwise understand.” So it’s not just about identification, it’s about expanding our awareness of our world.
And, lest we forget, reading YA, like reading anything on a beach, can sometimes be a great diversion from our own lives, a point that Patricia Diaz Fernandes made.
In many ways, the point we are collectively making in the last two bullets could be said for any reading experience, but a crucial point of this class is that one of the rather unique characteristics of the genre is that it teaches you how to read. Jenivieve D’Andrea wrote that “writing about YA literature was rewarding in high school because the intersection between the coming of age and literary elements would make for a challenging, but a great piece.” Here she is highlighting that dual function of the genre–it’s literary function as well as it’s more visceral connection to younger readers. She described reading about tough topics in YA texts really interestingly. She called them an “achievable read.” And that’s exactly right.
A number of you wrote about books read when you were younger and how you eventually grew out of them and grew into more adult texts (Chloe T, Catie Mullen, Megan Moore). You went from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Harry Potter to John Green. Mary Viera very precisely captured that amazing feeling when you graduate from kid books to chapter books. Maddy Ames’s story about having an “emergency book” in the back seat of the car was by far the most responded to post and with good reason. Swoon.
Total Aside in this already overly long post: My nephew, who is nine, just finished a book that he insisted on showing me on Facetime had no pictures that he had to check out of the school library, which prompted me to tell him how I lived in fear for a full six months that the school librarian would not let me check out Little House on the Prairie even one more time.
And consider how many of you talked about how you became avid readers: Christina Carter talked about reading and re-reading books. Right there with you Christina. Me and Chloe Devine are dedicated Little Women readers. I read Little Women every year from the time I was 12 to 18.
A lot of you had library memories–and connected to that, family memories. Olivia Mattson wrote about bonding over books with her father. That brings me to another point. Literacy is much more than decoding, a point Jessica Sweeney made quite eloquently in her post. It’s this all encompassing experience that affects our actual lives.
Which brings me to a last point that a number of you touched on in different ways: the role of school in any discussion of YA. Allie Gallahue talked about the ways picking the right text can connect teacher to student in powerful ways. But both Sydney Blair and Alexa Delling talked about not being readers, something you will all find in classrooms you teach in. Megan Moore talked about liking to read the books from classes (echoing Jenivieve’s quote above), but how, also, school makes little time for pleasure reading and can sometimes actually kill the reading instinct. Which, seriously, school should not do that to a student.
There is so much to think about. My own experience with YA is very different from yours. I read Little Women, all of the Little House on the Prairie Books, all of the Anne of Green Gables books. All was very big for me. I felt so accomplished when I. got through a whole series. I read books about horses. I read books about queens. I read books about first ladies (In sixth grade we were asked to name a woman we admired and while every girl in my group said their mother, I said “Eleanor Roosevelt.” My mom was perfectly fine, but, I mean, it’s Eleanor Roosevelt). I eventually moved on to Jane Austen and the Brontes, to Edith Wharton, to Virginia Woolf, to Toni Morrison. Novels by and about women (mostly white, I must admit) shaped me as a reader, thinker, human. And as your posts this week indicate, I am not alone. So, to begin to answer Chloe’s questions, this is why we need to spend time understanding, exploring, critiquing, and, most of all, taking seriously this genre.
Welcome to ENGL 344 Young Adult Literature
Hello Everyone--
If you are reading this email, you are currently enrolled in ENGL 344-CO1 Young Adult Literature. I write this announcement close to midnight on the first day of classes (7 September 2022). I do not have as complete a syllabus I would like, but I don't want any more time to pass without getting you out this information. Here are somethings you should know about the course:
- I don't use blackboard. Class will not be hosted on blackboard. Instead, I use my teaching website. You can access that website at www.leetorda.com.
- Beyond this notice, no other information about this class will be found on blackboard.
- Currently available on the website is the policies for the course and the first five weeks of the syllabus. Additionally, you'll find the discussion board that you will need to post to, as well as a "Q&A" discussion board set up for you to ask general questions about the course at any time. (all the blue links in this announcement are live directly to the corresponding pages on our class website)
This information will be repeated on our Class Update Page. And that page will serve as the permanent place that announcements about class, announcements that will also be emailed to you, will be archived.