Blog 10 - A Reflection on Young Adult Literature Class

A Reflection on Young Adult Literature Class

I had an internal debate on my last blog posting and decided to take Dr. Hanrahan's advise and “Go for it.” Part of good teaching is ensuring that students have an opportunity to provide feedback, so thank you to Dr. Hanrahan for displaying academic bravery and trust in offering that option as a final blog post. What I hope to do is provide the constructive feedback that I would appreciate if I was teaching the same class.

Dr. Hanrahan's idea to have a class blog worked well for a small class. During the class, I wondered about incorporating a blog into my own instructional toolbox. I think for the 20-30 kids that I have, and based on their varying ability levels, that a blog of their individual essays would not be beneficial. However, I was thinking that I could start a blog that reflects the students' young adult and adult literature interests. In my class, students can read a book of their choice that is school-appropriate for Silent Sustained Reading (SSR), which is usually the first fifteen minutes of class. A new twist to this will be to hold them accountable for what they read on an SSR Blog. I have had students read and complete book reviews in the past. Now, I will have them post their book reviews on the blog. This allows for a common gathering place for both my English 10 and English 11 classes: one blog for all. Also, this allows students to respond to a book review with their own reading experiences with the novel, manga, magazine, comic book—whatever their interests. Not only will this create a sense of community in the classroom, but it will allow me to get to know their interests. As Katherine Bucher and KaaVonia Hinton mention in Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evalation, and Appreciation, “[o]ne way to encourage young adults to read is to supplement the curriculum with high-interest young adult literature and utlize engaging activities and class discussion” (16). I have high hopes for the SSR blog because students love to work with other classes, and this is a great way to develop literary awareness through social learning and technology use.

Next, the issue of literary awareness and genres was covered quite well in class with Bucher and Hinton's Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evalation, and Appreciation. My only recommendation would be that those genres are read as much as possible as well. I realize that this is a monumental task when considering the breadth of young adult literature. I would like to have read and discussed examples of manga, comics, short stories, and drama. But in the absence of this, I think that Bucher and Hinton provide solid examples of these and, as a result, I am now thinking about researching and adding young adult genres that appeal to the visual and physical learning systems.

Again, I appreciate this class because my literary awareness in the area of young adult literature and classic literature has been expanded. The almost weekly prompts that address pairing young adult texts with classic texts was an especially helpful prompt when considering how to incorporate young adult literature in the classroom. While the idea of pairing these texts is a fleeting paragraph in Bucher and Hinton's Chapter 3, I appreciated that Dr. Hanrahan would not let this idea and prompt fade away because pairing young adult and classic literature is probably going to be one of the strongest supports for arguing to incorporate more young adult literature in the classroom. This will appease administration and allow students to relate. I am already thinking about what I can pair with The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Any suggestions?

And then there are suggestions. I would recommend reading Wonder, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and the sequel Hollow City, a book from the sports genre (I just saw a few books by an author that address the traumatic brain injury (TBI) of a fictional football player, and The Haunting of Sunshine Girl. Some of my reasoning is that these novels follow young adult reading interests, trends, and issues. While I have read Wonder, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and Hollow City, I have not read any sport novels or The Haunting of Sunshine Girl. However, I have too many students that are obsessed with sports and not obsessed with reading, and I am determined to cross the streams and see what happens. Also, I am fascinated with the backstory of The Haunting of Sunshine Girl. I think the YouTube novel genre (if it can be called this) is worth exploring in the age of social media and reality TV obsession.

So, again, thank you for teaching the class, Dr. Hanrahan. I think we all learned quite a bit more about young adult literature than we knew when we started. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about young adult dystopian fiction (just kidding—I loved every minute of it or I would not have chosen the bibiliography). I think Colleen may need therapy after her young adult WWII bibliography, but she will have decent insurance in a few months when she gets a teaching job. Also, I learned from my peers—there were great lesson plan ideas, great food (thank you for the donuts, Karisma! And thanks to Ashley for the brownies!), and great company (newly concieved, about to be born, and reaching peak performance age). In parting, I would like to reference Dr. Hanrahan's reference to these immortal words, which were so aptly said by Anthony Michael Hall as Brian Johnson in The Breakfast Club:

“Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did WAS wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is ... a brain... 
Andrew Clark: ...and an athlete... 
Allison Reynolds: ...and a basket case... 
Claire Standish: ...a princess... 
John Bender: ...and a criminal... 
Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question? 
Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.”

While we all don't necessarily think you are crazy for assigning Blog 10 on the Friday after our class ends, my last recommendation is to get rid of Blog 10 on the Friday after class ends.