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.”
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.