Real life strikes again. Real life in the form of Internet crapping out at home (for two weeks!), grades, parent-teacher conferences, and (for the first time in nine years) a college class. Yes, that’s right. I am not only a teacher, I am now a student.
This past week I attended the first class for the course “Teaching Young Adult Literature.” How cool is that? A class to learn how to teach a genre of literature that I love. I was very excited when I first signed up for the class. I am a little leery after meeting the professor. She seems rather... rigid. And painfully perky. A strange combination, to be sure. I am keeping an open mind, though.
A couple nights ago I started reading the one and only text book for the class. I was not looking forward to this. All of my worst college memories center around trying to slog through poorly written, dry, boring academic writing. I decided to set myself a realistic goal: one chapter (38 pages.) Well, color me startled, I found it rather interesting. The book covers the definition of “young adult” and “young adult literature”, and tracks the history of the genre up through the mid-90's. The first chapter covered the genre definition and the “birth” of Young Adult literature (pre-1960.) Tomorrow I will read at least one chapter, perhaps two. Still manageable without being overwhelming or painful. By Monday I need to start on my homework assignment. Yup, I have to do homework. It’s so weird!
I’m looking forward to reading the actual Young Adult novels on our list. There are five all told, only one of which I have even heard of (The Book Thief.) This could be a great opportunity to add to my list of must-read books for young adults.
What list of must-read Young Adult literature, you ask? Why, the one I plan to share tomorrow, of course!
10 comments:
I was just going to ask about the list. What a cool class!
Sounds great! Can't wait to see the list.
Looking forward to seeing what's on your list :)
I loved The Book Thief when I read it a while ago - very interesting choices made by the author in terms of narrator and subject.
I look forward to seeing what else is on your list.
I LOVE YA lit. That's why my friend and I started Teen Troves however, we've pretty much stopped reviewing. We haven't decided whether or not to shut it down. I think we're both hoping to get our reviewing mojo back. I've been reading YA stuff still. Actually a lot but have had no desire to review. Le sigh.
Looking forward to your YA list tomorrow!
I took a YA Lit class in college and LOVED it. My favorite books were by Cynthia Voigt - Dicey's Song and Homecoming.
Looking forward to your list! I've got several YA books in the TBR pile ATM and I really hope to get to them soon, do a YA week on the blog and all.
Not sure if what I want to read qualifies as YA Lit, though.
It sounds like a very cool class. YOu'll have to keep us posted on how you're liking it. :)
I didn't see an easy email contact for you on the main blog page, so I'm going to just drop this here - you probably already know this, but harlequin is giving away 16 free ebooks for their anniversary. I wanted to let you know in case you hadn't heard, and maybe you'll pass it along in a post to your readers?
http://eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=1317
This is very cool, Shannon! I actually exclusively read YA lit for at least two years before I started reading romance and UF. There's a huge treasure trove of fantastic YA material out there now.
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