English 3323: Young Adult Fiction & Poetry
Fall 2009

Instructions for Major Assignments

Several of these assignments ask you to choose works of young adult literature (YAL) other than what we read in class. The works you choose must be actual young adult books. You may not choose adult books or classics even if they are commonly read by young adults or appear on young adult-related recommendation lists (i.e. no Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice & Men, etc.). We'll talk more about definitions in class. If you have a book in mind, but are not sure about whether it is truly YAL, please ask.

Capsule Book Reviews (10%)
Write three brief (about 150-300 words) book reviews geared toward librarians and/or classroom teachers who must frequently make choices about what works of YAL to include in their collections. A specific format for writing these reviews will be provided in class. The three books will include: 1) a book we've read in class, written for practice; 2) a book assigned to you by the instructor; 3) a book chosen by you, which must be a work of YAL published since 2007. You may only use series books if the first book in the series was published after 2006. (Thus, no Twilight, Gossip Girls, Vampire Diaries, or Harry Potter. Sorry!). Note: you may use either book #2 or #3 for the critical analysis assignment as well.

You'll be asked to give a 2-3 minute informal book talk to the class on #2 and #3 at some point during the semester.

To Kill a Mockingbird/Corpus Christi Reads Project (30%)
Corpus Christi Public Libraries is participating in The Big Read, a federal grant program to support community literacy initiatives. Each year of the grant, one book is chosen to be the center of community reading programs, and this year's book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. During September and October, the public is invited to read the book and participate in discussions, and many local high schools make the book an important part of their curriculum. This year, we have been invited to be a part of The Big Read in Corpus Christi by going to local high schools and presenting programs on TKAM. You'll work in small groups to develop your ideas for a 3-5 minute multimedia presentation. for a secondary school class. We will make these presentations available to area teachers to use as they teach TKAM in their classes. The groups will have a lot of freedom to develop the presentation--the goal is to creatively engage high school students in the work. The key is "creatively engage"--your job is not to present them a bunch of facts and interpretations, but to immerse them in the work and help them enjoy the experience of literature for themselves.

Essay summary (10%)
Choose one of the essays out of The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter. As you are making your choice, think ahead to the critical analysis you will write over another book of YAL (see next assignment). You will use The Ivory Tower essay as a basis for your own essay. For instance, if The Ivory Tower essay is a feminist analysis of the Harry Potter series, your essay will be a similar kind of feminist reading of the YAL book you choose. It will help if you already know what book you are going to write on for the critical analysis before you choose an essay.

Write a 2-page (500 word) summary of the essay you chose. Writing this summary will help you get a handle on the critical perspective the essay takes, so that you can better apply it to analyzing another YAL book. Focus your summary less on what the book says about Harry Potter and more on what the essay does to analyze/understand some literary aspect of the Harry Potter books--try to identify and articulate the critical method.

Critical analysis (20%)
Choose a book of YAL (other than the required course readings or another Harry Potter book) and write a 3-5 page (750-1250 word) critical analysis of it, using The Ivory Tower essay you wrote your summary on as a theoretical basis/model for your analysis. You may use one of your books from the book reviews, but you may also choose any other work of YAL, subject to instructor approval.

Note: although the essay summary and critical analysis are graded separately, consider them part of the same assignment sequence. This is a fairly difficult assignment sequence, and it is vital that you do well on the essay summary if you hope to have success on the critical analysis. We will talk fairly extensively in class about how to do these assignments (and why we are doing them). In addition, please start early enough that you have time for conferences with the instructor if you run into problems.

Final Exam (20%)
The final exam will be short answer and essay in format. It will test your ability to recall and apply information about definitions, history, themes, reception, and other course topics to analyzing the literature we have read in class. You will have some choices about which questions to answer and which works to write about.

Quizzes and in-class participation (10%)
We'll have reading quizzes on a semi-regular basis. They will consist of short answer questions and/or informal essays, based on your reading assignment for that day. Any reading assignment is subject to a quiz. In addition, we will do several informal small group and individual activities in class. You earn credit simply for participating in these activities, completing the assignment as instructed. The quiz and participation credit will be combined for 10% of your course grade.

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