While you wait for class to begin, please use the index card on your desk to answer the following question (and be prepared to read your response aloud):

Why/how do YOU typicallyread literary texts (such as novels)?

Why/how do TEACHERS typicallyuse literary texts in class?

Welcome to ENGL 552-81,Young Adult Literature.

“Content area” books

“Recreational reading” books

Taking the library to the class > Taking the class to the library

You may check out up to two books/night for up to two weeks at a time. Please take good care of these books, as some of them are my personal copies, and some are autographed. The book cart is available to offer you options. You are of course welcome to choose books from a library, a bookstore, or a friend.

Agenda for 1-10

Introduce class members Responses to writing exercise Introduce website & syllabus Introduce selected books from cart

Take photos for class notebook Check out books

BREAK; move to Capers 313 (lab)

Introduce class wiki Form Book Club groups Discuss Common Core State Standards

Dismiss

Book Clubs

We’ll be talking this semester about three different groupings for reading:• Whole class• Small group (i.e., book club)• Individual

To give you experience with each grouping, we will “read” three books as a whole class (which really means that we will discuss them as a whole class), you will read at least eight books on your own, and you will participate in a book club to read and discuss at least three books (or three sets of books, or books on three different topics).

Examples of possible book club arrangements:

Topic: The American Revolution (Each person reads a different book.)Books: Sophia’s War, Chains, Johnny Tremain, My Brother Sam is Dead

Topic: Dystopian Fiction (Each person reads two books from the following list.)Books: Hunger Games, Divergent, Matched, Bumped, The Giver, Delirium, 1984

Topic: Viruses (Everybody reads the same book.)Book: Code Orange

Common Core State Standards

Take a few minutes to write about CCSS, perhaps by responding to one of more of the following prompts:

What have you heard about CCSS?How do you think CCSS will affect your classroom?How do the “new” standards compare with the “old” ones?To what extent do schools and districts attend to standards, anyway?How many “literary texts” are typically used in content-area classes?How are colleagues adjusting to CCSS?What does your district/school/department say about CCSS?

Be ready to discuss your responses in pairs, then in small groups.

For next week:

Read Woods Runner. While you read (or after you finish the book), make a list of facts about the American Revolution that were new to you (or that you think would be new to your students), or that were presented through fiction in a way that was significantly different from the way those facts would be presented in a textbook.

As time allows, read some additional YA novels related to the American Revolution.

Suggested books (from searching “YA / American Revolution” on Goodreads.

Sophia’s War The Black DragonsChains ForgeJohnny Tremain Just Jane: A Daughter of England…My Brother Sam is Dead Cast Two ShadowsThe Fighting Ground The Secret of Sarah RevereToliver’s Secret Soldier’s Secret: The Story of Deborah SampsonPhoebe the Spy Time Enough for Drums