Young+Adult+Literature

"Young Adult Literature (ENGL3470) with Dr. Kathleen Deakin"

The semester of Young Adult Literature with professor Kathleen Deakin gave me an opportunity to re-discover my love for discussing literature. The course combined many styles of novels, excellent educational reading, and seminars that allowed for viewpoints to be debated and discussed. And we read, a lot. I consider myself an avid reader, as they say, but I haven’t read like this in awhile. I haven’t taken a course like this in a long time, and despite the wide berth of material, I found it enjoyable. Part of the fun for me was the exchange of ideas with my fellow students. Of course, the best part was being turned on to new material within a genre I had almost forgotten about. During this course, we occasionally read from a reading packet, and a small but effective text called “Reading Ladders: leading Students from Where They Are to Where We’d Like Them to Be”, by Teri S. Lesesne. This book really opened my eyes when it came to understanding how we can help students become lifelong readers. I was not aware of how much simply reading aloud to a class can affect a student—from their test scores, to reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Another concept that I was unfamiliar with was “book-talking”. Although this is mentioned in Lesesne’s book, Professor Deakin actually used this method in her classroom. I found this to be very effective in helping me choose a book that appealed to me from the options she had given. Not only was it informative, but it switched up the pace of the room and tapped into something that I remembered from my youth: being read to. And so it not only proved Lesesne’s theories, but it helped inspire me to get reading right away! Although we discussed structural criticism, reader response theory, censorship, and other topics related to reading in an educational setting, as an older student I felt like I had been over some of that ground before. Although all of those things are necessary, while reflecting on the course, I again felt drawn back to Lesesne and her “building blocks” for lifelong readers. She discusses two things that I had never much considered before: access to books, and time to read. Lesesne does stress that it is always good to have “models of literacy” (parents, other family members, friends) to help encourage and influence future readers, and I was fortunate to have this in my life, as well as time to read (outside of class). But my classrooms did not have a book selection, we had to use the library in our spare time. Nor were we given a brief respite from our day in order to read. Lesesne demonstrated how even 15 minutes a day can vastly improve a student’s performance. I would have to say that even though I enjoyed the book selection that we were given, Lesesne’s book was my favorite. It is elegant in its simplicity, and in my opinion it is a “must-read” for anyone planning on teaching literature. While this course offered many book options, with a new theme each week, and excellent group discussions that followed, I will say my favorite assignment was the Reading Survey. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to interact with high school students, and this activity got me out of the classroom and out on the streets talking to teenagers about literature in their lives. It was an eye-opening experience and I am grateful to have participated in it. Finally, because we did read a lot of books, I will compile a list of them in a separate section here for you to peruse. I hope you will choose to read some of these if you haven’t already.