Exploring Another Frontier – Adolescent Literature

As I reflect on the first half of my Spring semester in Adolescent Literature, I’m amazed at how much I’ve read!  Aside from

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textbooks, I’d say this is the largest number of books I’ve read, probably since I was in high school (and that’s ancient history)!  I’ve read sixteen books so far, and I still have the second half of the semester!  It has been a real challenge for me to read all of these books with time constraints and other obligations. I’m impressed with my progress so far!

The most memorable would have to be “A Wreath for Emmett Till” because it was so sad and poignant.  One very pleasant surprise was “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”  This one was very well written to capture the life of a teenage girl, and I’m sure I would have liked it had I been able to read it in high school.  I liked “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” for the same reason – it was well written to capture the teenage boy’s life, and I probably would have liked to read it in high school as well.  I would like to have this book in my classroom someday.

As for the rest of the semester, I’ll likely try to keep up the two books per week pace, but I think I’ll stay away from books as large as “The Hobbit” and the Harry Potter series.  While these books are excellent, the size will slow me down considerably!  Quantity sure, but not at the expense of quality!  I want to reach out a little further into the award-winning lists to find other books that I might not normally pick up, a few that my instructor has kindly suggested, and maybe even some that just catch my eye.  The goal, of course, is to explore the “Land of Adolescent Literature” for the benefit of my future students, and find some terrific possibilities to stretch their reading possibilities as well.

I’m actively working on goals set at the beginning of the semester, such as

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• Read widely in the field of adolescent literature
• Identify the main prizes and awards given to authors of young adult literature
• Participate actively in a community of readers
• Develop a Personal Learning Network through social media
• Reflect on learning and modify goals accordingly
• Respond to literature in a variety of ways (blogging, reviews, Twitter, discussion, reading letters, digital stories, book trailers, book talks

For the end of the semester, I’d like to reach out a little more into these areas:

• Find and evaluate resources for adolescent literature
• Explore the world of YA lit through social media (Twitter, Pinterest, Good Reads)
• Set personal reading goals and reading challenges

On to the next great adventure!