Course Description:

This course provides a multicultural framework in which graduate students in the College of Education and the School of Information Resources and Library Science will read and respond to young adult literature in preparation for sharing books with students in classrooms and libraries. We will read widely, from picture books to poetry to novels written for students in grades 5 - 12. We will build our understanding of diversity through the characters, settings, plots, and themes presented. We will study the authors, illustrators, and poets who create literature for adolescents and use reference resources to support our study. In addition to a survey of young adult literature, students will study issues related to adolescent literacy, explore censorship, and investigate the role of contemporary adolescent literature in the 5 - 12 classroom curriculum and in the lives of today's young adults.

Goals:

The overarching goal of this course is to nurture our ability to derive personal meaning from the literature we read. In the context of this class, we will become aware of the cultural lenses through which all people, including adolescents, view the world and process their experiences. Like the students in our (future) classrooms and libraries, the participants in this course will come to appreciate both the unique and universal themes in literature and in lives and will come to understand the contributions made by individuals and groups to both our pluralistic United States culture and our global human culture. In addition, we will use a Critical Literacy Framework (Ada) that reaches beyond comprehension and personal meaning to include a deeper look at the social and political issues raised in the literature and/or the application of the literature in schools and libraries and explore possible ways to take action on these issues. In pursuing these goals, we will practice the Department of Language, Reading and Culture's Statement of Principles on Multicultural Education.