ENGL 2335 Young Adult

Young Adult, commonly known as YA, is a hugely successful marketing category in contemporary publishing, in some cases inspiring blockbuster movie franchises (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games) and creating entire global subcultures. YA includes fantasy, romance, realistic fiction, historical fiction, and many other genres besides. What do these books have in common? How do these books define or confront important coming-of-age issues such as family, identity, sexuality, responsibility, ethics, loyalty, and friendship? Whose stories are told, and whose aren’t? What assumptions do they make, and ask us to make, about adolescent characters and readers? How does the publishing industry shape what we read and how we judge it, and how are young adults writing stories online themselves weighing in? In addition to reading these books and talking about them in class, short, creative assignments address the forms and formats of the publishing and marketing processes, social media, book reviewing and blogging, and participatory culture.

In this course, students will learn to:

• identify and analyze defining features of Young Adult literature and its various sub-genres such as fantasy, paranormal, and realistic fiction, poetry, autobiography, coming-of-age, romance, historical fiction
• make arguments orally and verbally about how YA literature in its various genres represents teens and teen readers, and why these representations matter
• develop an understanding of how the publishing industry and other market forces influence what we read, who we read, how we read, and how we judge it
• write in forms and formats related to the publishing industry, including “copy” (book blurbs), reviews and blogs, pitches, adaptations, and students own scenes and story ideas
• look at popular culture critically, asking not only “do I enjoy this” but “what does it mean that I enjoy this?” and “what is enjoying this asking me to accept?”

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND ASSIGNMENTS:

Exams (40%): 20% take-home midterm; 20% take-home final exam or final paper Attendance/Participation (20 %): Attendance and canvas postings mandatory
Quizzes (10%): pop quizzes to help you keep reading a priority
Short assignments (20%):
Interview project (group) (10%) In consultation with professor.

Course Texts

Erin Claibourne, A Hero at the End of the World

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, March

Christina Lauren, The House

Rainbow Rowell, Carry On

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban

Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe

Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

Course Films

The Hunger Games

The Prisoner of Azkeban