It's been a blast

Thanks for letting me teach you all this semester! If you haven't heard, I've had a busy few weeks. In addition to taking care of my own finals and grading yours, we've had the baby, and I've accepted a job at the University of Southern Mississippi. I'll be housed in the English department and will be teaching courses in YA Lit and other English Education-related classes. As well, I've been promised one comics-related class per semester! Thanks for being my "test run" as far as teaching the YA Lit class goes, and I know there are some lucky students out there just waiting for you all to come and make an impact in their lives.

Your Found Poems and Prompts, April 19

Before class on the 19th, post your found poem along with the prompt you craft from it. Do not post them seperately, but as one entry. Be sure to include the poet's name, and give the full source info if you can. Remember that there's a sample found poem and prompt available on toolkit if you need it.

Opt: Post your final Book Lists

Help grow our YA title databases by posting your final booklist and explaining your ranking system if you use one. Be sure to list the authors along with the titles. This was a great suggestion!

Love That Dog; Love those actors!

Love That Dog, pages 46-48, performed by Cara (Sky) and Allison (Jack, the writer/speaker). Bucky, reader. Clare, wardrobe. Class, entertained.

Oral Bridge Summaries (Optional)

As decided upon in class, please post your oral bridge summary following the format below:

How the Grinch Stole Christmas to "Ethan Brand": Following a brief introduction to the Great Chain of Being and the idea of knowing one's place/connectivity to humanity, I read from the Dr. Suess book, focusing on the parts where there is a clear "chain" of happily connected Hoos. I did some DRTA questioning before prompting you all to consider the theme in the Hawthorne story, from which I also read, completing the bridge.

Review #1: Posted by April 5

OK, so Review #1 is actually our third review and second-to-last for the course, but it worked out best this way. Post your review, complete with scene ("movie man" preview voice), summary, and commentary by April 5th. It should translate into 2 double-spaced pages in Word.

March 1- March 15: Virtual Booktalks

Between now and March 15, post a virtual booktalk on one of the YA books on your list that you've read but haven't had a chance to discuss with your peers in class. It should only be a paragraph and should begin with bibliographic information. I'll post an example below, and you can see page 287 of the Nilsen and Donelson for more help.

Eisner, Will. (2005). The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue. New York: Norton.

This book collects three graphic novels from the man who actually coined the term. What many deem the first great American graphic novel, A Contract with God (1978), is reprinted along with the autobiographical A Life Force (1983), Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995), and Eisner's last sketches before his recent death. All are tales of Americana and of the American spirit, both in its most depraved and most humbly celebratory. Set in New York City across various centuries and decades, the stories reveal harsh realities and touching moments. Eisner is a master at reavealing to his audience that the mundane stuffs of life are worthy of deep inspection, that the humanity of life is rich, even if it is not always sweet.

Feb15-22: Post your Rationale

As we decided together in class, please post your rationale to the blog. The idea here is that once all are posted, you can do a simple copy and past of the entire posting and save it somewhere (in a Word document, in a manilla folder, or in a notebook, or in a baggie), so you'll have a nice beginner's rationale collection.

Optional Blog topic: "Trashy???"

I am really dumfounded to see so many people use the same word to describe The Chocolate War. A good number of you said you thought it was "trash," or "trashy." I just don't understand it. So, I'd like to throw it out to the class for discussion. What makes it trash? I mean, that's a strong word. Those of you who didn't use this word, do you agree with the assessment? I'll stay out of this one as far as replying goes, but I'd be eager to hear anyone's comments. This assessment in your reviews really struck me as an odd but fascinating reoccurance.