Getting familiar with Young Adult Literature (YAL)

Assignment 1
Read Chapters 1 & 2 that talks about the adolescent. Answer for yourself, 

"Were your readings as an adolescent part of that perspective?"
Assignment 2
I would like you to sum up your definition of an adolescent in one sentence (it can be a long sentence . Did the first two chapters change your mind as to what an adolescent really is? 

Post your response to this in the Week 2 forum "What is an adolescent anyway?" in the CLASS DISCUSSIONS block. Let's all help lend to easy online communication. Please use proper forum posting protocol.

Assignment 3
Write a literacy autobiography. This paper should be typed using APA style and should describe what you remember about learning to read and write. You may want to call a parent or sibling to help you with the details. You may want to share struggles as well as joys in learning to read and write. Some questions to ask yourself as you travel back to your preschool years are: 

• Who read to me the most? When and where?
• What was my favorite book as a child?
• Were my friends readers too?
• What were my first writing experiences? Do I have any of those early papers?
• What were my experiences as a reader and writer when I was in elementary school? middle school? high school? college?
• What kind of assignments did I have to do as a reader and writer during each level of schooling?

I never require a number of pages in assignments. I know that you will write enough to explain your situation in learning to read and write. Be sure to be descriptive so I can picture you as a young learner and tell me about one experience that you have as an adolescent reader and writer.

Upload your assignment file to the Literacy Autobiography link under Week 2 in the DROP BOX block.
Assignment 4
Read one of the newer winner or honor books list from the more recent Newbery list (see American Library Association link – ALA).
Just pick one of the Winner or Honor List/Newbery books from 1999 - 2009. As you are reading, I’d like you to jot down or on sticky notes what you’re thinking as you are reading. Here are some examples of questions you may ask yourself: 

• Why is that character acting like that?
• Where is the author going with this?
• Has something similar happened to me? (text to self, T-S)
• Have I read a book that deals with some of the same issues? (text to text, T-T)
• Is there something on a more global scale happening like this? (text to world, T-W)
• Perhaps there is language in the book that is particularly descriptive or interesting.
• Maybe there is a literary device that the author used that helped you to better understand the books.
• You may want to even make a list of vocabulary words that you found interesting.

Write all of this down.

Assignment 5

I will be dividing the class into Groups for small group discussions. In the GROUPS block of this course you will find your group forum, where you can discuss what you have read with your small group.