Dr. Bickmore's Free Choice Categories for His YA Literature Course Fall 2017

8/16/2017

The Categories:
Distopia, Graphic Novel, Middle Grades, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

This fall I will be teaching an undergraduate Young Adult literature course for the first time in about four years. I am excited about the opportunity. It will be my first time teaching the class since I have started the blog. I am going to make the course planning and resources as transparent as possible. In fact, I will encourage other classes to take a glance at our activities from time to time. Parents or teachers can feel free to follow our reading schedule and comment on their readings. Five of the weeks will be free choice selections based on a genre. I readily admit that I favor contemporary realistic fiction, memoirs, verse novels, non fiction, and historical fiction. Those will be adequately covered in the assigned texts. (See the link to the course's required readings here.) I do take a critical approach through most of the class that focuses on the issues of race, class, and gender. I believe that scholars and teachers of this literature should be able to apply a critical lens to their readings, these happen to be mine, but students in my class can use the lens they choose.

While using critical lenses is important, I also believe students should be exposed to the various genres in the this rich world of young adult literature. I read sporadically in all of these, but would not claim the expertise in these areas that I know some of my colleagues have. Rather than assign a text in each genre, I have selected ten in each as examples that the students can choose from. They are, of course, allowed to explore and select another text as well. The wonderful librarians in the Teacher Development & Resources Library are also compiling added resources for each category as an extension of the course resources. (Thanks Amanda and crew!)

This will be primarily a visual post. I don't want to make to many comments on the books. I want them to explore the reviews of the books on their own with deciding which one I might prefer over the others. Of course, feel free to add a comment about which book your might choose or recommend to others.

YA Dystopian Literature:
All images are links to reader's reviews and place to buy it.

You do notice that I left out The Hunger Games and Divergent series. I am sincerely hoping that my students will at least know about these through the films. Please add your suggestions and or definition of the genre.

Graphic Novels:
All images are link's to reader's reviews and a place to buy the book.

Graphic novels are rich part of young adult literature. There some great books that I didn't include and I can't wait to see what my students select.

Middle Grade Books:
All images are links to reader's reviews and place to buy it.

These category seems to be growing and, I believe, is becoming more difficult to define. I avoid books that are linked to mass market series-- Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson, Theodore Boone, Alex Rider, Stranded, Comeback Kids, and a host of others. I actually like many of these and I hope kids are reading them. I think teachers should know them and support them. At the same time, I wanted to point future teachers to books that might have stronger literary quality and belong, less frequently, to a mass marketing category. I also writers like David Lubar shouldn't be neglected. Maybe I should do a whole post on just how funny I think he is.

YA Fantasy:
All images are links to reader's reviews and place to buy it.

There was a time when I read a great deal of fantasy fiction. I think the field is rich and the description of the what counts as fantasy and what doesn't is confusing. It will be a task that my students will have to wrestle with in a few short weeks.

YA Science Fiction:
All images are links to reader's reviews and place to buy it.

I also struggle to define science fiction. Many of the books listed here might also be listed in the dystopia category. Does it have to involve space or time travel, imagined machinery, genetic manipulation, or worlds in a galaxy far, far away?

Thanks for following. I am interested in how many of you will approach teaching these genres. I would love emails or commentaries.

Until next week.

Steve
[email protected]

Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Dr. Bickmore is a Professor of English Education at UNLV. He is a scholar of Young Adult Literature and past editor of The ALAN Review and a past president of ALAN. He is a available for speaking engagements at schools, conferences, book festivals, and parent organizations. More information can be found on the Contact page and the About page.

Dr. Gretchen Rumohr
Co-Curator

Gretchen Rumohr is a professor of English and writing program administrator at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods. She is also a Co-Director of the UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She lives with her four girls and a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier in west Michigan.

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books

Meet
Evangile Dufitumukiza!

Evangile is a native of Kigali, Rwanda. He is a college student that Steve meet while working in Rwanda as a missionary. In fact, Evangile was one of the first people who translated his English into Kinyarwanda.

Steve recruited him to help promote Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media while Steve is doing his mission work.

He helps Dr. Bickmore promote his academic books and sometimes send out emails in his behalf.

You will notice that while he speaks fluent English, it often does look like an "American" version of English. That is because it isn't. His English is heavily influence by British English and different versions of Eastern and Central African English that is prominent in his home country of Rwanda.

Welcome Evangile into the YA Wednesday community as he learns about Young Adult Literature and all of the wild slang of American English vs the slang and language of the English he has mastered in his beautiful country of Rwanda.

While in Rwanda, Steve has learned that it is a poor English speaker who can only master one dialect and/or set of idioms in this complicated language.

Blogs to Follow

Arlette Miller Smith

8/16/2017 08:34:38 pm

Of course I love the notion of free choice; however, I have never mastered its use in my YA course. Please share your management technique, based on what you've learned to avoid.

This semester I actually have both a stand-alone class & a new YA Learning Community that I'm teaching with Dr. JoEllen Maples!
In my stand- alone course I also assign genres &, like you, I tend to avoid many of the usuals in favor of books that focus more on contemporary racial, cultural, & social issues. For example, We might examine the the modern civil rights movement through different lens---the graphic novel, Darkroom that focuses on an immigrant family's experience in Sixties Alabama; or Kira Kira that includes illness & labor union themes; or Lewis' graphic novel series, March.
On the other hand, similar to your free choice, I do have a selection of about seven YA texts that the students choose from to complete a final group project.

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8/22/2017 04:35:01 am

I really hope that I can meet Dr. Bickmore in the future. I'd love to learn more about the field of literature from him. I believe that I can greatly expand my writing skills through his knowledge. I'm a fan of most of the genre you've listed, so I think that I can really benefit from it. I'll try to apply for the literature course and hopefully pass it in the next semester.

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