|
Dr. Gale
Eaton (401) 874-4651 |
Office hours: by
appointment |
|
GSLIS, Rodman Hall |
e-mail: geaton@uri.edu or geaton@uriacc.uri.edu or eea9226u@uri.edu – all the same account!
Better yet, use WebCT mail so course matters will be safe in one place. |
COURSE
DESCRIPTION: Building,
maintaining, evaluating, and promoting collections to serve the special
interests and information needs of adolescents in public and secondary school
libraries. Books rule, but comics, magazines, Internet sites, MTV, etc. may
also be considered in class discussion and in individual assignments.
This
section of LSC 531 is offered via WebCT. Although it is asynchronous, weekly
participation is required. You will need adequate Internet access, and you will
have to budget at least as much time for this as for a face-to-face course. I
will worry if you don’t post. If you have trouble with the course, I want to
hear from you as soon as possible – you can e-mail me (geaton@uri.edu) or call (401-874-4651) and
leave a message. The last date to drop courses this semester is October 27; the
last date to drop with a billing adjustment is September 16.
OBJECTIVES: By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1.
Assess the
informational and recreational reading needs of young adult users of public,
middle school and high school libraries, taking into account developmental
tasks as well as educational requirements (GSLIS Educational Outcomes 10, 11;
RIDE 3.1);
2.
Develop and implement
a policy for managing the young adult collection, including print, non-print
and online resources, and balancing literary, practical, and ethical considerations
(GSLIS 2, 3, 4: RIDE 2.3);
3.
Locate, use, and
evaluate current and retrospective selection aids to support the collection
development process (GSLIS 4; RIDE 2.3);
4.
Identify and evaluate
resources to meet specific needs of individual users (GSLIS 4, 11; RIDE 2.3);
and
5.
Promote useful and
appealing resources through booktalking, annotated lists, exhibits, Internet
pages, in the context of school library media or public library services (GSLIS
1, 8; RIDE 1.2, 2.4, 3.2, 4.2).
COURSE
REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING:
Reading: The textbook for this course is Literature for Today’s Young Adults, by Alleen Pace Nilsen and
Kenneth L. Donelson, 6th ed. (New York: Addison-Wesley Longman, 2001). Required
to support class discussion are Catcher
in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, and Witness,
by Karen Hesse. To support your selections for additional reading, rely on the
textbook and on standard library selection tools (for instance, School Library Journal; H.W. Wilson’s Junior High and Senior High School Catalog; or annual lists from the Young Adult
Library Services Association, Best Books
for Young Adults and Quick Picks).
For more details see the class reading list.
Basis
for grades:
1.
Reader Response Essay
(15%)
2.
Online Presentation
on YA Information Needs (25%)
3.
Term project or paper
(25%)
4.
Materials log (20%)
5.
Participation (15%)
Interpretation
of grades: A grade of B on an
assignment in this course will mean that you have met the basic requirements
for the assignment; your performance would be acceptable on a professional
level. A grade of A will mean that your performance is not only acceptable, but
distinguished. A grade of C for graduate students indicates failure to perform
at an acceptable level for graduate credit.
General
requirements: All my picky
requirements about file names and sizes, suggestions about writing essays,
etc., are posted separately. Please refer to them as needed. The single
thing that helps the most is something that can’t be required, exactly: if you
take ownership of an assignment and think about how to communicate your own
vision most effectively, it’s likely to be more distinguished than anything
you’d achieve by just asking me what I really want.
”I am not too
concerned about whether the reader knows the theme of the story, or a generalization
about the story. I am more interested in the reader being in the story. I leave
room for readers there inside, if they want to partake. I want to have them
live with the landscape, the time of the book, and the characters of the book’s
world. I am not really sure if the reader will understand all of it. I care
deeply that the story move him, the reader, change her, the reader, and overwhelm
readers with a new sense of knowing.” – Hamilton, Virginia. “Everything of
Value: Moral Realism in Literature for Children.” JOYS 6, 4 (1993):
363-377.
READER
RESPONSE ESSAY (due September 27).
According to reader response theory, meaning is not an invariant thing, coded
in a text for clever readers to guess and the rest of us to feel stupid about.
Real meaning is created by a responsible reader in collaboration with the text,
and not only do different readers find different things in a text, but the same
reader may see different meanings at different times. While you’re thinking
about how YA reading interests are affected by their own development and the
world around them, write either a Memory
Essay or Alternative Essay. The
first objective of this assignment is to revive your memory of what reading was
like when you were an adolescent; the second is to encourage you to integrate
that memory with what you know from the outside about teen readers. How well
does your subjective knowledge match what the experts say?
Memory
essay: Find a book you
remember from your YA years. It could be fiction or nonfiction, a book you had
to read for school, or a book you were forbidden to read. It could be the
latest in a series all your friends were reading, too. It could be something
you read in desperation – the only unread book left in the summer house, left
there decades ago by an adolescent uncle. It could even be a comic book or a
magazine (those are hard to find again – you might end up comparing the Mad Magazine you remember to a newer,
racier version). Trouble remembering? Check out http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jad22/index.html#Categories
– a “First Lines: A Sort of Literacy Test” – and see if the playing the game
reminds you of what you’ve read.
Before rereading your book, write down
what you can remember. What did you like or dislike about the book? What do you
remember most – an incident, an image, a phrase, a mood? How did you feel about
the book back then? Why do you think you felt that way? Was the context of your
reading important?
As you reread the book, keep notes.
What do you like or dislike about the book now? Have your perceptions of it
changed? Do you see meanings you didn’t see before? Do the author’s techniques
or mannerisms impress you differently? How have you changed as a reader? Jot
things down as you think of them.
Write a 3- to 6-page essay comparing
your two readings of the book. Include an introduction; enough information
about the book to make the essay meaningful; a description of your first
reading; a description of your second reading; a comparison of the two; and a
conclusion.
Alternative: First, review what you know about literary criticism
(chapter 2 of your textbook may be helpful) and about YA development. Then,
read a controversial YA novel. (If you can’t think of one, check a list of
contested books, like the YA Hit List.)
As you read the book, keep notes. What meanings do you see in it? Given what
you know about teenagers, at first hand or through your theoretical reading,
what meanings would you expect them to see in it? You may read criticism and
reviews (both by the book’s would-be censors and its defenders) if you feel
this will be useful to you; remember to cite what you read. Write a 4- to
6-page essay discussing the book’s literary quality and the sort of meaning you
would expect an attentive teenaged reader to construct from it. Support your
opinions.
These essays are difficult to
grade—especially the memory essays, because they are about private truths. But
although you start from subjective realities that only you know, the object is
to express that private knowledge in ways that show its relevance to more
general experience. Criteria for grading will include:
·
Demonstrates
sensitivity to the text, and awareness of how the text helps guide readers’ reactions
(25%)
·
Demonstrates
understanding of adolescent development, and of how readers’ own knowledge and
perceptions help to create meaning (25%)
·
Coherent; could
easily be understood by a stranger who is not familiar with the book, because
all necessary information is given (20%)
·
Logical; internally
consistent in comparison and conclusions (15%)
·
Organized clearly,
well-written, correct grammar & spelling (10%)
·
Neat; double-spaced,
good margins, legible type, etc. (5%)
Online
Presentation on YA Information Needs
(due one Saturday in October; sign up
for your date at first class meeting): An on-line presentation to the class,
demonstrating how library services and resources can be marketed to a carefully
identified group of constituents. You may choose to do an individual or a group
presentation (see below for group suggestions). You may mount your
presentation on your own website, giving your instructor the URL so a link can
be created from the class homepage; or, if your format is compatible, you can send
your presentation as a WebCT attachment to the instructor for uploading. No
attachment over 500K (which is already too big for comfort) will be accepted
(see general requirements). This
assignment should be useful to your classmates, so avoid nifty creations that
demand new plug-ins and have long download times – low-tech presentations are
usually easier to view.
The object of the assignment is to apply a marketing approach to
outreach:
1.
Identify a group of
library constituents – kids, teachers, or any other realistic target group –
who need information or recreational materials on a specific topic (such as
sex, college applications, fashion, or Shakespeare). This assignment is about
their needs, not ours – not about how to get them to use library materials, but
about what resources libraries should make available, and why, and how those
resources can be made accessible and appealing to those who need
them. Think “information needs” and “communication needs” and “information-seeking
behavior.” Think “user-oriented.” And since our core constituents here are
adolescents, think “developmental needs.”
2.
Identify materials
and sources that will help fill their need (such as books, pamphlets, CD-ROMs,
Internet sites, list-servs, or community agencies). Content isn’t all
that matters. Context matters (teachers may need professional literature, but
have no time to read it – can you find time for them?). Taste matters. Learning
styles matter. So evaluate your resources on the basis of use; how will
they work?
3.
Develop a strategy to
meet your constituents’ needs and/or get those good resources into their hands.
Possible strategies include programs, lesson plans, and handouts; annotated
lists, booktalks, clubs, displays, pathfinders, poetry slams, reference
scavenger hunts, teen-run literary magazines, information and referral
services, and YA pages on the library’s Internet site. The single most powerful
strategy is one you can use in combination with almost any other strategy:
involve YAs themselves in designing services to YAs.
Criteria
for grading:
Your presentation should: 1) outline
your rationale (who the target group is, what their need is, and what
characteristics and circumstances will affect their choice of format, for instance);
2) define your strategy (what you’re going to do, why you think it will work,
and how you’re going to evaluate its success); and 3) if possible online, give
a very quick, selective demonstration of what your program might be like.
Criteria for grading will include:
·
Target group and
purpose clearly and persuasively identified (25%)
·
Materials well
selected: useful, relevant, of good quality (25%)
·
Strategy effective:
simple, appealing, informative; presenter recognizes any potential problems in
the strategy and proposes solutions; planned evaluation is easy to implement
and clearly linked to purpose (25%)
·
Presentation clear,
well organized, easy to follow; visuals relevant, well designed; presentation
is accessible and does not exceed normal download capacities (25%)
Notice that analysis
of your group’s information needs and information-seeking behavior is really
key here. A demonstration of your strategy (like a long annotated list of
resources, or the text of a really fine booktalk, or pictures of a great
display) can be a part of your presentation, but not the major part – no matter
how good it is, it can’t stand alone for this assignment. Your planning,
development, and evaluation have to be communicated, as well.
Group presentations: What if two or more of you are interested in a given topic
(such as mother-daughter book discussion groups; or using a MultiUser Domain,
or MUD, to teach effective communications skills; or finding ways to introduce
the culture of an immigrant group whose members are mostly illiterate in their
own language)? We could have more than one presentation on any topic – or, if
there’s enough for all of you to do, you may want to collaborate. Group
presentations should include all the planning, development, and evaluation
components required of individual presentations; presentation of the chosen
strategies may go beyond what’s possible for single individuals. All members of
a group are expected to participate fully.
TERM
PROJECT (due November 8): The
final project may be either 1) a traditional term paper on a collection
development issue; 2) a collection development project; or 3) an alternative
that will contribute to your expertise in collection development—be sure to
negotiate it with me in advance.
Term
Paper. Write a 8- to 12-page
essay on a YA collection development issue. Some possible topics:
·
How have changes in
the publishing industry over the past 10 or 20 years affected YA collections?
·
Should YA books in
public libraries be interfiled with adult books?
·
Should online reviews
replace standard sources like SLJ and
High School Catalog in the library
selection process?
·
How does the
selection of paid online reference services affect the overall collection?
·
Is there a role for a
comics collection in your high school library?
·
Should the Internet
Use policy be integrated with the collection management policy?
For good paper ideas, scan journals or
browse the course list of supplemental readings. Criteria for grading will
include:
·
Topic useful,
interesting, and well-researched (15%)
·
Coherent; includes
all necessary information (10%)
·
Treatment
demonstrates independent understanding, tact, original angle (15%)
·
Logical; main ideas
clearly emphasized, minor points subordinated (25%)
·
Well-written; not too
much reliance on lists, quotes, or internet downloads; correct grammar,
spelling, and citations (20%)
·
Neat; double-spaced,
good margins, legible type, etc. (5%)
Grading
bias: Make it interesting
and original. Well, of course I try to be fair. But if the paper is actually
fun to read, I won’t have to bend over backwards. Here are a few
suggestions, just to get you nicely tied up in knots before you begin:
·
Review the general
requirements.
·
Put your name and a
good descriptive title right up at the top of your first page.
·
Shoot for 8 to 12
pages. At an average of 250 words per page, that’ll be about 2000-3000 words.
But length isn’t the most important consideration – don’t get hung up on
it.
·
Have a good thesis
statement near the beginning, to let your reader know what your topic is exactly
and where you plan to go with it. It’s usually better to pick a narrow, concrete
topic rather than a big, abstract one. The first problem with “Censorship” as a
topic is that it’s too broad. Try to cover that much territory in a 10-page
paper, and you usually end up saying the same pious things about the main
points that everybody else has already said. Note that a provocative
question can function as a thesis statement. A couple of examples:
o
“The popularity of
Harry Potter has been discussed as a new phenomenon, but in fact it’s a very
old one. This paper will explore similarities between Rowling’s series and the
work of Charles Dickens, whose plot devices, characters, and marketing
strategies made him a celebrity novelist over a century ago.”
o
“How do author
websites affect teen reading habits? Do the sites lead potential readers to the
authors’ work, or are they primarily frequented by existing fans? Do readers
understand printed works differently because of information picked up at the
sites? Does reader comment at interactive sites influence the writers?”
·
Argue one side of an
issue that has at least two valid sides – an issue on which reasonable people
could differ. (But don’t argue ad hominem,
calling your opponents ugly names or imputing questionable motives to them –
this is supposed to be more scholarly than polemic, and Rush Limbaugh is not a
good model.)
·
Have more continuous
text than bulleted lists or quotes – even the great Jesse Shera sometimes wrote
things that looked as if he just wrote an occasional sentence to link the
quotes together, but it’s more fun (at least for an old fuddy-duddy like me) to
read your coherent ideas. (Some people end with a quote. But why give somebody
else the last word in your own paper?)
·
Whether you use verbatim
quotes or not, cite whatever you take from other sources – and use enough
sources so I’ll know you didn’t just make up your good coherent ideas out of
whole cloth.
·
A word about
“register,” or academic tone. Yes, your own ideas should be the core of this
paper. Yes, it’s OK to use the first person singular pronoun. BUT you should
also remember that this is an academic essay, and it’s not supposed to be so
personal and chatty as a letter or even a speech at a library conference. (I
worry that my class notes may be too chatty and set you a bad example, because
I try to write them as if we were talking.) A good academic paper can be both
lively and impersonal. You can include details drawn from your own experience,
but the trick is to make them generally useful to readers you don’t know.
Pretend you’re writing a journal article – if you were describing a program you
probably wouldn’t say, “We decided to have the program meet on Tuesdays because
after four hours of acrimonious phone calls we were able to get three
part-timers to rearrange their schedules to cover it”; you certainly wouldn’t
detail what everybody said in those phone calls; you’d settle for something
more like, “Coverage was a challenge, but with the help of flexible staff
members we found a weekly slot.” And if you were writing about an author, you
probably wouldn’t say, “I decided to write about Lemony Snicket because I
really can’t stand him but so many of our kids think he’s awesome,” although
that might be the exact truth – you’d probably say something more general,
like, “Lemony Snicket is one of the best-hated authors on the bestseller lists.
Many adults see his work as shallow, negative, exploitative, and shamelessly
commercial. How does he appeal to so many young readers? Is it all marketing,
or is there more to it?”
Collection
Development Project. The object
of this project is to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the selection
process. You will be expected to state your objectives for the materials,
develop criteria for selecting them, use at least three tools to identify and
select them, and outline procedures for evaluating the materials.
1.
Identify a portion of
some library collection (real or imaginary) which you will choose to upgrade.
Explain your rationale for this decision: Is this subject area heavily used?
Does the library’s mission statement, or its collection development policy,
call for collection in this area? Are current materials worn, or out of date?
Can you confirm your impressions with hard evidence (e.g., average copyright
date, turnover rate, annual assigments)? Remember, the goal is to make
library resources supportive of users’ information needs. You may include
non-book materials and even non-owned resources (like World Wide Web sites) if
they contribute to that goal.
2.
Formulate your
criteria for materials to be added to this part of the collection. These criteria
should be consistent with the library’s overall selection policy, but clearly related to your rationale for
the upgrade: what qualities would materials in this area have to have, in order to do what you want them to do in
your collection? (If you just quote your library’s collection development
policy at this point, it will probably be too general. For instance, you might
be updating the craft section. Why? What’s the demand, and what’s wrong with
the books you already have? If you think about it, you can identify criteria
for crafts that wouldn’t be relevant to poetry – cost and availability of
materials, for instance, and safety of procedures.)
3.
Identify at least
five items which you will consider for purchase (or acquisition—you might be
able to acquire a WWW site for free), and locate at least two reviews of each.
(Use at least three reviewing services in all.) To locate additional reviews,
try sources like Book Review Index or
Junior High School Catalog. Consider
reviews that are available online.
4.
Evaluate the reviews.
How many of your criteria are addressed in each review? What questions are left
unanswered? (Can you tell from the reviews of craft books how much the materials
cost, how hard they are to get, and how dangerous they are to use?) Do the
reviewers address other criteria, which you considered less important for your
purposes? (Some people find that it helps to make a grid, plotting criteria
against reviews.) Do reviews of each title agree? If not, do you have reason to
put more confidence in one than another?
5.
Conclude with your
own thoughts on this process. What are the strengths and weaknesses of
selecting from reviews? Are online reviews as useful as, or more useful than,
print reviews? Do online quotes of print reviews—for instance, at
Amazon.com—contain all the same information? Is it next to impossible to find
any reviews in your area—let alone more than one for each title? Did the reviews
really get at your criteria, or did they lead you off in different directions?
Emphasize collection-development ideas you can generalize, and remember the
original information needs you were addressing.
This whole procedure is unrealistic –
it’s not something you would normally do in real life, where you may suddenly
have $1000 or more to spend within two weeks or it will disappear. Finding
reviews takes time; plotting grids to see what they’re telling you and what
they’re omitting takes longer. Use the exercise as a chance to evaluate the
sources you have to rely on.
Criteria for grading will include:
·
Coherent; includes
all necessary information, logically organized (25%)
·
Persuasive rationale;
useful criteria for selection and evaluation in target area (25%)
·
Makes use of 3
standard selection sources (for a B) or more; evaluates usefulness of selection
sources (25%)
·
Organized clearly,
well-written; correct grammar, spelling, and citations (20%)
·
Neat; double-spaced,
good margins, legible type, etc. (5%)
Grading
bias: Focus on the
information needs and information-seeking behavior of your library’s core
constituents. Here are a few suggestions:
·
Review the general
requirements.
·
Put your name and a
good descriptive title right up at the top of your first page. “Collection
Development Paper” is not a very good title. “Updating the Meteorology
Collection at Jello Middle School,” or “Supporting the High School Debate
Team,” or “Meeting the Standards: Abolition and Slave Narratives at George
Stevens Academy” would be more promising.
·
Shoot for 7-10 pages.
At an average of 250 words per page, that’ll be about 1750-2500 words. But
length is even less important here than in the standard essay.
·
Consider making a
grid with your top criteria on one axis & review media on the other axis,
so you can see which sources address which criteria. Example, for purely
fictitious reviews of a purely fictitious craft book:
|
Journal |
Difficulty |
Cost of
materials |
Safety |
Other books |
|
SLJ |
fairly easy |
cheap |
not mentioned |
3 more
appealing |
|
Horn Book |
easy |
not too
expensive |
sharp knife
req. |
not mentioned |
|
BCCB |
moderate |
not mentioned |
fumes |
not mentioned |
Grid entries don’t need to be that
elaborate; you could have “Y” and “N” and “N/A” codes, for instance.
·
List the books and
other materials you evaluate as possible additions to your collection, including
author, title, publisher, date, and any additional data points (recommended
grade levels, ISBN numbers) you need. List your review sources, including
dates, volume numbers, issues & pages cited. Cite anything else you
take from other sources in a separate reference list or bibliography.
·
A word about
“register,” or academic tone. Yes, your own ideas should be the core of this
paper. Yes, it’s OK to use the first person singular pronoun. BUT you should
also remember that this is an academic essay, and the focus is supposed to be
on user needs. In your introduction, when you describe your rationale for the
part of the collection you choose to update, don’t wax autobiographical about
how the assignment affected you and how you groped for a topic – focus instead
on the objective reasons for developing that collection.
o
Not: “Dr. Eaton
mentioned in class that the average age of school library media collections
seems to be between 15 and 20 years, and my undergraduate degree was in
astronomy, so I thought it would be interesting to check out the astronomy
collection at my local middle school.”
o
More like: “New
standards mandate that Rhode Island middle school students should study X. But
are the resources in place to support their studies? Investigating the collection
at Y Middle School, I found....”
MATERIALS
LOG: (due November 22).
During the term, keep a file of young adult books and media which you read or
view. Examine a minimum of 30 items, including: 1) Catcher in the Rye and Witness;
2) at least 6 nonfiction books; 3) at least 2 print items other than books
(like magazines, comics, or graphic novels); 4) at least two books of poetry,
drama, or arts that encourage YA participation; 5) at least 6 “realistic” YA
novels; 6) at least 4 examples of “genre” fiction, representing at least 2
different genres; and 7) at least 3 non-print popular media (such as TV shows,
movies, top-40 radio shows, computer games or Internet sites – preferably not
too educational). Add this all up and you get 25, which leaves you some
electives.
Selection: Try to pick things which are excellent (or at least
well-recommended) and stand a chance of being read by contemporary kids. Rely
on your text, annual YALSA lists, good reviews, and leads from young adults you
know. Do not rely on personal or library collections which have not been
updated and used lately. Balance your selections – look for a wide variety of
authors, genres, and nonfiction subjects.
Required information for each entry: 1) which of the 7 categories it’s in; 2) a standard bibliographic
citation; 3) the source of your recommendation for the item (e.g., “textbook,”
“SLJ review, 12/90,” “Newbery Honor
Book,” “classmate’s booktalk,” “teenager next door”). This is not meant as a
busywork requirement. The assignment should increase your familiarity, not only
with the literature, but with the sources you should use for building your
collection.
Optional information for each entry: 1) symbols for age appropriateness, literary quality, potential
popularity (see VOYA); 2) an
evaluative review; 3) a short annotation; 4) notes on concerns you had as you
read the book; 5) ideas you had about using the book; or 6) anything else that
might be useful to you in remembering and using it. You may want to include
different optional elements for different items. Please indicate any
entries where you would especially like feedback (on your skill in reviewing or
annotating, for instance).
Organization: Please alphabetize your entries within the 7 required
categories.
Format: Preferred format for hard-copy submissions is
wordprocessed on 8 1/2” by 11” paper, fastened by a staple or paper clip (no
binders). For the return of your file, please provide a self-addressed envelope
with adequate postage. Preferred for e-mail submissions: a single file (not a
separate one for each entry or each group of entries); not over 500K; capable
of being read in Word.
Criteria for grading: B = 30 items,
including all required items, with correct bibliographic entries and acceptable
recommendations. You may be graded up if your log includes more than 30 entries
or if your entries include features which make them more useful or interesting,
such as clever annotation; notes which are individual, concise, and evocative;
evaluations which show literary sensitivity or empathy for the young adult
audience; excellent format and organization; or other forms of excellence which
I haven’t yet thought of, but will appreciate when you come up with them.
WEEKLY
POSTINGS (due regularly
throughout the semester): Your participation grade will be based on what you
post, both to the general class discussion and to small group exercises (the
WebCT equivalent of them, anyhow).
It is expected that you will post to
the class fairly regularly – on average at least once or twice a week. The
“lecture” notes will include questions to get the discussion started, or you
can comment on other aspects of the week’s topic. Substantive postings may
consist of:
·
Responses to the
class notes, or to classmates’ responses
·
Requests for
clarification (from instructor or classmate), or questions to get us thinking
about angles we may not have considered
·
Information about
useful resources on the topic; URLs, conference dates, etc.
·
Observed YA reactions
to book genres and titles
·
Etc.
Discussion and disagreement are fine;
civility is of course expected at all times. A few things to avoid:
·
Posting very long
messages, including thoughts on several different topics – it’s better to post
short ones, and if you have ideas about different topics, post them with
different descriptive headings
·
Posting a message,
then proofreading it and posting a revised version so everybody gets to read it
twice – especially if it has an attachment that takes time to download
·
Posting messages to
the general discussion like “Great job, Sadie!” – it’s good to be mutually
supportive, and messages like this can be especially nice in an online
environment where presenters have no other way to tell if you like what they’re
saying, but you can send your message to Sadie individually using the mail
feature
·
Using the “reply”
feature to send a message on a whole new topic – it’s better to use “compose”
and pick a descriptive heading
Well, you get the idea. In grading your
participation, I won’t necessarily mark you up for sending more than two
messages a week, but I will for thoughtful contribution to the class – whether
your contribution takes the form of useful information or insightful comment on
a classmate’s point.
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LSC
531: Reading Interests of Young Adults In-person sessions will be held in
Worcester on Saturdays. All other sessions are asynchronous. Instructor’s
course notes will be posted by the given date, to support discussion. Discussion
on that date’s topic should be concentrated in that week; discussion topics
will be archived after two weeks. Assignments should be received by the
instructor by 5 p.m. on the due date. |
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Date |
Topic |
Assignment due |
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Sept 6 |
9-12: Adolescent development and
society |
In-class memory exercise |
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Sept 13 |
Young adult readers: Literacy and
interests |
Text: Chapters 1, 10 |
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Sept 20 |
Coming of age: Catcher in the Rye |
Annotated list due |
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Sept 27 |
Collection management |
Reader Response Essay |
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Oct 4 |
Mini-booktalks: your favorite
nonfiction |
Online information needs presentations
due in October; see sign-up sheet for your date |
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Oct 11 |
Nonfiction I: Curricular support |
Text: Chapter 9 (pp. 259-297) |
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Oct 18 |
Nonfiction II: Entertainment and
self-help |
Text: Chapter 12 |
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Oct 25 |
Popular media: Magazines, comics,
Gameboy, etc. |
Text: Chapter 3 |
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Nov 1 |
Literary genres: Drama and Poetry |
Text: Chapters 9 (pp. 297 ff.), 11 |
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Nov 8 |
Realistic fiction: Family and Friends |
Term project due |
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Nov 15 |
Genre fiction I: Romance, Westerns,
and Mysteries |
Text: Chapters 5, 6 |
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Nov 22 |
Genre fiction II: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and the End of the World |
Materials log due |
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Dec 6 |
Mini-booktalks: your favorite fiction |
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LSC 531: Online
Presentation Signup, Fall, 2003 For this
assignment, you will take a marketing approach to the promotion of YA books
and resources. Start with the kids, and examine their needs carefully before
deciding what the library’s response should be. The needs can be
school-related or personal, and the responses can be SLMC lesson plans,
public library programs, or interagency activities; they don’t always have to
involve face-to-face programming, although that’s often the best. Book talks
are great, but if the need you’re addressing is for information teens don’t
want anybody to know they need, are there sneakier, less intrusive ways to
get it to them? How can you meet them where they are? Your topic does
not have to match the topic of the day. Your presentation will be due on the
date you choose. You may work individually or in small groups. |
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Date |
Presenter(s) |
Topic?
(Preliminary) |
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October 4 Nonfiction &
Lesson Plans |
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October 11 |
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October 18 |
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October 25 Media |
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