Adolescents’ Literature, Fall 2013

This year’s Adolescents’ Literature course is structured differently than in the past. In order to make the class feel a bit smaller and to help highlight a larger breadth of texts, I’ve divided the class into three cohorts of students that will read thematically linked books each week. For instance, next week is “John Green Week” and we’ll read Looking For Alaska, Paper Towns, and The Fault in Our Stars (so that a third of the class gets in a good cry before the semester is too far along). As there is a mix of English education students, creative writing students, and this-class-sounded-fun-so-I-signed-up-and-now-I’m-in-a-class-with-thousands-of-pages-of-required-reading-oh-well students, this approach will help meet the more specific needs of the class. I may regret this as the instructor as I effectively tripled the reading I’ll be doing for the class (any teachers that run book circles probably knows what I’m going through).

As always, I’m encouraging anyone to follow along and join us. If you’re interested in participating in our online conversations, please join this Figment group (things are quiet for now, but we’ll be using the site starting next week). The full reading list is here. And for those that are feeling a little lazy, you can see the entire list of authors below.

  • Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
  • Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson
  • Feed, MT Anderson
  • Go Ask Alice, Anonymous(-ish)
  • Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
  • Year of the Beasts, Cecil Castellucci and Nate Powell
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
  • City of Bones, Cassandra Clare
  • The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier
  • Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
  • For The Win, Cory Doctorow
  • Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow
  • Romiette and Julio, Sharon Draper
  • Fat Kid Rules the World, K.L. Going
  • Looking For Alaska, John Green
  • Paper Towns, John Green
  • The Fault In Our Stars, John Green
  • The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
  • Crank, Ellen Hopkins
  • The Name of the Star, Maureen Johnson
  • Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan
  • I Am Number Four, Pittacus Lore
  • Sloppy Firsts, Megan McCafferty
  • Monster, Walter Dean Myer
  • TTYL, Lauren Myracle
  • Wonder, R.J. Palacio
  • Luna, Julie Anne Peters
  • Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell
  • Rainbow Boys, Alex Sanchez
  • Buried Onions, Gary Soto
  • Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys
  • Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
  • Runaways, Brian K. Vaughan
  • Saga, Brian K. Vaughan
  • Y: The Last Man, Brian K. Vaughan
  • Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
  • Gossip Girl, Cecily von Ziegesar
  • The Pigman, Paul Zindel
  • The Book Thief, Markus, Zusak

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