Missouri Western State College
Division of Liberal Arts & Sciences
English 400: Adolescent Literature (LAS Focus: Writing)
Spring, 2003
Class
time and place: 3:30 - 6:20 p.m. W in 108 Murphy (JGM)
Dr.
Cadden’s Office: 222-F Eder Hall (SS/C)
Office Hours: 11:00 a.m. -
12:30 p.m. T/Th; 1:30 - 3:30 pm W; and by appointment.
Office
Phone: 271-4576
E-mail: cadden@missouriwestern.edu
Web Page: http://www.missouriwestern.edu/eflj/faculty/cadden.html (A
copy of this syllabus can be found here.)
Course
Description:
ENG
400 is an introduction to the genre of literature for the young adult
("YA" or "Adolescent" literature), that appeals to YA from
middle school to high school and beyond.
In this course we will discuss the specific nature of YA literature as a
genre different from both “adult”
and “YA” literature by both degree and kind.
As both an LAS
Writing Focus course and an upper-division English course for majors, ENG 400
will involve writing in different forms.
I will be drawing on your ability to summarize, analyze, critique and
use language in clear and sophisticated ways.
Be prepared for a course that will involve a great deal of both reading
and writing.
Prerequisite: Successful
completion of ENG 108 or 112. This course is required in the BSE program;
however, this class does not count as an English literature elective for English
majors.
Required Reading:
Chbosky, Stephen. The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Cisneros,
Sandra. The House on Mango Street.
Crutcher, Chris. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.
---.
Whale Talk.
Donelson, Kenneth and Alleen Nilsen. Literature for Today’s Young Adults.
5th Edition.
Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust.
Hughes, Monica. The Keeper of the Isis Light.
Klause, Annette. The Silver Kiss
Le Guin, Ursula. A Wizard of Earthsea.
Evaluation:
Participation:
10%
Midterm Exam:
20%
Final Exam: 20%
Bibliographic
Essay on Author, Genre, or Theme: 25%
Discussion
list: 25%
Attendance:
The MWSC Policy Guide states that “each
instructor will determine and make known to the class the requirement for
attendance” (45). If you don’t come to
class you will obviously jeopardize your class participation grade. I will not quantify how much presence equals
what grade. I will be judging your
total participation performance, not just presence. I can also tell you that the final exam draws heavily from class
work. Also, since you are responsible
for all announcements in class, you run the risk of missing important
information regarding papers; I will not accept absence as an excuse for
ignorance. In short, if you’re not
here, you’re going to suffer through other assignments directly and
indirectly. I will not formally assign
a number of absences to failure; I’ll allow those things will be related
naturally.
Academic Dishonesty: All cases in which
students pass off others’ work as their own will be referred to the Dean of
Student Affairs. Students also run the risk of failing the assignment as well
as the course, depending on the magnitude and nature of the offense. If you are unsure about how you are using
sources, please check with me.
Late and Missing Work:
I reserve the right to refuse any late work.
Revision Policy:
All written work may be revised any time up until the revision due date
(please see calendar). I require that
all revisions be accompanied by the original graded paper that contains my
comments.
Policy on Students with Disabilities:
Any student in this course who has a disability which requires different
contexts for either evaluation or expression should contact me in the first few
weeks of the course so that those needs can be considered.
Calendar (Subject to Constant
and Inexplicable Change):
Jan. 15: Introduction to the course
(Small; Gallo; D&N Ch. 1); explanation of assignments.
Jan. 22: The House on Mango Street;
D&N 52-53, 241, 296.
Jan. 29: Out of the Dust; D&N
Ch. 7. (http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/fall98/brown.html),
Feb. 5: Poetry for
and by young adults: sharing and discussing what’s out there; D&N 345, 351
Feb. 12: The Perks of Being a
Wallflower.
Feb. 19: A Wizard of Earthsea; Le
Guin’s “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” (distributed); D&N Ch. 6; Midterm Exam take-home distributed.
Feb. 26: Keeper of the Isis Light;
D&N Ch. 6.
Mar. 5: Midterm Exam.
Mar. 19: The Silver Kiss; D&N
125-133,149-157; midterm grades due.
Mar.
28 is the last day to drop classes.
Mar. 26 and April 2: Chris Crutcher focus: Whale Talk, Staying
Fat for Sarah Byrnes, and a third Crutcher book of your choice.
April 9: Censorship (Fine;
Stern--distributed); Visit by Ms. Mindy Matter; D&N Ch. 12; Bibliographic Essays Due.
April 16: Picture books for a Young Adult
Audience (http://www.uiowa.edu/~crl/bibliographies/picbooks.htm)
April 23: YA Film: John Hughes and Beyond. Current trends and parallels to print
fiction; course evaluations. (Revisions
of Bibliographic Essay Due)
Final: Tuesday, May 6 2:00-3:50.
English
400: Adolescent Literature Dr.
Cadden
Bibliographic Essay
Worth: 25%
Length: ~10-15 pages.
The Task
You
will choose a particular author, theme, or genre in YA literature in order
to investigate it further. You will
choose a number of representative works by that person, relevant to the
idea/theme, or in the genre in question (the number will vary according to your
project, but six to ten would be sufficient), and write a bibliographic essay
about the works as a whole. The goal
here is to become well acquainted with one small piece of the big picture of YA
literature.
Who or What?
Author: It would be wise of you to choose someone
who is a good fit for the readers you’ll encounter in the grades you want to
teach. I also encourage you to start
early looking for a writer you think you’d like to learn more about. I would like for you to investigate as many
different writers and illustrators as you can.
If I think your choice is either inappropriate or if I just don’t know
the name, I’ll likely talk to you about it.
An alternative to picking one author
is to choose another context of origin to examine. You might look at books written by people from a particular place
(region, country), ethnicity, tradition, or belief system. Books by Japanese-American writers (as
opposed to simply being about Japanese-Americans, which might be written by a
non-member of that ethnic group).
Theme/idea: You might decide that you want to look at
older and recent books about orphans, poverty, AIDS, divorce, death, circuses,
animal characters, environmentalism, Christianity, gay-lesbian issues,
talented/challenged characters, immigration, dance, homelessness, birthdays,
dragons, etc.
Genre/mode: Adventure stories, folktale sub-genres
(creation myths, Marchen tales, trickster tales, etc.), picture books (though
this would have to be paired with another genre or theme or
author/illustrator), comedy, tragedy, irony/satire, parody, coming-of-age
stories, mysteries, travel, historical fiction, dream stories, poetry (of various
sorts), science fiction, diaries/journal-forms, utopia/dystopia, etc.
Where?
Where
to find names or ideas from which to choose?
Other than your own or your child’s reading histories, I suggest that
you pore over the bibliography information that I handed you, the websites
listed on my links page (http://www.missouriwestern.edu/~cadden/), the list of resources
on young adult literature at our library (link on my web page; see Jim Mulder
or any other reference librarian at the MWSC library), the local library’s YA
section, and local bookstores. I’ll be
very glad and interested in talking about possible choices for you depending on
interests you might have. Start looking
at options right away so that you can begin reading and taking notes. I may have some ideas about books that fit
your interests as well and may be able to steer you toward a more manageable
focus within your chosen area, so please don’t hesitate to employ me as a
bibliographic resource!
How?
Let’s
consider a sense of format that also deals with matters of focus. I won’t give you a page limit here, but you
might consider that in terms of double-spaced pages, you could devote a page to
introductory materials (see below), three-quarters of a page or a page for each
book, and a page or more of conclusions.
This might mean that you have seven, ten, twelve pages. I think that that you’ll find that the more
texts you use, the easier this assignment will be, ironically. “How so, Oh Wacky Professor?” Well, more texts makes it easier for you to
make more connections among the body of work and, therefore, enable you to come
to more, better, and specific conclusions.
The
introductory material: briefly tell us a bit about the author/theme/genre that
you’ve chosen. What interests you in
the subject and what exactly will we be discussing? What have you ruled out in the course of defining this
focus? Then tell us a bit about the
main connections you’ll be covering across the books--the “thread(s)” that ties
them together. If I’ve chosen Gary
Paulsen, for instance, I’ll probably note that he tends to write about boys in
adventurous outdoor circumstances.
There are other links, too. Give
us a sense of focus, then.
The
body of the essay is devoted to discussing each book in turn, focusing on the
thread(s) that connect(s) each to the others, but also explaining other observations about the book that might not
have anything to do with the other books.
Somewhere in that book discussion you should summarize the book for us,
as briefly as you can (brevity here is tough!)
What makes a bibliographic essay distinctive from other essays is that
the writer assumes that the reader isn’t
familiar with the books. The summary
needn’t be first, but it should be in there.
Be style-conscious: if your
transitions suffer from a formulaic approach for discussing each book, play
around with each mini-discussion. Don’t
feel the need to make each book one paragraph of discussion; it may take a
couple of paragraphs to discuss each book.
The
conclusion of the essay is very important, and not simply a formality in which
you sum up what you’ve said--not simply one paragraph that begins “in
conclusion” (yuck). The conclusion
should be where you share, in more detail, what you think makes this study
interesting, significant, and useful, and where it might be taken from
here. Dwell further on the threads that
unite them. Feel free to point out
shortcomings or problems. What, after
having looked at these books in comparison, is your thoughts about trends,
limitations, successes in the area of study?
You
should include a bibliography that cites the primary and any secondary
materials used. You aren’t required to
use a certain number of secondary materials, just what suits your task. You may have consulted a website, biography,
journal article . . . cite those. Please use MLA style (available on
line--http://www.mla.org or in the MLA Handbook available in my office or the
library).
There
are several sources which will give bibliographies of books published by an
author including: Something About
the Author (Ref. PN 451 .S696), Contemporary Authors (Ready Ref. Z
1224 .C761 .A1), and the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Ref. PS 221
.D554). There also were several other biographical sources mentioned on the
MWSC bibliography linked to my web page, but some of them are getting quite
old. For additional sources of
biographical information you may want to consult the following index: Biography and Genealogy Master Index
(Available on the computers, and on Index Table 5).
A
word of caution: no published list of an author’s work is completely
current. You need to check the date of
the publication of the bibliography.
Often the bibliography will not include the author's works published
during the previous year or two.
For
more recent information on new books published, you should consult the various
periodicals mentioned on the bibliography and more general periodicals such as Publisher's
Weekly. Many of these periodicals
are indexed through the Reader's Guide Abstracts, Humanities Index, or
Masterfile Elite on the library computers.
Another
source of more recent information is the Baker & Taylor CD-ROM, available
on most of the computers in the Reference room. It lists books that are being published, as well as many which
have gone out of print. You can search by author, therefore this would be a
good place to look for updating most of the printed bibliographies. This is not a reviewing source as it gives
only citations.
You’ll
find lots to comment on as you read. I
suggest that you read each book with a pen and paper handy, and even plan on
returning to books as you read the others (Reread?! Heavens!) I think that
with the pieces of this assignment, the number of books, and the many links,
you’ll be able to generate a lot of interesting material.
I
hope that you will share these final copies with each other when you’re
done! Good luck!
ENG
400: Adolescent Literature Dr.
Cadden
E-mail
Postings & Discussions
Worth: 25%
A
big part of this semester's course will be devoted to weekly e-mail discussions
and postings. These postings will
enable us to pursue threads, issues, and ideas that class time will not
permit. The postings will also give us
more valuable experience in written discourse beyond the essay and exam
forms. The purpose of these postings is
to get you generating ideas and tackling issues from a number of sources.
You will submit,
each week, at least one substantial posting (~300 words, or the equivalent to
one single-spaced page of text). This
posting, which preferably is offered up in the early part of the week, will be
in response to novels, class discussion, articles we'll be reading, others'
postings, and/or any relevant experiences.
They may be used, in turn, to develop ideas for your bibliography report
choice, future postings (you may end up developing a series of responses on a
single issue), or class discussion.
If you end up
offering up more than one response each week—or in any particular week, they
all may not be of significant length; sometimes they may be brief
qualifications or questions for others.
I will take what I consider your "best" posting that week--the
one in which you do what I describe below--to assess for a grade. A week will be measured from Monday to
Sunday (so, they are due by midnight on Sunday); I'll assess weekly postings on
Monday for the previous week.
I ask that you
do at least one of a number of things in any given posting as practice in
critical thinking: advance a point/argument that is in reaction to a point made
in class or in another person’s weekly; speculate on a phenomenon--a tension
between categories or ways of thinking (for example, reading for pleasure vs.
reading to understand or to know something); offer an observation beyond the
obvious or beyond rehashing class-time observations and comment on that
observation’s implications. You will
avoid merely sharing what you “like” or “dislike” about something unless it
leads somewhere, though we often begin with what we like or dislike, we
shouldn't end there. Always consider
the "so what?" question.
I wish to stress
the difference between critique and attack, between analytic confrontation on a
point and a personal confrontation. In
short, we should settle for neither purely unconsidered gut responses nor
whining about others’ responses to your positions; here is your opportunity to
hone your analysis, not engage in an extended, written equivalent of “Oh yeah, Mr. Smartytrousers?!!, Well. . .
.” Any point on any relevant
subject is fine as long as it refrains from mere complaint. No bellyachin'.
Please remember
that you are responsible for knowing what has been said. If, in week seven, you are interested in
sharing your thoughts on censorship, you are responsible for knowing what has
been said by others in their postings on that subject. You can use the previous subject titles to
tell what has been said. I will simply
alert you to missed or repeated observations when I return your weekly and will
ask that you revise accordingly. It’ll
happen to all of us once or twice; we’ll all miss some things. We might police ourselves on this point.
In light of the
above, some pragmatics:
• Subject titles should include the week
number in parentheses--(6). This helps
us all tell when a posting was made.
• Subject titles should reflect, as well
as possible, the subject of the discussion.
Save creative titles for the interior of the document; folks will be
trying to use the subject postings to tell what has been discussed already, so
be accurate.
• You may want to create a mailbox for
postings by week or by subject--it's up to you. Since everyone will have the week listed in parentheses on each
post, you may want to file by subject ("reader response") instead. In any case, you will need at least one mailbox
to put all of the responses.
• You should try to be specific in your
allusions and citations to other postings, articles, class days, and
people. It only serves you better in
the point you are making if we know to whom and to what you're referring.
I think you will find that these will become easier and more interesting as the semester goes on and as postings accumulate! I look forward to the conversations!
Grading Criteria for
Writing in Dr. Cadden’s English Courses:
“A”:
General
Qualitative Description: Excellent, Superior, Outstanding.
Conception: Your idea should contain some new, perhaps surprising, element, some angle that is uncommonly thoughtful and insightful. You are not rehearsing other people's ideas, and you are going beyond an average reading. You expose and challenge the explicit and implicit assumptions of the text. If you are incorporating research, you will have WORKED your sources--using what supports your argument, and acknowledging and dealing with what challenges it.
Organization: Your
organization should be flawless and should match your content. You should
anticipate, address, and work through opposition to your argument and build a
strong case for your own. You should
employ evidence with regularity and in appropriate circumstances. If you are
incorporating research, you will spend some time positioning your argument in
the context of the larger conversation.
Style: Your
presentation should be artful. You have obviously paid attention to the way
your language sounds as well as what it says.
You have found a way to make your presentation style match the content
of your paper (other than a groovy font style!), perhaps through a sustained
metaphor, or a particularly apt example that you carry through and refer to in
the entire paper.
Grammar
and Mechanics: Your paper should be absolutely clean and free of
grammatical and mechanical errors of a rudimentary nature, though you may have
a few problems with complex functions of grammar. You should never avoid complex language in order to avoid errors,
in other words.
“B”:
General
Qualitative Description: Above average,
Good, Commendable.
Conception: Your idea
will be better than average, but you may have overlooked or not
acknowledged or interrogated the assumptions that inform it. The claim/idea is ambitious and, for that reason, may have gotten away from you. You will be rewarded for being ambitious even if you fall a bit short.
Organization: Your
organization will be strong, but the signaling might still be a bit
Awkward;
you may find yourself using a lot of directional phrases because your argument
doesn't flow naturally. (Ex. "As I said earlier..." "Firstly,
secondly, thirdly...") Here too
the organization will match the content rather than being formulaic.
Style: It's clean,
readable, there's a consistent sense of voice, and there aren't any places
where
a reader has to go back and reread a sentence just to understand its structure.
Grammar/Mechanics: Very few
(almost no) errors of a rudimentary nature.
“ C”:
General
Qualitative Description: Competent,
Average, Fine.
Conception: Your idea for your paper should reflect
that you have read, thought about, and paid attention to the way we have talked
in class about similar issues. Your main point should be clearly stated and
defended with appropriate evidence. You should remain focused on your topic
throughout your paper, and you should have thoroughly examined the aspects of
your topic from your perspective. Your ideas should be internally consistent. There won’t be anything terribly surprising,
daring, or unusual here.
Organization: Your paper
should have a logical, clearly identifiable organization. Each
paragraph
should address only one aspect of your topic, and when you change aspects, you
start a new paragraph. Transitions
between paragraphs should be competently handled. Your strategy, that is, how
you manage the interweaving of your idea and your organization, should be
standard and straightforward. For
instance, if you follow a traditional pattern of an introduction that includes
a flagged thesis statement ("in this paper I will..."), then proceed
with evidence and close with a restatement of the initial problem. That's a
standard, straightforward organization--a C strategy.
Style: Your style
should be clear and readable.
Grammar
and Mechanics: Your paper should not contain many distracting errors in
grammar or mechanics. Minimally, you
should have run a spell-check program, and you should know the difference
between a complete sentence, a fragment, and a run-on.
“D”:
General
Qualitative Description: Incompetent,
Inadequate, Below Average.
Conception: Your idea will be immediately obvious to a casual reader--a no-brainer—yet it will be presented as news. It will likely also be not quite clear what it is that you are really saying. Split focus on more than one thesis or issue is likely.
Organization: Perhaps you split your focus (which
means you start out talking about one thing and shift to another) which means
that you are covering several or many issues in short paragraphs. You jump from one idea to the next with no
logical strategy or transitions. If there is no plan, or if you don't stick to
the plan, this is faulty organization.
It may be evident that there wasn’t ever really a structural strategy at
all.
Style: Unclear
language, usually. This may also be a
matter of using the wrong words for your ideas. Simply put, the language is in bad shape.
Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent
problems in sentence structure with little sign of proof-reading.
“F”:
General
Qualitative Description: Unacceptable.
(The
most common cause of an F is a failure to adequately address the assignment.
For instance, if I specify that this assignment is to be researched, or if it
is to address a certain topic in a certain way, you have to at least complete
the assignment.)
Conception: No clear
idea governs the words on the page.
Organization: No plan is
evident, much less achieved.
Style:
Incomprehensible most or all of the time.
Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent
problems with rudimentary mechanical matters.
*******************
The four major
areas of concern discussed above (conception, organization, style, and
mechanics) will be considered separately, when that is possible. I may find that it is difficult or even
impossible to assess conception if the style and mechanics are at the “F” or
“D” levels. It may well be the case
that your organization is a real problem while conception, style, and mechanics
are all quite good. The ultimate
assessment, then, will be the combined consideration of all four areas. Any challenges to my assessments need to
employ the above issues in those challenges.
I cannot assess
effort. Note that I do not say that I will
not assess effort; nobody can assess effort unless, perhaps, he or she is there
watching you work. I assume that you all work very hard on your writing. I can only assess the final product.
I do not give
grades based on your perceived needs.
If you need a “B” in the course to keep your GPA up for a scholarship,
loans, or admittance into a program, then be sure you perform at a “B” level.
I do not give grades on the basis of your sense of identity or personal academic history. I assess each piece of work on its own merits. Just because you consider yourself an “A” student does not mean that you will do “A” work each time; just because you consider yourself a “C” student doesn’t mean that you won’t do “A” work. Try to separate your performance from your identity.